Louis Nenda gave Darya a little nudge with his elbow. "Hear that? You could sure as hell have fooled me."
"Shhh!"
"The Builders found, on many of the little worlds, wonderfully designed organisms," Speaker-Between continued. "They were highly specialized to run, or fly, or hover in the air, or hunt other creatures with great skill. But the Builders found something even more amazing. Once an individual organism fell in any way from perfect functioning, because of age or minor injury, it was
expendable
. It was allowed to die. That wonderful mechanism was thrown away, while another just as exquisite was created to take its place. That approach to life, that
prodigality
, and the idea that it could ever lead to
intelligent
life—was so alien to the Builders as to be incomprehensible. For if intelligence is any one thing, it is surely
the accumulation of experience
.
"But, the Builders argued, in that incomprehensibility lay the possibility of progress with
The Problem
. They had exhausted the familiar. Therefore, strangeness was absolutely essential to any possible advance. The Builders did not know which of the emerging intelligent life-forms was likely to prove most different from them, but they knew this:
The most alien was the one they would need.
And so they took steps to set up the necessary selection procedure.
"And it was simple. When those three species were sufficiently developed technologically to reach out from the little-worlds and explore the Builder artifacts that populate the spiral arm, they would be ready. Individuals of the three species would be taken as the opportunity occurred. They would be brought here. And here they would meet for the selection process. Stasis might be needed, to assure that representatives were available at the same time, but that was not a problem. Stasis technology has been available for 150 million years. In any case, the Builders predicted emergence close to the same time for each species.
"What was never anticipated was that the individuals of two
different
species might arrive here
together
, as happened with you two." The flower head dipped toward Nenda and Atvar H'sial. "However, that presents no problem. In fact, it simplifies matters, since I do not need to repeat an explanation. Thus, no further wait is needed."
The Interlocutor's voice began to grow deeper and softer. The silvery shape drifted slowly downward. Soon the tail disappeared into the floor, and then the bulging round of the lower body.
"For now you are here, all three species, exactly as required," Speaker-Between said dreamily. "The conditions are met. My initial task has been carried out. The selection procedure can begin.
"In fact, the actions of the Zardalu show that it has
already
begun . . ."
"Wait" Darya cried. The flower head was all that remained above the smooth floor. "The Builders—tell us where are they located
now
."
The slow descent halted for a second. "I know many things." The torpor of the voice had been replaced by a curious agony. "But that,
I do not know."
The blind head nodded. The silver pentagon drifted downward out of sight.
Hans Rebka, Louis Nenda, and Atvar H'sial had understood immediately. It was Darya Lang, the unworldly professor, and E. C. Tally, the even less worldly embodied computer, who had to have it explained to them—and still had difficulty believing the answers.
After Speaker-Between had left they asked the same questions over and over again of their companions.
"Darya, how many times do you need to be told?" Hans Rebka said at last. "Remember, we're dealing with
alien
thought processes. From
their
point of view, what they're doing is perfectly logical. They have convinced themselves that the beings who may be able to help them with their problem should have the maximum amount of what they think of as 'little world' characteristics—violence and energy and strangeness. The Builders don't want to work with more than one species at a time, so they're going to pick one out. Or rather, they'll let one species pick itself. The 'selection procedure' is designed with that in mind."
"May I speak?"
"No," Nenda said. "You may listen. I'll give it to you in words of one syllable, Tally. That's what the two of you seem to need. The Builders have set us up in a three-way knockout contest. Humans against Cecropians against Zardalu. Winner gets the big prize—survival, and a chance to work with the Builders. Losers get you-know-what."
"But that's absolutely—" Darya checked herself. She had been about to say
inhuman
, which was a ridiculous comment. Instead she changed it to, "That's absolutely barbaric.
You
—Louis Nenda. You wouldn't go into a fight to the death with your friend Atvar H'sial, would you?"
"Course not." Nenda stared across at the hulking Cecropian. "Least, not till I was sure I'd
win
. Look, Professor, what I'd choose to do and not do ain't the issue. We were just told the rules. We didn't pick 'em. I think there's only one way for us to operate—and At agrees with me, she's been trackin' our talk. First, we gotta take care of the Zardalu and bust their asses.
After
that we decide how we'll squabble between humans and Cecropians."
"There are fourteen of them," Tally said quietly. "And nine of us—four of whom are already Zardalu hostages."
Nenda snorted. "What do you want to do, go and explain
arithmetic
to Speaker-Between and say it's not fair? By the time he shows up again we could all be dead."
"Nenda's right, E.C." Rebka took over again. "It doesn't matter how we got into the position we're in, or how little we like it. We have to accept it and work out how we'll survive. If we sit here and wait for the Zardalu to come back, that takes us nowhere. They'll find out we didn't reach any deal with Speaker-Between for them, and they'll blame us."
"But what can we
do
?" Darya felt she was not getting her urgency across to Rebka. He was as cool and thoughtful as if they were having a round-table discussion of landing permits on Opal. "The Zardalu could be here any minute."
"Could, and probably will." Rebka glanced around, assessing each member of the group. "So let's find out what we've got between us, information and possessions."
"Right!" Nenda said. "Then we better do a little reconnoiter, see where they are and what they're doing. I've had experience in that, and so has At. Tally can tell us where to find 'em."
"But they're so big, and so strong . . ." Darya found it hard to say what she was really thinking, that the thought of the Zardalu gave her the shivers. And she did not like the look in Nenda's eyes, either, an odd blend of pleasure and anger.
"What can
observing
them do?" she continued. "It won't make them weaker, or us stronger."
"Wrong."
Nenda glared at her. "Information is strength, sweetheart. We take a peek at 'em. Then we come back here, pool all we've got and all we know. And then we
hit 'em
, quick. Zardalu, here we come! I'll bet that's the
last
thing they're expecting."
It was the last thing that Darya was expecting, too. Pool
what
? They didn't have a thing—not even information. The Zardalu held all the cards: strength, numbers, ruthlessness, hostages.
But looking at the determination on the faces of Hans Rebka and Louis Nenda, Darya did not think her views were going to count for much.
"Have you ever seen a human birth—a normal one, I mean, not in a tank or with an animal surrogate?" Birdie Kelly was speaking in a whisper.
Julius Graves avoided a spoken answer altogether, relying on his head shake being visible even in the low-level light.
"Well,
I
have," Birdie went on softly. "A dozen times, back on Opal. And let me tell you, it's a terrific effort for the mother, even when everything goes fine. You see it once, it makes you glad you're male. The women get pleasure out of it later, you see it on their faces when they hold their baby. But that don't make it less painful, or less hard work. But these critters . . ." He shook his head.
The two men were sitting in a corner of the room. J'merlia was a few meters away with Kallik. Occasionally they whistled and clicked gently to each other, but most of Kallik's attention was on the Zardalu.
The fourteen massive bodies lay sprawled between them and the only entrance. Now and again a great lidded eye would turn and blink toward Graves and Kelly; otherwise the land-cephalopods seemed scarcely aware of human presence. Certainly they were not worried that any of the group might escape.
The Zardalu talked to each other in their own language, which to Birdie sounded just like the speech Kallik used. Steven Graves had assured him that was an illusion. The Zardalu vocal chords merely produced a range of frequencies and vocal fricatives similar to a Hymenopt's; or, just as likely, the Hymenopt's had many centuries earlier been trained to speak so that their masters would understand.
But it was not their speech that held Birdie Kelly's attention. As they spoke, or ate, or simply lay and rested, the Zardalu were giving birth. They performed the act quickly, easily, and casually.
Birdie and Julius Graves had watched the whole process, while Steven Graves recorded it in his capacious memory, against the time—the unlikely time, Birdie thought—when he would be able to add it to the central data banks of the Fourth Alliance. Steven had also noted his opinion that the Zardalu had evolved in and preferred a low illumination level. He based that on the fact that they had sought out the least well lit chamber they could find that contained a food supply.
Steven had not tried to check his ideas against Kallik's spotty flashes of race memory of the Zardalu. She was unreliable. The others had all seen her when the giant land-cephalopods had first appeared. What she had done then, and was doing now, went well beyond cooperation for possible future gain. At the first sight of the ancient masters Kallik had dropped flat and groveled on her belly, unwilling to look up with any of her ring of black eyes.
The Zardalu accepted her servitude as natural. The injury to her leg had been done to confirm Holder's dominance when Kallik was lying helpless, not because she was resisting. Like Louis Nenda, the Zardalu must know that the loss of a limb was not a major trauma to a Hymenopt.
As Graves and Kelly watched, another four Zardalu were giving birth. The first sign was a rhythmic pulse in one of the swollen locations on the necklace of pouches. That was followed, in less than five minutes, by the appearance from that pouch of a rounded cone, like the tip of a shell. It was pale blue in color and quickly swelled to protrude six inches from the opening of the pouch.
At first Birdie had thought that cone-tip to be the head of the newborn. He realized his mistake when the pointed tip began to bulge farther and split open. From it emerged a smooth, rounded egg shape of pale apricot. That surprised Birdie more than he was ready to admit. He had grown to expect everything about the Zardalu, from eyes to torso to tentacle tips, to be some shade of blue.
The egg shape was the cerebral sac of a live infant, born head first. It arrived as a miniature version of the parent, except for its rudimentary tentacles. It wriggled completely free of the pouch in a couple more minutes, took a first, rippling breath, then slithered down the adult's body to a haven under the canopy of tentacles. Birdie caught a last glimpse of pale orange, then saw nothing for another few minutes. But soon the beak and mouth appeared from between the bases of two of the parent's tentacles. There was a faint whistling sound. Fragments of food selected from the containers in the center of the chamber were fed in by the parent to the complaining offspring.
From the reaction of the young Zardalu, that was not what they wanted. Within another few minutes they were pushing farther out, biting hungrily with their sharp-edged beaks at the parent's flesh.
And meanwhile, a second pouch on the necklace was steadily beginning to swell . . .
"I'm afraid they won't settle for that for very long," Graves said. "It's meat they want."
"Kallik said that they can survive on other food—if they have to." Birdie hoped he sounded more optimistic than he felt.
Graves nodded. "But they don't see any reason why they
should
. We have to change that, if we can." He began to ease his way quietly over to Kallik. The site of the Hymenopt's lost limb had already sealed, and the bud of new growth was peeping through.
"We've been waiting for over five hours now," Graves said as soon as he was close enough for her to hear his whisper. "How long before they do something new?"
As he spoke, Graves saw Birdie Kelly's reproachful look. For the past few hours there had been unspoken agreement that they would not rely on the Hymenopt for
anything
. Graves shrugged in reply. What other options did they have? They could not understand the Zardalu, even if their captors were willing to talk to them.
Kallik whistled softly to J'merlia, then said. "I do not know. They are not discussing their plans in my hearing. However, I see new signs of impatience. There are already more young ones than mature Zardalu, and they are under pressure to find a more suitable habitat. They wish to leave this place."
"Will they permit you to ask them a question, or transmit a suggestion?"
"It would not be appropriate for a slave to do so."
"But suppose that a human were to
order
you to do it?"
Kallik stared up at Julius Graves with bright, inscrutable eyes. "If the Zardalu were told that the human concerned was my former master, they
might
understand if I were to ask a question on his behalf. Or—" She paused.
"Yes?"
"Or they might be violently enraged, thinking that I offer less than total obedience to them. They might choose to kill me, as a being of divided loyalty."
Julius Graves shook his head. "Then let's forget it."
"However," Kallik went on, "I do not think that is the most probable outcome. They know that I am their only avenue of communication with you, and with the other humans. They will not want to lose that channel. What is your message?"