The Uplift War u-3 Page 11

  Uthacalthing pretended not to notice. It sometimes paid to let others believe Tymbrimi hearing was as bad as their eyesight.

  “These are for you,” he told the two in the flashy clothes, and he tossed each of them a small bag. The money inside was GalCoin, untraceable and unquestionable through war and turmoil, for it was backed by the contents of the Great Library itself.

  The two chims bowed to Uthacalthing, trying to imitate the officer’s precision. He had to suppress a delighted laugh, for he sensed their foci — each chim’s center of consciousness — had gathered in the hand holding the purse, excluding nearly all else from the world.

  “Go then, and spend it as you will. I thank you for your past services.”

  The two members of Port Helenia’s small criminal underworld spun about and dashed off through the grove. Borrowing another human metaphor, they had been “his eyes and ears” since he had arrived here. No doubt they considered their work completed now.

  And thank you for what you are about to do, Uthacalthing thought after them. He knew this particular band of probationers well. They would spend his money well and gain an appetite for more. In a few days, there would be only one source of such coin.

  They would have new employers soon, Uthacalthing was sure.

  “… have come as friends and protectors of pre-sentient peoples, to see that they are given proper guidance and membership in a dignified clan…”

  Only one chim remained, trying to stand as straight as he could. But the poor creature could not help shifting his weight nervously, grinning anxiously.

  “And what — ” Uthacalthing stopped abruptly. His tendrils waved and he turned to look out over the sea.

  A streak of light appeared from the headland across the bay, spearing up and eastward into the sky. Uthacalthing shaded his eyes, but he did not waste time envying Earthling vision. The glowing ember climbed into the clouds, leaving a kind of trail that only he could detect. It was a shimmering of joyful departure that surged and then faded in a few brief seconds, unraveling with the faint, white contrail.

  Oth’thushutn, his aide, secretary, and friend, was flying their ship out through the heart of the battle fleet surrounding Garth. And who could tell? Their Tymbrimi-made craft was specially built. He even might get through.

  That was not Oth’thushutn’s job, of course. His task was merely to make the attempt.

  Uthacalthing reached forth in kenning. Yes, something did ride down that burst of light. A sparkling legacy. He drew in Oth’thushtn’s final glyph and stored it in a cherished place, should he ever make it home to tell the brave Tym’s loved ones.

  Now there were only two Tymbrimi on Garth, and Athaclena was as safe as could be provided for. It was time for Uthacalthing to see to his own fate.

  “. . .to rescue these innocent creatures from the warped Uprearing they are receiving at the hands of wolflings and criminals…”

  He turned back to the little chim, his last helper. “And what about you, Jo-Jo? Do you want a task, as well?”

  Jo-Jo fumbled with the keys of his panel display.

  YES, PLEASE

  HELP YOU IS ALL I ASK

  Uthacalthing smiled. He had to hurry off and meet Kault. By now the Thennanin Ambassador would be nearly frantic, pacing beside Uthacalthing’s pinnace. But the fellow could just wait a few moments more.

  “Yes,” he told Jo-Jo. “I think there is something you can do for me. Do you think you can keep a secret?”

  The little genetic reject nodded vigorously, his soft brown eyes filled with earnest devotion. Uthacalthing had spent a lot of time with Jo-Jo, teaching him things the schools here on Garth had never bothered to try — wilderness survival skills and how to pilot a simple flitter, for instance. Jo-Jo was not the pride of neo-chimp Uplift, but he had a great heart,

  and more than enough of a certain type of cunning that Uthacalthing appreciated.

  “Do you see that blue light, atop the cairn, Jo-Jo?”

  JO-JO REMEMBERS,

  the chim keyed.

  JO-JO REMEMBERS ALL YOU SAID.

  “Good.” Uthacalthing nodded. “I knew you would. I shall count on you, my dear little friend.” He smiled, and Jo-Jo grinned back, eagerly.

  Meanwhile, the computer-generated voice from space droned on, completing the Manifesto of Invasion.

  “… and give them over for adoption by some appropriate elder clan — one that will not lead them into improper behavior…”

  Wordy birds, Uthacalthing thought. Silly things, really.

  “We’ll show them some ‘improper behavior,’ won’t we, Jo-Jo?”

  The little chim nodded nervously. He grinned, even though he did not entirely understand.

  15

  Athaclena

  That night their tiny campfire cast yellow and orange flickerings against the trunks of the near-oaks.

  “I was so hungry, even vac-pac stew tasted delicious,” Robert sighed as he put aside his bowl and spoon. “I’d planned to make us a meal of baked plate ivy roots, but I don’t guess either of us will have much appetite fpr that delicacy soon.”

  Athaclena felt she understood Robert’s tendency to make irrelevant remarks like these. Tymbrimi and Terran both had ways of making light of disaster — part of the unusual pattern of similarity between the two species.

  She had eaten sparingly herself. Her body had nearly purged the peptides left over from the gheer reaction, but she still felt a little sore after this afternoon’s adventure.

  Overhead a dark band of Galactic dust clouds spanned fully twenty percent of the sky, outlined by bright hydrogen nebulae. Athaclena watched the starry vault, her corona only slightly puffed out above her ears. From the forest she felt the tiny, anxious emotions of little native creatures.

  “Robert?”

  “Hmmm? Yes, Clennie?”

  “Robert, why did you remove the crystals from our radio?”

  After a pause, his voice was serious, subdued. “I’d hoped not to have to tell you for a few days, Athaclena. But last night I saw the communication satellites being destroyed. That could only mean the Galactics have arrived, as our parents expected.

  “The radio’s crystals can be picked up by shipborne resonance detectors, even when they aren’t powered. I took ours out so there’d be no chance of being found that way. It’s standard doctrine.”

  Athaclena felt a tremor at the tip of her ruff, just above her nose, that shivered over her scalp and down her back. So, it has begun.

  Part of her longed to be with her father. It still hurt that he had sent her away rather than allow her to stay at his side where she could help him.

  The silence stretched. She kenned Robert’s nervousness. Twice, he seemed about to speak, then stopped, thinking better of it. Finally, she nodded. “I agree with your logic in removing the crystals, Robert. I even think I understand the protective impulse that made you refrain from telling me about it. You should not do that again, though. It was foolish.”

  Robert agreed, seriously. “I won’t, Athaclena.”

  They lay in silence for a while, until Robert reached over with his good hand and touched hers. “Clennie, I … I want you to know I’m grateful. You saved my life—”

  “Robert,” she sighed tiredly.

  “—but it goes beyond that. When you came into my mind you showed me things about myself… things I’d never known before. That’s an important favor. You can read all about it in textbooks, if you want. Self-deception and neuroses are two particularly insidious human plagues.”

  “They are not unique to humans, Robert.”

  “No, I guess not. What you saw in my mind was probably nothing by pre-Contact standards. But given our history, well, even the sanest of us needs reminding from time to time.”

  Athaclena had no idea what to say, so she remained silent. To have lived in Humanity’s awful dark ages must have been frightening indeed.

  Robert cleared his throat. “What I’m trying to say is that I know how far
you’ve gone to adapt yourself — learning human expressions, making little changes in your physiology …”

  “An experiment.” She shrugged, another human mannerism. She suddenly realized that her face felt warm. Capillaries were opening in that human reaction she had thought so quaint. She was blushing!

  “Yeah, an experiment. But by rights it ought to go both ways, Clennie. Tymbrimi are renowned around the Five Galsbaes for their adaptability. But we humans are capable of learning a thing or two, also.”

  She looked up. “What do you mean, Robert?”

  “I mean that I’d like you to show me some more about Tymbrimi ways. Your customs. I want to know what your landsmen do that’s equivalent to an amazed stare, or a nod, or a grin.”

  Again, there was a flicker. Athaclena’s corona reached, but the delicate, simple, ghostly glyph he had formed vanished like smoke. Perhaps he was not even aware he had crafted it.

  “Um,” she said, blinking and shaking her head. “I cannot be sure, Robert. But I think perhaps youhave already begun.”

  Robert was stiff and feverish when they struck camp the next morning. He could only take so much anesthetic for his fractured arm and remain able to walk.

  Athaclena stashed most of his gear in the notch of a gum beech tree and cut slashes in the bark to mark the site.

  Actually, she doubted anyone would ever be back to reclaim it. “We must get you to a physician,” she said, feeling his brow. His raised temperature clearly was not a good sign.

  Robert indicated a narrow slot between the mountains to the south. “Over that way, two days march, there’s the Mendoza Freehold. Mrs. Mendoza was a nurse practitioner before she married Juan and took up farming.”

  Athaclena looked uncertainly at the pass. They would have to climb nearly a thousand meters to get over it.

  “Robert, are you sure this is the best route? I’m certain I have intermittently sensed sophonts emoting from much nearer, over that line of hills to the east.”

  Robert leaned on his makeshift staff and began moving up the southward trail. “Come on, Clennie,” he said over his shoulder. “I know you want to meet a Garthling, but now’s hardly the time. We can go hunting for native pre-sentients after I’ve been patched up.”

  Athaclena stared after him, astonished by the illogic of his remark. She caught up with him. “Robert, that was a strange thing to say! How could I think of seeking out native creatures, no matter how mysterious, until you were tended! The sophonts I have felt to the east were clearly humans and chimps, although I admit there was a strange, added element, almost like …”

  “Aha!” Robert smiled, as if she had made a confession. He walked on.

  Amazed, Athaclena tried to probe his feelings, but the human’s discipline arid determination was incredible for a member of a wolfling race. All she could tell was that he was disturbed — and that it had something to do with her mention of sapient thoughts east of here.

  Oh, to be a true telepath! Once more she wondered why the Tymbrimi Grand Council had not defied the rules of the Uplift Institute and gone ahead to develop the capability. She had sometimes envied humans the privacy they could build around their lives and resented the gossipy invasiveness of her own culture. But right now she wanted only to break in there and find out what he was hiding!

  Her corona waved, and if there had been any Tymbrimi within half a mile they would have winced at her angry, pungent opinion of the way of things.

  * * *

  Robert was showing difficulty before they reached the crest of the first ridge, httle more than an hour later. Athaclena knew by now that the glistening perspiration on his brow meant the same thing as a reddening and fluffing of a Tymbrimi’s corona — overheating.

  When she overheard him counting under his breath, she knew that they would have to rest. “No.” He shook his head. His voice was ragged. “Let’s just get past this ridge and into the next valley. From there on it’s shaded all the way to the pass.” Robert kept trudging.

  “There is shade enough here,” she insisted, and pulled him over to a rock jumble covered by creepers with umbrella-like leaves, all linked by the ubiquitous transfer-vines to the forest in the valley floor.

  Robert sighed as she helped him sit back against a boulder in the shade. She wiped his forehead, then began unwrapping his splinted right arm. He hissed through his teeth.

  A faint purpling discolored the skin near where the bone had broken. “Those are bad signs, aren’t they, Robert?”

  For a moment she felt him begin to dissemble. Then he reconsidered, shaking his head. “N-no. I think there’s an infection. I’d better take some more Universal …”

  He started to reach for her pack, where his aid kit was being carried, but his equilibrium failed and Athaclena had to catch him.

  “Enough, Robert. You cannot walk to the Mendoza Freehold. I certainly cannot carry you, and I’ll not leave you alone for two or three days!

  “You seem to have some reason to wish to avoid the people who I sensed to the east of here. But whatever it is, it cannot match the importance of saving your life!”

  Robert let her pop a pair of blue pills into his mouth and sipped from the canteen she held for him. “All right, Clennie,” he sighed. “We’ll turn eastward. Only promise you’ll corona-sing for me, will you? It’s lovely, like you are, and it helps me understand you better… and now I think we’d better get startedbecause I’m babbling. That’s one sign that a human being is deteriorating. You should know that by now.”

  Athaclena’s eyes spread apart and she smiled. “I was already aware of that, Robert. Now tell me, what is the name of this place where we are going?”

  “It s called the Howletts Center. It’s just past that second set of hills, over that way.” He pointed east by southeast.

  “They don’t like surprise guests,” he went on, “so we’ll want to talk loudly as we approach.”

  Taking it by stages, they made it over the first ridge shortly before noon and rested in the shade by a small spring. There Robert fell into a troubled slumber.

  Athaclena watched the human youth with a feeling of miserable helplessness. She found herself humming Thlufall-threela’s famous “Dirge of Inevitability.” The poignant piece for aura and voice was over four thousand years old, written during the time of sorrow when the Tymbrimi patron race, the Caltmour, were destroyed in a bloody interstellar war.

  Inevitability was not a comfortable concept for her people, even less than for humans. But long ago the Tymbrimi had decided to try all things — to learn all philosophies. Resignation, too, had its place.

  Not this time! she swore. Athaclena coaxed Robert into his sleeping bag and got him to swallow two more pills. She secured his arm as best she could and piled rocks alongside to keep him from rolling about.

  A low palisade of brush around him would, she hoped, keep out any dangerous animals. Of course the Bururalli had cleared Garth’s forests of any large creatures, but that did not keep her from worrying. Would an unconscious human be safe then, if she left him alone for a little while?

  She placed her jack-laser within reach of his left hand and a canteen next to it. Bending down she touched his forehead with her sensitized, refashioned lips. Her corona unwound and fell about his face, caressing it with delicate strands-so she could give him a parting benediction in the manner of her own folk, as well.

  A deer might have run faster. A cougar might have slipped through the forest stillness more silently. But Athaclena had never heard of those creatures. And even if she had, a Tymbrimi did not fear comparisons. Their very race-name was adaptability.

  Within the first kilometer automatic changes had already been set in motion. Glands rushed strength to her legs, and changes in her blood made better use of the air she breathed. Loosened connective tissue opened her nostrils wide to pass still more, while elsewhere her skin tautened to prevent her breasts from bouncing jarringly as she ran.

  The slope steepened as she passed out of the se
cond narrow valley and up a game path toward the last ridge before her goal. Her rapid footfalls on the thick loam were light and soft. Only an occasional snapping twig announced her coming, sending the forest creatures scurrying into the shadows. A chittering of little jeers followed her, both in sound and unsubtle emanations she picked up with her corona.

  Their hostile calls made Athaclena want to smile, Tymbrimi style. Animals were so serious. Only a few, those nearly ready for Uplift, ever had anything resembling a sense of humor. And then, after they were adopted and began Uplift, all too often their patrons edited whimsy out of them as an “unstable trait.”

  After the next kilometer Athaclena eased back a bit. She would have to pace herself, if for no other reason than she was overheating. That was dangerous for a Tymbrimi.

  She reached the crest of the ridge, with its chain of ubiquitous spine-stones, and slowed in order to negotiate the maze of jutting monoliths. There, she rested briefly. Leaning against one of the tall rocky outcrops, breathing heavily, she reached out with her corona. The tendrils waved, searching.

  Yes! There were humans close by! And neo-chimpanzees, too. By now she knew both patterns well.

  And… she concentrated. There was something else, also. Something tantalizing.

  It had to be that enigmatic being she had sensed twice before! There was that queer quality that at one moment seemed Earthly and then seemed to partake strongly of this world. And it was pre-sentient, with a dark, serious nature of its own.

  If only empathy were more of a directional sense! She moved forward, tracing a way toward the source through the maze of stones.

  A shadow fell upon her. Instinctively, she leaped back and crouched — hormones rushing combat strength into her hands and arms. Athaclena sucked air, fighting down the gheer reaction. She had been expecting to encounter some small, feral survivor of the Bururalli Holocaust, not anything so large!