by David Brin
Gailet swallowed. She bowed and seemed to have difficulty finding her voice.
You can do it, Fiben urged silently. Speechlock could strike any chim, especially under pressure like this, but he knew he dared not do anything to help her.
Gailet coughed, swallowed again, and managed to bring forth words.
“Hon-honored elder, we … we cannot speak for our patrons, or even for all the chims on Garth. What you ask is … is …”
The Suzerain spoke again, as if her reply had been complete. Or perhaps it simply was not considered impolite for a patron-class being to interrupt a client.
“You have no need — need not … to answer now,” the vodor pronounced as the Gubru chirped and bobbed on its perch. “Study — learn — consider… the materials you will be given. This opportunity will be to your advantage.”
The chirping ceased again, followed by the buzzing vodor.
The Suzerian seemed to dismiss them then, simply by closing its eyes.
As if at some signal invisible to Fiben, the pilot of the hover barge banked away from the frenzied activity atop the ravaged hilltop and sent the craft streaking back across the bay, northward, toward Port Helenia. Soon the battleship in the harbor — gigantic and imperturbable — fell behind them in its wreath of mist and rainbows.
Fiben and Gailet followed a Kwackoo to seats at the back of the barge. “What was all that about?” Fiben whispered to her. “What was the damn thing sayin’ about some sort of ceremony? What does it want us to do?”
“Sh!” Gailet motioned for him to be silent. “I’ll explain later, Fiben. Right now, please, let me think.”
Gailet settled into a corner, wrapping her arms around her knees. Absently, she scratched the fur on her left leg. Her eyes were unfocused, and when Fiben made a gesture, as if to offer to groom her, she did not even respond. She only looked off toward the horizon, as if her mind were very far away.
Back in their cell they found that many changes had been made. “I guess we passed,all those tests,” Fiben said, staring at their transformed quarters.
The chains had been taken away soon after the Suzerain’s first visit, that dark night weeks ago. After that occasion the straw on the floor had been replaced by mattresses, and they had been allowed books.
Now, though, that was made to seem Spartan, indeed. Plush carpeting had been laid down, and an expensive holo-tapestry covered most of one wall. There were such amenities as beds and chairs and a desk, and even a music deck.
“Bribes,” Fiben muttered as he sorted through some of the record cubes. “Hot damn, we’ve got something they want. Maybe the Resistance isn’t over. Maybe Athaclena and Robert are stinging them, and they want us to—”
“This hasn’t got anything to do with your general, Fiben,” Gailet said in a very low voice, barely above a whisper. “Or not much, at least. It’s a whole lot bigger than that.” Her expression was tense. All the way back, she had been silent and nervous. At times Fiben imagined he could hear wheels turning in her head.
Gailet motioned for him to follow her to the new holo wall. At the moment it was set to depict a three-dimensional scene of abstract shapes and patterns — a seemingly endless vista of glossy cubes, spheres, and pyramids stretching into the infinite distance. She sat cross-legged and twiddled with the controls. “This is an expensive unit,” she said, a little louder than necessary. “Let’s have some fun and find out what it can do.”
As Fiben sat down beside her, the Euclidean shapes blurred and vanished. The controller clicked under Gailet’s hand, and a new scene suddenly leaped into place. The wall now seemed to open onto a vast, sandy beach. Clouds filled the sky out to a lowering, gray horizon, pregnant with storms. Breakers rolled less than twenty meters away, so realistic that Fiben’s nostrils flared as he tried to catch the salt scent.
Gailet concentrated on the controls. “This may be the ticket,” he heard her mumble. The almost perfect beachscape flickered, and in its place there suddenly loomed a wall of leafy green — a jungle scene, so near and real that Fiben almost felt he could leap through and escape into its green mists, as if this were one of those mythical “teleportation devices” one read of in romantic fiction, and not just a high-quality holo-tapestry.
He contemplated the scene Gailet had chosen. Fiben could tell at once that it wasn’t a jungle of Garth. The creeper-entwined rain forest was a vibrant, lively, noisy scene, filled with color and variety. Birds cawed and howler monkeys shrieked.
Earth, then, he thought, and wondered if the Galaxy would ever let him fulfill his dream of someday seeing the homeword. Not bloody likely, the way things are.
His attention drew back as Gailet spoke. “Just let me adjust this here, to make it more realistic.” The sound level rose. Jungle noise burst forth to surround them. What is she trying to do? he wondered.
’ Suddenly he noticed something. As Gailet twiddled with the volume level, her left hand moved in a crude but eloquent gesture. Fiben blinked. It was a sign in baby talk, the hand language all infant chims used until the age of four, when speech finally became useful.
Grownups listening, she said.
Jungle sounds seemed to fill the room, reverberating from the other walls. “There,” she said in a low voice. “Now they can’t listen in on us. We can talk frankly.”
“But — ” Fiben started to object, then he saw the gesture again. Grownups listening…
Once more his respect for Gailet’s cleverness grew. Of course she knew this simple method would not stop snoopers from picking up their every word. But the Gubru and their agents might imagine the chims foolish enough to think it would! If the two of them acted as if they believed they were safe from eavesdropping…
Such a tangled web we weave, Fiben thought. This was real spy stuff. Fun, in a way.
It was also, he knew, dangerous as hell.
“The Suzerain of Propriety has a problem,” Gailet told him aloud. Her hands lay still on her lap.
“It told you that? But if the Gubru are in trouble, why—”
“I didn’t say the Gubru — although I think that’s true, as well. I was talking about the Suzerain of Propriety itself. It’s having troubles with its peers. The priest seriously overcom-mitted itself in a certain matter, some time back, and now it seems there’s hell to pay over it.”
Fiben just sat there, amazed that the lofty alien lord had deigned to tell an earthworm of a Terran client such things. He wasn’t comfortable with the idea. Such confidences were likely to be unhealthy. “What were these overcommitments?” he asked.
“Well, for one thing,” Gailet went on, scratching her kneecap, “some months ago it insisted that many parties of Talon Soldiers and scientists be sent up into the mountains.”
“What for?”
Gailet’s face took on an expression of severe control. “They were sent searching for … for Garthlings.”
“For what?” Fiben blinked. He started to laugh. Then he cut short when he saw the warning flicker in her eyes. The hand scratching her knee curled and turned in a motion that signified caution.
“For Garthlings,” she repeated.
Of all the superstitious nonsense, Fiben thought. Ignorant, yellow-card chims use Garthling fables to frighten their children. It was rich to think of the sophisticated Gubru falling for such tall tales.
Gailet did not seem to find the idea amusing, though.
“You can imagine why the Suzerain would be excited, Fiben, once it had reason to believe Garthlings might exist. Imagine what a fantastic coup it would be for any clan who claimed adoption rights on a pre-sentient race that had survived the Bururalli Holocaust. Immediate takeover of Earth’s tenancy rights here would be the very least of the consequences.”
Fiben saw her point. “But… but what in the world made it think in the first place, that—”
“It seems our Tymbrimi Ambassador, Uthacalthing, was largely responsible for the Suzerain’s fixation, Fiben. You remember that day of the chancery explosio
n, when you tried to break into the Tymbrimi Diplomatic Cache?”
Fiben opened his mouth. He closed it again. He tried to think. What kind of game was Gailet playing now?
The Suzerain of Propriety obviously knew that he, Fiben, was the chim who had been sighted ducking through the smoke and stench of fried Gubru clerical workers on the day of the explosion at the one-time Tymbrimi Embassy. It knew Fiben was the one who had played a frustrated game of tag with the cache guardian, and who later escaped over a cliff face under the very beaks of a squad of Talon Soldiers.
Did it know because Gailet had told it? If so,’ had she also told the Suzerain about the secret message Fiben had found in the back of the cache and delivered to Athaclena?
He could not ask her these things. The warning look in her eyes kept him silent. I hope she knows what she’s doing, he prayed fervently. Fiben felt clammy under his arms. He brushed a bead of sweaf from his eyebrow. “Go on,” he said in a dry voice.
“Your visit invalidated diplomatic immunity and gave the Gubru the excuse they were looking for, to break into the cache. Then the Gubru had what they thought was a real stroke of luck. The cache autodestruct partially failed. There was evidence inside, Fiben, evidence pertaining to private investigations into the Garthling question by the Tymbrimi Ambassador.”
“By Uthacalthing? But …” And then it hit Fiben. He stared at Gailet, goggle-eyed. Then he doubled over, coughing as he fought not to laugh out loud. Hilarity was like a head of steam in his chest, a force in its own right, barely contained. A sudden, brief spell of speechlock was actually a blessing, as it kept Gailet from having to shush him. He coughed some more and slapped his chest. “Excuse me,” he said in a small voice.
“The Gubru now believe that the evidence was contrived, a clever ruse,” she went on.
No kidding, Fiben thought silently.
“In addition to faked data, Uthacalthing also arranged to have the Planetary Library stripped of its Uplift files, making it seem to the Suzerain as if something was being hidden. It cost the Gubru a lot to find out that Uthacalthing had tricked them. A research-class Planetary Library was shipped in, for instance. And they lost quite a few scientists and soldiers up in the mountains before they figured it out.”
“Lost them?” Fiben sat forward. “Lost how?”
“Chim irregulars,” Gailet answered tersely. And again there was that warning look. Come on, Gailet, he thought. I’m not an idiot. Fiben knew better than to refer in any way to Robert or Athaclena. He shied away from even thinking about them.
Still, he couldn’t quite suppress a smile. So that was why the Kwackoo had been so polite! If chims were waging intelligent war, and by the official rules at that, then all chims had to be treated with some minimal degree of respect.
“The mountain chims survived that first day! They must’ve stung the invaders, and kept stingin’ “em!” He knew he was free to vent a bit of exultation. It would only be keeping in character.
Gailet’s smile was -thin. This news must have given rise to mixed feelings. After all, her own part of the insurrection had gone very much worse.
So, Fiben thought, Uthacalthing s elaborate ruse persuaded the Gubru that there was something on the planet at least as important as the colony’s value as hostage. Garthlings! Imagine that. They went up into the mountains chasing a myth. And somehow the general found a way to hurt them as soon as they came within reach.
Oh, I’m sorry for all those things I thought about her old man. What a great jape, Uthacalthing!
But now the invaders are wise to it. I wonder if…
Fiben glanced up and saw that Gailet was watching him intently, as if gauging his very thoughts. At last Fiben understood one of the reasons why she could not be completely open and frank with him.
We have to make a decision, he realized. Should we try to lie to the Gubru?
He and Gailet might make the attempt, try to prop up Uthacalthing’s practical joke for just a while longer. They might succeed in convincing the Suzerain just one more time to go off hunting mythical Garthlings. It would be worth the effort if it drew even one more party of Gubru within reach of the mountain fighters.
But did either he or Gailet have anywhere near enough sophistication to pull off such a ruse? What would it take? He could just picture it. Oh yes, massa, there is Garthlin’s after all, yes boss. You can believe brer chim, yassa.
Or, alternatively, they could try reverse psychology. D-o-o-on’t throw me in dat briar patch… !
Neither approach at all resembled the way Uthacalthing had done it, of course. The tricky Tymbrimi had played a game of subtle, colubrine misdirection. Fiben did not even toy with the idea of trying to operate on so sophisticated a plane.
And anyway, if he and Gailet were caught trying to lie to the Gubru, it could very well disqualify the two of them from whatever special status the Suzerain of Propriety seemed to be offering this afternoon. Fiben had no idea what the creature wanted of them, but it just might mean a chance to find out what the invaders were building out there by the Sea of Cilmar. That could be vital information.
No, it just wasn’t worth the risk, Fiben decided.
Now he faced another problem, how to communicate these thoughts to Gailet.
“Even the most sophisticated sophont race can make mistakes,” he said slowly, enunciating carefully. “Especially when they are on a strange world.” Pretending to look for a flea, he shaped the baby talk sign for Game finished now?
Obviously Gailet agreed. She nodded firmly. “The mistake, is over now. They’re sure Garthlings are a myth. The Gubru are convinced it was just a Tymbrimi trap. Anyway, I get ah impression the other Suzerains — the ones that share command with the high priest — won’t allow any more pointless forays into the mountains, where they can be potshotted by guerrillas.”
Fiben’s head jerked up. His heart pounded for a few, quick moments. Then it came to him what Gailet had meant… how the last word she had spoken was intended to be spelled. Homonyms were one of many awkward drawbacks modern Anglic had inherited from old-style English, Chinese, and Japanese. While Galactic languages had been carefully designed to maximize information content and eliminate ambiguity, wolfling tongues had evolved rough and wild, with lots of idiosyncrasies, such as words with identical sounds but different meanings.
Fiben found his fists had clenched. He forced himself to relax. Guerrillas, not gorillas. She doesn’t know about the clandestine Uplift project in the mountains, Fiben reassured himself. She has no idea how ironic her remark sounded.
One more reason, though, to end Uthacalthing’s “joke” once and for all. The Tymbrimi could not have been any more aware of the Howletts Center than his daughter. Had he known about the secret work there, Uthacalthing would certainly have chosen a different ruse, not one meant to send the Gubru into those very same mountains.
The Gubru must not go back into the Mulun, Fiben realized. It’s only luck they haven’t already discovered the ’rillas.
“Stupid birds,” he muttered, playing to Gailet’s line. “Imagine them falling for a dumb, wolfling folk tale. After Garthlings, what’ll they go after next? Peter Pan?”
Superficially, Gailet’s expression was reproving. “You must try to be more respectful, Fiben.” Underneath, though, he felt a strong current of approval. They might not have the same reasons, but they were in agreement this far. Uthacalthing’s joke was over.
“What they’re going after next, Fiben, is us.”
He blinked. “Us?”
She nodded. “I’m guessing the war isn’t going very well for the Gubru. Certainly they haven’t found the dolphin ship that everyone’s chasing, over on the other side of the Galaxy. And taking Garth hostage doesn’t seem to have budged Earth or the Tymbrimi. I’d bet it only stiffened the resistance, and gained Terra some sympathy among former neutrals.”
Fiben frowned. It had been so long since he had thought about the larger scope — about the turmoil raging all across the Five Ga
laxies — about the Streaker — about the siege of Terra. Just how much did Gailet know, and how much was mere speculation?
In the nearby weather wall, a big black bird with a huge, gaily colored bill was depicted landing in a rustle very close to the carpet where Fiben and Gailet sat. It stepped forward and seemed to regard Fiben, first with one eye, then the other. The Toucan reminded him of the Suzerain of Propriety. Fiben shivered.
“Anyway,” Gailet went on, “the enterprise here on Garth seems to be a drain on their resources that the Gubru can’t afford too well, especially if peace does return to Galactic society, and the Institute for Civilized Warfare makes them give the planet back in only a few decades or so. I figure they re looking real hard for some way to make a profit out of all this.”
Fiben had an inspiration. “All that construction by South Point is part of that, right? It’s part of the Suzerain’s plan to save his hash.”
Gailet’s lips pursed. “Colorfully put. Have you figured out what it is they’re building?”
The multicolored bird on the branch cawed sharply and seemed to be laughing at Fiben. But when he glanced sharply that way it had already returned to the serious business of picking through the imaginary detritus on the forest floor. Fiben looked back at Gailet. “You tell me,” he said.
“I’m not sure I can remember well enough to translate what the Suzerain said. I was pretty nervous, you’ll remember.” Her eyes closed for a moment. “Would — would a hyperspace shunt mean anything to you?”
The bird in the wall took off in an explosion of feathers and leaves as Fiben leaped to his feet, backing more than a meter away. He stared down at Gailet in disbelief.
“A what? But that’s… that’s crazy! Build a shunt on the surface of a planet? It’s just not—”
Then he stopped, remembering the great marble bowl, the mammoth power plants. Fiben’s lips quivered and his hands came together, pulling on opposite thumbs. In this way, Fiben reminded himself that he was officially almost the equal of a man — that he. should be able to think like one when facing such incredible improbability. “What …” He whispered, licked his lips, and concentrated on the words. “What’s it for?”