If that didn’t work, she wasn’t equipped to do much more by herself; and she needed reinforcements in any case before trying to determine who might have been turning the floatwood islands into death traps.
She asked, “Can you get a message through to the mainland?”
They nodded, the Venn warily. Jath said, “It may take a number of hours. But so far the fleets have always been able to relay messages through disturbance areas.”
Fiam inquired, “What’s the message, Dr. Etland? And to whom will it go?”
“It goes to Danrich Parrol,” Nile told him. “The Giard Station will be able to locate him.” She couldn’t become too specific about gromgorru matters or the message would be blocked before it reached the mainland. “Give Parrol the location of the floatwood drift south of us. I’ll wait for him there. Tell him I may have a problem getting Dr. Qay off his island, and that I’d like him to come out with full trouble-shooting equipment—”
“And Spiff!” a thin voice interrupted emphatically from the corner of the room.
The sledmen looked around, startled. Sweeting blinked at them, began nosing her chest fur disinterestedly. People who didn’t know Sweeting well frequently were surprised by the extent to which she followed the details of human discussions.
“And Spiff, of course,” Nile agreed. “If we find out what’s been happening around the floatwood, we’ll try to get word to you at once.”
Fiam nodded quickly. “Six hours from now we’ll have a racing sled in the drift. Any close-contact message should be picked up. Code Sotira-Doncar, on the sledmen frequencies.”
“The Great Palach Koll,” said the demon on the platform, “has persuaded the Everliving to permit him to test the Tuvela Theory.”
Ticos Cay didn’t reply immediately. His visitor was the Palach Moga, one of the Everliving, though of lower grade than the Great Palachs and somewhere between them and the Oganoon in physical structure, about Ticos’ size and weight. Moga didn’t squat but stood upright, long hopping legs stretched out, walked upright when he walked, with short careful awkward steps. His torso was enclosed in an intricate close-worked harness of silver straps. In what was happening here he and Ticos Cay had become cautious allies. Ticos was aware that the alliance might be of very temporary nature.
“I was under the impression,” he told Moga, “that the Voice of Caution was able to keep the reckless demands of the Great Palach from being given a hearing.”
Moga’s speaking slit twisted in agitation.
“We have done it until now,” he said. “But the Great Palach has assumed control of the Voice of Action. He accused his predecessor of a Violation of Rules, and the Everliving found the accusation valid. The predecessor was granted the death of a Palach. You must understand that in his new position Koll’s demands can no longer be silenced.”
“Yes, I see.” Advancement usually came the hard way among the demons. Two favored methods were a ritualized form of assassination and having one’s superior convicted of a Violation of Rules.
They had the same practical result. Ticos swallowed. Bad—very bad. He leaned back against the worktable to avoid revealing that his legs were trembling. “How does the Great Palach propose to test the Tuvela Theory?”
“The Guardian Etland is again attempting to contact you,” Moga said.
“Yes, I know.” The communicator in the partitioned end of the room had signaled half a dozen times during the past half hour.
“The signals,” Moga explained, “are on the cambi channel.”
The close-contact band! Ticos said thickly: “She already is in the area?”
“Could anyone else be seeking for you here?”
“No.”
“Then it is the Guardian. There is a human airvehicle high overhead. It is very small but rides the storm well. It moves away, returns again.”
“The island growth has changed since she was here last,” said Ticos. “She may not have determined yet on which of these islands I should be!” He added urgently, “This gives us a chance to forestall actions by Koll! I have the Guardian’s call symbol—”
Moga gave the whistle of absolute negation.
“It is now quite impossible to approach your communicator,” he said. “I would die if I attempted it unless it were under open orders of the Everliving. Koll will be allowed to carry out his plan. He has arranged tests to determine whether a Tuvela is a being such as the Tuvela Theory conjectures it to be. The first test will come while the Guardian is still in the air. At a selected moment the Great Palach will have a device activated which is directed at her vehicle. If she responds promptly and correctly, the vehicle will be incapacitated, but the Guardian will not be harmed. If she does not respond promptly and correctly, she dies at that point.” Moga stared at Ticos a moment. “The significance of her death, of course, will be the Everliving’s conclusion that Tuvelas lack the basic qualities ascribed to them. The Great Plan is now in balance. If the balance is to shift again in favor of the Voice of Caution, the Guardian must not fail. Her class is being judged in her. If she fails, Voice of Action attains full control.
“Let us assume she passes this first test. The vehicle will descend to a point where Kofi’s personal company of Oganoon await the Guardian. Unless she has weapons of great effectiveness, she must surrender to them. Note that if she does not surrender and is killed, it will be judged a failure. A Tuvela, as Tuvelas are assumed to be, will not make such mistakes. A Tuvela will surrender and await better opportunities to act to advantage.” Ticos nodded slowly. “I’ll be able to speak to the Guardian if she is captured?”
“No, Dr. Cay. Only the Great Palach Koll will speak to the Guardian following her capture. The tests will continue at once and with increasing severity until the Guardian either dies or proves to the Everliving beyond all doubt that the Tuvela Theory is correct in all its implications—specifically, that the Tuvelas, individually and as a class, are the factor which must cause us, even at this last moment, to halt and reverse the Great Plan. Koll is staking his life on his belief that she will fail. If she fails, he will have proved his point. The Everliving will hesitate no longer. And the final stages of the Plan will be initiated.”
“In brief,” Ticos said slowly, “the Great Palach intends to discredit the Tuvela Theory by showing he can torture the Guardian to death and add her to his collection of trophies?”
“Yes. That is his announced plan. The torture, of course, is an approved form of test. It is in accord with tradition.”
Ticos stared up at him, trying to conceal his complete dismay. There was no argument he could advance. This was the way they were conditioned to think. Before a Palach became a Palach he had submitted to painful tests which few survived. As he progressed towards the ultimate form of existence which was a Great Palach, he was tested again and again. It was their manner of evaluation, of judgment. He had convinced a majority of them that Tuvelas were at least their human counterpart. Some were convinced, however unwillingly, that the counterpart was superior to the greatest of the Great Palachs—opponents too deadly to be challenged. Roll’s move was designed to nullify that whole structure of thought.
“I’ll keep you informed of what occurs, Dr. Cay,” Moga concluded. “If you have suggestions which might be useful in this situation, have word sent to me immediately. Otherwise we now see no way to block Roll’s purpose—unless the Guardian herself proves able to do it. Let us hope that she does.”
The Palach turned, moved off down the walkway towards the exit door. Ticos gazed after him. There was a leaden feeling of helplessness throughout his body. For the moment it seemed difficult even to stir from where he stood.
He didn’t doubt that Nile Etland was the operator of the aircar they were watching—and he had been hoping very much she wouldn’t arrive just yet.
Given even another two weeks, he might have persuaded the Everliving through the Voice of Caution to cancel the planned attack on Nandy-Cline and withdraw from the planet. But Nile�
�s arrival had precipitated matters and Roll was making full use of the fact. The one way in which Ticos could have warned her off and given her a clue to what was happening was closed completely.
Four words would have done it, he thought. Four words, and Nile would have known enough, once he’d switched on the communicator. He’d made preparations to ensure nobody was going to stop him before he got the four words out.
But now—without Moga’s help, without the permission of the Everliving—he simply couldn’t get to the communicator. It wasn’t a question of the guards. He’d made other preparations for the guards. It was the devastatingly simple fact that the partitioning wall was twelve feet high and that there was no door in it. Ticos knew too well that he was no longer in any condition to get over the wall and to the communicator in time to do any good. They’d turn him off before he turned it on. He didn’t have the physical strength and coordination left to be quick enough for such moves.
If Nile had arrived a couple of weeks earlier, he could have done it. He’d counted then on being able to do it. But there’d been a few too many of their damned pain treatments since.
And if she’d delayed coming out by just two weeks, no warning might have been necessary.
But she was punctual as usual—right on time!
Well, Ticos told himself heavily, at least he’d arranged matters so that they wouldn’t simply blast her out of the air as she came down to the island. It left her a slim chance.
However, it seemed time to start thinking in terms of last-ditch operations—for both of them. He had his preparations made there, too. But they weren’t very satisfactory ones.
“Hungry,” Sweeting announced from the aircar’s floor beside Nile.
“So starve,” Nile said absently. Sweeting opened her jaws, laughed up at her silently.
“Go down, eh?” she suggested. “Catch skilt for Nile, eh? Nile hungry?”
“Nile isn’t. Go back to sleep. I have to think.”
The otter snorted, dropped her head back on her forepaws, pretended to close her eyes. Sweeting’s kind might be the product of a geneticist’s miscalculation. Some twenty years before, a consignment of hunting otter cubs had reached Nandy-Cline. They were a development of a preserved Terran otter strain, tailored for an oceanic existence. The coastal rancher who’d bought the consignment was startled some months later when the growing cubs began to address him in a slurrily chopped-up version of the Hub’s translingue. The unexpected talent didn’t detract from their value. The talkative cubs, playful, affectionate, handsomely pelted, sold readily, were distributed about the seacoast ranches and attained physical maturity in another year and a half. As water hunters or drivers and protectors of the sea herds, each was considered the equivalent of half a dozen trained men. Adults, however, sooner or later tended to lose interest in their domesticated status and exchanged it for a feral life in the sea, where they thrived and bred. During the past few years sledmen had reported encounters with sizable tribes of wild otters. They still spoke in translingue.
Nile’s pair, hand-raised from cub-hood, had stayed. She wasn’t quite sure why. Possibly they were as intrigued by her activities as she was by theirs. On some subjects her intellectual processes and theirs meshed comfortably. On others there remained a wide mutual lack of comprehension. She suspected, though she’d never tried to prove it, that their overall intelligence level was very considerably higher than estimated.
She was holding the aircar on a southwest course, surface scanners shifting at extreme magnification about the largest floatwood island in the drift, two miles below, not quite three miles ahead. It looked very much like the one Ticos Cay had selected. Minor differences could be attributed to adaptive changes in the growth as the floatwood moved south. There were five major forest sections arranged roughly like the tips of a pentacle. The area between them, perhaps a mile across, was the lagoon, a standard feature of the islands. Its appearance was that of a shallow lake choked with vegetation, a third of the surface covered by dark-green leafy pads flattened on the water. The forests, carrying the semiparasitical growth which clustered on the floatwood’s thick twisted boles, towered up to six hundred feet about the lagoon, living walls of almost indestructible toughness and density. The typhoon battering through which they had passed had done little visible damage. Beneath the surface they were linked by an interlocking net of ponderous roots which held the island sections clamped together into a single massive structure.
The island was moving slowly to the south, foam-streaked swells running past it on either side. This might be the southern fringe of the typhoon belt. The sky immediately overhead was clear, a clean deep blue. But violent gusts still shook the car, and roiling cloud banks rode past on all sides.
Ticos Cay’s hidden arboreal laboratory should be in the second largest section of the floatwood structure, about a third of the way in on the seaward side. He wasn’t responding to close-contact communicator signals; but he might be there in spite of his silence. In any case it was the place to start looking. There’d been no sign of intruders—which didn’t mean they weren’t there. The multiple canopies of the forests could have concealed an army. But intruders could be avoided.
Nile thought she might be able to handle this without waiting for Parrol. It was late afternoon now, and even if there were no serious delays in getting her message to him, it would be at best the middle of the night before he could make it out here. To drop down openly to the floatwood would be asking for trouble, of course, though there had been no reports of attacks on aircars as yet. But she could circle south, go down to sea level, submerge the car and maneuver it back underwater to the island through the weed beds which rode the Meral. If she’d had her jet-diving rig with her, she wouldn’t have hesitated. She could have left the car a couple of miles out, gone in at speed and brought Ticos out with her if he was in his hideaway, with almost no risk of being noticed by whoever else might be about. But she didn’t have the rig along. That meant working the car in almost to the island, a more finicky operation.
But it could be done. The submerged weed jungles provided the best possible cover against detection instruments.
Nile checked course and altitude, returned her attention to the magnification scanners. Everything down there looked normal. There was considerable animal activity about the lagoon, including clouds of the flying kesters which filled the role of sea and shore birds in Nandy-Cline’s ecological pattern. In the ocean beyond the floatwood at the left, two darkly gleaming torpedo-shaped bodies appeared intermittently at the surface. They were kesters too, but wingless giants: sea-havals, engaged in filling their crops with swarms of skilts. Their presence was another good indication that this was Ticos’ island. There’d been a sea-haval rookery concealed in the forest section next to the one he’d selected—
An engine control shrieked warning, and a sullen roaring erupted about them. Nile saw a red line in the fuel release gauge surge up towards explosion as her hand flicked out and cut the main engine switch.
The shrieking whistle and the roar of energies gone wild subsided together. Losing momentum, the car began to drop.
“Nile?”
“We’re in trouble, Sweeting.” The otter was on her feet, neck fur erect, eyes shifting about. But Sweeting knew enough to stay quiet in emergencies that were in Nile’s department.
Energy block . . . it could be a malfunction. But that type of malfunction occurred so rarely it had been years since she’d heard of one.
Someone hidden in the floatwood had touched the car with a type of weapon unknown to her, was bringing her down. The car’s built-in antigrav patterns would slow their descent. But—
Nile became very busy.
When she next looked at the altimeter, it told her she had approximately three minutes left in the air. Wind pressure meanwhile had buffeted the car directly above the island, a third of the way out across the lagoon. That would have been the purpose of killing her engines at the exact moment it was do
ne. When the car splashed into the lagoon’s vegetation, she’d find a reception committee waiting.
She was in swim briefs by now for maximum freedom of action in water or in the floatwood. Fins and a handkerchief-sized breather mask lay on the seat. Most of the rest of what she was taking along had been part of the floatwood kit she’d flung into the back of the car on leaving the Giard Station. Various items were attached to a climb-belt above her waist—knife, lightweight UW gun, grip sandals, a pouch containing other floatwood gear she didn’t have time to sort over. The otter caller she used to summon Sweeting and Spiff from a distance was fastened to her wrist above her watch. Her discarded clothing was in a waterproof bag.
“Remember what you’re to do?”
“Yesss!” Sweeting acknowledged with a cheery hiss.
Sweeting would remember. They were going to meet some bad guys. Not at all a novel experience. Sweeting would keep out of sight and trouble until Nile had more specific instructions for her.
The bad guys hadn’t showed yet. But they must be in the lagoon, headed for the area where the car seemed about to come down. It was rocking and lurching in the gusts towards a point some three hundred yards from the nearest floatwood. Not at all where Nile wanted it to go. But she might be able to improve her position considerably.
She sat quiet throughout the last moments, estimating the force of the wind, eyes shifting between the altimeter and a landing area she’d selected on the far side of the water. Then, a hundred yards from the surface, she pushed down a stud which slid out broad glide-vanes to either side of the car.
The fringes of a typhoon were no place for unpowered gliding. Like the blow of a furious fist, wind slammed the vehicle instantly over on its side. Seconds of wild tumbling followed. But she had the momentum now to return some control of the car’s motion to her. To hostile watchers in the lagoon and the floatwood it must have looked like a futile and nearly suicidal attempt to escape—as it was intended to look. She didn’t want them to start shooting. Twice she seemed within inches of being slammed head-on into the water, picked up altitude at the last instant. Most of the width of the lagoon lay behind her at that point, and a section of forest loomed ahead again. A tall stand of sea reeds, perhaps three hundred yards across, half enclosed by gnarled walls of floatwood, whirled below.
Complete Short Fiction (Jerry eBooks) Page 185