by David Brin
A chim messenger arrived and whispered to Lieutenant McCue. She, in turn, approached Athaclena.
“The major is nearly ready,” the dark human woman told her. Casually, she added, “And our scouts say they detect aircraft heading this way.”
Athaclena nodded.
“We are finished here. Let us depart. The next few hours will tell.”
101
Galactics
“There! We note a concentration, gathering, accumulation of the impudent enemy. The wolflings flee in a predictable direction. And now we may strike, pounce, swoop to conquer!”
Their special detectors made plain the quarry’s converging trails through the forest. The Suzerain of Beam and Talon spoke a command, and an elite brigade of Gubru soldiery stooped upon the little valley where their fleeing prey was trapped, at bay.
“Captives, hostages, new prisoners to question… these I want!”
102
Major Prathachulthorn
The bait was invisible. Their lure consisted of little more than a barely traceable flow of complex molecules, coursing through the intricate, lacy network of jungle vegetation. In fact, Major Prathachulthorn had no way of knowing for certain that it was there at all. He felt awkward laying enfilade and ambush on the slopes overlooking a series of small ponds in an otherwise unoccupied forest vale.
And yet, there was something symmetrical, almost poetic about the situation. If this trick by some chance actually worked, there would be the joy of battle on this morn.
And if it did not, then he intended to have the satisfaction of throttling a certain slender alien neck, whatever the effects on his career and his life.
“Feng!” he snapped at one of his Marines. “Don’t scratch.” The Marine corporal quickly checked to make sure he had not rubbed off any of the monolayer coating that gave his skin a sickly greenish cast. The new material had been mixed quickly, in hopes of blocking the hemoglobin resonance the enemy were using to track Terrans under the forest canopy. Of course, their intelligence on that matter might be completely wrong. Prathachulthorn had only the word of chims, and that damned Tym -
“Major!” someone whispered. It was a neo-chimpanzee trooper, looking even more uncomfortable in green-tinted fur. He motioned quickly from midway up a tall tree. Prathachulthorn acknowledged and sent a hand gesture rippling in both directions.
Well, he thought, some of these local chims are turning into pretty fair irregulars, I’ll admit.
A series of sonic booms rocked the foliage on all sides, followed by the shriek of approaching aircraft. They swept up the narrow valley at treetop level, following the hilly terrain with computer-piloted precision. At just the right moment, Talon Soldiers and their accompanying drones spilled out of long troop carriers to fall serenely toward a certain jungle grove.
The trees there were unique in only one way, in their hunger for a certain trace chemical brought to them by far-reaching, far-trading vines. Only now those vines had delivered something else as well. Something drawn from Earthly veins.
“Wait,” Prathachulthorn whispered. “Wait for the big boys.”
Sure enough, soon they all felt the effects of approaching gravities, and on a major scale. Over the horizon appeared a Gubru battleship, cruising serenely several hundred meters above.
Here was a target well worth anything they had to sacrifice. Up until now, though, the problem had been how to know in advance where one would come. Flicker-swivvers were wonderful weapons, but not very portable. One had to set them up well in advance. And surprise was essential.
“Wait,” he murmured as the great vessel drew nearer. “Don’t spook “em.”
Down below, the Talon Soldiers were already chirping in dismay, for no enemy awaited them, not even any chim civilians to capture and send above for questioning. At any moment, one of the troopers would surely guess the truth. Still, Major Prathachulthorn urged, “Wait just a minute more, until—”
One of the chim gunners must have lost patience. Suddenly, lightning lanced upward from the heights on the opposite side of the valley. In an instant, three more streaks converged. Prathachulthorn ducked and covered his head.
Brilliance seemed to penetrate from behind, through his skull. Waves of déjà vu alternated with surges of nausea, and for a moment it felt as if a tide of anomalous gravity were trying to lift him from the forest loam. Then the concussion wave hit.
It was some time before anyone was able to look up again. When they did, they had to blink through clouds of drifting dust and grit, past toppled trees and scattered vines. A seared, flattened area told where the Gubru battle cruiser had hovered, only moments ago. A rain of red-hot debris still fell, setting off fires wherever the incandescent pieces landed.
Prathachulthorn grinned. He fired off a flare into the air — the signal to advance.
Several of the enemy’s grounded aircraft had been broken by the overpressure wave. Three, however, lifted off and made for the sites where the missiles had been fired, screaming for vengeance. But their pilots did not realize they were facing Terragens Marines now. It was amazing what a captured saber rifle could do in the right hands. Soon three more burning patches smoldered on the valley floor.
Down below grim-faced chims moved forward, and combat soon became much more personal, a bloody struggle fought with lasers and pellet guns, with crossbows and arbalests.
When it came down to hand-to-hand, Prathachulthorn knew that they had won.
I cannot leave all of the close-in stuff to these locals, he thought. That was how he came to join the chase through the forest, while the Gubru rear guard furiously tried to cover the survivors’ escape. And for as long as they lived thereafter, the chims who saw it talked about what they saw: a pale green figure in loin cloth and beard, swinging through the trees, meeting fully armed Talon Soldiers with knife and garrote. There seemed to be no stopping him, and indeed, nothing living withstood him.
It was a damaged battle drone, brought back into partial operation by self-repair circuitry — perhaps making a logical connection between the final collapse of the Gubru forces and this fearsome creature who seemed to take such joy in battle. Or maybe it was nothing more than a final burst of mechanical and electrical reflex.
He went as he would have wanted to, wearing a bitter grin, with his hands around a feathered throat, throttling one more hateful thing that did not belong in the world he thought ought to be.
103
Athaclena
So, she thought as the excited chim messenger gasped forth the joyous news of total victory. On any scale, this was the insurgents’ greatest coup.
In a sense, Garth herself became our greatest ally. Her injured but still subtly powerful web of life.
The Gubru had been lured by fragments of chim and human hemoglobin, carried to one site by the ubiquitous transfer vines. Frankly, Athaclena was surprised their makeshift plan had worked. Its success proved just how foolish had been the enemy’s overdependence on sophisticated hardware.
Now we must decide what to do next.
Lieutenant McCue looked up from the battle report the winded chim messenger had brought and met Athaclena’s eyes. The two women shared a moment’s silent communion. “I’d better get going,” Lydia said at last. “There’ll be reconsolidation to organize, captured equipment to disburse… and I am now in command.”
Athaclena nodded. She could not bring herself to mourn Major Prathachulthorn. But she acknowledged the man for what he had been. A warrior.
“Where do you think they will strike next?” she asked.
“I couldn’t begin to guess, now that their main method of tracking us has been blown. They act as if they haven’t much time.” Lydia frowned pensively. “Is it certain the Thennanin fleet is on its way here?” Lydia asked.
“The Uplift Institute officials speak about it openly on the airwaves. The Thennanin come to claim their new clients. And as part of their arrangement with my father and with Earth, they are bound to help expel th
e Gubru from this system.”
Athaclena was still quite in awe over the extent to which her father’s scheme had worked. When the crisis began, nearly one Garth year ago, it had been clear that neither Earth nor Tymbrim would be able to help this faraway colony. And most of the “moderate” Galactics were so slow and judicious that there was little hope of persuading one of those clans to intervene. Uthacalthing had hoped to fool the Thennanin into doing the job instead — pitting Earth’s enemies against each other.
The plan had worked beyond Uthacalthing’s expectations because of one factor her father had not know of. The gorillas. Had their mass migration to the Ceremonial Mound been triggered by the s’ustru’thoon exchange, as she had earlier thought? Or was the Institute’s Grand Examiner correct to declare that fate itself arranged for this new client race to be at the right time and place to choose? Somehow, Athaclena felt sure there was more to it than anyone knew, or perhaps ever would know.
“So the Thennanin are coming to chase out the Gubru.” Lydia seemed uncertain what to make of the situation. “Then we’ve won, haven’t we? I mean, the Gubru can’t hold them off indefinitely. Even if it were possible militarily, they’d lose so much face across the Five Galaxies that even the moderates would finally get upset and mobilize.”
The Earth woman’s perceptiveness was impressive. Athaclena nodded. “Their situation would seem to call for negotiation. But that assumes logic. The Gubru military, I’m afraid, is behaving irrationally.”
Lydia shivered. “Such an enemy is often far more dangerous than a rational opponent. He doesn’t act out of intelligent self-interest.”
“My father’s last call indicated that the Gubru are badly divided,” Athaclena said. The broadcasts from Institute Territory were now the guerrillas’ best source of information. Robert and Fiben and Uthacalthing had all taken turns, contributing powerfully to the mountain fighters’ morale and surely adding to the invader’s severe irritation.
“We’ll have to act under the assumption the gloves are off then.” The woman Marine sighed. “If Galactic opinion doesn’t matter to them, they may even turn to using space weaponry down here on the planet. We’d better disperse as widely as possible.”
“Hmm, yes.” Athaclena nodded. “But if they use burners or hell bombs, all is lost anyway. From such weapons we cannot hide.
“I cannot command your troops, lieutenant, but I would rather die in a bold gesture — one which might help stop this madness once and for all — than end my life burying my head in the sand, like one of your Earthly oysters.”
Despite the seriousness of the proposition, Lydia McCue smiled. And a touch of appreciative irony danced along the edges of her simple aura. “Ostriches,” the Earth woman corrected gently. “It’s big birds called ostriches that bury their heads.
“Now why don’t you tell me what you have in mind.”
104
Galactics
Buoult of the Thennanin inflated his ridgecrest to its maximum height and preened his shining elbow spikes before stepping out upon the bridge of the great warship, Athanasfire. There, beside the grand display, where the disposition of the fleet lay spread out in sparkling colors, the human delegation awaited him. Their leader, an elderly female whose pale hair tendrils still gleamed in places with the color of a yellow sun, bowed at a prim, correct angle. Buoult replied with a precise waistbend of his own. He gestured toward the display.
“Admiral Alvarez, I assume you can perceive for yourself that the last of the enemy’s mines have been cleared. I am ready to transmit to the Galactic Institute for Civilized Warfare our declaration that the Gubru interdiction of this system has been lifted by force majeur.”
“That is good to hear,” the woman said. Her human-style smile — a suggestive baring of teeth — was one of their easier gestures to interpret. One as experienced with Galactic affairs as the legendary Helene Alvarez surely knew the effect the wolfling expression often had on others. She must have made a conscious decision to use it.
Well, such subtle intimidations played an acceptable role in the complex game of bluff and negotiation. Buoult was honest enough to admit that he did it too. It was why he had inflated his towering crest before entering.
“It will be good to see Garth again,” Alvarez added. “I only hope we aren’t the proximate cause of yet another holocaust on that unfortunate world.”
“Indeed, we shall endeavor to avoid that at all costs. And if the worst happens — if this band of Gubru are completely out of control — then their entire nasty clan shall pay for it.”
“I care little about penalties and compensation. There are people and an entire frail ecosphere at risk here.”
Buoult withheld comment. I must be more careful, he thought. It is not meet for others to remind Thennanin — defenders of all Potential — of the duty to protect such places as Garth.
It was especially galling to be chided righteously by wolflings.
And from now on they mil be at our elbows, carping and criticizing, and we will have to listen, for they will be stage consorts to one of our clients. It is only one price we must pay for this treasure Kault found for us.
The humans were pressing negotiations hard, as was to be expected from a clan as desperate for allies as they. Already Thennanin forces had withdrawn from all areas of conflict with Earth and Tymbrim. But the Terragens were demanding much more than that in exchange for help managing and uplifting the new client race called “Gorilla.”
In effect, they were demanding that the great clan of the Thennanin ally itself with forlorn and despised wolflings and bad-boy prankster Tymbrimi! This at a time when the horrible Soro-Tandu alliance appeared to be unstoppable out on the starlanes. Why, to do so might conceivably risk annihilation for the Thennanin themselves!
If it were up to Buoult, who had had enough of Earthlings to last him a lifetime, the choice would be to tell them to go to Ifni’s Hell and seek their allies there.
But it was not up to Buoult. There had long been a strong minority streak of sympathy for Earthiclan, back home. Kault’s coup, allowing the Great Clan to achieve another treasured laurel of patronhood, could win that faction government soon. Under such circumstances, Buoult figured it wise to keep his own opinions to himself.
One of his undercommanders approached and saluted. “We have determined the positions taken up by the Gubru defense flotilla,” he reported. “They are clustered quite close to the planet. Their dispersement is unusual. Our battle computers are finding it very hard to crack.”
Hrnm, yes, Buoult thought on examining the close-in display. A brilliant arrangement of limited forces. Even original, perhaps. How unlike the Gubru.
“No matter,” he huffed. “Even if there is no subtle way, they will nonetheless see that we came with more than adequate firepower to do the job by brute force if necessary. They will concede. They must concede.”
“Of course they must,” the human admiral agreed. But she did not sound convinced. In fact, she seemed worried.
“We are ready to approach to fail-safe envelopment,” the orficer of the deck reported.
Buoult nodded quickly. “Good. Proceed. From there we can contact the enemy and announce our intentions.”
Tension built as the armada advanced closer to the system’s modest yellow sun. Although the Thennanin claimed proudly to possess no psychic powers, Buoult seemed to feel the gaze of the Earthling woman upon him, and he wondered how it was possible that he found her so intimidating.
She is only a wolfling, he reminded himself.
“Shall we resume our discussions, commander?” Admiral Alvarez asked at last.
He had no choice but to comply, of course. It would be best if much was decided before they arrived and the siege manifesto was read aloud.
Still, Buoult planned to sign no agreements until he had-a chance to confer with Kault. That Thennanin had a reputation for vulgarity and, well, frivolity, that had won him exile to this backwater world. But now he appeared to
have achieved unprecedented miracles. His political power back home would be great.
Buoult wanted to tap Kault’s expertise, his apparent knack at dealing with these infuriating creatures.
His aides and the human delegation filed out of the bridge toward the meeting room. But before Buoult left he glanced one more time back at the situation tank and the deadly-looking Gubru battle array. Air noisily escaped his breathing slits.
What are the avians planning? he wondered. What shall I do if these Gubru prove to be insane?
105
Robert
In some parts of Port Helenia, there were more guard drones than ever, protecting their masters’ domains rigorously, lashing out at anyone who passed too near.
Elsewhere, however, it was almost as if a revolution had already taken place…The invader’s posters lay tattered in the gutters. Above one busy street corner Robert glimpsed a new mural that had recently been erected in place of Gubru propaganda. Painted in the style called Focalist Realism, it depicted a family of gorillas staring with dawning but hopeful sentience oat upon a glowing horizon. Protectively standing beside them, showing the way to that wonderful future, was a pair of idealized, high-browed neo-chimpanzees.
Oh, yes, there had also been a human and a Thennanin in the picture, vague and in the background. Robert thought it really nice of the artist to have remembered to include them.
The heavily guarded shuttle he was in passed through the intersection too quickly to see much detail, but he thought the rendering of the female chim hadn’t quite done Gailet justice. Fiben, on the other hand, ought to be flattered.
Soon the “free” parts of town were behind them, and they passed westward into areas patrolled with strict military discipline. When they landed their Talon Soldier guards hurried outside and stood watch as Robert and Uthacalthing left the shuttle to climb the ramp leading to the shining new Branch Library.