“There were reasons. There was justification.” Runs knew the story but felt compelled to make his point nonetheless.
Another drawn-out silence followed before the husk of a voice murmured, “Perhaps. Tell me, Senior Elder, for I have questions of my own: what do you think the reaction will be on Quozlene when the Shirazian ship arrives six or seven generations from now to inform them of the colony’s success? When it arrives with a mixed crew?”
“I cannot imagine.”
“Try. And do not take too long. Remember that my moments are precious.”
“It is my hope and that of everyone that they will take to humans as readily as humans took to us.”
“That is how I believe. That is how I must believe.” A vast sigh filled the corridor and for an instant Runs-red-Talking was afraid. But the voice came again. “Sometimes I think intelligence counts for nothing, luck for everything. It is good to know we are not alone, even if our only friends are barbaric potential killers.”
“It can be unsettling,” Runs admitted, “but also useful. There have been many discussions: among scientific staffs, among Burrow Masters. Where humans can evolve there may also be other intelligences, less tractable, more belligerent still. If such a thing can be imagined.”
“Yes, and those colony ships which never reported back to Quozlene may have run afoul of them. I am familiar with the arguments.”
“We will find out, but now we can do something about such cases, should it be proved they exist. Because while we cannot fight, we now have friends who can and will on our behalf.”
“That is the critical question,” whispered the voice from the chair. “Will they?”
“I can only speak from my own observation, my own life and experiences. I am confident that they will.”
An ear might have bobbed in agreement, but the movement was so slight Runs could not be certain he’d seen it.
“It was all worthwhile, then. Everything that happened. Even the way it happened. A different individual here, another reaction somewhere else, and Shiraz might have turned out tragically. This is still very much the humans’ world, though we are more secure now than ever. It is best to let them think they are still in complete control. Their primitive pride requires it. They cannot cooperate unless they believe themselves to be in command. So be it. We have grown beyond such pettiness. It is the result that matters.”
“We have the Samizene,” Runs pointed out.
“Truth. They are improving, though they still allow their unbalanced sexual natures to dictate to their minds. At least now they can envision a common destiny. We have helped put an end to their silly tribal conflicts.
“In ten to twenty cycles the first Shirazian generation ship will enter underspace with a full complement of human and Quozl. They believe that we are helping to spread them through the galaxy. They do not see that it is the other way around, that this is how it must be. They cannot help the fact that they are human and not Quozl. But with time and tutelage they will improve.”
“It is a hard thing, to deceive one’s friends,” Runs murmured.
“They have secrets of their own they choose to keep from us. There can be fairness in mutual deception. What matters is that they think they are in control. It is the safest way. The Quozl do not need to stand on the top of the mountain. We are far too busy taking its measure. Simpler to let friends do the hard climbing and tell us what lies at the peak.
“We live where they grant us permission, which is more than ample. In return for their aid and friendship we give them knowledge, therapy, sympathy, and interstellar travel. They will go with us to found a grand galactic union in which they may declare paramountcy, if they so desire. We will stand aside and let them bare their teeth, ever courteous, ever polite. That is the way of the Quozl.”
“If they knew this there are those humans who would fight us.”
“Fight what? The great majority would not permit it. They like us too much. It is far better to be cute, cuddly, and lovable than to wield a bigger gun or sharper sword. We obey their laws and hew to their restrictions, we leave all major decisions to them—while we advise quietly and deferentially. We do exactly as they command, which is just what we want.”
Runs-red-Talking had not become a Senior Elder through lack of understanding. He knew what the other was talking about, comprehended fully. It was all there for anyone to see, in the Samizene, and in Quozl history. It all made sense.
It made so much sense he even understood when the old scout broke out in a wide, glistening grin.
A Biography of Alan Dean Foster
Alan Dean Foster (b. 1946) is the bestselling author of more than one hundred science fiction and fantasy novels. His prolific output and accessible style have made him one of the nation’s foremost speculative fiction writers.
Born in New York City in 1946, Foster was raised in Los Angeles and attended filmmaking school at the University of California, Los Angeles, in the 1960s. There he befriended George Lucas, with whom he would later collaborate. Rather than trying to break into Hollywood, however, Foster took a job writing copy for an advertising firm in Studio City, California, where he remained for two years, honing the craft that he would soon put to use when writing novels.
His first break came when the Arkham Collector, a small horror magazine, bought a letter Foster had written in the style of suspense legend H. P. Lovecraft. Encouraged by this sale, Foster began work on his first novel, The Tar-Aiym Krang (1972), which introduced the Humanx Commonwealth, his most enduring creation. He went on to set more than twenty novels in the Humanx universe; of these, Midworld (1975) is among his most acclaimed works.
The Tar-Aiym Krang was also the first of the Pip and Flinx series. The hero, Flinx, is an orphan thief whose telepathic powers hold the key to finding his parents and understanding his identity. Foster has chronicled the adventures of Flinx, and his acid-breathing sidekick Pip, in fourteen novels, and has explored their universe in fourteen other stand-alone works.
In 1983, Foster began the eight-book Spellsinger series, about a college student trapped in a magical dimension. He also wrote the Icerigger trilogy, published between 1974 and 1987. In 1990, his stand-alone novel Cyber Way received the Southwest Book Award for Fiction, making Foster the first science fiction writer to win this prize. Foster has also found success writing novelizations of Hollywood films, including the Alien trilogy, Star Wars: A New Hope (in which he expanded Lucas’s idea into an entire universe), and the 2009 Star Trek movie.
In addition to creating imaginary planets, Foster travels extensively throughout our world. After finishing college, he spent a summer in the South Pacific, camping in French Polynesia and living with a family of Tahitian policemen. He has scuba dived on unexplored reefs, pan-fried piranha in the “green hell” of Peru’s jungle, and captured film footage of great white sharks’ feeding frenzies in Australia—which was used by a BBC documentary series. These and other adventures are the basis of his travel memoir Predators I Have Known (2011).
Foster is an avid athlete who hikes, bodysurfs, and once studied karate with Chuck Norris. Since taking up powerlifting—at the age sixty-one—he has won numerous world and regional titles. He and his wife, JoAnn Oxley, live in Prescott, Arizona, in a home built of brick salvaged from a turn-of-the-century miner’s brothel.
Foster with a lemur on his shoulder.
Drawings Foster made as a child, “when,” he says, “I should have been paying attention in school.”
Foster is a champion bench presser. In 2011, he won the gold medal in the RAW Eurasia Championships in Odessa, Ukraine.
Foster wearing a Tuareg headdress on one of his trips. Here, he is at the intersecting border of Burkina Faso, Niger, and Mali.
Foster with the late heavy metal singer Ronnie James Dio, of the band Dio, in 2003.
Foster with Tommy Remengesau Jr., President of the Republic of Palau, in 2008.
Foster standing in front of the Ukraine’s ruined Chernobyl nuclea
r power plant in 2011.
Foster using a Dayak blowgun in Sarawak, in northern Borneo.
All rights reserved, including without limitation the right to reproduce this ebook or any portion thereof in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of the publisher.
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, events, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, businesses, companies, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.
Copyright © 1989 by Alan Dean Foster
Cover design by Neil Alexander Heacox
ISBN: 978-1-4976-7470-7
This edition published in 2014 by Open Road Integrated Media, Inc.
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