Authors: Alan Dean Foster
“You don’t have to decide.” Though not especially elderly in thranx terms, the senior favored a noticeably gimpy right front truleg. “We will make the decision on your behalf.”
Taken by surprise, Haflunormet whirled to confront the newcomers. Still seated on the stone retaining wall, Fanielle tensed. “You were listening to us,” the thranx diplomat asserted accusingly.
“Most certainly we were.” From a thorax pouch, the female removed a compact weapon. She held it casually in a truhand, not aiming it in any particular direction. Fanielle looked past the trio. In spreading out, they effectively blocked the way back to the tunnel. She and Haflunormet were alone on the outlook with the confrontational strangers. The female’s tone, insofar as Fanielle could follow the stream of Low Thranx, was laced with contempt. “We have been listening in on you for a long time while following your deviant attempts to force thranx and humans obscenely closer together. To strive so hard to achieve secretiveness and to fail so miserably gains you little merit.”
The elder in the middle spoke up, directing his words to Haflunormet. “The solution to your dilemma is simple, diplomat of the hive. You are going to tell the truth, difficult as that may be for one of your ilk. So . . . the AAnn are not responsible for what happened on Comagrave. It was the work of a brave and resourceful thranx determined to eliminate as many humans as possible. That, at least, will be how our organization will tell it.”
Haflunormet’s valentine-shaped blue-green head swiveled to appraise each of the intruders in turn. A sweeping gesture performed by both truhands underlined his pithy response. “You three are crazier than the suicidal exoarcheologist was.”
“Who are you?” Handicapped by a lack of the requisite number of limbs, Fanielle tried her best to underline her queries with the appropriate hand gestures. “Why have you been following and listening to us?”
“We belong to a noble hiveless clan called the Bwyl,” the oldest one told her. “We call ourselves the Protectors, and we work to preserve the purity of the Great Hive, to keep it free from outside corruption and defilement.”
“Never heard of you.” Haflunormet’s words were cold, the verbal equivalent of blocking off a burrow to visitors.
“You will,” the female assured him, waving her weapon around with blatant disregard for everyone’s safety, including her own. “Very soon. Within a few time-parts.” She whistled a terse tune of ironic humor. “A major element of our group is even as we speak working hard to pull down this false bridge of unwelcome conviviality that has been erected between the Great Hive and the filthy soft-bodied bipeds.” Fanielle tensed, but said nothing.
“You are going to release your findings and all the evidence necessary to support your clever and correct deductions as to the truth of what happened on Comagrave.” The elder spoke with the confidence of one who is convinced of his righteousness. “Both thranx and humans must know what happened on that world, and why. It is knowledge that will serve to drive a most satisfactory wedge between those misguided representatives of both species who seek a deeper and unnatural degree of harmonization.” A soft whistle indicated a different kind of humor.
“Imagine it, diplomat. A chance to tell the truth of a matter instead of having to invent clever lies. Think of it as a novelty.” His younger companions whistled and clicked approvingly.
“You can’t do this,” Haflunormet protested. “It will set back the course of thranx-human relations for an untold number of birth cycles.”
“At the very least, one hopes,” the speaker declared with satisfaction. “We don’t need you to do this,
wirri!t
. Though we don’t have access to your materials, they can be tracked down and recovered readily enough. We could make the announcement ourselves, but it will carry more weight if it comes from a representative of the diplomatic section.” The confident male performed a hand gesture Fanielle did not recognize, but it was sufficient to cause Haflunormet to draw back slightly.
“If you refuse, you will be caught smothering the truth with the lie of omission. Your career will be ruined, and you will be consigned to simple information gathering and processing. Your family and clan will lose merit, and your disgrace will be substantial. We are offering you the opportunity to avoid all that. Indeed, by allowing you to reveal your discovery we give to you the chance to enhance your reputation.”
“At the expense of seriously damaging thranx-human relations,” Haflunormet responded.
Gesturing indifference, the younger male spoke for the first time. “We waste burrow-time here. Get the apostate to commit, or to decline. I am anxious to know of the success of Beskodnebwyl’s enterprise.”
“As are we all,” the elder agreed, by his gestures counseling patience. “Beskodnebwyl works what he must, and we work what we do. No living chamber of significance is completed in a single birth cycle.” He returned his attention to Haflunormet. “In keeping with the great traditions, we give you this choice. Make it now. By either means, the truth will become known.”
Feeling completely left out, Fanielle sat stiffly on the barrier as she struggled to follow the conversation between the four thranx. The finely worked black schist was warm against her legs and backside. Haflunormet could not agree, of course. At the same time, how could he not? In her entire professional life, she had never felt so helpless, so completely at a loss for options. She was still agonizing over possibilities when Haflunormet stepped forward and extended both foothands.
“Very well,
sriippk
. I disagree with you completely, but it is better to dig through soft earth in the wrong direction than to break one’s digits against solid rock in another.” Reaching out, he took the senior Bwyl’s foothands in his own. “Let this grasping of work digits serve to emphasize the new bond between us.”
The elder gestured gratification. “I am not surprised by your decision. Most diplomats act in a sensible fashion when presented with clearly defined parameters.” He grasped Haflunormet’s eight digits in his own.
Whereupon the diplomat bent and twisted with unexpected speed. The thranx equivalent of jujitsu, involving as it did a maximum possible eight limbs, was something to behold. The surprised Bwyl flew up and over Haflunormet’s abdomen, past a shocked Fanielle—and over the retaining wall.
The dull
thump
humans make when they take a hard fall was in startling contrast to the loud
crack
of the thranx’s exoskeleton shattering as it struck the rocks below.
Before the elder’s stunned companions could react, Haflunormet was on top of and locked in a seemingly inextricable clinch with the younger male. Superior knowledge and experience was matched against greater strength. The former was, tragically, of no use whatsoever against even a very small gun.
Discharged by the female, it replaced the struggling diplomat’s left eye with a large hole. Haflunormet’s limbs went limp, his antennae collapsed atop his head, and the bright golden sheen of life began to fade almost immediately from his remaining oculus. As the surviving male strove to shove the now slack body away from his own, the female swung the deadly little weapon in Fanielle’s direction.
There is a time for diplomacy, and then there is a time for reverting to the doctrines that have always preceded hopeless confrontations. Bringing her knees up toward her chest, Fanielle spun on her tail end; swung her legs wide, high, and wild to her right; and dropped over the outside of the overlook’s stone wall. Faced with the gun, her reaction had been entirely instinctive. Several thoughts collided for attention as she fell, with one uppermost in her mind.
Dear God, please—not my baby.
She landed in untouched jungle some five meters below, the thick undergrowth helping to cushion her fall. Pain shot up her right leg, lingered for a terrifying moment, and then began to diminish as rapidly as it had arrived. Her hand went immediately to her slightly protruding belly. Everything felt normal, unchanged. Healthy. Immensely relieved that her body had handled the drop so well, she straightened, her mind taking inventory of her condition before she had time to feel fear: She was not crippled; nothing was broken, maybe a slight sprain. She could still walk, but could she run? Could she run for two? She had no choice but to try.
As she started to push herself erect, her hand slipped against something thick and wet. Less than a meter from her eyes, the broken face of the elder Bwyl stared lifelessly back into her own. The stiff-limbed, stiff-bodied thranx had not taken the fall half as well as the more flexible human.
Something burned the foliage to her left, and she immediately stumbled off in the opposite direction, wiping her bloodstained hand against a leg of her pants. Surely the surviving Bwyl could not see her, concealed as she was by the thick rain forest vegetation. They were firing blindly, hoping to hit her. She had no doubt that they would pursue. With her witness to them having killed Haflunormet, they now had no choice. Despite their six legs, the thranx were not good leapers. They would have to find another way down. That would buy her some time.
She fought to remember everything she knew of thranx physiology. Over a short sprint, a human’s longer legs would quickly outdistance them. But they had great endurance. If she couldn’t lose them quickly in the forest, they would eventually run her to ground. If only there were a river to cross, or a lake to swim, she would be safe from them. But the steep hillside did not allow for the deep pooling of water. There was something else, something more useful still . . .
It flashed hot and bright in her mind. In addition to being weak jumpers, the thranx were poor climbers. They would expect a fugitive to go downward in any case. Angling more to her right, she struck off parallel to the slope. When she felt she had traveled far enough to be beyond the farthest extent of the retreat, she turned sharply and started upslope.
The grade was steep and the permanently damp ground underfoot slippery and uncertain. She had been wearing air sandals while relaxing in the pseudohammock—hardly the most appropriate gear for rain forest hiking. Their feet naturally shod in tough chitin, the thranx needed no footwear. Nor would the precipitous incline slow them down.
She found what she was looking for a short while later. The cliff face was dizzying, but fractured with plenty of handholds. Taking care to avoid a slip on the moist surface, a determined human would have no difficulty ascending. But the vertical rock face would stop a thranx cold. The exposed granite extended as far as she could see to right and left. With luck, her pursuers would give up the chase, or at least lose track of her at the base of the moderate precipice. At the very least, it would give her a chance to put some serious space between herself and her pursuers.
Once, she lost her grip and nearly fell. Though in good physical shape and something of an amateur athlete, she was no mountaineer. But by choosing her route of ascent carefully and taking her time, she found herself sitting at the top well before evening. That was important. Having evolved in a subterranean civilization, the thranx possessed far better night vision than the average human. It behooved her to find sanctuary, in one form or another, before nightfall, when she would be at a disadvantage.
Which way to go? The unspoiled rain forest was still home to dangerous as well as engaging creatures, the majority of which she had never encountered and knew absolutely nothing about—another reason for avoiding any nocturnal rambling. If the Bwyl were still on her trail, she might do well to try to circle back to the retreat. Once back inside, she felt sure she could rely on the well-trained staff to protect her until her pursuers gave up and departed.
Another, less acute slope lay before her. She would scale this final, foliage-choked obstacle and then try to descend down to the retreat without being observed. The last step up proving to be a bit of a reach for her, she sought support from a nearby tree, taking a firm grip on the blue-barked bole with her right hand. One strong pull, and she was up, gazing through an opening in the bushes and trees that promised a few moments of easier hiking before she had to start looking for a sheltered route across and down.
A quick glance behind showed no signs of pursuit. Either she had lost them, or the Bwyl were struggling to find a way around the bluff she had surmounted. She was breathing hard, but she was not exhausted. The knowledge that she had no more climbing ahead of her gave strength to tired leg muscles and invigorated her spirits. Thus renewed, and a little more confident of her chances, she started down the irregular path through the trees.
The gun that appeared in front of her face was held tightly in the grasp of not two, but four hands. Sixteen digits covered every possible switch and button, slide and trigger. Downy antennae and bulging eyes swung immediately in her direction as the muzzle of the rifle started to come around.
Of course. Her thoughts were oddly peaceful, and she found she was no longer tired. How stupid of me. NaÏve and stupid. Forward thinkers like the Bwyl would be likely to bring backup along to any potential confrontation. The rifle and its handler both looked very efficient.
None of the armed patrollers who had been called out by the alarmed operators of the retreat to search for the missing human had ever encountered one in person, though they were familiar with the bipeds’ appearance from the numerous visual displays that had played regularly ever since early contact. As to the murderous intruders, the surviving pair had already been apprehended. The patroller who encountered the human had, upon doing so, turned promptly to reassure her.
So, even though many aspects of human behavior were reputed to be strange and incomprehensible, he was still taken aback when the hunted one’s single-lensed eyes appeared to perform the astonishing feat of rolling back inside her skull; her long, fleshy legs gave way; and without a word or gesture in his direction she crumpled unconscious to the damp earth.
20
Monitoring his tracker while listening to the reports filtering in from the other plainclothes police who had spread out to cover the fairgrounds, the supervising officer managed to spare a moment or two to contemplate the pair of peculiar padres chatting nearby. Though the purpose of the fair was to expose humans to thranx culture and, to a lesser degree, thranx to human culture, this association was sufficiently unusual to pique his normally pedestrian curiosity. That they had also saved hundreds, perhaps thousands of lives rendered them that much more interesting.
Representatives of something they called “the United Church,” they were. Lieutenant Romero had never heard of it. His openly professed ignorance had sparked a quiet but eager interest on their part to resolve it, to a degree that had involved him in their disquisition despite his usual disdain for matters theological.
Time enough for that later, after this unpleasant business of die-hard terrorists had been concluded. Given the number of infiltrators, the police had been unable to round them all up in time. A few small fires were burning around the fairgrounds, but nothing, he had been assured by the relevant authorities, that the on-grounds facilities could not handle. The most stubborn blazes were already succumbing to flows of suppressant being pumped from the fair’s central fire-control facility. Following a few anxious moments when the intruders’ strength was still uncertain, everything was now under control. It was merely a matter of picking up those few remnant infiltrators who were still at large.
And best of all, he knew, it had not been necessary to close down or evacuate the fair. The majority of attendees would never know how close they had come to perishing in an orgy of deliberate, preconceived destruction.
For that, he, his department, and the people of Dawn had this oddly matched pair of proselytizers to thank. Looking up from his tracker, he was reminded to do so. It was the tenth or maybe the twelfth time he had given voice to his gratitude.
Briann was not counting, but he was embarrassed. Incapable of blushing, Twikanrozex was reduced to gesturing his discomfiture. “You have already thanked us enough, Lieutenant.” As always, Romero was amazed at the thranx’s fluency in Terranglo. There were a few words he did not recognize that the human padre had identified as belonging to a new class of informal communication street folk were calling symbospeech, but his unfamiliarity did not hinder his understanding.
“I’ve already been told by the Auroran city council that you two are to have the run of the city as well as the fair. Anything you want will be provided.”
Briann smiled graciously. “Our needs are simple. We ask only to be allowed to continue in our work.” He glanced in the direction of his companion, presently standing tall on four trulegs. “Our intentions in coming here were to operate only during the fair, but since your superiors have extended so gracious a welcome, it would be churlish of us to leave early.”
“We only did what anyone would have done,” Twikanrozex added.
Romero grunted softly. “Followed heavily armed outsiders to learn what they were up to? I don’t think so.” A voice yammered in his cochlear implant, bringing a taut look of satisfaction to his deeply tanned face. “Two more picked up. Thranx this time. They don’t seem to be coordinating very well, these rogue antisocial elements of respective species.”
Twikanrozex gestured with all four arms. While Romero had not a clue as to the meaning of the complex hand movements, they were fascinating to watch. Graceful creatures, these thranx, he thought. Wonder why I hadn’t noticed that before?
A different voice in his ear caused him to glance once again at his companions. “They’ve located another weapons source.” He nodded to his right. “Not far from here. Would you like to witness the arrest? Unless more of these fools are still outside waiting to enter the fair, we’re running out of targets to pick up. My people will wait for us before moving in to make the seizure.”
Briann responded for the both of them. “We might as well. If possible, Twikanrozex and I would like to question one or two of the arraigned. There are moral ambiguities in question we would like to establish, and perhaps help to correct.”
Romero was firm in his reply. “That’s not up to me. The invaluable aid you’ve rendered aside, you’re not law enforcement or legal. Your official status is as ambiguous as those morals you’d like to investigate. But I’ll see what I can do.” Following the directions displayed on his tracker, he led them in the general direction of the lake. A red light blinked on the small readout, indicating the location of an unauthorized weapon.
As the officer led the way, the two padres conversed energetically in his wake. He wished he could make sense of what they were saying. What, for example, did immortality have to do with the story of the baker’s wife and the two dwarves?
A most peculiar theology, indeed.
Elkannah Skettle was beyond apoplexy. The pressure of trying to keep calm and inconspicuous while running from the law threatened to burst a blood vessel in his forehead. Slipping out from behind one of several brightly colored pylons supporting a children’s play area, he walked as rapidly as he dared toward the pavilion exit. Would he be more or less vulnerable to detection outside than within? Even that fragment of knowledge was denied him.
What had gone wrong? How had the authorities learned of the presence and plans of the Preservers and their thranx comrades, the Bwyl? Every few moments for the past hour, his communicator had informed him of the arrest of another one or two of his people. Attempts to contact the thranx had been met with streams of abuse in the coarse alien language, interspersed with a few crude bursts of Terranglo that were enough to tell him that his insectoid counterparts were also suffering the remorseless attentions of the authorities.
A year’s planning, a year of dreaming and working and rehearsing, was falling apart all around him. A few fires had been set, a few bombs had been detonated, shots had been fired, but for the most part, the fair continued to function as smoothly and impassively as if Preserver and Bwyl had never set foot within its expansive boundaries. Some of his best people, dedicated individuals he had worked with for years and knew intimately, were dead or in custody. Botha and Lawlor, gone. Nevisrighne and Stephens, gone. The damage to the movement was so severe that it would take years to recover. Years during which, if something was not done, the unclean bond between human and bug might be cemented beyond sundering.
That could not be allowed to happen. Whatever happened to him now, or to any of his followers, paled into insignificance. Those few explosions that his fellows had succeeded in setting off held the key. If he could only follow through on destroying the fair’s central communications facility, the consequences might be sufficiently distracting and damaging to allow him and his surviving collaborators to carry out at least a portion of what they had planned to do.
No one intercepted him as he strolled briskly, eyes darting constantly from left to right, across the fake Dawnic turf toward the fair maintenance facilities. Once, a child caught his eye, and he had to remind himself that police authorities rarely employed children of such a tender age. Still, he was relieved when the child’s parents finally hauled it from view.
Behind the gaily decorated fencing lay support facilities for much of the fair. Food service, water, hygienics machinery, power distribution, communications—much of it specially modified to serve thranx as well as human needs. He did not need to check his communicator for the location of the communications center, having memorized the entire layout of the fairgrounds several months earlier.
Unusually, there was a live guard at the entrance. Short and burly, he looked ineffably bored. As Skettle approached, the man barely bothered to look up. The warm sun of Dawn was in his face, and he had to blink.
“Morning, visitor. Can I help you?”
“Yes, you can. Here is my identification.” Reaching into a pocket, Skettle drew the compact pistol lying holstered and shoved it roughly against the other man’s neck. With his free hand, he spun the startled attendant around. “I require admittance to the maintenance area.”
Give the fellow credit; he tried. “You—you’re not authorized, whoever you are. What is this?”
Skettle’s voice was strained, but as controlled as ever. “Epiphany, my friend. Let us in, or I swear by every uncontaminated gene in your body, I’ll blow your head right off its shoulders.”
With the muzzle of the pistol dimpling his neck, the guard hastened to comply. “You won’t get away with this, you know.”
“Get away with what?” Skettle smiled humorlessly. “You have no idea what I’m doing here. Maybe I just need to use a bathroom.”
The gate hummed to itself as it drew back. A second barrier lay beyond, which the guard also activated. Standing among muted machinery and functional buildings, unpolluted blue sky still visible overhead, Skettle felt he was at last approaching a small part of the triumph he sought.
“Thank you for your help,” he told the guard as he fired. Contrary to his threat, the shot did not blow the unfortunate man’s head off his shoulders. Skettle disliked a mess that could be difficult to conceal. Gripping the body by its sandaled feet, he dragged it behind a large pulsating tank and covered it with one of several sheets of green patching fabric he found there. A quick check to ensure that his actions had not been observed, and he resumed his advance. With no one to witness his progress, he broke into a run.
Minutes later he found himself standing across a walkway from the central communications facility. There were no guards here, deep within the restricted area. It would be assumed that anyone present inside the fenced perimeter had a reason to be where they were. Should he encounter any active personnel, he would be able to rely on that assumption.
The tall double doors that led into the building were unlocked. Inside, automated electronics and photonic circuitry filled the modest edifice with a compact network of switching and transmission instrumentation. Loud humming indicated that the facility was operating on a level higher than standby. That was hardly surprising, given the volume of communications that were doubtless flying not only at the fair but between the fairgrounds and the city.
With the internal schematic of the facility imprinted deeply on his memory, he hurried down several passageways until he found himself standing before the nexus he sought. Instrumentation mounted on a panel monitored the operational status of this small but critical portion of the complex. In a pants pocket lay the special key Botha had programmed to allow him to access the protected, lightly armored panel. All he had to do was pop the seal, affix the cylinder snugged against his chest to the internal components, activate the timer, and get clear.
He envisioned the consequences: confident police unable to contact one another; hasty attempts to relay all communications through distant city facilities; fair workers incapable of coordinating fire-fighting efforts; medics cut off in the process of receiving diagnostic and treatment information. Communicationswise, the entire fair should be shut down for a minimum of several hours—long enough for his surviving acolytes to wreak at least a portion of the havoc they had planned. He wished he could be there to see it, but knew he would have to wait to view the resultant catastrophe on the tridee. Human terrorists! the media would scream. No, thranx saboteurs! another would cry. He smiled to himself. Let the media apportion the responsibility however they wished. The resulting death and destruction would give pause to anyone inclined to think that the two species could enjoy closer relations than they did at present.
From his pocket he withdrew the key, then slapped the flexible circle of integrated circuitry over the sealed lock. He was preparing to activate the device and pop the covering panel when a voice commanded him to halt what he was doing, put his hands over his head, and lie down on the floor. It did not, he sensed despairingly, sound like the voice of a maintenance attendant, bored or otherwise.
With the two padres looking on, Romero nodded to his people. Holding a brace of body seals, one patroller advanced on the stunned Skettle while his two flanking companions kept the muzzles of their handguns aimed unwaveringly at the Preserver’s torso. There was nothing Skettle could do, not a thing. Even if he disobeyed the command and activated Botha’s key, it would only open the panel. The prospect that he would then have enough time to remove the key, detach the still-concealed cylinder of explosive, affix it to the instrumentation, and activate the trigger was nonexistent. It was all over. The traitors had won. The contamination of human society by the intrusive, alien bugs would continue unimpeded.
Something loud, threatening, and unseen resounded through the still air of the facility. The sonic burst struck the nearest patroller in the back of his head. Briann saw the man topple, the back of his skull caved in by the concussion. His comrades tried to react, but they were caught out in the open while their unknown assailants were firing from cover. Both Romero and the female officer went down in quick succession. The lieutenant managed to get off one shot before he, too, was felled. Whoever the attackers might be, Briann reflected tensely, they were excellent shots. As a consequence, he kept his hands out in plain sight, where they could be seen from a distance.
Both he and Twikanrozex were more than a little surprised when only a single injured thranx hobbled out from behind a dividing wall. Unwilling to grant that the assassin had acted by himself, Briann searched the shadows for others of his kind.
“You are alone,” Twikanrozex declared in Low Thranx.
“It was not always so.” The wounded sharpshooter stood halfway between the two padres and the perplexed Skettle. “I have been isolated by conspiracies, by failings, and by circumstance.”
Skettle finally recognized the intruder. “Beskodnebwyl! Then not all of you bugs have been taken by the authorities.”