The Tar-aiym Krang

by Alan Dean Foster

  “Yes, I know the place. So?”

  “Would it be a simple matter to wire the thing, do you think?”

  He shook his head, doubtfully. “Her people would notice that sort of thing. You know how careful she is.”

  “Not if we disguised it as one of those censored frogs, or something!” She glowed. “Yes, a frog. I’m sure such a device could be made. Waterproof, small, but still capable of delivering a lethal charge, yes. And you could, um, put the guard ‘to sleep’ for the minute necessary to slip the thing into the water.”

  “That does sound good, darling. Yes, Teleen, I do think so too!” He lifted her off the floor and kissed her gently. “One thing, though. Why haven’t you thought of something like this before?”

  Her mouth twisted in a feral smile that, had she known it, was almost a carbon copy of her aunt’s. “Oh, I have, I have, sort of. But until this morning, I really hadn’t been sufficiently inspired! Today I was finally convinced she is quite mad. It will be only a kindness to gift her with a long sleep.”

  Rashalleila Nuaman switched off the spy-screen and smiled kittenishly to herself. Her niece’s generosity and concern was . . . well, appalling. So she had finally dug up enough courage to actually plan the thing! About time, yes. But to trust that side of beef van Cleef with such knowledge! Tsk. Poor judgment, poor. How anyone could actually fall in love with an automaton, an utter nonentity, like that! Oh sure, he was great between the sheets. But beyond that he was a nothing, a void, a null factor. Well-meaning and affectionate, to be sure. Like a large puppy-dog. Ah, well. Let them enjoy their private games. It would be good practice for Teleen. Buoy her self-confidence, and all that. Eventually, though, the poor thing would have to be jolted back to her senses. She giggled at the small witticism. Such folderol was fine, but not on company time. Which reminds. Must have the ground keeper get rid of all those nice froggies. Temporarily, at least. No use wasting. Dinner tomorrow, perhaps.

  She had turned off the spy-screen a few moments too early. Downstairs, her niece’s stimulated mind had come up with another thought.

  “We also ought to keep the old bitch off balance, Rory. While we’re trying to hammer this thing out. She’s not a complete idiot, you know.”

  “I suppose that’s a good idea,” said van Cleef, flexing his quadriceps. “You’ll think of something.”

  Her face was alight “I have. Oh, have I!” She turned away and walked over to the china desk. A hidden switch revealed a comm-screen she knew wasn’t being tapped by any of her dear auntie’s automatic spy monitors. It was the one machine on the estate whose circuitry she’d checked over herself. She tapped out a rapid, high-speed series of numbers that sped her call over a very special and very secret relay system to a little-contacted section of space.

  Eventually the screen cleared and a face began to take shape.

  “Well, good light to you, Amuven DE, and may your house always be filled with dust.”

  The face of the AAnn businessman crinkled in a toothy smile. “As always, as always. So good to hear from you again, Mistress Rude!”

  Chapter Nine

  Flinx had been staring silently out through the main viewport of the salon for some time, well aware that there was someone behind him. But to have turned immediately would have engendered unnecessary awkwardness. Now he turned to see the two scientists and became aware that he needn’t have been concerned. Neither was paying the slightest attention to him. They had drawn over lounges and were stating out at the magnificent chaos of the drive-distorted heavens. Taking no notice of their scrutiny, the prismatic panoply flowed on unchanged.

  “Don’t mind us, Flinx. We’re here for the same thing. To enjoy the view.” The philosoph returned his attention to the great port and the doppler-distorted suns which glowed far more sharply than they ever could in their natural state.

  But Flinx’s concentration and mood had been broken. He continued facing the two scientists.

  “Sirs, doesn’t it strike you as odd that in a time when so many folk have so much trouble getting along with one another, you two, of two utterly different races, manage to get along so well?”

  “Your questions, I fear, will never carry the burden of subtlety, lad.” Tse-Mallory turned to the thranx. “At times in the past my friend and I existed in a rather close—one could say intimate—association. Our work necessitated it. And we are not so very different as you might think.”

  “I remember your calling each other ship-brother several times.”

  “Yes? I suppose we did. We’ve never gotten used to the idea that other people might find it unusual. It’s so very natural to us.”

  “You were a gunnery team?”

  “No,” said Truzenzuzex. “We flew a stingship. Small, fast, a single medium SCCAM projector.”

  “As to our relationship irrespective of ship life, Flinx, I’m not sure Tru and I could give you an objective answer. Our personalities just seem to compliment one another. Always have. The attraction between human and thranx is something that psychologists of both races have sweated over for years, without ever coming up with a satisfactory explanation. There are even some pairs and groupings that become physically ill if one is separated long from its alien counterpart. And it seems to work on both sides. A kind of mental symbiosis. Subjectively, we just feel supremely comfortable with each other.

  “You know the events leading up to the Amalgamation, the Pitar-humanx war, and such?”

  “Only bits and pieces, I’m afraid. Regular schooling is something that eluded me early.”

  “Umm. Or vice versa, I suspect. Tru?”

  “You tell the lad. I’m certain he’d find the human version of the story more palatable.”

  “All right.”

  “Human and thranx have known each other for a comparatively short period of time. Hard to believe today, but true. A little over two t-centuries ago, scoutships of both races first encountered each other’s civilizations. By that time, mankind had been in space for several previous t-centuries. In that time, while engaged in exploration and colonization, he had encountered many other alien life-forms. Intelligent and otherwise. This was also true of the thranx, who had been in space even longer than humanity.”

  “There was an indefinable attraction between the two races from the very outset. The favorable reactions on both sides far outweighed the expected prejudice and aversions.”

  “Such existed on the thranx planets as well,” put in Truzenzuzex.

  “I thought I was going to tell this?”

  “Apologies, oh omnipotent one!”

  Tse-Mallory grinned, and continued. “The thranx were as alien as any race man had yet encountered. A hundred-percent insectoid, hard-shelled, open circulatory system, compound eyes, rigid, inflexible joints . . . and eight limbs. And they were egg-layers. As a news commentator of the time put it, ‘they were completely and delightfully weird.’ ”

  “If I recall aright, your people laid a few eggs at that time too,” piped the philosoph. Tse-Mallory shut him up with an exasperated glance.

  “From past experiences one would have expected the human reaction to the discovery of a race of giant sentient insects to be hostile or at least mildly paranoid. That had proved the pattern in too many previous contacts. And man had been fighting smaller and much more primitive cousins of the thranx for thousands of years on the home planet. In fact, if you can believe it, the term ‘bug’ originally had a derogatory connotation.

  “But by now mankind had learned it was going to have to live in peace and harmony with beings whose appearance might be personally repulsive. It didn’t help things to know that many of those same beings considered man at least as repulsive-looking as he considered them.” He glanced expectantly at Truzenzuzex, but that worthy was at least temporarily subdued. “So the actual reaction between human and thranx was doubly unexpected. The two races took to each other like a pair of long-separated twins. The thranx traits of calmness, cool decision-making ability, politeness, an
d wry humor were admired tremendously by humans who’d sought such qualities in themselves. By the same token there was a recklessness combined with, brains, an impossible self-confidence, and a sensitivity to surroundings that thranx found appealing in man.

  “Once it had been voted on by both races and approved by considerable margins despite the expected opposition from moneyed chauvinists, Amalgamation proved to be even less trouble than the optimists had anticipated. Thranx click-speech, with its attendant whistling, actually had a reasonable phonetic counterpart among the thousands of Terran languages and dialects.”

  “African sub-divisions,” mused Truzenzuzex. “Xhosa.”

  “Yes. For their part thranx could, with difficulty, manage the major human language system of Terranglo. The eventual outgrowth of much work by phoneticists, semanticists, and linguists on both sides was a language that hopefully combined the better aspects of both. The clicks and whistles and some of the rough rasps of Hive-speech major were kept in, intact, along with most of the smoother sounds and vowels of Terranglo. The result was probably the closest thing to a universal language, barring telepathy, we’ll ever have: symbospeech. Fortunately for business purposes, most other races with vocal apparatus can also manhandle at least enough of it to get by with. Even the AAnn, who turned out to be better at it than most.

  “The mutual admiration society was off and winging. Pretty soon it had extended itself to other aspects of the new humanx life-system. Our politicians, judges, and law-makers couldn’t help but admire the beauty and simplicity with which thranx law and government had been put together. It was practically an art-form, built up as it had been from the old Hive structure itself. Not that it was that different from the oldest human municipalities and nation-states. Just much more sensible. Thranx lawyers and magistrates soon cleared away a lot of the backlog that had been clogging human courts. Besides their superlative natural sense of jurisprudence, they could not possibly be accused by anyone of partiality.

  “Terran-derived sports, on the other hand, completely revolutionized the thranx’s biggest problem—that of leisure. They simply hadn’t realized that there were so many organized ways of having fun. When they discovered chess and judo, it was all over with flip-the-rock and that ilk.”

  “Third-degree black belt,” noted Truzenzuzex proudly. “Although I’m getting a bit creaky for such activity.”

  “So I’ve noticed. I could go on and on, lad. Human planets were deluged with exquisite examples of thranx workmanship. Machinery, handicrafts, personal gadgetry, delicate electrical products, and so on. Even the body coloring of each was pleasing to the other, although thranx odor had a decided advantage over the human.”

  “No argument there,” puffed the philosoph. That earned him another sharp glance.

  “When the thranx got hold of Terran literature, paintings, sculpture, and such seemingly unrelated things as ice-cream and children’s toys . . . in short, the two races just seemed to merge amazingly well. And the greatest of humanx achievements, the modified doublekay drive, you must know about.

  “But by far the greatest impetus toward amalgamation—along with the Pitar-humanx war—was the formation of the United Church. Powerful, relatively new groups existed among both races with similar beliefs. When they learned of one another’s existence, an alien organization with practicably identical theologies and desires, they soon had formed a combine which rapidly overwhelmed all but the most die-hard members of the older established churches. Not the least of its strengths was that it insisted on being called a nonreligious organization. For the first time, people could get top-level spiritual guidance without having to profess a belief in God. Back when, it was a real revolution.”

  “As near as we can tell, put in Truzenzuzex, “it is still unique in being the only multiracial spiritual institution in the galaxy. And other races have members.”

  “I’m afraid I don’t belong,” said Flinx.

  “Doesn’t bother me. The Church really couldn’t care less. They don’t proselytize, you know. They’re much too busy with the important things. Sure, they’d be glad to have you or anyone else as a new member, but you have to go to them. The mountain will have to go to Mohammed, because Mohammed is busy enough in his neighborhood!”

  “What?” said Flinx.

  “Forget it. Archaic reference. Even our materialistic captain is a member.”

  “I guessed that. Does he believe in God, too?”

  “Difficult to tell,” said Tse-Mallory thoughtfully. “That’s only incidental, anyway. I’m more concerned about whether or not God believes in him, because I’ve a hunch we’re going to need any outside help we can get before this trip is over.”

  “How about the’ Pitar-humanx war?” Flinx prompted.

  “Oh that. Tomorrow, hmm? I could use a drink right now. Haven’t done that much lecturing since . . . a long time.”

  True to his word he picked up the narrative the following morning, over tea and sweetcakes. Besides, one gets bored quickly in space. His audience had grown, however, since everyone was now in the salon except Wolf. It was his turn on duty watch.

  “I too am familiar with the details,” put in Malaika, an arm curled possessively around Sissiph’s waist. “But I think I’d enjoy hearing you tell it, juu ya. I know my versions are wrong!” He laughed uproariously.

  “So,” said Tse-Mallory, unconsciously aping their host. “Some five t-decades after the initial Terranthranx contact, relations between the two civilizations were growing at a geometric pace. Both sides, however, were still wary of each other. Contact between the two religious groups was still in a formative stage, and amalgamation was a dream in the minds of a few outstanding visionaries of both races. These were still greatly outnumbered by the ‘patriots’ on both sides.”

  “Then came the first Terran contact with the Pitar. That race occupied two densely populated planets in the Orion sector. They were a totally unexpected factor, an alien race human to point nine six three places. Really a remarkable and as yet unequaled coincidence of form. Externally they were for all practical purposes identical with humankind. In looks, as a race, they came pretty close to the Terran ideal. The males were tall, muscular, handsome, and exceptionally structured. The women were one hundred percent feminine and at least as attractive as the men. Humanity went through a brief, hysterical phase in which anything even remotely Pitarian was the subject of slavish imitation. The Pitar themselves seemed cordial enough, if a bit nervous and self-centered. Limitless professions of mutual aid and undying friendship were exchanged between the two races.

  “The Pitar were highly scientific, and in a few phases of research came surprisingly close to matching Terra. Weaponry, for example. The reasons for this obvious dichotomy in their seemingly peace-loving civilization became apparent later. Too much later. It also appeared to have a disproportionate influence in their social setup.

  “Human-Pitar friendship was progressing at a rate comparable to human-thranx. Several years after first contact, a tramp freighter happened to put in at a large but out-of-the-way humanoid colony. Treetrunk, or Argus V, as it’s better known now. Apparently the entire colony, some six hundred thousand souls, had been utterly and ruthlessly wiped out by an unknown lifeform. Not a man, woman, or child had been left alive on the entire planet. Corpses of women seemed to be especially lacking. The reason for this was discovered later also. Well, expressions of sympathy poured in from the other intelligent races, including the Pitar. They were at least as outraged as any of the others. Most races then sent out scouts to try to locate this new and virulent alien race before they themselves could become the victims of a similar atrocity.

  “Two months later a man was found orbiting one of the devastated planet’s two moons in an antique, jury-rigged lifeboat. A cruiser of the Unop-Patha—you know that race?—was on courtesy patrol at the time and happened to drift within range of the boat’s feeble transmitter. They had never encountered an insane human before and were pretty much at
a loss as to what to do with him until they could finally turn him over to the nearest human authorities. That happened to be the big research group which was sifting Treetrunk for clues. A month of intensive treatment succeeded in restoring the fellow to partial coherency.

  “It took them some time to make sense of his story. His mind had been badly unhinged by months of helpless drifting in space, fears of meeting an enemy ship—and, after a while, of not meeting one—and by what he had seen on the planet itself. It was fortunate that he didn’t have the courage to commit suicide. The ugly story he told has been documented many times over and I find it personally distasteful, so I will skip over the gory parts.

  “The enemy had struck without warning, raining death on the unprepared populace. Being without a regular military force—or need of one—the planet was quite helpless. The police skiffs tried and, as might have been expected, proved useless. All appeals for mercy, negotiations, or surrender were met with the same response as ferocious resistance. When all opposition had been crushed and all interstellar communications completely destroyed or blanketed out, the invaders came down in ships of vaguely familiar design to inspect what remained of the battered colony.

  “Our single survivor had been as surprised as anyone when the sneak tri-dee screens had focused on the locks of the landing shuttles and armed Pitarian troops had come pouring out. They were remorseless in their destruction of the surviving human population, treating it as if they were the lowest, filthiest organisms in the universe. They helped themselves to a few valuables and such, but for the most part they seemed to enjoy killing for the love of it. Like weasels on Terra. At this point the man’s mind started to shrink away again. The psychiatrists who attended him felt that if he’d remained sane he never would have been able to cope with the other stresses that his escape put on his mind. Like not eating for four days, and such. The Pitar were thorough. They carried life detectors to search out survivors no matter how well they were hidden.