Phylogenesis (35 page)

“‘Disseminated’?” Shannon eyed him archly.

“Hey, I’m poor, not stupid. I want Des’s art—out there. For everybody to see.”

“It won’t mean anything to us, to humans,” the second reporter pointed out.

“Maybe not, but the thranx are going to be exposed to it whether they like it or not. Once disclosed, they won’t be able to ignore it. It’s great stuff, important work.
Big
work.” He squeezed his eyelids together. Hard. “Bigger than anything
I’ll
ever do.”

For the first time, the open hostility and contempt Shannon had been feeling began to give way to incertitude. “How do you know that, if you couldn’t understand any of it?”

“I know because of the way Des believed in it, the way he talked about it, the way he showed it to me—even if I didn’t understand much of it. I know because he gave up everything to try and achieve something important. I’m no artist—I can’t sculpt, or paint, or weave light, or write real well. But I know passion when I see it.” He brightened. “Yeah, that’s what it was about Des. He was passionate.” He tapped the scri!ber’s protective casing. “This gadget is full of passion, and I want it splashed out there for everybody to see.”

For the first time, the senior editor showed some animation. “Why? Why should you care what happens to the work of some obscure alien artist? The art means nothing to you.
He
meant nothing to you.”

“I’m not sure. Maybe—maybe it’s because I’ve always felt that everybody should stand for something, even if the rest of society doesn’t agree on what that is, and that nobody should die for nothing. I’ve seen too many people die for nothing. I don’t want it to happen to me, and I don’t want it to happen to Des.” With a shrug, he looked away, toward the single window that was too small for a prisoner to crawl through. Outside lay the city and beyond, the rain forest.

“It’ll probably happen to me anyway. I’m not anything special. Never was and probably never will be. But I’m going to see to it that it doesn’t happen to him.”

While the reporters waited respectfully, the editor considered the prisoner’s words. Eventually he looked back up at Cheelo. “All right. We agree to your terms. All of them.
Provided
there’s something significant and real at the end of this alien rainbow of yours.”

A mollified Cheelo leaned back in his chair. Despite the backpack, despite its unarguably alien contents, he was not sure until the very end that the media people would go for it. Unless he was very much mistaken, he would soon be walking the streets again. A dead thranx poet had cost him a career but bought him his freedom.

What the consequences of that freedom would be he could not have foreseen. He expected to be free. He did not expect to be famous.

Searching only within the section of rain forest specified by the thief allowed the reporters and their staff to locate the hive within a few weeks of Cheelo supplying them with coordinates. Worldwide revelation followed and outrage ensued. Exposed and confronted, the representatives of the colony and their covert human allies pleaded a case which for them could have only one outcome.

Their careful, cautious diplomacy undone, human and thranx emissaries scrambled to salvage what they could of a shattered process of prudent negotiation. Forced to advance all interspecies colloquy and bring forward proposals that were barely in the preliminary stages of synthesis, they hastened to compose and then sign the first formal treaties between humans and thranx some twenty to forty years before they were ready. Both species would simply have to deal with the unpredictable consequences. The alternative was a formal break in relations coupled with the possibility of open hostilities.

As for the Amazonian colony, it was allowed to remain only because humans were hastily granted reciprocal colonization privileges on the thranx homeworld of Hivehom in addition to the much smaller installation on Willow-Wane. A site was selected on what the bipeds soon came to call the Mediterranea Plateau, a dominion too bleak and cold and dry for the thranx to settle. Forced together by the circumstance of revelation, human and thranx rapidly discovered that they complemented one another in ways that could not have been predicted by formal diplomacy. The first tentative steps were taken to overcome each species’ abhorrence of the hideous appearance of the other.

As for Cheelo Montoya, who only wanted to sink back into the backstreet society in which he had grown up, albeit with a bit more money, he found himself transformed from petty, remorseless street hustler into a paragon of interspecies first contact. It was a celebrity he did not seek and did not want, but once his part in the business was revealed he no longer had any choice in the matter. Eagerly sought out for interviews, thrust beneath world-spanning tridee pickups, he was repeatedly reminded of his personal inadequacies by questions he could not answer and requests for opinions that were beneath his ability to formulate. With his face thrust relentlessly before an inquisitive world, he lost any semblance of personal privacy. Poked, prodded, queried, challenged, the object of rumor and the subject of speculation, before long he found himself regretting that he had ever tried to make a single credit off his unsought relationship with the dead alien poet. Harried and harassed by a pitiless media and a bastard-loving populace, he died sooner than he should have, ennobled by a public whose historical appetite for falsely inculcated minor deities verged on the unbounded. His funeral was a sumptuous, splendid affair, trideed all over the planet as well as to all human and thranx-settled worlds. He would have decried the waste of money.

The monument they placed above his coffin, at least, was something big.

The thranx were less ingenuous. Forced by its exposure to accept on its merits the work of a monstrously antisocial artist who normally would have been resolutely ignored, the highly conservative thranx performance establishment proved unable to repudiate its worth. The power and passion with which the deceased Desvendapur had endowed his compositions would not be denied.

So it was that Cheelo Montoya, who did not want it, was forced to endure the fame that the renegade poet Desvendapur had sought. Offered a shocking amount for his memoirs, he had laboriously transcribed them for the media with the help of a small army of ghost writers. As he told it, the tale of his encounter and relationship with the renegade thranx artist took on a glamorous, heroic mien. Poetic, even, so that while later generations knew that a murderer and a poet were responsible for the forced, accelerated pace of human-thranx contact, the line became blurred as to who was which.

With tentative, cultivated, ceremonial contact shattered by the unscheduled revelations, relations between the species were advanced by perhaps half a century in spite of, and not because of, the exertions of well-meaning, hard-working, professional emissaries. There was precedent. History is often fashioned by insignificant individuals intent on matters of petty personal concern who have motives entirely irrelevant to carefully planned posterity. It was just as well.

Had humankind contacted the next intelligent race they encountered prior to formalizing relations with the thranx, the Commonwealth might very well never have come into existence. As for the duplicitous AAnn, their upset verged on outrage as they saw their traditional competitors for habitable worlds forge an ever-deepening relationship with the militarily strong but mentally unpredictable humans. Bereft of stratagems for countering the seemingly inevitable alliance, the government of the emperor sought the advice of any who might have an efficacious solution to propound.

As it happened, Lord Huudra Ap and Baron Keekil YN stood ready to supply one.

NEXT—DIRGE

Don’t miss the second book in the Founding of the Commonwealth series:

DIRGE
by Alan Dean Foster

Published by Del Rey books.
Look for it at your local bookstore.

For an exciting preview
please read on….

S
urrounded by members of the
Chagos
’s staff, Burgess was staring intently at the tridee. Magnification was visual, not schematic, so he was able to observe the craft that had just joined them in orbit in all its alien glory. It was an impressive ship, at least twice the size of the
Chagos
. While the prevalent configuration was similar to that of the
Chagos
and all other vessels equipped with the universal variant of the KK-drive, its design and execution differed in a multitude of significant respects.

“Not ours,” one of the techs seated nearby murmured unnecessarily.

“Not thranx, either,” the first officer added. “Unless they’ve been hiding something from us. Could it be one of those AAnn ships the thranx are always trying to warn us about?”

Burgess looked doubtful. “I’ve seen the AAnn schematics the thranx have provided. This design is much too sleek. Could it be Quillp?” Burgess longed for expertise in an area his crew, through no fault of their own, did not possess.

“I don’t think so, Captain.” Though far from positive, the first officer felt secure in hazarding a guess. If he was proved wrong, he would be delighted to admit the mistake. He hoped he was wrong. The inherent pacificity of the Quillp was well known.

Looking sharply to his left, Burgess snapped a question. “Any response to our queries, Tambri?”

The diminutive communications officer glanced over at him and shook her head. Her dark eyes were very wide. “Nothing, sir. I’m trying everything, from Terranglo through High and Low Thranx to straight mathematical theorems. They’re chattering noisily among themselves—I can pick up the wash—but they’re not talking to us.”

“They will. Keep trying.” Burgess turned back to the three-dimensional image floating in the air of the ship’s bridge. “Who are they and what the blazes do they want here?”

“Maybe they’ve already claimed this world.” The observation no one had wanted to voice come from the back of the command section. “Maybe they’re here to inform us of a claim of prior rights.”

“If that’s the case,” declared the first officer, “they’ve been mighty subtle about advertising any prior presence here. There isn’t so much as an artifact on the planet, much less an orbital transmitter. There’s nothing on either of the two small moons, or anywhere else in the system.”

“That we’ve found yet, you mean.” Having stated a contention, the dissenter felt bound to defend it. “We’ve only been here a couple of months.”

“Okay, okay,” Burgess muttered. “Let’s everybody keep calm. Whatever the situation, we’ll deal with it. We didn’t expect to encounter sapience here, much less evidence of another space-traversing species. They’re probably taking our measure as carefully as we are theirs.”
But I wish they’d respond to our communications,
he thought tensely.

“Look there!” someone in the growing crowd pointed.

A second, much smaller vessel was emerging from the side of the first. Winged and ported, obviously designed for atmospheric travel, it began to recede swiftly from the flank of its parent vessel. Its immediate purpose was self-evident. Anything else those aboard might intend could not be divined from tracking its progress.

“Get on to Pranchavit and the rest of the landing party,” Burgess barked at the communications officer. “Tell them they’re probably going to have company.”

Once again the officer looked up from her instrumentation. “They’ll want to know what kind of company, sir.”

Burgess glanced over at the tridee holo. “Maybe they can tell us.”

By the time Kairuna and his companions arrived at the camp, it was alive with questions and concerns, anxiety and confusion. No one seemed to know what was going on, including those who had recognized the audible signal for what it was. Now they troubled themselves with unsupported inferences and paranoid suppositions. In such company, Alwyn was in his element.

Pushing and shoving their way into an already crowded mess hall, the three late arrivals found themselves confined to the narrow remaining open space next to the rear wall. Up by the service door that led to the main stockroom, Jalen Maroto was waving his arms for quiet. When that didn’t work, he put a compact amplifier to his lips and simply shouted everybody down.

“Shut up! If you’ll just shut up, I’ll tell you what’s going on.” As the crowd noise subsided he added apologetically, “Or at least, what we know.”

“I know!” Shy as always, Alwyn was not afraid to proclaim theories where others were hesitant to venture facts. “Something local’s finally showed up to cause trouble. What is it?” he demanded to know. “A herd of predators? A fast-mutating plague?”

“There’s a plague, all right,” the team leader declared through the amplifier, “but it’s one we brought along with us.” Delighted to take advantage of the emotional release, a number of the assembled turned their laughter in the specialist’s direction. Unrepentant but temporarily subdued, he tried to meet the ridicule of each and every one of them with a defiant glare of his own.

“ A ship has gone into orbit near the
Chagos
,” Maroto informed scientists and support personnel alike. “We don’t know where it’s from, what species built it, or what their intentions are. So far nobody on the
Chagos
, including the people who are supposed to know about such things, has been able to pull a fact out of a big basket of ignorance.”

“They’re not thranx?” someone in the crowd wondered loudly, referring to the intelligent insectoid race with whom humankind had been cautiously developing relations over the past thirty years.

“We don’t know who or what they are,” Maroto replied, “because they’re not responding to the
Chagos
’s repeated queries to identify themselves. If they’re thranx, they’re being mighty close-mouthed about it.”

“The bugs may be ugly, but I’ve never heard of them going mute,” Idar murmured softly.

“I know what they are.” When no one reacted to his latest assertion of certitude, Alwyn assumed a plaintive tone. “Well? Doesn’t anyone want to know what I know?”

“Nobody wants to know what you know, Alwyn, because you never know half of what you claim to know.” Unlike his companions Kairuna had the advantage of being able to see over the heads of just about everyone in the crowd.

“Go ahead and mock.” Alwyn was confident as ever. “These are the hostile, rampaging, bloodthirsty aliens we’ve always feared encountering as we extend our sphere of influence.”

“I thought the AAnn were supposed to be the hostile aliens,” Idar pointed out.

“That’s what the thranx claim, but so far we’ve only the bugs’ word for AAnn hostility. No, these are something new. New and hostile,” he concluded with an assurance that regrettably was not born of proof.

“If they’re hostile,” a contrary Kairuna argued, “why are we still standing here talking? Why haven’t they turned this site and all of us to dust?”

“Just you wait.” Secure in his latent mistrust, the specialist glanced knowingly skyward.

Aside from the fact that scattering into the trees could be misinterpreted by those aboard the rapidly descending alien shuttle as a hostile gesture, there was (the feelings of a certain suspicious support specialist aside) no overwhelming reason to do so. The parent ship continued to swing in low orbit within viewing distance of the
Chagos
, moving neither toward nor away from the human vessel, its communicators silent, the identity of its occupants still a mystery. No one on board the
Chagos
was surprised when the alien shuttle braked atmosphere and began a swift, calculated curve that would put it on the surface directly in the midst of the survey team’s encampment. Indeed, given the on-going proximity of the two KK-drive craft, Burgess and his fellow staff officers would have been perplexed had the alien shuttle chosen to set down anywhere else.

At first nothing more than a distant point of light sifting down through an azure sky, the alien landing craft grew rapidly in size and dimension until its descending silhouette differentiated sharply from the framing clouds. Assembled between field and forest, fewer than a hundred human faces strained to make out the lines and design of the unknown vessel.

The landing was smooth and almost silent, as if the pilots had been practicing on similar open fields for years. As the whine of multiple engines became tolerable, hands fell from ears to shade eyes as the craft turned to approach the crowd. There being no need for ceremony while engaged in survey, Pranchavit and Morobe were reduced to greeting the visitors in clean duty clothes. Kairuna smiled to himself. The prim head of the Argus scientific team, at least, was no doubt regretting the absence of his fancy dress uniform.

There was a stirring as the landing craft maintained speed during its turn, and a few of those gathered in front found themselves wondering if perhaps their desire for a good view of the proceedings might not be misplaced. But the many-winged alien lander pivoted neatly on its double set of nose wheels and lined up parallel to the crowd. Those in front relaxed. Nothing of an overtly offensive nature was in evidence. Kairuna knew of several researchers and techs who had armed themselves in defiance of directives. Pistols remained concealed by multiple layers of cold-weather clothing and bulky jackets.

Eagerness filled the air like a cool fog. What would the aliens look like? Would they be atavistically alarming like the thranx? Elegantly handsome and yet vaguely sinister like the AAnn? Or quaintly charming like the Quillp? Humankind had yet to voyage sufficiently far, had still to encounter enough intelligent species, to be blasé at the prospect of meeting still another.

Perhaps they would look like nothing the smooth-skinned simians in their glistening new KK-drive starships had yet met. They might be towering horrors, or diminutive pacifists. Or diminutive horrors or towering pacifists. No one knew. Kairuna and the rest of the survey team would be the first to gaze upon these new, previously unencountered alien countenances. He and his associates were acutely conscious of the singular privilege that was being accorded them.

Everyone had been thoroughly, if hastily, briefed. No matter what the aliens looked like, no matter how repulsive, or absurd, or disconcerting, or surprising, all reaction was to be kept to a minimum. There was to be no cheering lest sudden noises upset the visitors. No wrinkling of faces, no distorted expressions that might be misinterpreted in the event the visitors communicated by similar means. No expansive gestures in case they asserted themselves in a manner akin to the highly gesticulatory thranx. Response to any overtures and all expressions of greeting would be made by Pranchavit and Morobe. Everyone else was welcome to watch, but in stillness and silence.

That did not prevent Idar from nudging Kairuna in the side as an opaque cylinder slowly and silently descended from the belly of the alien craft. It looked as if a particularly sleek bird was laying an oblong egg. Nearby, a grim-faced Alwyn patted his side.

“Not to worry. I’m carrying a regulation sideshot with a full clip.”

“It won’t be much use to you in the brig,” Idar hissed at him.

“Both of you, be quiet.” Kairuna nodded. “They’re coming out. Or something is.” The possibility that the aliens might choose to make first contact through intermediaries such as mechanicals could not be discounted.

There were no mechanicals, however. The aliens had chosen to greet the tightly packed crowd of anxious bipeds in person. There were three of them. Nitrox breathers themselves, they were clad only in lightweight clothing of some unfamiliar fabric that shimmered in the bright, cold air, and no helmets or other headgear whatsoever.

The reaction to their appearance was a uniform gasp on the part of the assembled humans. Kairuna was unaware that his lower jaw dropped slightly, leaving him standing in full defiance of orders with a mock-stupid expression on his face. Idar stood wide-eyed but with more presence of mind as well as person. Alwyn, whose left hand had been hovering in the vicinity of his concealed weapon, was moved to comment, but mindful of the general directive to keep quiet, held his peace.

It was a good thing he had the forbearance to keep from drawing the gun. The aliens might not have reacted immediately to its emergence, but his erstwhile fellow humans surely would have. It was not that his naturally suspicious nature was in any way mollified by the aliens’ utterly unexpected and novel appearance. Only that he was for once, no less shocked than his companions.

DIRGE
by Alan Dean Foster

Available at bookstores everywhere.

To find out more about the Commonwealth and other worlds of Alan Dean Foster visit www.alandeanfoster.com