Levaughn surveyed his guests. “What’ve we got to lose here? If Cast-creative-Seeking is indeed telling the truth and his people want nothing but to help us take our rightful place in the scheme of things, where’s the harm? If nothing else, we can learn a lot from them. Me, I think this is our destiny. It sure as hell beats fighting and killing each other.
“I’m not asking for a vote of confidence or anything like that now. I know this is a lot to think about. So return to your duty assignments, go home, and think about what you’ve seen and heard here today. All I ask is that you don’t discuss it with anyone you don’t trust implicitly. There are reactionary forces on Daccar and elsewhere who wouldn’t understand what’s transpired here today and who would take steps to try and prevent its recurrence.
“It’s our future that’s at stake here, ladies and gentlemen. Not just ours individually, you and I, but that of our entire species. I think our joint proposal,” and he gestured in the direction of the silent Amplitur, “is a good template for future Human development.” He smiled paternally.
“I know I can trust each and every one of you to be discreet as well as thoughtful. Otherwise you wouldn’t be here today.”
Cast-creative-Seeking waved a tentacle for attention. “I will remain here some time as General Levaughn’s guest. If you would like to converse with me further, I look forward to such arrangements. Please take advantage of my presence. I am not a holo, not a projection. I think I understand you, your culture and your needs, as well as any of my kind.”
“Weave xenopsychs have been studying us for decades and they don’t understand us,” said the major.
“I said I understood you as well as any of my kind.” Cast-creative-Seeking regarded the speaker with both eyes. In the closed room those bulbous orbs seemed open and inoffensive. “It is quite true that no one understands you completely. I would be grateful if you would continue to educate me.”
Obviously exhausted by the need to speak aloud while tolerating climatic differences well outside its comfort zone, the Amplitur turned to its Human host and murmured something beyond range of the translator, in its own language. Al-Haikim noted with interest that Levaughn appeared to understand. Clearly this was not an enterprise the general had embarked upon in haste a few weeks or months ago.
“I’ll be available for questions also,” Levaughn informed them. “Don’t hesitate to ask. Discuss it among yourselves.” The sealed door at the back of the room opened to allow the assembled to depart.
In twos and threes the officers rose to leave, conversing animatedly among themselves as they filed out. Levaughn watched them go, much pleased with himself. He felt it had gone well, and Cast-creative-Seeking concurred.
How many of them would throw in with him? How many had the vision? He’d chosen them carefully and he needed their support. One could lead the way to a glorious future, he knew, but one could not forge it alone.
Energetically ignoring Levaughn’s strictures, al-Haikim cautiously but efficiently proceeded to disseminate the proceedings of the encounter to the rest of the modest Core population on Daccar. From there it spread both in person and via Underspace transmission to members on other worlds.
The reaction among those whose ancestors had been operated upon by Amplitur surgeons was predictably outraged, the more so when they learned that al-Haikim believed Levaughn’s message had gone down well with his audience. Furious debate ensued on how best to expunge the infection before it could spread. Not that it was anything new. The symptoms were all too familiar from Human tribal history. Only the circumstances were different.
Dangerously different. No would-be Human despot had enjoyed the services of the Amplitur as advisors.
Pleading inexperience, al-Haikim called for assistance. He was more than willing to help carry out whatever plan of action the Core seniors deemed advisable, but felt incapable of fashioning one himself.
XIX
She knew what he was before she knew who he was. It was obvious from the manner in which students and scholars scattered with as much decorum as they could muster from the vicinity of the sinuous anodized fountain.
She was resting on one of the wading platforms that jutted gracefully out into the central pool, her unshod feet and lower legs dangling in the lightly carbonated water, enjoying on her face and feathers the cooling mist the fountain’s jets propagated on a hot day. Triwinged Pligans roosted on the contorted strips of rainbow-hued metal, fizzing softly to one another as they diligently scanned the water below for drowned or drifting bugs, their equilibrium undisturbed by the fountain’s sedately gyrating components.
Hydronacaleths bloomed fecundly in the backwaters of the pool, their star-shaped green pads covering much of the sun-dappled surface. Eyes flashing, bubble-faced Mokers used them for cover as they competed with the Pligans for the same chitonous meals. Naturally, only those whose skin color matched that of the paving which framed the fountain were allowed to reproduce.
Into this placid frieze strode the figure which had so unsettled everyone save for a single eccentric female scholar.
Strange to see him in civilian attire. That did not mean he had left the military, she knew. There were many who believed that a Human could never completely leave the military.
As he drew nearer she studied his face. Though many could speak the comparatively simple language, there were among the Wais probably fewer than a dozen individuals who could instantly and correctly interpret Human expressions without recourse to research materials.
Plumage ruffled, attitudes no less so, those who had been relaxing in the company of the fountain continued to retreat, putting as much distance between themselves and the approaching Human as possible. Those who knew about Lalelelang glanced in her direction and whispered to their companions when they thought she wasn’t looking.
Since she was physically incapable of smiling outwardly, she smiled to herself. No doubt the Human had cleaved a path through the university grounds as cleanly as ancient ships had parted the waves of the Popememem Sea.
He was standing close now, gazing down at her through the self-darkening lenses Humans used to reduce the glare of Mahmahar’s sun. Their eyes were sharper than those of the Wais, and correspondingly sensitive. The best of her friends would have shied fearfully from such proximity. She simply raised a wingtip in greeting.
“Been a long time, Lalelelang.”
“Many years. Is your life filled with open sky, Colonel Straat-ien?”
He manipulated his facial muscles to show affection. As always, it was fascinating to watch them work. “You still have a hard time calling me Nevan.”
“I’ve been long back among civilized Wais behavior. I can call you anything you want, Nevan, in as many languages as you can think of.”
“And several times did, as I recall.”
Edging to the far side of the platform, she described a descending curve with her wing. She didn’t know if he recognized the gesture, but he took a seat next to her anyway. His bulk no longer made her nervous, but it provoked astonished commentary from those pedestrians who had not fled entirely the vicinity of the fountain.
“It must be something very important to bring you a second time all the way to my homeworld.”
He let his gaze rove the surrounding manicured grounds, with their immaculately sculpted hills and strange trees and undergrowth. When it chanced to interdict any curious Wais, they hurriedly and uneasily looked away.
“What I have to say couldn’t be trusted even to secured interworld communications. I may need your help.”
She tensed visibly. “I gave my help prior to the end of the war. Now I pursue my research in peace and quiet, as behooves someone of my age.”
“What about your grand hypothesis?”
“It troubles me less than it once did.”
He nodded. “Some people think that though the war’s over in name, it continues in spirit.”
She pondered this, then drew her feet out of the pool. “Let�
�s take a walk. I have been sitting in the sun too long.”
Her head crest reached only to his lower chest. She led him to a green-and-yellow meadow shaded by broad-leaved trees. Brightly colored small ornithorps darted and danced in the air above the meadow, their range restricted by the shimmer of a delicate restraining field. A small group of students was observing the caged arboreals when they noticed the new arrivals and made haste to depart.
The war was long over. Life for her had settled into a comfortable, predictable pattern. Now here had come this engram from a difficult past, this Human, bashing his way back into her reality with demands the extent of which she could only imagine. Doubtless he didn’t see it half so brusquely, but then what else could you expect of a hairy primate?
Folding her legs beneath her, she sat down beneath the nearest tree, dangling her feet over another pool that was a miniature of the one they had left behind. He made a temporary seat of a fancifully placed broken log.
“I’m ready,” she sighed resignedly. “Tell me.”
He explained, in depth and with quiet animation.
When he’d concluded she found herself staring at the hedge that formed a greenish purple barrier on the far side of the meadow. It was rife with maturing black berries. She had a feeling she wasn’t going to have time to pick any. The stones in her gut clinked.
In a nearby bush a hunting arachnid spat a minuscule globule of sticky mucus at a grazing honeyeater. Entangled and weighted down by the gummy blob, the larger bug spiraled to the ground, futilely fighting to free its wings. Having successfully expelled the combination of compressed air and mucus it stored in its special pouch, the arachnid pounced, smothering the body of its prey with its own striped, streamlined form.
It reminded her of something else.
“It has to be part of an official Amplitur covenant,” Straat-ien was explaining. “This Cast-creative-Seeking can’t be operating on its own, or on behalf of some small renegade group. Individual initiative is alien to its kind.” Her friend’s expression twisted. “Goes against the Purpose. The Amplitur do everything by consensus.”
“If your information is correct in its particulars,” she declared in measured tones, “then what we have here is nothing less than an entirely new and previously unsuspected Amplitur policy. The truth is sufficiently graphic. They want to help Humankind take control of the Weave and then they will try to control Humankind. They will use your people to gain what they themselves could not.”
“They claim only to want to give advice,” he replied.
She gestured actively. “As they advised the Crigolit, and the Mazvec, and all their other former allies.” Her voice dropped. “You have to credit them. This is more subtle. Much more subtle. It is obvious they have devoted a great deal of effort to learning about you. What they have in mind is to appeal not only to your postwar frustrations but to your racial vanity.” Her eyes widened slowly as she connected his presence with her assessment. “Surely you do not think it can happen?”
Straat-ien gazed across the grounds, idly trying to identify something hanging from a low branch. “Not among the educated. But as to the greater mass of Humankind, I frankly don’t know. My people have always been tempted by dreams of absolute power. It’s been a problem since the beginnings of our civilization. Would-be despots like this General Levaughn are usually the trigger.”
Beneath brightly colored strands of metallic fabric, the feathers on her chest fluffed with her breathing. “You know that if Humankind resorts to violence to address ills real or imaginary, the Weave will be compelled to respond in kind.”
“Wouldn’t matter.” He didn’t look at her. “You wouldn’t have a chance.”
“The Massood would fight, and logistically you would be overwhelmed.”
“Maybe,” he admitted. “But with Amplitur help, and the aid of many of their former allies: I don’t know. It could be a near thing.”
“Regardless of the outcome, the Amplitur would emerge strengthened,” she said bitterly.
“They couldn’t control us.”
She made a desultory clicking sound with her beak. “They don’t want to control you. They want to organize you. You are great fighters, but you are not sophisticated in these matters. The Amplitur are ancient, and wise. If necessary I think they would go so far as to sacrifice some of themselves physically to convince you. They will do whatever is required to gain your confidence. Then in a hundred years, or a thousand, or longer, your species will find itself responding to their directions without even being aware of what is taking place.
“Because if you give them enough time, their neurological engineers will find a way to counter, or bypass, or otherwise defend against your peculiar mental defenses. When that happens, you will find them suggesting you even as they have suggested the Wais, or the Massood. You’ll become their janissaries, and independence of intelligence will become no more than memory throughout the galaxy.
“Worst of all, you will believe that you are still in control.”
“That’s how most of us within the Core see things, but not everyone. Not yet. At such times it’s valuable to have non-Human input.”
“So you come to me.” She watched a dark shape move gracefully through the pool near her feet, concerned with nothing beyond eating and procreation. At that moment all the weight of a lifetime of difficult work pressed down on her, as she envied the swimmer the smothering simplicity of its existence. She could not be so fortunate, being cursed as she was with intelligence.
“I am tired, Nevan. Though I fear no less for the future, I am less convinced that I should exert myself on its behalf. In my noninvolvement it neither tempts nor curses me. My surroundings please me, and occasionally I am even confounded by a student who seems genuinely interested in my socially abhorred subfield of expertise. The prospect of non-Wais activity exhausts me.”
“How do you know I was going to ask you for anything more than your opinion?”
She peered straight at him out of large, round blue eyes. “Weren’t you?”
This time it was the Human who looked away. “You have to help us deal with this threat. Your position is unique, Lalelelang. You know more about us than any non-Human alive. That makes your perspective invaluable.”
She didn’t reply. Instead she searched for the dark swimmer in the pool. It was gone, fled somewhere beneath the hydronacaleths. Where she knew that, despite her growing anxiety, she could not follow. She let out a long, lingering trill. Any casual Human listener would have thought it beautiful. Straat-ien knew better what it signified.
“How many important or influential Humans have the Amplitur thus far subverted?”
Straat-ien didn’t waste time thanking her. “To the best of our knowledge, which is admittedly limited, this Levaughn and the few junior officers he’s managed to convert are the only ones so far.”
“That much is encouraging.”
“Whatever course of action we eventually decide upon, we have to move very carefully. As you know, Lalelelang, we have our own secrets to preserve.”
She remembered the simple Human gesture and nodded concurringly. “I know you cannot persuade other Humans,” she said thoughtfully, “but could you not, in this instance, appropriately suggest the Amplitur involved?”
“That’s a course of action we’re considering, but it involves additional dangers. The Amplitur mind is similar to our own, but not identical. Unlike us, they have no inbuilt neurological defense against being suggested. But they’re sensitive to intrusion. If we try to suggest to this one that it stop what it’s doing and return to its own world and the procedure fails, they’ll be made aware of the existence of the Core. They could bring Human allies like Levaughn to bear against us.”
“I agree you must use caution in your dealings, but I had in mind something other than compelling them to abandon their attempts to subvert your people.”
Straat-ien was confused. “Isn’t that what we want them to do?”
“Ultimately. But why not make use of them first?”
“I don’t understand your point.” For the briefest of instants he wondered if Lalelelang’s mastery of his language might be less than complete.
She flicked her lashes at him. “Instead of simply forcing them to withdraw their efforts, why not suggest that they explain the true motives behind their sudden offer of assistance?”
“That might be difficult to do if they really are, to their way of thinking, telling the truth. Besides, I’m told that among their Human supporters there are a fair number who still suspect the Amplitur’s actual motives. They suspect, but they simply don’t care.”
Lalelelang could not hide her shock. “I have studied many of your kind, but I still find it hard to believe that among them are those who so desperately crave power over others.”
“Believe me, Lalelelang, there are. I get no pleasure from admitting to it, but that’s what we’re dealing with here.”
“These individuals must be stopped immediately.”
“We agree. I think your suggestion about forcing the Amplitur to confess is good sense. It can’t do any harm, and it just might rattle the equivocators in Levaughn’s entourage.”
“How do you plan to proceed?” she asked him.
“We’re fortunate enough to have had someone on the inside from the beginning. He thinks he can get an operative close. Me.”
“They would not suspect?”
Straat-ien shrugged. “I’m a senior officer with plenty of wartime experience and no obvious connections to Intelligence. Just the type Levaughn is looking to recruit. I think it can be managed. Once inside, I’ll find a way to get close to the Amplitur. When I think the time’s right I’ll hit it with as convincing a piece of suggesting as anyone’s ever attempted.
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