“Soooo,” growled the werewolf. “You Humans are greedy enough to take our Trade, but you resent the necessity for the Trade?”
“Right.”
“I think I will discuss this with the Clan, when next I return to Hekar. But,” said Sargon, voice tone shift indicating a new topic, “what does our Liaison, you, think of our planetary bases on Earth? Do Humans also fear those?”
Jack shuffled through his instincts, journalistic and mountain-bred. He looked back at Sargon, the Trader-In-Charge of the First Contact.
“Right now, I think the Compact bases are no problem. It’s an interesting spread,” he explained. “There’s you Horem with the Japanese at Kyoto, the Zik with the Russians at their naval base in the Maldives, the Strelka jungle station in Brazil, and the Arrik at Rabat in Morocco. That’s all fine.” Sargon sat back in his chair across from Jack, looking attentive. “Even the Sliss stations at India’s Kerala state and Australia’s port of Perth, the Thix-Thet base in Norway and the Gosay base in China’s Taklimakan Desert, are also okay.” He shook his head, recalling the sight of Gosay running at 70 kilometers per hour as they hunted game on the Chinese desert. Given their l.8 gee evolved muscles, nothing could escape a hunting Gosay, and no one was stupid enough to take potshots at their armor plate-like skin. “Most of the Compact bases are either remotely located or subject to tight security. No, it’s mostly just the fact that you guys exist, are real, not illusions. That is something the religious fundamentalists and End-of-the-World types can’t abide. They hate you.”
“Our existence is not a matter for debate,” Sargon growled in steel-hard tones.
“I agree.”
Jack wondered if the Compact was going to teach some upstart humans another lesson in interstellar diplomacy. But then, there hadn’t been any explicit incidents since Duvalier’s attack. And the Compact was very strict about acting only in self-defense. He mentally crossed his fingers.
“Jack, I have a job for you.” That got his attention and blew away the cobwebs of speculation. Sargon leaned forward. “Our Compact base at the American Tycho Crater is up and running, but there is tension there. Seems like seven of your Big Eight do not like sharing quarters at the American Moon base. And all eight are envious of the antimatter fusion pulse drive we use on our interplanetary craft. Several Human spy groups have tried to board our craft at Tycho. Go and be our Liaison with these humans. Find out what’s wrong so we can try to fix it. Please,” politely asked the most powerful werewolf on Earth.
There should be trouble any place the Big Eight—China, Japan, India, America, Brazil, Russia, the EU and the United Kingdom—got together with eight different kinds of aliens. Talk about an explosive mix! Then again, everyone understood greed. And the prospect of ending up with your own interplanetary ships capable of reaching Pluto in a few weeks made for high greed value.
Jack sat pensive for a moment, weighing the value of a trip back to his cabin in the Smokies against the need to help balance the juggernaut of human-alien relations. He knew he would give in, but there had to be something he could gain from the request. That was one rule he’d learned about the free-form, ombudsman, trouble-shooter kind of job that being Liaison for the aliens had turned about to be. Rule one—don’t forget about your own bank account.
“If you can give Colleen a lift from Hekar to meet me at Tycho, I’ll do it.”
Sargon smiled at him with that ghastly imitation grin the werewolves loved to affect. The Horem knew how unsettling a show of canines was to other omnivore predators, and they liked the double-entendre effect of a grin. It served to emphasize how much everything they did had more than one objective.
“Sure, Jack. Life-Who-Is-Song can arrange that. Horny again?”
“Yes! Though it’s really none of your business. And lonely. To use your words, she is my Life-Mate. When do I leave?”
“In the morning,” Sargon said amiably. “After a night’s rest. We really do care about our Liaison, you see.”
Jack nodded. This particular alien cared about him, he was sure. But the Compact itself, that he was still thinking about. Getting up off the duffle, Jack headed over to the office door leading to the bedroom Sargon reserved for special visitors. He would put off until the morning a call to Tommy at the CNN International Desk. His buddy had accepted Jack’s dual role as both a vid-interviewer for CNN and as the Liaison to humanity for the Compact. Right now, he thought even a Zik sand bed would be comfortable.
Fortunately, the Horem idea of a bedroom was close to the human norm. He dumped his duffle on the carpeted floor, pulled off his jumpsuit and crawled onto the bed platform. He was asleep almost as soon as his head touched a lys-fiber pillow.
♦ ♦ ♦
Aboard Hekar, Ruler-by-Right-of-Challenge-and-Defeat T’Klick T’Klose stood atop the high rock escarpment of Recreation Chamber 12, overlooking the broad, salty blue-green sea that spread out below him. Balanced precariously on the edge of a granite ridge—he would have far preferred the standard rock banister railing of home—T’Klose spread his leathery wings to provide balance, angling their lift surfaces exactly so that the thermal updrafts rising from below would not provide lift. They would only provide a counter-force necessary to maintain his precarious balance. His third balance counter-point was his long tail, now coiled around a small rock to his rear, adding a three-point stance to the grip of his two clawed feet. With his arms folded over his scaled abdomen, but above his gestation pouch, T’Klose surveyed the tiny figures of the male and female Humans as they played in the surf below. He spread his fan-ears wide, listening for the low rumble of their subsonic speech sounds, wishing them momentarily the greater efficiency of the ultrasonic speech normal to Arrik-kind.
He felt puzzled.
The inherent violence of these Humans had shown itself year after year during the ship’s approach, culminating in the nuclear war between the nation-Clans of India and Pakistan. Then had come the attack by one of their religious zealots, just after the arrival of the first Trading group. At his command the Military Compound had carried out Scenario 47-Blue and destroyed the headquarters of the religious group. And contrary to Arrik custom, the strike fighter pilots had given fair warning to nearby Humans to avoid innocent deaths. Only those who had sought to harm the Compact had been injured. The raid was a success.
The aftermath was not.
The Penitents of Pastor Hartman had, in the Human term, gone “underground.” One of his Sept cadre had called it “crevice-hiding,” a tactic used only by an enemy with no honor. An enemy unwilling to face attack and danger in the clean, cool air of one’s own Aerie, or upon the buffeting winds of a glide-attack. He spat.
With no obvious targets, and with the suddenly cooperative attitude of the Human nation-Clans, he had been forced to withhold further strikes. Still, his alien colleagues in the Military Compound demanded of their Conflict Commander, what do we do? Make war? Or make peace? Or something in-between, something unsatisfying to all. Perhaps even, he spat again, make friends with these Humans!
The warm updrafts buffeted his face and chest, caressing him. The yellow-orange compromise light of the rec chamber touched each of his three eyes, bringing to T’Klose panoramic views from the rear left, front, and rear right, a continuous integrated vision strip of the rock-cut chamber that allowed his sharp eyes to detect the movement of a small rock-scurrier three kilometers away in the arboreal forests, or the gliding wing-forms of other Arrik nearby, just down the escarpment rim, as they launched themselves off, caught the updrafts, soared up a bit, then slowly spiraled down toward the blue-green sea below where they could snatch small fish from the reaching claws of the Zik crustaceans. It was a game many in the Sept enjoyed, even the hard-shelled ones enjoyed it. But the game could not dispel his dilemma, their dilemma, the problem facing all Hekar. What to do about the Humans?
A wing-form came gliding toward him, riding the thermals on wide-spread wings, tail laid straight back for rudder control, arms pressed tigh
t against belly scales, fan-ears swung back against . . . her head. His Mate, T’Erees T’Say, approached his perch confidently, filled with youthful vigor, reminding him of the small new-born one who lay quietly sleeping in the bottom of his gestation pouch. Protected. Guarded. In keeping with Arrik custom from time immemorial. One parent hunted for food. The other parent held tight the new-one, giving nourishment and safety for six months, until the new-one could emerge, small leathery wings weakly flapping, to hop about on the stone floor of the home Aerie, squeaking brightly, full of promise.
In a flutter of reversed lift surfaces, T’Erees slowed her approach immediately in front of him, hung almost motionless, then settled down next to him on the same granite edge. Her left eye caught his right one as he carefully adjusted his claw-footed balance.
“Mate, dear one, how rides our new-one?”
Carefully, he folded his outswept wings inward, giving her room to spread her own for better balance. “Sleeping.” He spied the small fish peeking out from the rim of T’Erees’ own gestation pouch. “Ah—food! Do you have more than one?”
Her high whistle sounded amused. “The food is for the new-one, my Mate, not you.” She turned, following the direction of his gaze. “Do they still worry you?”
He would much rather enjoy the iridescent shine of her abdominal scales, a lustrous yellow-white from pouch to chin, a sensuous beacon against the black scales of the rest of her lean, well-muscled body, than consider the Humans. T’Erees shifted her stance, leaning into the thermal updraft for better balance, her tail wrapping around a rear rock like his, wings half-spread, flicking her left fan-ear his way.
“Do they, Sept Ruler?”
He spat, turning his attention back to the crippled, wingless forms of the Humans playing below in the surf. “They do. I warned the Compact about them. But do they act? Do they leave this benighted system? No!”
“I know.” Her whistle sounded sympathetic. “My computerman second-class also shows little foresight in the conduct of his department. Sometimes one must beat them about the head with a caring wing to knock sense into the blind ones.”
T’Klose whistle-laughed. “A minor problem. Common to all cadre levels and to any Aerie. Your computerman is Arrik. These—” he unwisely angled his left wingtip toward the gamboling Humans “—are aliens! They can’t even fly. Ground-huggers!”
T’Erees’ left claw-hand twisted the new-caught fish, one finger slitting open its belly to drop the entrails down the rock-face to the sea far below. “Some ground-huggers are sensible. Like the Strelka. They fight fiercely!”
“I know.” He watched the Humans as several removed their swimming garments—why cover that which was natural?—and ran shrieking into the surf. “I wish the Horem would act sensibly.”
T’Erees laughed. “You mean Sargon, don’t you? He is quite intelligent, you know. And quite methodical. He supported our base in the mountains of this Morocco.”
He spat over the rock edge, watching idly as the spittle hung briefly suspended in mid-air, until its weight overcame the uplift of the thermals. “He is. Also soft-minded. He sees what he wishes to see—not what is really there.”
T’Erees carefully shuffled closer, left wing-tip brushing his. “My Mate, that is the nature of Traders, as opposed to Warriors. True?”
He grunted. “Perhaps. But it is dangerous to engage in wishful thinking. Counting on an updraft when a wind-shear comes by can be fatal.”
“I agree.” She held silent awhile as they both watched three Humans dressed in long white robes come to the brown sandy beach, stand, and yell at the nude Humans playing in the surf. Several male Humans raised forearms toward the robed ones, while one female clambered onto the back shell of a nearby Zik Defender, seeming to enjoy her fast-moving sea perch as the Zik swam with her through the shallows. Other Humans on the beach, lying either nude or garmented on rectangular cloths, ignored the small group of screaming Humans. Eventually, the robed ones retreated back to the rec chamber’s entry portal, seeming to disappear into its cave-like entrance.
What did it all mean? Why had no Sept Ruler appeared and resolved the matter one way or another? T’Klose felt only confusion, anxiety and fear at the evidence of such undisciplined sapients. There was an order to life, to reality, and the Humans seemed not to recognize it. There was no telling when the Human friendliness would turn suddenly to hostility, to active threat, just as the peaceful scene below had been suddenly interrupted. He sigh-whistled.
“Do you understand them, dear T’Erees?”
“I understand that,” she whistled. “See—over there in the woods beyond the beach? Two Humans are making love.”
He looked, changing middle eye focus to extreme telescopic. Two shapes leaped into focus.
He saw one Human—a female judging by its Horem-like breasts—lying on her back on the soft grass of the forest beneath a tree, her legs wrapped around the mid-body of the male Human who lay atop her, his hips rapidly. Making love? Mating? It bore some resemblance to one of the Horem love-making positions he’d seen many years ago on an inter-cultural exchange holo. Small sounds reached his ears. Like the ones from the surf group, they were too faint and low-timbered to be understood by his harness-mounted comdisk.
“I see them. Why do they hid from the others?”
T’Erees whistled. “Perhaps they like privacy. Many sapients do.”
He shifted his head, angling his fan-ears for greater reception. “Privacy? In the Aerie we joy in the shared warmth of one’s clan, one’s cadre and those oath-bound to service. In the long winters of home, it is natural that nothing is hidden.”
She shrugged both wings wide-open. “Maybe only some Human couples like privacy in love-making. I wonder if they’re aware they have an audience?”
T’Klose widened his perception field. There! In the trees only a few meters beyond the Humans he detected the black sheen of a Gosay, the rainbow-colored glow of two Strelka, and a lone Horem male, all in a cluster hidden by low bushes. Apparently, the mating habits of the Humans were a topic of intense curiosity among some in the Compact. And not just juveniles, judging from the black-tipped fur of the lone Horem. Inside, he smiled.
“Those Humans must have abysmal hearing if they can’t hear the double heartbeat of that Horem, and terrible noses if they can’t detect the sweet smell of the those Strelka!” he said.
Laugh-whistling, T’Erees moved much closer to him, close enough to wrap her left wing fully about his back. “Yes! What an amusement! Too bad their eyesight is so poor they can’t tell we are watching also.”
Inside his gestation pouch, the new-one stirred. T’Klose felt drawn back to the now, to his Mate, to his original question. His eyesight adjusted to the near-range as he turned slightly to put two eyes on his beloved.
“You haven’t answered my question. Do you understand them?”
T’Erees detected the slight movement in his lower pouch. Swiftly, she laid her left palm over the bulge of their new-one, voice whistling a few nonsense phrases.
“I understand that we have more in common with these Humans than we do with the crystalline Thoranians,” she said softly. “Or with the monosexual Sliss matriarchs and those cold-frozen Thix-Thet. I just wish the Humans would be—more organized. Less impulsive.”
He put his claw-hand over hers, sharing the feel of their joint life-making. “I too. But until they do, I am a Warrior. Even for those who engage in wishful thinking. This is our home Aerie, now. It must not be harmed! T’Erees . . . . ”
“Yes, Sept Ruler?”
Her voice held the tone of a fellow Warrior, in addition to that of a mother.
“For now, I will watch. But soon, the Humans will return to their impulsive ways. To violence. When they do, I and the Military Compound will be ready. You must be ready.”
“Me?”
“Yes. You have an . . . acquaintanceship with some Humans. Use it to learn more about them. I may send you to the Human-Compact Moon base at Tycho.”
Inside, he felt grim. “I wish to make the Humans aware of what might happen to them if they attempt us serious harm. You like to tell stories. Tell them of what happened to our Claw-Ships when the Compact came to us. Tell them about the Compact’s deadliest weapon.”
She hiss-whistled in surprise. “But . . . I thought that was to be kept secret.”
“It was. Until now.”
“As you command, my liege-lord.”
T’Klose stood with his Mate long minutes more, watching Humans play in the surf. New ones joined them and threw off their garments. He watched in careful balance with wind currents and thermals, his perch unsteady but natural, not fully safe, but a part of his life. A part of reality. Eventually, he and T’Erees would both soar in the thermals, giving exercise to their wings and pleasure to their bodies. Together, they would soar as long as they could, high above a chamber filled with strange alien bodies, only a few of them Arrik.
He wondered how long the Humans would stay balanced. He wondered how long before his prophecy to Sargon would come true. He wondered if the coming of Hekar to Earth would mean his death. He wondered what kind of future there would be for his new-one. He wondered what Human Warriors did in attack-mode.
Did they kill children?
Inside, he made an oath-vow to his new-one that she would never be harmed by a Human.
CHAPTER NINETEEN
To Jack, Tycho Crater looked like some kid had tossed his erector set out the window, hoping it would end up in something intelligible. What he saw through the porthole of the Gosay bulk carrier transport were massive constructions of steel beams, geodesic domes, giant boulders, several landing aprons, monorail transport systems, solar and laser crucibles flaring at nearby mineral veins, and a few junk piles. Garbage, he reflected, looked like trash no matter whether it was alien or human. The constructions circled the central mountain peak of the crater. To the northeast, the American base dome lay next to the two smaller peaks that bordered the mile-high central peak.
Retread Shop 1: First Contact Page 29