FANTASTIC PLANET v2.0 (8 page)

***

Somewhere
around Klud, a Traag child was playing at recording parasites from a telebox.
He was putting them through a plurigraph and suddenly realized that some noises
sounded like words. Traag words, as if said at full speed and distorted by
animal throats, were ringing in his eardrums.

Surprised
and curious, the Traag child pushed away the wire from the plurigraph and
played back slowly the strange sounds: 'Free Oms', the machine said with a
twang, 'the Old Lady is dead...'

The rest got
lost in a storm of crackling. Isolated words filtered through occasionally:

'...
struggle
... Exodus... Oms...'

The Traag
child stood up, happily flapping his membranes.

'Father', he
cried out, 'there are Oms talking in the plurigraph!'

'I have
forbidden you from playing with this device', said a voice coming from the next
room.

The Traag
child left the room and could be heard insisting:

'I made an
Om voice with the plurigraph. It was saying: 'free Oms, the Old Lady has
died...'

Taking
advantage of being left on his own, a luxury Om who had been lying on his
cushion jumped on the plurigraph and pulled off the wire. Hiding the broken
wire, he was back to his lazy stance within seconds and closed his eyes.

'What
folly!' said the Traag father coming into the
room.
It
does not mean a thing... There, look, you broke the wire. Play with something
else!'

He took the
device and pushed the child into the nature room. The little Traag dived into
the pool and forgot all about it.

Bending over his telebox, Char
made some notes, said 'thank you' and threw a piece of paper on Terr's table.

He read it
quickly, frowning.

'We run this
danger every day', he said at last. All clear communication must be forbidden.
See to it the Centre 10 people draft a code.'

it'll
slow everything down.'

'I know. But
what if all our telecommunications had been picked up by adult Traags? They'd
have been quick to find us. We'd have failed so close to our goal.'

He stood up
and placed a hand on Char's shoulder.

'We have an
advantage over the Traags: speed. The difference in scale pushed us to distort
their language in a way they can't follow the rhythm of our words. And we drop
most of their consonants. If it wasn't for small advantages like this we'd have
lost the fight long ago.'

Char was
still thinking.

'Establish a
code and learn it. In the meantime, do away with all telecommunications! It'll slow
our effort's momentum by at least three days!'

'Never mind.
We can spare that. I just
spoke of speed. Remember it takes a quarter of a lustrum for a Traag to reach
adult age. It only takes a year for an Om!'

He thought
about his own memories and said:

'When I left
the Traags, my young mistress Tiwa was a little girl. She's still a young girl
today. She only has basic education. Me, I'm a blond bearded Om. I've had six
children. I studied mathematics, know ygamography inside out, and I've got
enough knowledge to speak to our engineers. I developed temporary economics
rules for the Oms, and laid the foundations for Economy 2 which we'll use on
the Wild Continent where we want to settle. Always speed. We live at another
pace and that's our main asset.'

He cast a
fond look on the graphs lining the walls and continued:

in
a year we founded this city, organized intelligence networks, increased
the birth-rate, trained specialists, accumulated fantastic equipment... We're
coming on in leaps and bounds. During that time the Traags have only managed to
vote for the small deomisation law we successfully outstripped. The Exodus will
happen before that law is fully applied. I'll say it again: we must lose those
three days so as not to ruin the rest. Besides, telecommunications will soon be
only for spies. There'll be no need for raids anymore. We've already got all we
need to go ahead with the Exodus and apply Economy 2. Soon we'll turn in on
ourselves within this city. Telecables will be enough.'

He pressed a
button on the telebox and said: 'Workshops!'

The device
purred a little, gave out a few clicks before a voice could be heard.

'This is
Central Workshop; who's speaking?'

'The Aedile.
How are you getting on with
device 3?

'Hold on,
I'll put you through to room 3.'

'Workshop 3 Foreman speaking!'

'Aedile speaking.
What about the plate?'

'We're just
piercing the last hole, Aedile. In one hour we'll be fit the hull.'

'Is your
drill worn?'

'It'll do.
It'd take us longer to change it.'

'Ok, I'll
come down and have a look.'

Terr
switched off the call and turned towards Char.

'See to it,
for the code!'

Char
assented and moved his hand onto his telebox. Terr
left,
jumped on a cart and slid down towards the workshops.

He went
through the mechanical warehouses and the smaller precision workshops before
reaching the assembly rooms. The two completed ships were sitting imposingly in
the first rooms: two enormous vessels made of parts stolen from Traag
factories. Lines of Oms were loading the cargo needed for the Exodus.

The sound of
metal beating against metal came out of room 3, mixed in with the echo of Oms
puffing with effort. Terr entered the room.

A square
wound gaped at the side of the third vessel, showing glass organs and nodes of
multicoloured wires. Further away a bent plate was wedged to the ground with
plastic brackets. Perched on scaffolding, a hundred or so Oms were holding up a
huge brace as

another
hundred workers turned endlessly inside the
badger wheels driving the drill. Sweat was pouring by the gallon, dripping onto
the hot plate and boiling amongst the metal turnings. Oil canisters arrived
continually, carried hand to hand from the warehouses. A dozen herculean Oms,
their muscles varnished by the heat, were pouring the lubricant on the drill
bit.

Two females
with their hair tied back were getting through male work. Terr got closer.

'What are
they doing here?' he asked the room foreman who was rushing to meet him.

'They're
sterile', replied the Om. 'They asked to serve in another way.'

Terr got out
of the way of a canister pushed by sturdy arms. Walking to the vessel, he
climbed the ladder leading up to the hatch. Followed by the engineer, he got
into the bowels of the ship through a sloping plane. As he went past his
fingers caressed lovingly the smooth partition walls.

His steps
led him to the map room, behind the cockpit. As he entered a small group of
students got up.

'Long live
the Aedile!'

'Enough',
said Terr. 'Sit down and carry on with your work'.

He leant
over a map, asked a few precise questions, the answers bouncing back at him as
he smiled towards the instructing officer.

'My word',
he said, 'these youngsters know more than I do!'

The officer
gestured half-understanding, half-respectful, as if to say "each to his
job, yours being to command".

At that
moment the lights flickered three times and went out.

'A power
failure!' someone said.

But the
lights
flickered
another three times before giving way
to the night.

An alert!'
said Terr. 'Don't move! Does anyone have a flashlight for me?'

A cold
object was slipped into his hand. He pressed the switch and a beam of light
swept across the room.

'Stick to
the orders', he said briefly to his motionless companions. 'Room Foreman, guide
me outside the workshops.'

Work had
stopped in Workshop 3. Perched on beams or spread wherever the alert had
unexpectedly caught them, the Oms stayed still in the stifling heat from the
flaming metal.

Terr crossed
the site quickly, left the foreman and ran along the corridors leading to the
Surveillance Centre. On his way he came across silent shadows. He was stopped
at the entrance to the Centre.

'Aedile!'
said Terr lighting up his face.

The guard
let him in. Terr leapt towards the stairwell leading to the main watchtower
laid
out strategically high above the Traag city's ruins.

Deadening
the sound of his steps, he entered the booth and switched his light off.
Valiant and Char were already there with a few watchmen. Valiant pointed at the
large expanse of sand with only a few grass tufts. A sphere had landed
half a stadia
from the city. One, two... five gigantic
Traags were nearby.

The tallest
was perched on a dune and was contemplating the ocean. Another, sprawled on the
sand, was nibbling blissfully at the content of a tin. The remaining three were
leaning over the sphere's engine. The heavy murmur of their conversation could
be heard from the watchtower.

'They've
broken down', whispered Char.

Terr slowly
shook his head.

'I don't
like it', he said.

Seeking an
explanation, his companions looked at him. But he kept quiet, attentively
watching the giant batrachians' every move.

After a few
long hours the Traags got back into their ship which took off straightaway.
Within a few seconds the sphere disappeared past the horizon.

'End of the
alert!' ordered Terr.

As the Oms
were transmitting his order by telebox, he looked at his friends with a serious
look on his face.

'No sphere
ever comes this way', he said. 'These Traags came here with a specific goal.
Their breakdown was staged.'

Valiant
protested:

'How can you
be so sure?'

Terr
continued without answering directly.

'Have you
ever seen a Traag eating lying down on his side? Have you ever seen one take an
hour to empty a can of food? He was playacting! He was fiximaging the ruins!'

Char leapt
up.

'Are you
sure?'

'As sure as
the other was casually sticking something in the sand', said
Terr.'As
he pretended to take a walk he surrounded the city with detectors or the likes.
Follow me to the dunes; let's take a closer look'.

They came
down the watchtower and ran towards where the Traags had been. It did not take
them long to pull from the sand a round object topped by a metal antenna.

'What is
it?' asked Valiant.

'I'd like to
know myself, said Terr. 'Have all this brought carefully to our laboratories'.

He looked at
his friends and added:

'Oms!
Time is pressing. We will go ahead with the
Exodus tomorrow night. The Traags are too slow to make a decision by then.'

'But the
third vessel isn't ready!'

it
will be. Weil
triple
the pace. We'll put it in
the water without any trials. No more final rehearsal. Char! I want the third
ship loaded right now, before it's even finished. In case there's any delay,
we'll tow it with the other two.'

'How come
the networks didn't give us any warning?'

'The fake
luxury Oms can't sneak everywhere.
Besides the Great Council isn't
held on this continent!'

'The pillage
units won't have time to get back.'

'I know.
This hurts more than you can imagine, gut we can't sacrifice the Exodus for a
few Oms' lives. And yet we're still taking a risk.
Valiant,
use the telebox to get as many as possible to come back.
I just hope
your calls won't be picked up. Tell those who are too far away to stop all
normal activities and seek refuge wherever they can.'

Terr was
frowning as he went back towards the
ruins.

'I just hope
they didn't detect the three ships', he said. 'Do we have thin sheet metal?'

'I'll ask
the storeroom', said Char. 'I expect we've got loads left... Why?'

The Aedile
waved vaguely.

'I'm
conjuring up a little trick to deceive the Traags.'

A tone vibrated on the desk of
the First Councillor
A
South. He pressed a button and
said 'yes?'

'The
"Old Port" operation is finished. The fiximages are in the
laboratory, First Councillor', a voice said.

The
Councillor quivered.

'Send them
up as soon as they are done', he ordered.