Already Among Us

by Unknown

  I will not give up. I will not give up. I will not give up.

  “What you tell me three times is true, but I knew you would not give up before you said it.” Kiombo was looking at her with the faintest hint of a smile on his dark face.

  “Was I subvocalizing?”

  “Only me and Drina would have known it.”

  “I can trust Drina to keep my secrets. What about you?”

  Kiombo shrugged. “Who is there to tell?” He waved at a landscape of nothing but Hathis and horizon. Schurman noticed that a dust-haze was creeping across the base of the Red Mountain from the northwest.

  “I take your point.” She drained her cup, said a rude word when she found the pot was empty, and stood up. “Nate, start getting ready for evacuation.”

  “We still haven't got enough explosives to demolish the warehouse.”

  Schurman wondered how hard Nate had asked. It had been a sore point between them—how much they should destroy, to wipe out all traces of the Hathis' intelligence. But she had ordered, and he had probably obeyed, almost certainly to be turned down by the E&D crew.

  (It would have been a waste of time to ask the Academics; they were, if not pacifists, at least reluctant to think about or prepare for war. The Federation had allowed them to get away with it; Schurman wondered if that sort of tolerance would outlive the attack on a supposedly “safe” planet like Logos.)

  “You can set the extra powerpacks to self-destruct, can't you?”

  “If I have to, and have enough. We won't have enough if we have to power up Govinche's grounder as well as our own.”

  “Govinche will be riding with us. I'm going into town to pick him up.”

  Kiombo caught his jaw before it could drop but let out a few rude remarks in Kiswahili. “You couldn't send me, or call him on the radio?”

  “The closer we stay to radio silence, the better. As for sending you . . . You’re better at packing up what we need to take. I'm better at persuading Govinche to hit the bush.”

  “Govinche is an ass.”

  “He's also a very good Hathi-doctor. In fact, he's the best available.”

  “Because he's the only one available. I always said--”

  “Hindsight is useless even when we have the time for it, Nate. Right now, I have to talk to Drina.”

  “You women always stick together!”

  She laughed. “Why not? Sometimes I think our friends have the right idea about keeping bulls in their place.”

  Kiombo made a gross gesture, but he was grinning as he turned away. Schurman hurried into the hut, to pull out and pull on her translator. At twenty-five pounds, it made for a heavy load if you were also armed and toting a bush pack, but it let her and the Hathis communicate with an effective vocabulary of nearly two thousand words. Not all of these were in the official list, but every Hathi clan developed its own variant, and when humans learned to read Hathis body language and vice-versa—well, it was easier to talk to Drina than to half the humans she knew.

  Schurman tightened the straps, put on her hat, checked the closures on her boots, and walked out into the morning to persuade two hundred intelligent elephants that they had to abandon home, hearth, and field.

  From the Book of the Clan-Mother Drina:

  THE CLAN-MOTHER ROBERTA TALKED WITH ME FOR A LONG FEEDINGTIME DURING THE MID-LIGHT. SHE SAYS WE MUST GO INTO THE FOREST LIKE THE BULLS, ONLY NOT TO WORK. IT IS TO HIDE FROM THE OTHER SMALL ONES, WHO WILL KILL US IF THEY LEARN WE CAN THINK LIKE SMALL ONES.

  IT SEEMS TO ME THAT THE OTHER SMALL ONES ARE VERY FOOLISH, BUT I KNOW THAT CLAN-MOTHER ROBERTA WOULD NOT LIE ABOUT SUCH A GREAT THING. BUT SHE WANTS US TO LIVE TOO MUCH LIKE THE ANCESTORS.

  I TOLD HER THAT WE WILL NEED ONE SKY-SPEAKER TO TALK TO THE BULLS. WE WILL NEED MANY FAR-SEERS, BECAUSE WE WILL BE WALKING THROUGH STRANGE LANDS. WE WILL NEED BAGS FOR FOOD, WHAT WE TAKE WITH US AND WHAT WE GATHER. WE WILL NEED ALL THE HEALING FOODS AND TOOLS THAT ARE IN THE HOUSE, NOT JUST WHAT THE HEALING ONE GOVINCHE-BULL BRINGS. WE WILL EVEN NEED THE WHEELED BEDS TO CARRY THE CALVES TOO SMALL TO CLIMB HILLS OR CROSS RIVERS BY THEMSELVES.

  ROBERTA SAYS THIS WILL BE DANGEROUS. I TOLD HER THAT IT WOULD ALSO BE DANGEROUS IF THE CLAN HAD TO LEAVE CALVES BEHIND OR LOSE PEOPLE TO HURTS THAT HEALING FOOD MIGHT HELP. OUR COURAGE WOULD ALSO DIE. WHEN THE COURAGE OF A CLAN DIES, THE CLAN DOES NOT LIVE LONG.

  I THINK SHE UNDERSTANDS. BUT I WILL PICK FOUR OF THE ELDER MOTHERS TO WATCH KIOMBO-BULL WHILE ROBERTA GOES TO FIND GOVINCHE. HE IS GOOD ABOUT OBEYING ROBERTA MOST OF THE TIME, BUT HE IS A BULL.

  The problem of persuading Dr. Govinche to hit the bush trail with the Hathis turned out to be a lot simpler than Roberta Schurman had expected.

  When she stopped her all-terrain grounder in front of Govinche's house, he was gone. Gone since before dawn, judging from the appearance of the house and garage. Gone with family and survival supplies, along with everybody else in Northern Landing.

  Schurman stood by a corner of the house, not quite leaning against it, until the waves of despair passed off. When she could stand unaided and no longer feared vomiting out of fear and rage, she unslung her rifle and began a slow circuit of the town.

  The thought of a Hiver sniper lurking behind some bushes, waiting to get her in his sights, slowed her progress, but more out of caution than fear. If the Hivers were already on the ground in enough force to reach places like North Landing (population four hundred twenty-seven, according to the sign on the pad fence), all she could do was take a few of them with her.

  Then the Hathis would have to do the same. At least Nate Kiombo would do a better job than she could, teaching them to fight. He had been a sergeant in a Brigade Support Group toward the end of the First Hive War, and knew more than the military basics she'd picked up doing her Federal Service.

  On the pad and toward the eastern side of town she found bloodstains, and out in the fields between the town boundary and the Garrity River signs of a cluster-bomb burst. She felt no better at being abandoned, particularly as the duststorm was moving fast now and the day had turned into a weird half-twilight.

  She did feel a bit more tolerant of the North Landing people, even Govinche, for their panic flight. The Hivers had clearly been using their usual tactics—low-impact missile strikes on every population center, to make the people feel helpless or even drive them into panic flight. Then they would be less able to organize guerrilla resistance, and would be more of a burden to any regular Federation forces, and could be rounded up and butchered with much less trouble later. (If they weren't planning on occupying the planet permanently, the Hivers had no qualms about large-scale ecocide to eliminate a handful of humans.)

  Satisfied that the town had been abandoned by humans and not occupied by Hivers, Schurman was drifting back through the town center when she saw movement in the door of a store that had been empty the first time she came through. Her eyes searched for cover, her finger hovered close to the firing button of her rifle—then a man in bush gear stepped out into the open and hailed her.

  “Hello! Are you the only one home?”

  “Dr. Randolph Granger, at your service.” He took off his hat with a flourish. “Unless my memory is going, you're Dr. Schurman.”

  “Well, I'll be damned,” Schurman said, lowering the rifle.

  “If you want to discuss theology, why not come inside?”

  What Schurman wanted to do was discuss why one of the elder statesmen of the Hathi Project was on Logos at this of all possible times. She didn't have to press Granger; after pouring her a cup of instant coffee, he looked at her, fingering his neat little beard (gray the last time she saw him, nearly white now).

  “You didn't get the message that I was coming?”

  “Not that I recall.”

  “I suspect a failure of communications rather than a failure of your memory.”

  So did Schurman. Intersteller communications were going to Hades in a handcart, and Granger's unheralded arrival and personal circumstances would have proved that if
it needed proving.

  His ship had docked at the station barely an hour before the warning system detected the inbound Hiver ship. A hasty evacuation got everybody except the few absolutely key personnel aboard shuttles, but the cruiser had sent attacks on ahead and not all the shuttles made it down. Then the highkiloton fuser went down on Academy, and the urge to be somewhere else spread like a plague among the human population of Logos.

  “I managed to find a lifter heading north to help evacuate North Landing. I arrived just before Govinche and his family left, and he gave me this.” Granger pulled a card out of the left breast pocket of his jacket.

  “What is it?” Schurman said. Hope flickered.

  “The key to his medical supplies and the access codes for his Hathi medical records. He judged that if I could make contact with you, I would have more use for them than he would, down in the Nyalube Swamps.

  “Govinche always did love understatements.” The flicker of hope turned into a low but steady flame. “Is your wife all right?”

  “Oh, quite. Her heart's beginning to get a trifle uncertain for Jumping, so she agreed to let me make this trip alone, on the condition I returned as soon as I could. After all, who is going to hijack a shipment of Hathi birth-control pills?”

  Schurman didn't have Kiombo's control over her jaw. It was quite a while before she could speak again. “They've finally got it ready?”

  “I think they've even distributed it to several of the other Hathi populations, and recorded the manufacturing data in planetary files. That wasn't my area of responsibility. I'm semi-retired, and they really thought I was too old to go trouble-shooting.”

  “Especially if the trouble's likely to shoot back.”

  “Quite.”

  Schurman felt a good deal better with Granger added to the ranks of her allies. He had to be more than a hundred and twenty but could have passed for seventy. Lean, wiry, and immaculately turned out (in spite of sleeping on the floor), he exuded confidence.

  “Were you able to bring down--?” she began.

  Granger shook his head. “They didn't have room for 'cures for oversexed elephants,' as I heard one—ah, individual—call it. The pills doubtless went up with the station.”

  Again the finger, flicking through the beard, and a look that said, I'm acting braver than I really feel, and so are you. Let's not spoil each other's acts.

  “Have you eaten?” Schurman said, thinking of the empty freight racks in her car. Not the best time to forget her own rules about water tanks and food bars, but what was done is done.

  Granger jerked a tanned thumb at the rear of the store. “The owner left everything that needed refrigeration behind when he fled. I was able to find a pack for the cooker and fix myself enough to see me through the day. Now, I suggest that we go back to Dr. Govinche's and see if his key works.”

  They practically ran back to the house, as Schurman remembered that she hadn't moved her car. Have to think like a refugee in a war zone, if you want to have a long career as one.

  Nobody had happened by to use this clue, and the house was intact. So was the computer file, and the medical supplies, after Granger shot the lock off the storeroom—the power outage had affected the lock but not the computer, which had an internal pack.

  “If the Federation returns, I suspect we'll be forgiven for our breaking and entering.” Granger said, as he made a quick sight inventory of the supplies. “If it doesn't we're not likely to be in a condition where we can be usefully prosecuted.”

  Schurman's nerves twanged at the insouciant probing of her worst fears. Then they twanged louder as the shot was answered, by the unmistakable trumpeting of a Hathi.

  Schurman ran out and hastily pulled her translator back on. She had just finished powering it up when a Hathi appeared at the end of the street. She recognized Zunis, a middle-aged female. She wore magnifying goggles—the far-seers—and a complete cargo harness.

  Schurman keyed in her reply to the trumpeting, a “Who is there?” that needed no translation.

  (“CLAN-MOTHER ROBERTA AND GRANGER-BULL. A VERY WISE OLD BULL, TOO. WE HAVE THE HEALING FOOD OF GOVINCHE-BULL.”)

  Zunis threw up her trunk, flapped her ears, and came as close to dancing as any Hathi could. From outside town another trumpeting answered her.

  (“HOW MANY ARE THERE?”)

  (“THREE OF US. ME, VOULO, AND OBERON. DRINA AND KIOMBO-BULL THOUGHT YOU MIGHT WISH HELP BRINGING BACK WHAT WAS NEEDED.”)

  Schurman explained the situation and introduced Dr. Granger. He laid both of his arms in Zunis's trunk and made the human imitation of the greeting-rumbles, as formal an introduction as human and Hathi could manage without a translator.

  That took care of the formalities. Zunis brought the other two Hathis, both males just short of becoming independent, into town. All the Hathis started loading supplies into their carrying harnesses as Schurman and Granger passed them out.

  “From what I saw, there's everything we'll need except clamps.”

  “We've got some of those out at camp, and Nate can always make those if he has to.”

  Zunis recognized the name. She whuffled, then spoke. (“YES, THE KIOMBO-BULL IS VERY WISE. YOU SHOULD MATE WITH HIM. THE NEXT TIME HE IS IN HIS TIME OF STRENGTH.”)

  (“I HAVE THOUGHT ABOUT THAT, SEVERAL TIMES. LET US ALL BE ALIVE THE NEXT TIME, AND I MAY TAKE YOUR ADVICE, FOR WHICH I AM GRATEFUL.”)

  Over her shoulder, Granger was reading the translator's display. He laughed. “Three generations of Hathis, and they still think human males have musth.”

  “Dr. Granger,” Schurman said. “You are a gentleman. I would never suspect you of any such thing. But I've met enough men—well, let’s say I'm not sure that the Hathis are being entirely ethnocentric.”

  She looked at the sky. It was now completely dust-hazed, with clouds piling up beyond the dust. Rain tonight, possibly heavy, and poor visibility almost certainly.

  In fact, a blessing literally from the skies. The Hivers came from a planet with a brighter star than Earth's; their unaided vision was poorer than humans'. Augmented in any number of ways, of course, it was as good as needed, but the Hivers were still likely to need a sensor scan to pick up anything odd about the Hathis. Without that scan, they might just write the Hathis off as another variety of human domestic animal, abandoned by their panic-stricken owners.

  “You still up to riding a Hathi?” Schurman asked.

  “It's more dignified than being hauled like a calf too young to walk,” Granger said. He looked dubiously up at the three-meter gray wall of Zunis's side, then gripped the harness and started climbing.

  “Good,” Schurman said. “Now, let us execute the classic maneuver known as 'getting the Hades out of here.'”

  Day Two

  From the Book of the Clan-Mother Drina:

  AT FIRST LIGHT THE CALF OF LOSHA WAS BORN. IT WAS A FINE YOUNG BULL. SHE HAS ENOUGH MILK. THREE OF THE YOUNG COWS WILL TAKE TURNS DRAWING THE WHEELED BED WITH THE CALF UNTIL HE IS STRONG ENOUGH TO WALK BY HIMSELF.

  THIS WOULD BE SOON, IF WE DID NOT HAVE TO TAKE THE BULL-TRAIL ACROSS THE MOUNTAINS TO REACH THE FORESTS WHERE WE ARE TO HIDE WITH THE BULLS. THE TRAIL RISES SO HIGH THAT IT BECOMES COLD, ALSO, IT IS NARROW. THE BULLS SAY IT IS NOT HARD TO TRAVEL OVER IT, BUT BULLS JUDGE EVERYTHING BY WHAT THEY CAN DO THEMSELVES.

  If Schurman had ever thought of another route than the Bull-Trail over the Rhoobeck Hills, the fate of the settlement at the entrance to the Rattail Valley would have stopped her. It had been no more than half a dozen huts, with a variable population of homesteaders, squatters, tramps, or hermits (depending on whose opinion of them you listened to).

  Now the huts were ruins, still smoking faintly. Two charred bodies lay by the little stream that was the settler's water supply. That nearly stopped the Hathis' trek.

  Hathis of every age and both sexes milled around, flapping their ears, rumbling continuously, trumpeting often, sometimes seeking reassurance by touching trunks. A few of the calves even empti
ed bladder and bowels in public, but the matriarchs quickly put a stop to that and made the calves clean up after themselves.

  The matriarchs at least still held to discipline, if not necessarily to civilization.

  “Although if this is civilization--” Granger waved a hand at the wreckage--”one wonders about barbarism.”

  “I suppose the best we can claim is that we know better, not that we always do better,” Schurman said. She looked up into the hills. The cloud ceiling was low and mist seemed to be rising from the valley.

  “Poor flying weather for low-altitude visual observation,” Granger said, nodding. “At least if one is far from home and doesn't have a spare squadron of attackers to expend satisfying one's idle curiosity.”

  Schurman recognized whistle in the dark when she heard it. “Poor visibility goes both ways,” she said. “We can't see anyone sneaking up on us until they're close enough to count veins in the Hathis' ears.”

  “We wouldn't dare use active sensors even if we had them,” Granger said. “That would mark our territory for those bowlegged predators for certain.” He frowned. “Of course, that may cut both ways. They won't know if we can pick up sensor emissions, and may rely on--”

  “Are you people going to argue tactics all morning?” Kiombo called. “We have a four-hundred-meter climb to finish before it gets dark. Even the strongest bulls try to clear the trail by nightfall.”

  Kiombo stood with arms crossed on his chest. Behind him stood Drina, in the Hathi equivalent—trunk raised, ears spread just short of threat display, rumbling like an overloaded lifter.

  Schurman went over to Drina and let her pat both humans on the head, an exchange of apologies. It had been uncommonly tactful of Drina to let any bull, regardless of species, speak for her.

  (“SHALL WE BURY YOUR DEAD?”) Drina asked.

  (“AS YOU DO YOURS,”) Schurman replied. (“WE HAVE CUTTING TOOLS. IF YOU CUT THE BRANCHES, WE WILL LAY THEM ON THE BODIES. I WISH WE HAD TIME FOR MORE.”)

  They didn't really have time for even a Hathi-style burial of the settlers, but not to do that much would tell the Hathis that this was a panic flight, with danger close behind them. Schurman doubted that even some of the matriarchs could live easily with that. If the ranks of the matriarchs appeared divided, the whole trek would founder and disaster overtake the Hathis even without help from the Hivers.