Request. Ryo turned the word over bitterly in his thoughts as he stood in the clan meeting hall. It was very late. The four Servitors had departed, still apologizing.
Seated before him were at least a dozen Ryo recognized. Fal was there … that surprised him, though it shouldn’t have. His sire and dame. Two of his three sisters … the other had moved away to Zirenba. Several clan elders.
“My free movement as a citizen has been interfered with,” he said. His gaze settled on Fal. She looked away from him, nervously cleaning one eye with a damp truhand.
“I am sorry, Ryo. I thought this necessary, best for you as well as me. You have your responsibilities.”
“We’re not mated,” he said, more bluntly than he intended. She ceased her cleaning.
“I am aware of that. What I have done was done out of my feelings for you, whatever you may feel for me. You must believe that.” Her whistle was painfully plaintive.
“Come here, Ryozenzuzex.” It was a command, but a gentle one. He stepped forward until he was standing before a Thranx he’d met only twice before.
Twenty-five hundred members of the Zu clan lived in Paszex, and Ilvenzuteck was their spiritual if not legal head. The clanmother was very old. Her chiton had faded to deep purple, was nearly black in places. Her antennae drooped and her eyes were dull as death, but there was nothing corpselike about her speech. Her gestures were minimal but lucid, her whistles properly pitched, the clicks sharp and devoid of any suggestion of uncertainty.
“Falmiensazex has told me of your desire to leave us. Indeed, to leave Paszex and Willow-wane to fly off to Hivehom on some bizarre quest.”
Ryo glanced toward Fal, who was not looking at him. “Did she tell you that my reasons involve more than merely a crazed desire?”
“She did not elaborate. She merely said that it had to do with a desire that you felt required satisfaction but could not describe in detail.”
“That much is true enough,” he admitted.
“Such feelings can be treated.”
“Physically I’m fine, Clanmother. Mentally I’ve always been slightly different.” He noticed his sire making small, half-unconscious gestures of sad affirmation. “But never aberrant enough to warrant treatment. My personal achievements and successes speak to that.” He did not need to point out the shining star set in his shoulder. Ilvenzuteck had witnessed its setting.
“They do indeed,” she said. “If they did not, we might be holding this conversation under more difficult circumstances. But this has nothing to do with eccentricity or any desire of yours. You have responsibilities here: to the Inmot Company, to your hive, to your family, and,” she added with a gesture, “to Falmiensazex. To your family-to-be. Many ancestors are sitting in this chamber with us. They fill the empty saddles and sit in judgment. You cannot abandon them, too. We all have our secret desires, our secret wishes. Unfortunately, the universe is not so constructed that we may be permitted to fulfill them.”
“I’m sorry, but—”
She interrupted him, as was her privilege. “You must not pursue this thing. It drives you toward destruction. I will not let you throw away so promising a life, Ryozenzuzex. As your clanmother, I forbid it. That holds no legal power, as you are aware. But if you hold to your heritage at all, such abstracts will not tempt you.”
“And if I try to go anyway, ‘heritage’ notwithstanding?”
“I have registered my decision with the hive council. Hivemother Tal-i-zex concurs. So do your parents and your premate. So will your employers. Many witnesses to this conversation will testify to your oddness of habit. They will do so to protect you from yourself, out of love for you.”
Ryo calmly studied the assembled faces and bodies and saw this to be so. He would have expected nothing else.
“It is your future happiness they hold dear. As I do,” Ilvenzuteck said gently.
“I do not doubt that,” he replied, truthfully enough.
“If you try to leave,” she continued softly, “your clanmates will stop you. If you get past them, the hive council will have you recalled, citing your importance to the welfare of the hive.
“You have done well on the scale of this hive, slightly in terms of Willow-wane itself, and not at all in terms of interplanetary society. Speaking practically, you could not reach Hivehom. You have not the resources. Your credit is locked in mutual file with your premate Falmiensazex, and a limit node has been placed upon it.”
He threw Fal a sharp look.
“For the same reasons, Ryo,” Fal told him. “If our positions were reversed, you would do the same for me. I’ve worked for that credit as hard and as long as you. You’ve not the right to do whimsy with it.”
“Let me have my share then.” His tone was coaxing, affectionate.
“No. When this attack fades from your mind and you are your rational self once more, you will be grateful for what all your friends have done for you. You have many friends, Ryo.”
“It does not matter,” Ilvenzuteck said. “Even if you had access to all the credit it would not be nearly enough to carry you to Hivehom. You have no concept of the costs of the greater society. Your Learning Time did not include that.”
“I’d get there. One way or the other, I’d get there.”
“Is that truly your wish, or only what you think you wish?” she continued shrewdly. “You’ve listened to me. You’ve seen the reaction of all who love you most. Is it not possible they are right and you are wrong? Against experience, tradition, and love you can marshal only a vague ‘desire.’ Who then musters the better argument, Ryozenzuzex? You are intelligent. Use that intelligence now and speak truthfully with your inner self.”
He seemed to slump, his body to droop between his legs. “I cannot fight your arguments, Clanmother. I suppose you are right. You are all right.” He did not sound pleased, but the intensity had left him. “It was the excitement of the moment, the possibilities I saw. But I see now that they are not for me. Foolishness. I am ashamed.”
He executed a gesture of embarrassment mixed with mild humor. “When inspected dispassionately from outside, it does indeed appear irrational and immature.”
“There’s no need to feel embarrassed,” his sire said. “You are admired for your confession to reality. If your curiosity is so great, perhaps you should have chosen information processing for a career.”
“Not a bad thought. Maybe someday I still could, as a second profession.”
“Perhaps,” Ilvenzuteck said soothingly. She was watching him closely. “How do you feel?”
“Not too well,” he said. “Tired.”
“Understandable. Enough of this silliness, now. Go back to your admirable apartment with your premate.”
“If you want to, that is, Ryo.” Fal was worried.
“Of course I want to.” He looked around gratefully. “I thank you, thank you all, for what you’ve done. For your concern and your affection. I’ve been an idiot, and not for the first time. But for the last.”
Fal approached him and they entwined antennae lovingly.
“That’s much better.” Ilvenzuteck sighed in relief. “A night best forgotten. We’ve all been roused from a sound sleep and all must work tomorrow. So, everyone to home, and let it be the last said of this matter.”
Days passed. Unexpectedly a second message arrived from Brohwelporvot. Fal didn’t hesitate to show it to Ryo. The wording and phrasing were calm, controlled, wholly typical of Broh as opposed to the previous hysterical and life-disrupting communication.
Broh’s message explained that everything in the previous communication was the result of overwork and overworry and the pressures of a difficult command in which he did not yet feel comfortable. No monsters existed, no contact had been made with a spherical black alien craft, and he, Broh, had been dispatched to a rest facility for a vacation. He was feeling quite chipper, and she should not worry. Someday he would explain in more detail about the nightmares that could afflict one in Deep Space, and they
would both have a fine long-range laugh over it.
Fal replayed the message a second time for Ryo. He absorbed it and immediately agreed that it explained sensibly everything that had gone before. It was not even necessary to repeat it at a slower speed because he’d arrived at a similiar conclusion about the first message on his own. It was good to have his theory confirmed.
Clearly Broh had dictated the message himself, for his own face was imprinted on the bottom of the communication. And to allay any possible lingering suspicion on Ryo’s part, Fal had confirmed the message’s authenticity via a brief, terribly expensive personal voice-picture conversation with Broh himself, on Hivehom, a copy of which conversation she played for Ryo.
The whole incident had been a fantasy that had been precipitated by a bad dream. No longer would it cloud their lives. Ryo was quite in agreement, even chiding her for having to show the recording to him. The first communication had not so much as tickled his thoughts since the meeting in the clan hall.
Now he had to rest, for tomorrow would be a difficult day in the jungle. There was tiresome clearing to supervise, and would she please stop troubling him with such trivialities?
But during sleeptime he lay conscious and awake, his thoughts churning like a tropical storm. Something had forced Brohwelporvot to compose and transmit the second communication. Something or someone had decided to cover matters with the one person, however indifferent, who’d been informed of things she ought not to know.
Half a season passed. The incident seemed completely forgotten. Life was easy and smooth with him and Fal. The discreet surveillance the hive council had set on Ryo was gradually withdrawn.
He received the expected promotion to the local Inmot council and in-field supervison of clearing and planting passed to another. The bexamin vines throve, increasing still further his stature within the Company and the hive.
So when word came through Company channels that Ryo was required in Company council in Ciccikalk he showed no surprise and certainly no excitement over what was just a boring business trip to the capital. He made no unusual preparations for the trip and was normal in voicing his dismay at having to travel so far from home and hive. Only he knew as he sped southward that he would not be returning to Paszex very soon.
His otherwise empty eight-person module traveled fast and silent. The first night an unexpected bump jolted him awake, but it was only the sound of another module linking to his own. A few passengers boarded at the next stop. They took no notice of him. His anonymity would be preserved until he failed to appear at the Company council meeting. Then communications would pass querulously between Ciccikalk and Paszex. With luck it would be some time before his disappearance was linked to a possible recurrence of his youthful mental aberrations.
The module train curved southwestward, gradually turning and accelerating due south. In time it crossed into more heavily populated country, and after four days the train began to slow.
For half a day Ryo watched as roads, ventilators, and surface facilities began to appear like growths on the land. His module was in hill country and still slowing when the train finally pulled into the transport center of Zirenba, where he changed for Ciccikalk. Seven additional days of steady southerly travel revealed vast panoramas of cultivated fields that put those of Paszex to shame. Huge black ventilator stacks hinted at great subterranean manufacturing complexes.
And finally it was night again and the long train of crowded modules was pulling into the central passenger terminal at Ciccikalk. As each module halted the doors automatically sprang open. The simple portion of his journey was at an end. From now on he would have to move as a fugitive.
Ciccikalk was a metropolis of nearly three million, home to 20 percent of the planet’s population. The central terminal was only one of a dozen of similar size that ringed the city’s boundaries, and was as large as Paszex.
Ryo had expected great size, but not confusion. No statistic can convey the feel and scope of a large city to someone from a small town.
Overhead, myriad signs flashed showing modules and their destinations or those arriving from outlying communities and towns. The terminal was filled with Thranx pressing tight upon one another as they made their way to tracks and exits.
Ryo found himself fighting for control. To one side, he saw a line of rest saddles, forced his way through the crowd to them, and settled gratefully into one. Now he could watch and study the teeming terminal without having to fight for a place to stand.
He tried to remember what he’d learned about Ciccikalk. Three million was the metropolitan population. There were several million more living and working in the peripheral cities and towns. As opposed to Paszex’s five levels, there were forty-three beneath him here, wrenched from the rock of the planet. In addition to this prodigious feat of excavation, a dozen upper levels had been cut into the hills that ringed the Cicci Valley, and that was the hardest fact to grasp; that there were more than twice as many levels here above the surface as there were in all of Paszex.
Though still dazed he tried to review his somewhat sketchy plan of action. The fare to the capital had cost him all but his last unmonitored chit. He had exactly eight credits left. That would not buy him the right to look at a shuttlecraft, much less passage on a posigravity transport. It might keep him alive for a month. That did not take into account the problem of lodgings. He could not touch his joint account with Fal.
He would have to ration himself very closely. Perhaps he might find sleeping quarters in the poorer sections of the city. When to eat was not a concern. Nothing ever closed completely in a city the size of the capital. This was not sleepy Paszex.
The lack of credit to buy time did not worry him, since he doubted he would have a month. Eventually his image would be circulated and connect with the observation of some Ciccikalk Servitor and he would be picked up. He would have to use his credit stick to purchase passage on a ship. With luck, by the time the transaction was registered and the authorities were alerted, he would be on a ship making the break into Space Plus.
If he took a vessel’s last shuttle prior to departure, and if that shuttle docked just before its ship departed Willow-wane orbit, he might get away before the Servitors could freeze the ship. Once away from Willow-wane, he was confident he could find some way to reach the surface of Hivehom undetected, even if the Willow-wane authorities messaged ahead via Nullspace communications.
First Ryo had to find a place to stay while he studied the transport manifests for the most suitable departing ship. He also wanted a meal. The internal city transport module he entered was designed to assist travelers and was full of helpful information, though its attitude became slightly reproachful when Ryo indicated he wished to stay at the cheapest hotel possible.
Noise and some of the confusion faded as the vehicle slipped out of the frenetic transport terminal. Ryo relaxed a little. The burrow corridors narrowed as the module descended. It eventually went horizontal at the Thirty-third Level, turned eastward, then north, and finally deposited him at Level 33, Subannex 1,345.
At that point the corridor was just wide enough for two transports to pass each other and the ceiling hung barely a meter above Ryo’s antennae, but he felt right at home in the comfortable claustrophobic surroundings.
Nearby was the entrance to Dulinsul, the establishment that the module had reluctantly recommended. A number of simply dressed Thranx were at the saddles inside, conversing, drinking, or eating the evening meal. Ryo selected a booth near the back, placing his order through the tiny speaker set into the table surface, and stretched out on the hard, unpadded saddle. A dour elderly Thranx with one antenna eventually delivered the food by hand.
A single curved spout emerged from the prosaic drinking tankard. No intricate scrollwork here, Ryo mused. The tray that came with it held steamed vegetables, two different tuber pastes, a long section of Higrig fruit, and the requisite bowl of soup. The meat in the soup was tough but flavorful and the rest adequate. Ryo con
sumed all the food as if he were sitting in the finest gourmet restaurant in the city. He’d made it safely to Ciccikalk. Success was all the spice he needed.
“The way you’re inhaling that food, I’d say you’re pretty hungry.”
He looked up. Standing next to him was a diminutive adult. Female. Her face and wing cases were adorned with garish ornamentation; paste jewels and bright sequins that were simply glued on instead of being properly inlaid. From her body vest and neck pouch metal tinsel hung nearly to the floor. Strands of imitation gold filigree hung loosely from her ovipositors.
“Travel always makes me hungry,” he replied, turning to his food. He took a long suck from the spout of the tankard.
She eyed it curiously. “What are you having?”
“Quianqua fruit juice,” he said apologetically, and then wondered why he’d used the apologetic inflection.
“Piss juice, you mean.” The female turned, gestured toward the front counter. Without being asked, she settled into the saddle opposite Ryo. Light flashed from her ommatidia. The thin gold bands that crossed the center of the eye were wider than most. “You don’t look like the assembly-line type.”
“I’m not,” he admitted. “I’m a raw land surveyor and have been working to the north.”
“Out of the hive, then?”
“Yes. I’m here on exploration-related business and trying to husband my credits.” She seemed to be enjoying the conversation. As was he. It was relaxing to have someone to talk to he could feel safe with. She did not strike him as a Servitor operative.
His descriptions of the jungle and wild lands to the north fascinated her. By her own admission she’d never been outside Ciccikalk. A common condition of large-hive citizens, Ryo mused. It limits their horizons.
The kitchen worker arrived with two tankards of something that smelled wonderful. The drinking spouts were slightly more elaborate than that of the tankard he’d started with, each having a single neat spiral worked into it. They were what passed for fancy utensils in the Dulinsul.
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