Properly finessed, interrogation could be a two-way street. The AAnn were not the only sentients on Jast who could claim shrewdness as a racial attribute.
If the prickly administrator was to be believed, while Lwo-Dvuum and the members of his circle had spent long timeparts debating the best way to give the unwelcome visitors a jolt, some unknown Vssey had already gone ahead and done so. Rather more serious a jolt, too, than anything Lwo-Dvuum would have proposed, but one whose efficacy could hardly be denied. Could the hostile acts have been perpetrated by members of their circle, unbeknownst to the others? The educator doubted it. They knew one another too well. And none of them, LwoDvuum was convinced, possessed the necessary murderous streak. While the Vssey could fight, and had done so frequently in the past, today they much preferred peace and harmony.
With, if the AAnn official was to be believed, at least a few notable exceptions.
“You have not replied to my quesstion,” Takuuna hissed at the pensive educator.
“If I did feel as you suggest about what you say truly happened, would I admit to it?”
The AAnn made a gesture of third-degree gratification to the recorder. “An honesst ansswer at lasst. Your wordss alsso tell me that you are not sstupid. But that iss to be expected, given your professionss.” A clawed hand made small circles on the table, not scraping this time, stroking sand that wasn't there. “Let uss ssay for the moment that I accept your protesstationss of ignorance and innocence. Will you act as civilized as you profess to be? Will you help uss to find and identify the cowardly assassinss hiding among your own kind?”
Lwo-Dvuum did not hesitate. “It would be the polite thing to do.” Bno-Cassaul looked at him sharply. The educator ignored his companion.
Takuuna hissed an appreciative reply. “I appreciate the cleverness of your ressponsse, but it doess not ansswer my quesstion. Will you, or will you not?”
“We will,” Lwo-Dvuum assured him.
The administrator rose. The insignia on his lightweight jacket shimmered in the dim light. “Then thiss interview iss at an end. I will take you at your word, educator. You will be provided with a ssufficiency of background material to enable you to assisst, inssofar as you are able, in the ongoing ssearch for the unknown malefactorss. Your own actionss will of coursse be ssimultaneoussly monitored. If it iss felt at any time that you have conssented to assisst in the hopess of ssecretly providing information about the ssearch to the very oness we sseek, I assure you that you will ssuffer a fate as ultimately final as it will be exquissite in the detailss of itss execution.” The recorder shut down his instrumentation and stood as Takuuna prepared to exit the room. Halfway to the door, the administrator paused to look back.
“You truly have had no contact with the human, or with any of hiss kind?”
While both eyes remained focused on the AAnn, LwoDvuum tilted forward the domed upper third of a much relieved body. “Not to my knowledge. My friends and I know so little of the species to which you refer that I am almost too uninforme' to reply knowledgeably on the matter.”
Takuuna's only response was to emit a long, slow hiss as his tongue flicked out absently between the long upper canines at the front end of his jaws. Lwo-Dvuum could not be certain, but it struck him that the negative reply on this particular subject struck the AAnn as particularly disappointing. The educator could not help that. Throughout the course of the interview, only truth had been told.
Except for the part about helping the AAnn locate and identify the insurgents. That had been a bald-faced lie. But it had bought time. It was something that had to be explained to a certain quietly fuming programmer as soon as the two of them were released outside the AAnn administrative complex.
“What di' you mean, teacher, when you sai' we woul' help these trespassers an' thieves find those among us who have decide' to resist the Imperial presence on our worl' with more than just words?”
Lwo-Dvuum's eyestalks twisted around to allow a cautious glance directly behind them as they hopped steadily away from the heavily fortified complex. “What woul' you have ha' me sai'? ‘No?’ Do you value your manipulative appendages? While I am not entirely sure I approve of the actions of our unknown brethren, even if I ha' an inkling as to their identity I woul' no more relay it to these AAnn than I woul' unsanctify my parent.” He paused while they hopped onto one of the ubiquitous moving sidewalks that sped Vssey around the interiors of their cities.
“Do you think the AAnn believe' you?” Bno-Cassaul wondered aloud.
“What does it matter? We are out of that awful place.”
“They will begin monitoring us.” The programmer glanced around uneasily. “They may be doing so already.”
“Let them.” Lwo-Dvuum settled comfortably into an open support slot and let his lower body relax against it. “It is clear they have been ‘monitoring’ our circle anyway.”
“Yes, that's true,” the programmer had to admit. “They will seek results.”
“An' we will happily provide them with information that is as believable as it is innocuous. We will seem to aid them without actually doing so. There is little else we can do about it. Despite what the official seeme' to believe, we have no idea what individuals or what circle carried out the attacks to which the male referre'.”
“No,” Bno-Cassaul declared, “but I wish I di'. I woul' seek to graft a budding from anyone so brave.”
Lwo-Dvuum looked thoughtful. “They must be very clever, whoever they are, to have overcome the stringent AAnn security measures on not one but two different occasions . We coul' learn much from such individuals.” The educator eyed the upper bodies of the many Vssey passing them in the opposite direction. “Perhaps someday we will. Perhaps someday the honor of meeting these brave representatives of our people will fall to us.”
“How do we know there are several?” Bno-Cassaul averred after a moment's thought. “Might there not be only one militant, acting alone?”
Lwo-Dvuum's hearing frill rippled in quiet amusement at the programmer's credulity. “Don't be a bent budding. How could a single dissident accomplish all that the AAnn relate'? No, I am convince' the destruction is the work of no less than a circle of four or five. That woul' be the minimum necessary to deceive an' circumvent those as clever as the AAnn. Has not our own circle recognize' their abilities, their persistence, and the long, difficult hopway we must travel to ri' ourselves of them?”
Several of Bno-Cassaul's tentacles gestured assent. “I suppose that is so.” Programmer eyed educator curiously. “What do you make of the AAnn's obsession with this human creature? Do you think it has a basis in fact, or was he using it to surprise and to test us?”
“I'm not sure,” Lwo-Dvuum confessed. “Why he would think we might have been in contact with, much less been receiving advice or material aid from such an exotic creature, I cannot imagine.”
“Do you think there really might be a human on Jast, perhaps even in the vicinity of Skokosas, and that that is why the official felt the nee' to pose the query?”
“I don't know.” The moving hopway turned a corner. Ahead lay a local transport terminus. Lwo-Dvuum would have preferred access to his ouvomum, but it could only accommodate one passenger in any case. Besides which, Bno-Cassaul was a confirmed user of modern transportation. The educator would resign himself to speed. “But given the AAnn's obvious concern about the possibility, I think it woul' behoove our circle to initiate a few discreet inquiries an' fin' out.
“Any species that can give the toothy ones the jitters is one whose acquaintance I would like to make.”
“Assuming the human person actually exists,” BnoCassaul was quick to point out, “an' is still on Jast.”
“Even if it is not,” Lwo-Dvuum replied, the soft words emerging slowly from the flattened mouth that split the front part of his upper body, “I believe that the AAnn's reaction to even the possibility means it is a subject worth the circle's time.”
With that, Bno-Cassaul was in complete agreement. A
s they boarded the next transport for shifting to the neighborhood where both lived, the programmer was determined to run a search on a personal scanner the instant personal privacy was restored. Unlike the educator, BnoCassaul knew nothing at all about humans. He accepted their existence because Lwo-Dvuum did. Were they anything like the AAnn? Potential allies or not, that was a disquieting thought.
He hoped they would be at least a little bit different. Because hope was about all the circle of dissenters had in their arsenal. In all likelihood, dislodging the persistent AAnn from Jast was going to require something considerably stronger.
9
A thoroughly frustrated Flinx felt as if he were living in two worlds. The most prominent, the one he knew for certain he was living in, was ordered and stately, populated by busy bipeds who looked nothing like him but with whom he for some reason shared language, some common references, and a growing empathetic bond whose depth was a continual surprise to him. This world was also home to the small flying creature whose name was Pip, the minidrag being one of the few certainties he could cling to. That, and his ability to know, most of the time, what those around him were feeling. While unable to make up for his poor manners, his strange accent, his lack of claws, decent teeth, or tail, he was still able to insinuate himself with those around him through the use of that veiled talent.
The other world he inhabited was one of fog and shadows, of memories that were nothing but ghosts and spirits. Occasionally there were glimpses of that alternate reality. Memories of an old woman coddling him one moment and swearing at him the next. Strange shapes that seemed to speak to him but were more like the small arthropods that skittered across the sands outside the Tier's compound. Wise voices speaking in a language other than that of his smooth-scaled rescuers. Angry voices utilizing the same tongue. Endless searching of he knew not what, and by means he could not identify. And always questions, questions, questions.
None of which Chraluuc or any of her apologetic brethren could answer.
Since the collective opinion among the members of the Tier held that he was still recovering from his ordeal, and since his mental state was still self-evidently precarious, he was largely left to himself. He took to wandering the grounds of the compound, inquiring as to the purpose of this building or the function of that decoration. Only rarely were his queries ignored, his requests to observe denied. Though never entirely able to vanquish their suspicions of the human who had tumbled into their midst, the more time he spent among them, the more the members of the Tier came to believe that the tall softskin represented a different kind of human. Of his empathy there could be no doubt. In some ways, and with the passage of time, he was becoming more like them than his own kind. To the members of the Tier this slow metamorphosis was at once gratifying, puzzling, and exhilarating.
Flinx did not regard it so because he was not aware of it. He was simply trying to fit in. It was the least he could do, the polite thing to do, to thank those who had saved his life. Though accounted a human by everyone he met, he did not feel particularly human. He did not feel especially anything, except alive. At first, that had been enough. But as the days passed and he ate and talked and slept among the Tier, life without memory or meaning was beginning to pale.
Since she spent more time with him than any of her colleagues, Chraluuc was more sensitive to his moods than any others of her kind. One early morning she happened to find him out alone, walking one of the several meticulously maintained paths of contemplation the Tier had established in the vicinity of the compound.
She greeted him with the familiar head turn and closed claws. He responded absently. The gesture, like so much AAnn body language, had become second nature to him. On his shoulder, the ever-present flying snake dozed contentedly.
“Truly, honored friend, you have made of morossness a fine art.” Hissing softly, she added a fourth-degree gesture implying irony.
He responded with a second-degree arm flex signifying appreciation of both sentiments contained in her salutation. “I can't help it, Chraluuc. How would you feel if you found yourself lost among strangers, not knowing anything about yourself, who you were or where you came from?”
Feeling, not for the first time, oddly drawn to the soft-skin, she did her best to offer what encouragement and support she could. It made no sense: the softskins were allies of the thranx, traditional enemies of the Empire. But there was something different about this one, something that reached out beyond his pitiful mental stasis to touch those near to him. Her reaction to him was not an isolated one. Others of the Tier had felt it as well.
“Ignorance of the latter doess not invalidate the reality. You are ssomeone and you did come from ssomewhere. It iss only a matter of time, one hopess, before memory returnss.”
He knew what she was doing and was grateful for it, but he was less sanguine. Many days of research using the Tier's facilities had filled him in on what it meant to be human, on the nature of humankind's presence in the galaxy, and on numerous other factors, but had told him nothing about himself. Perusing the vast information at hand, he felt at times as if worlds of revelation lay hidden just behind the next statement, the most recent diagram— only to have the immanency of disclosure break up and scatter like a flock of edgy, whorled souluvu. It was all very well and good to acquire, or reacquire, the details of life on this planet or that (insofar as the AAnn had obtained such knowledge about the Commonwealth), but what he wanted, what he needed, were details of the history and development of the world that was himself.
While he had read that AAnn and humankind were enemies, or at least existed in a state of perpetual wariness regarding one another, he felt no animosity toward them. Had they not saved his life? Admittedly, based on what he read, the members of the Tier appeared to differ in significant respects from the greater population of their fellows. But they were still AAnn.
What was it that made the Tier so different? With a start, he realized that he had been so focused on learning about himself that he had neglected to find out anything much about his rescuers beyond the fact that they had taken him in and kept him alive. Nor had any of them, including Chraluuc, volunteered such information. At best, it was an oversight on his part; at worst, impolitic. At least he could blame it on his condition.
Was their apparent reticence an indication that they had something to hide? There was one way to find out.
“I've been here for some time now, Chraluuc.”
With weave of hands and sweep of tail she executed a second-degree gesture of agreement underscored by encouragement. “And doing better every day, Flinx.”
He paused before a bunch of vonowolp bushes. Tall enough to just see over the crest of the cluster, he watched as an arc of tiny tenelbs, their oversized electric blue eyes dazzling in the sunshine, munched their way through the vonowolp's bright pink fruit. Using the tiny spine that protruded from its forehead, a tenelb would advance, puncture a fruit, and then skitter back out of the way until the vonowolp ceased firing tiny but potentially lethal jet-black seeds. Only when the plant had exhausted its defense would the tenelb move forward to feed.
“Better?” He glanced sideways at her, round pupils meeting slitted ones. “I still have no idea who I am, or where I'm from, or what I'm doing on this world that is the natural home of neither my kind nor yours.” Restlessly, he chewed his lower lip while Pip looked up anxiously from her perch on his shoulders. “I am nothing. I have nothing. Except this pet—though why she stays with me, I can't imagine.” His voice tightened. “I wouldn't stay with me.”
Among the AAnn, such self-pitying would barely have attracted casual concern, if not outright contempt. But Flinx was a softskin, she reminded herself, and so had to be judged by different standards.
“All this time I've spent among you,” he continued, “and I still don't understand your Tier.”
She hesitated slightly, even though there was no real reason to do so. “Then it iss time that wass rectified. Come with me.”
She led him away from the main buildings. While Flinx had been allowed to wander freely about the area, there were several structures he had seen only in passing, though he had observed other AAnn entering and leaving them on a regular basis. In accordance with AAnn preferences, their interiors were largely belowground. He had never entered any of them. Now they walked toward what appeared to be a series of camouflaged, squat domes that had been pushed into the sand and rocks. Their polarized, opaqued surfaces resembled the exposed upper curves of the eggs of some gigantic primeval beast. The camouflage effect, he saw, was unintentional, the result of abundant local plant life growing above and in some cases over the tops of the domes.
They entered a typical AAnn entryway, his sandaled feet slap-slapping against the smooth artificial surface underfoot. As was customary with such passageways, it spiraled downward and to the right. Moments later they emerged into a hallway lit from overhead by a scattering of small skylight domes. He caught his breath. Each of the domes was fashioned of what appeared to be multiple floating layers of stained crystal. Invisible to anyone walking on the surface, from within the passageway they formed a scintillating kaleidoscope of shifting colors and scenes. As human and AAnn strolled down the subterranean passage, he felt as if they were walking through a tunnel of constantly metamorphosing gemstones.
“This is beautiful.” He indicated the jewel-like skylights. “Where did they come from?”
As she pointed out highlights with the tip of her tail, she hissed a fusion of satisfaction and amusement. “From the worksshop of Teemylk QQPRKLS—over there.”
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