The Uplift War u-3

by David Brin

  20

  Galactics

  To the fleet admiral — the Suzerain of Beam and Talon — the argument sounded silly. But of course that was always the way of it among civilians. Priests and bureaucrats always argued. It was the fighters who believed in action!

  Still, the admiral had to admit that it was thrilling to take part in their first real policy debate as a threesome. This was the way Truth was traditionally attained among the Gubru, through stress and disagreement, persuasion and dance, until finally a new consensus was reached.

  And eventually…

  The Suzerain of Beam and Talon shook aside the thought. It was much too soon to begin contemplating the Molt. There would be many more arguments, much jostling and maneuvering for the highest perch, before that day arrived.

  As for this first debate, the admiral was pleased to find itself in the position of arbiter between its two bickering peers. This was a good way to begin.

  The Terrans at the small spaceport had issued a well-written formal challenge. The Suzerain of Propriety insisted that Talon Soldiers must be sent to overcome the defenders in close combat. The Suzerain of Cost and Caution did not agree. For some time they circled each other on the dais of the flagship’s bridge, eyeing each other and squawking pronouncements of argument.

  “Expenses must be kept low!

  Low enough that we need not,

  Need not burden other fronts!”

  The Suzerain of Cost and Caution thus insisted that this expedition was only one of many engagements currently sapping the strength of the clan of Gooksyu-Gubru. In fact, it was rather a side-battle. Matters were tense across the Galactic spiral. In such times, it was the job of the Suzerain of Cost and Caution to protect the clan from overextending itself.

  The Suzerain of Propriety huffed its feathers indignantly in response.

  “What shall expense matter,

  mean,

  signify,

  stand for, if we fall,

  topple,

  drop,

  plummet from grace

  in the eyes of our Ancestrals?

  We must do what is right! Zoooon!”

  Observing from its own perch of command, the Suzerain of Beam and Talon watched the struggle to see if any clear patterns of dominance were about to manifest themselves. It was thrilling to hear and see the excellent argument-dances performed by those who had been chosen to be the admiral’s mates. All three of them represented the finest products of “hot-egg” engineering, designed to bring out the best qualities of the race.

  Soon, it was obvious that its peers had reached a stalemate. It would be up to Suzerain of Beam and Talon to decide.

  It certainly would be less costly if the expeditionary force could simply ignore the insolent wolflings below until the hostage gas forced them to surrender. Or, with a simple order, their redoubt could be reduced to slag. But the Suzerain of Propriety refused to accept either option. Such actions would be catastrophic, the priest insisted.

  The bureaucrat was just as adamant not to waste good soldiers on what would be essentially a gesture.

  Deadlocked, the two other commanders eyed the Suzerain of Beam and Talon as they circled and squawked, fluffing their glowing white down. Finally, the admiral ruffled its own plumage and stepped onto the dais to join them.

  “To engage in ground combat would cost,

  would mean expense.

  But it would be honorable,

  admirable.

  “A third factor decides,

  swings the final vote.

  That is the training need of

  Talon Soldiers.

  Training against wolfling troops.

  “Ground forces shall attack them, beam to beam, hand to talon.”

  The issue was decided. A stoop-colonel of the Talon Soldiers saluted and hurried off with the order.

  Of course with this resolution Propriety’s perch position would rise a little. Caution’s descended. But the quest for dominance had only just begun.

  So it had been for their distant ancestors, before the Gooksyu turned the primitive proto-Gubru into starfarers. Wisely, their patrons had taken the ancient patterns and shaped and expanded them into a useful, logical form of government for a sapient people.

  Still, part of the older function remained. The Suzerain of Beam and Talon shivered as the tension of argument was released. And although all three of them were still quite neuter, the admiral felt a momentary thrill that was deeply, thoroughly sexual.

  21

  Fiben and Robert

  The two rescue parties encountered each other more than a mile into the high pass. It was a somber gathering. The three who had started out that morning with Benjamin were too tired to do more than nod to the subdued group returning from the crash site.

  But the battered pair who had been rescued exclaimed on seeing each other.

  “Robert! Robert Oneagle! When did they let you out of study hall? Does your mommy know where you are?”

  The’ injured chim leaned on a makeshift crutch and wore the singed remains of a tattered TAASF ship-suit. Robert looked up at him from the stretcher and grinned through an anesthetic haze.

  “Fiben! In Goodall’s name, was that you I saw smokin’ out of the sky? Figures. What’d you do, fry ten megacredits’ worth of scoutboat?”

  Fiben rolled his eyes. “More like five megs. She was an old tub, even if she did all right by me.”

  Robert felt a strange envy. “So? I guess we got whomped.”

  “You could say that. One on one we fought well. Would’ve been all right if there’d been enough of us.”

  Robert knew what his friend meant. “You mean there’s no limit to what could’ve been accomplished wjth—”

  “With an infinite number of monkeys?” Fiben cut in. His snort was a little less than a laugh but more than an ironic grin.

  The other chims blinked in consternation. This level of banter was a bit over their heads, but what was more disturbing was how blithely this chen interrupted the human son of the Planetary Coordinator!

  “I wish I could’ve been there with you,” Robert said seriously.

  Fiben shrugged. “Yeah, Robert. I know. But we all had orders.” For a long moment they were silent. Fiben knew Megan Oneagle well enough, and he sympathized with Robert.

  “Well I guess we’re both due for a stint in the mountains, assigned to holdin’ down beds and harassing nurses.” Fiben sighed, gazing toward the south. “If we can stand the fresh air, that is.” He looked down to Robert. “These chims told me about the raid on the Center. Scary stuff.”

  “Clennie’ll help ’em straighten things out,” Robert answered. His attention had started to drift. They obviously had him doped to a dolphin’s blowhole. “She knows a lot … a lot more’n she thinks she does.”

  Fiben had heard about the daughter of the Tymbrimi ambassador. “Sure,” he said softly, as the others lifted the stretcher once again. “An Eatee’ll straighten things out. More Hkely’n not, that girl friend of yours will have everybody thrown in the clink, invasion or no invasion!”

  But Robert was now far away. And Fiben had a sudden strange impression. It was as if the human mel’s visage was not entirely Terran any longer. His dreamy smile was distant and touched with something… unearthly.

  22

  Athaclena

  A large number of chims returned to the Center, drifting in from the forest where they had been sent to hide. Frederick and Benjamin set them to work dismantling and burning the buildings and their contents. Athaclena and her two assistants hurried from site to site, carefully recording everything before it was put to the.torch.

  It was hard work. Never in her life as a diplomat’s daughter had Athaclena felt so exhausted. And yet she dared not let any scrap of evidence go undocumented. It was a matter of duty.

  About an hour before dusk a contingent of gorillas trooped into the encampment, larger, darker, more crouched and feral-looking than their chim guardians. Under careful
direction they took up simple tasks, helping to demolish the only home they had ever known.

  The confused creatures watched as their Training and Testing Center and the Clients’ Quarters melted into slag. A few even tried to halt the destruction, stepping in front of the smaller, soot-covered chims and waving vigorous hand signs — trying to tell them that this was a bad thing.

  Athaclena could see how, by their lights, it wasn’t logical. But then, the affairs of patron-class beings often did seem foolish.

  Finally, the big pre-clients were left standing amid eddies of smoke with small piles of personal possessions — toys, mementos, and simple tools — piled at their feet. They stared blankly at the wreckage, not knowing what to do.

  By dusk Athaclena had been nearly worn down by the emotions that fluxed through the compound. She sat on a tree stump, upwind of the burning clients’ quarters, listening to the great apes’ low, chuffing moans. Her aides slumped nearby with their cameras and bags of samples, staring at the destruction, the whites of their eyes reflecting the flickering flames.

  Athaclena withdrew her corona until all she could henn was the Unity Glyph — the coalescence to which all the beings within the forest valley contributed. And even that under-image wavered, flickered. She saw it metaphorically — weepy, drooping, like a sad flag of many colors.

  There was honor here, she admitted reluctantly. These scientists had been violating a treaty, but they couldn’t be accused of doing anything truly unnatural.

  By any real measure, gorillas were as ready for Uplift as chimpanzees had been, a hundred Earth years before Contact. Humans had been forced to make compromises, back when Contact brought them into the domain of Galactic society. Officially, the tenancy treaty which sanctioned their rights to their homeworld was intended to see to it that Earth’s fallow species list was maintained, so its stock of Potential for sentience would not be used up too quickly.

  But everyone knew that, in spite of primitive man’s legendary penchant for genocide, the Earth was still a shining example of genetic diversity, rare in the range of types and forms that had been left untouched by Galactic civilization.

  Anyway… when a pre-sentient race was ready for Uplift, it was ready!

  No, clearly the treaty had been forced on humans while they were weak. They were allowed to claim neo-dolphins and neo-chimps — species already well on the road to sapiency before Contact. But the senior clans weren’t about to let Homo sapiens go uplifting more clients than anybody else around!

  Why, that would have given wolflings the status of senior patrons!

  Athaclena sighed.

  It wasn’t fair, certainly. But that did not matter. Galactic society depended on oaths kept. A treaty was a solemn vow, species to species. Violations could not go unreported.

  Athaclena wished her father were here. Uthacalthing would know what to make of the things she had witnessed here — the well-intended work of this illegal center, and the vile but perhaps legal actions of the Gubru.

  Uthacalthing was far away, though, too far even to touch within the Empathy Net. All she could tell was that his special rhythm still vibrated faintly on the nahakieri level. And while it was comforting to close her eyes and inner ears and gently kenn it, that faint reminder of him told her little. Nahakieri essences could linger longer after a person left this life, as they had for her dead mother, Mathicluanna. They floated like the songs of Earth-whales, at the edges of what might be known by creatures who lived by hands and fire.

  “Excuse me, ma’am.” A voice that was hardly more than a raspy growl broke harshly over the faint under-glyph, dispersing it- Athaclena shook her head. She opened her eyes to see a neo-chimp with soot-covered fur and shoulders stooped from exhaustion.

  “Ma’am? You all right?”

  “Yes. I am fine. What is it?” Anglic felt harsh in her throat, already irritated from smoke and fatigue.

  “Directors wanna see you, ma’am.”

  A spendthrift with words, this one. Athaclena slid down from the stump. Her aides groaned, chim-theatrically, as they gathered their tapes and samples and followed behind.

  Several lift-lorries stood at the loading dock. Chims and gorillas carried stretchers onto flyers, which then lifted off into the gathering night on softly humming gravities. Their lights faded away into the direction of Port Helenia.

  “I thought all the children and elderly were already evacuated. Why are you still loading humans in such a hurry?”

  The messenger shrugged. The stresses of the day had robbed many of the chims of much of their accustomed spark. Athaclena was sure that it was only the presence of the gorillas — who had to be set an example — that prevented a mass attack of stress-atavism. In so young a client race it was surprising the chims had done so well.

  Orderlies hurried to and from the hospital facility, but they seldom bothered the two human directors directly. The neo-chimp scientist, Dr. Schultz, stood in front of them and seemed to be handling most matters himself. At his side, Chim Frederick had been replaced by Athaclena’s old traveling companion, Benjamin.

  On the stage nearby lay a small pile of documents and record cubes containing the genealogy and genetic record of every gorilla who had ever lived here.

  “Ah, respected Tymbrimi Athaclena.” Schultz spoke with hardly a trace of the usual chim growl. He bowed, then shook her hand in the manner preferred by his people — a full clasp which emphasized the opposable thumb.

  “Please excuse our poor hospitality,” he pleaded. “We had intended to serve a special supper from the main kitchen… sort of a grand farewell. But we’ll have to make do with canned rations instead, I’m afraid.”

  A small chimmie approached carrying a platter stacked with an array of containers.

  “Dr. Elayne Soo is our nutritionist,” Schultz continued. “She tells me you might find these delicacies palatable.”

  Athaclena stared at the cans. Koothra! Here, five hundred parsecs from home, to find an instant pastry made in her own hometown! Unable to help it, she laughed aloud.

  “We have placed a full load of these, plus other supplies, aboard a flitter for you. We recommend you abandon’ the craft soon after leaving here, of course. It won’t be long before the Gubru have their own satellite network in place, and thereafter air traffic will be impractical.”

  “It won’t be dangerous to fly toward Port Helenia,” Athaclena pointed out. “The Gubru will expect an influx for many days, as people seek antidote treatments.” She motioned at the frantic pace of activity. “So why the near-panic I sense here? Why are you evacuating the humans so quickly? Who… ?”

  Looking as if he feared to interrupt her, Schultz nevertheless cleared his throat and shook his head meaningfully. Benjamin gave Athaclena a pleading look.

  “Please, ser,” Schultz implored with a low voice. “Please speak softly. Most of our chims haven’t really guessed …” He let the sentence hang.

  Athaclena felt a cold thrill along her ruff. For the first time she looked closely at the two human directors, Taka and M’Bzwelli. They had remained silent all along, nodding as if understanding and approving everything being said.

  The black woman, Dr. Taka, smiled at her, unblinkingly. Athaclena’s corona reached out, then curled back in revulsion.

  She whirled on Schultz. “You are killing her!”

  Schultz nodded miserably. “Please, ser. Softly. You are right, of course. I have drugged my dear friends, so they can put up a good front until my few good chim administrators can finish here and get our people away without a panic. It was at their own insistence. Dr. Taka and Dr. M’Bzwelli felt they were slipping away too quickly from effects of the gas.” He added sadly, weakly.

  “You did not have to obey them! This is murder!”

  Benjamin looked stricken. Schultz nodded. “It was not easy. Chim Frederick was unable to bear the shame even this long and has sought his own peace. I, too, would probably take my life soon, were my death not already as inevitable as my huma
n colleagues.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “I mean that the Gubru do not appear to be very good chemists!” The elderly neo-chimp laughed bitterly, finishing with a cough. “Their gas is killing some of the humans. It acts faster than they said it would. Also, it seems to be affecting a few of us chims.”

  Athaclena sucked in her breath. “I see.” She wished she did not.

  “There is another matter we thought you should know about,” Schultz said. “A news report from the invaders. Unfortunately, it was in Galactic Three; the Gubru spurn Anglic and our translation program is primitive. But we know it regarded your father.”

  Athaclena felt removed, as if she were hovering above it all. In this state her numbed senses gathered in random details. She could kenn the simple forest ecosystem — little native animals creeping back into the valley, wrinkling their noses at the pungent dust, avoiding the area near the Center for the fires that still flickered there.

  “Yes.” She nodded, a borrowed gesture that all at once felt alien again. “Tell me.”

  Schultz cleared his throat. “Well, it seems your father’s star cruiser was sighted leaving the planet. It was chased by warships. The Gubru say that it did not reach the Transfer Point.

  “Of course one cannot trust what they say. …”

  Athaclena’s hips rocked slightly out of joint as she swayed from side to side. Tentative mourning — like a trembling of the lips as a human girl might begin to sense desolation.

  No. I will not contemplate this now. Later. I will decide later what to feel.

  “Of course you may have whatever aid we can offer,” Chim Schultz continued quietly. “Your flitter has weapons, as well as food. You may fly to where your friend, Robert Oneagle, has been taken, if you wish.

  “We hope, however, that you will choose to remain with the evacuation for a time, at least until the gorillas are safely hidden in the mountains, under the care of some qualified humans who might have escaped.”