by David Brin
This time the Gubru’s shriek was positively painful to the ear. Gailet tried once again to step forward, but Irongrip held her arm tightly. She was forced to stand there, listening to the Probationer’s muttered curses.
The Serentini official spoke at last. “Although I am sympathetic, I cannot see how I can allow your request. Without precedent—”
“But there is precedent!”
It was a new, deep voice, coming from the dim slope behind the officials. From the crowd of Galactic visitors four figures now emerged into the light, and if Gailet had felt surprise before, now she could only stare in disbelief.
Uthacalthing!
The slender Tymbrimi was accompanied by a bearded human mel whose ill-fitting formal robe had probably been borrowed from some bipedal but not quite humanoid Galactic and was thrown over what seemed to be animal skins. Beside the young man walked a neo-chimp who had obvious trouble standing completely erect and who bore many of the stigmata of atavism. The chim hung back when they approached the clearing, as if he knew he did not belong on this ground.
It was the fourth being — a towering figure whose bright, inflated crest ballooned upward in dignity — who bowed casually and addressed the Grand Examiner.
“I see you, Cough*Quinn’3 of the Uplift Institute.”
The Serentini bowed back. “I see you, honored Ambassador Kault of the Thennanin, and you, Uthacalthing of the Tymbrimi, and your companions. It is pleasant to witness your safe arrival.”
The big Thennanin spread his arms apart. “I thank your honor for allowing me to use your transmitting facilities to contact my clan, after so long an enforced isolation.”
“This is neutral ground,” the Uplift official said. “I also know that there are serious matters regarding this planet which you wish to press with the Institute, once this ceremony is at an end.
“But for now, I must insist we maintain pertinence. Will you please explain the remark you made on your arrival?”
Kault gestured toward Uthacalthing. “This respected envoy represents the race which has served as stage consort and protector to the neo-chimpanzees ever since their wolfling patrons encountered Galactic society. I shall let him tell you.”
All at once Gailet noticed how tired Uthacalthing looked. The tym’s usually expressive tendrils lay flat, and his eyes were set close together. It was with obvious effort that he stepped forward and offered a small, black cube. “Here are the references,” he began.
A robot came forward and plucked the data out of his hand. From that instant the Institute’s staff would be inspecting the citations. The Examiner herself listened attentively to Uthacalthing.
“The references will show that, very early in Galactic history, Uplift Ceremonies evolved out of the Progenitors’ desire to protect themselves from moral fault. They who began the process we now know as Uplift frequently consulted with their client races, as humans do with theirs, today. And the clients’ representatives were never imposed upon them.”
Uthacalthing gestured toward the assembled chims.
“Strictly speaking, the ceremonial sponsors are making a suggestion, when they make their selection. The clients, having passed all the tests appropriate to their stage, are legally permitted to ignore the choice. In the purest sense, this plateau is their territory. We are here as their guests.”
Gailet saw that the Galactic observers were agitated. Many consulted their own datawells, accessing the precedents Uthacalthing had provided. Polylingual chatter spread around the periphery. A new floater arrived, carrying several Gubru and a portable communications unit. Obviously, the invaders were doing furious research of their own.
All this time the power of the hyperspace shunt could be felt building just upsjope. The low rumbling was now omnipresent, making Gailet’s tendons quiver in imposed rhythm.
The Grand Examiner turned to the nominal human official, Cordwainer Appelbe. “In the name of your clan, do you support this request for a departure from normal procedure?”
Appelbe bit his lower lip. He looked at Uthacalthing, then at Fiben, then back at the Tymbrimi Ambassador. Then, for the first time, the man actually smiled. “Hell, yes! I sure do!” he said in Anglic. Then he blushed and switched to carefully phrased Galactic Seven. “In the name of my clan, I support Ambassador Uthacalthing’s request.”
The Examiner turned away to hear a report from her staff. When she came back the entire hillside was hushed. Suspense held them all riveted until she bowed to Fiben.
“Precedent is, indeed, interpretable in favor of your request. Shall I ask your comrades to indicate their choice by hand? Or by secret ballot?”
“Right!” came an Anglic whisper. The young human who had accompanied Uthacalthing grinned and gave Fiben a thumbs-up sign. Fortunately, none of the Gajactics were looking that way to witness the impertinence.
Fiben forced a serious expression and bowed again. “Oh, a hand vote will do nicely, your honor. Thank you.”
Gailet was more bemused than anything as the election was held. She tried hard to decline her own nomination, but the same captation, the same implacable force that had kept her from speaking earlier made her unable to withdraw her name. She was chosen unanimously.
The contest for male representative was straightforward as well. Fiben faced Irongrip, looking calmly up into the tall Probationer’s fierce eyes. Gailet found that the best she could make herself do was abstain, causing several of the others to look at her in surprise.
Nevertheless, she almost sobbed with relief when the poll came in nine to three … in favor of Fiben Bolger. When he finally approached, Gailet sagged into his arms and sobbed.
“There. There,” he said. And it wasn’t so much the cliche as the sound of his voice that comforted her. “I told you I’d come back, didn’t I?”
She sniffed and rubbed away tears as she nodded. One cliche deserved another. She touched his cheek, and her voice was only slightly sardonic as she said, “My hero.”
The other chims — all except the outnumbered Probies — gathered around, pressing close in a jubilant mass. For the first time it began to look as if the ceremony just might turn into a celebration after all.
They formed ranks, two by two, behind Fiben and Gailet, and started forth along the final path toward the pinnacle where, quite soon, there would be a physical link from this world to spaces far, far away.
That was when a shrill whistle echoed over the small plateau. A new hover car landed in front of the chims, blocking their path. “Oh, no,” Fiben groaned. For he instantly recognized the barge carrying the three Suzerains of the Gubru invasion force.
The Suzerain of Propriety looked dejected. It drooped on its perch, unable to lift its head even to look down at them. The other two rulers, however, hopped nimbly onto the ground and tersely addressed the Examiner.
“We, as well, wish to present, offer, bring forward … a precedent!”
91
Fiben
How easily is defeat snatched from the jaws of victory?
Fiben wondered about that as he stripped out of his formal robe and allowed two of the chims to rub oil into his shoulders. He stretched and tried to hope that he would remember enough from his old wrestling days to make a difference.
I’m too old for this, he thought. And it’s been a long, hard day.
The Gubru hadn’t been kidding when they gleefully announced that they had found an out. Gailet tried to explain it to him while he got ready. As usual, it all seemed to have to do with an abstraction,
“As I see it, Fiben, the Galactics don’t reject the idea of evolution itself, just evolution of intelligence. They believe in something like what we used to call “Darwinism” for creatures all the way up to pre-sentients. What’s more, it’s assumed that nature is wise in the way she forces every species to demonstrate its fitness in the wild.”
Fiben sighed. “Please get to the point, Gailet. Just tell me why I have to go face to face against that momzer. Isn’t trial-by-comb
at pretty silly, even by Eatee standards?”
She shook her head. For a little while she had seemed to suffer from speechlock. But that had disappeared as her mind slipped into the familiar pedantic mode.
“No, it isn’t. Not if you look at it carefully. You see, one of the risks a patron race runs in uplifting a new client species all the way to starfaring intelligence is that by meddling too much it may deprive the client of its essence, of the very fitness that made it a candidate for Uplift in the first place.”
“You mean—”
“I mean that the Gubru can accuse humans of doing this to chims, and the only way to disprove it is by showing that we can still be passionate, and tough, and physically strong.”
“But I thought all those tests—”
Gailet shook her head. “They showed that everyone on this plateau meets the criteria for Stage Three. Even” — Gailet grimaced as she seemed to have to fight for the words — “even those Probies are superior, at least in most of the ways Institute regulations test for. They’re only deficient by our own, quaint, Earth standards.”
“Such as decency and body odor. Yeah. But I still don’t get—”
“Fiben, the Institute really doesn’t care who actually steps into the shunt, not once we’ve passed all its tests. If the Gubru want our male race-representative to prove he’s better by one more criterion — that of ‘fitness’ — well it’s precedented all right. In fact, it’s been done more often than voting.”
Across the small clearing, Irongrip flexed and grinned back at Fiben, backed up by his two confederates. Weasel and Steelbar joked with the powerful Probationer chief, laughing confidently over this sudden swerve in their favor.
Now it was Fiben’s turn to shake his head and mutter lowly. “Goodall, what a way to run a galaxy. Maybe Pratha-chulthorn was right after all.”
“What was that, Fiben?”
“Nothin’,” he said as he saw the referee, a Pila Institute official, approach the center of the ring. Fiben turned to meet Gailet’s eyes. “Just tell me you’ll marry me if I win.”
“But — ” She blinked, then nodded. Gailet seemed about to say something else, but that look came over her again, as if she simply could not find the phrases. She shivered, and in a strange, distant voice she managed to choke out five words.
“Kill — him — for — me, Fiben.”
It was not feral bloodlust, that look in her eyes, but something much deeper. Desperation.
Fiben nodded- He suffered no illusions over what Irongrip intended for him.
The referee called them forward. There would be no weapons. There would be no rules. Underground the rumbling had turned into a hard, angry growl, and the zone of “nonspace overhead flickered at the edges, as if with deadly lightning.
It began with a slow circling as Fiben and his opponent faced each other warily, sidestepping a complete circuit of the arena. Nine of the other chims stood on the upslope side, alongside Uthacalthing and Kault and Robert Oneagle. Opposite them, the Gubru and Irongrip’s two compatriots watched. The various Galactic observers and officials of the Uplift Institute took up the intervening arcs.
Weasel and Steelbar made fist signs to their leader and bared their teeth. “Go get ’im, Fiben,” one of the other chims urged. All of the ornate ritual, all of the arcane and ancient tradition and science had come to this, then. This was the way Mother Nature finally got to cast the tie-breaking vote.
“Be-gin!” The Pila referee’s sudden shout struck Fiben’s ears as an ultrasonic squeal an instant before the vodor boomed.
Irongrip was quick. He charged straight ahead, and Fiben almost decided too late that the maneuver was a feint. He started to dodge to the left, and at barely the last moment changed directions, striking out with his trailing foot.
The blow did not finish in the satisfying crunch he’d hoped for, but Irongrip did cry out and reel away, holding his ribs. Unfortunately, Fiben was thrown off balance and could not follow up his brief opportunity. In seconds it was gone as Irongrip moved forward again, more warily this time, with murder written in his eyes.
Some days it just doesn’t pay to get out of bed, Fiben thought as they resumed circling.
Actually, today had begun when he awoke in the notch of a tree, a few miles outside the walls of Port Helenia, where plate ivy parachutes festooned the stripped branches of a winter-barren orchard…
Irongrip jabbed, then punched out with a hard right. Fiben ducked under his opponent’s arm and riposted with a backhand blow. It was blocked, and the bones of their forearms made a loud crack as they met.
… The Talon Soldiers had shown grudging courtesy, so he rode Tycho hard until he arrived at the old prison…
A fist whistled past Fiben’s ear like a cannonball. Fiben stepped inside the outstretched arm and swiveled to plant his elbow into his enemy’s exposed stomach.
… Staring at the abandoned room, he had known that there was very little time left. Tycho had galloped through the deserted streets, a flower dangling from his mouth…
The jab wasn’t hard enough. Worse, he was too slow to duck aside as Irongrip’s arm folded fast to come around to cross his throat.
… and the docks had been filled with chims — they lined the wharves, the buildings, the streets, staring…
A crushing constriction threatened to cut off his breath. Fiben crouched, dropping his right foot backward between his opponent’s legs. He tensed in one direction until Irongrip counterbalanced, then Fiben whirled and threw his weight the other way while he kicked out. Irongrip’s right leg slipped out from under him, and his own straining overbalance threw Fiben up and over. The Probationer’s incredible grasp held for an astonishing instant, tearing loose only along with shreds of Fiben’s flesh.
… He traded his horse for a boat, and headed across the bay, toward the barrier buoys…
Blood streamed from Fiben’s torn throat. The gash had missed his jugular vein by half an inch. He backed away when he saw how quickly Irongrip found his feet again. It was downright intimidating how fast the chen could move.
… He fought a mental battle with the buoys, earning — through reason — the right to pass through…
Irongrip bared his teeth, spread his long arms, and let out a blood-curdling shriek. The sight and sound seemed to pierce Fiben like a memory of battles fought long, long before chims ever flew starships, when intimidation had been half of any victory.
“You can do it, Fiben!” Robert Oneagle cried, countering Irongrip’s threat magic. “Come on, guy! Do it for Simon.”
Shit, Fiben thought. Typical human trick, guilt-tripping me!
Still, he managed to wipe away the momentary wave of doubt and grinned back at his enemy. “Sure, you can scream, but can you do this?”
Fiben thumbed his nose. Then he had to dive aside quickly as Irongrip charged. This time both of them landed clear blows that sounded like beaten drums. Both chims staggered to opposite ends of the arena before managing to turn around again, panting hard and baring their teeth.
… The beach had been littered, and the trail up the bluffs was long and hard. But that turned out to be only the beginning. The surprised Institute officials had already started disassembling their machines when he suddenly appeared, forcing them to remain and test just one more. They assumed it would not take long to send him home again…
The next time they came together, Fiben endured several hard blows to the side of his face in order to step inside and throw his opponent to the ground. It wasn’t the most elegant example of jiu-jitsu. Forcing it, he felt a sudden tearing sensation in his leg.
For an instant, Irongrip was rolling, helpless. But when Fiben tried to pounce his leg nearly collapsed.
The Probationer was on his feet again in an instant. Fiben tried not to show a limp, but something must have betrayed him, for this time Irongrip charged his right side, and when Fiben tried to backpedal, the left leg gave way.
… grueling tests, hostile stares, the tension
of wondering if he would ever make it in time…
As he fell backward, he kicked out, but all that earned him was a grip that seized his ankle like a roller-press. Fiben scrambled for leverage, but his fingers clawed in the loose soil. He tried to slip aside as his opponent hauled him back and then fell upon him.
… And he had gone through all of that just to arrive here? Yeah. All in all, it had been one hell of a day…
There are certain tricks a wrestler can try against a stronger opponent in a much heavier weight class. Some of these came back to Fiben as he struggled to get free. Had he been a little less close to utter exhaustion, one or two of them might even have worked.
As it was, he managed to reach a point of quasi-equilibrium. He attained a small advantage of leverage which just counterbalanced Irongrip’s horrendous strength. Their bodies strained and tugged as hands clutched, probing for the smallest opening. Their faces were pressed near the ground and close enough together to smell each other’s hot breath.
The crowd had been silent for some time. No more shouts of encouragement came, from one side or the other. As he and his enemy rocked gradually back and forth in a deadly serious battle of deceptive slowness, Fiben found himself with a clear view of the downward slope of the Ceremonial Mound. With a small corner of his awareness, he realized that the crowd was gone now. Where there had been a dense gathering of multiformed Galactics, now there was only an empty stretch of trampled grass.
The remnants could be seen hurrying downhill and eastward, shouting and gesticulating excitedly in a variety of tongues. Fiben caught a glimpse of the arachnoid Serentini, the Grand Examiner, standing amid a cluster of her aides, paying no attention any longer to the two chims’ fight. Even the Pila referee had turned away to face some growing tumult downslope.
This, after talking as if the fate of everything in the Universe depended upon a battle to the death between two chims? That same detached part of Fiben felt insulted.
Curiosity betrayed him, even here and now. He wondered. What in th’ ivorld are they up to?