"Wuuzelansem, I know your three books and hear that you're working on a fourth epic."
"As indeed I am, and a shadow play as well." It was then that Wuu had his small inspiration. "Would you like to hear something of the work in progress?"
"Would the eriat worm like to grow in a manure pile?" The overwhelmed soldier settled himself back into a saddle.
Wuu then gave a bravura solo performance from his new shadow play, executing all six parts and all six shadows as well, including that of a crippled larva. Ryo watched with as much delight as the soldier while the poet perfectly mimed the limbless larva with its blank, hungry stare and then shifted without a gesture break into the part of a hundred year old hivemother.
When all was done, it was everything the two spectators could do not to whistle their applause. Wuu stood before them, panting heavily.
"Something of an exertion." His sides were heaving. "It's difficult enough to write theater without having to be the theater as well. But one performs where one must, in the presence of demand, just as one takes inspiration when it is offered. I hope it was enjoyed."
The soldier left his saddle. His gestures, which until now had been acclamatory, turned suddenly furtive. He leaned close, the projector continuing to declaim nearby.
"Inspiration? I will give you some inspiration, EintMaster. Inspiration of the darkest kind. Can you write blind poetry, as full of threats and nightmare and fear as the surface of a moon? Oh, I'll give you inspiration, yes!"
"Can it be that the stories are true, then?" blurted Ryo, unable after all this time to believe.
"No, the stories are not true, but the rumors are. As true as rumors can be. Understand, I am only a liaison, not even a subofficer. I'm far too low in the castes to know; merely one of second rank. To reach the truth you would have to meet with an officer of the fifteenth rank, and even then I am not so sure he would know."
"So high," Wuu murmured. Only one rank lay above the fifteenth in Thranx military hierarchy, and that was Burrow Marshal level.
"What of the substance of these rumors, then, if not of truth?" Ryo pressed their sympathetic friend.
"The substance is the stuff of nightmare. As the smoke says, one of our ships was prowling out the Arm along the galactic plane and higher." His whistles were short and sharp, the clicks brief and nervous. "It found something. Nobody seems to know precisely what. Many who know just the rumors are convinced it's part of a complicated exercise to prepare us in case such a find should someday actually take place.
"It's a hereditary fear, of course, this anticipation that some immensely powerful, malignant alien race is lying in wait for us Out There. It stems from our ancestral terror of the ancient surface world. Now all Hivehorn is our burrow and other worlds as well, but the immensity of the night pit is a greater and more threatening surface than any we've ever faced.
"For all their boasting and tooth gnashing, the AAnn have the same fear. Some horrible alien something awaits Out There the terror that encircles a burrow dug by unThranx hands. The Throle that waited in hidden lair for our primitive ancestors.
"But if the rumors are true, that wandering ship found a horror that's grounded in reality, not our racial subconscious ..."
Ryo decided not to mention his knowledge of Brohwelporvot. Loquacious the fellow had so far been, and Ryo did not want to close down this wondrous source of information by letting the soldier know that the military secret, or rumor, or whatever, had been partially breached elsewhere.
"... and whatever they found," he was concluding, "is rumored to be horrible beyond imagining."
"Intelligent?" Wuu asked.
"As I say, I don't even know that anything was actually founts, only that rumor says it is some form of frightful life. Intelligent or not, I've no idea. There is intelligence, and then there is alien intelligence.
"The joint shaking stuff comes not from those in a position to know about shape, which after all can only take so many forms, but from those whose specialties involve mental characteristics. Some rumors say the creatures are racially homicidal. That they have an inherent and inbred desire to kill anything and everything that comes their way, including even their own kind."
"Cannibalistic," Wuu muttered. "Like our ancestors."
"It's worse than that," the soldier said grimly. "Our ancestors at least slew out of purpose. Apparently these things kill because of abstracts."
"They don't sound properly sentient to me," the poet confessed. "Though I must say I know certain bureaucrats who might fit the same description."
"It is hot a description only rumors. And it's no joking matter." He was so deadly serious that even the normally irreverent Wuu was compelled to subside.
"You simply haven't heard the stories that have trickled down. Even among the bravest and most foolhardy of the highest ranks those who are for mounting an attack on the AAnn home world even they are absolutely terrified by the prospect the discovery of these creatures opens up. Which may, I remind you again, be nothing more than a clever training exercise conjured up to test the entire military caste."
"If that's the case they seem to be doing a lot of work to keep the test from affecting most of its intended subjects," Ryo said.
"But that's part of it, don't you see?" the soldier said earnestly. "The uncertainty adds to the effect. Besides, the rumors are only to test the military. If the information reached the public, the test would be ruined because its source would have to be disclosed to prevent panic among the general populace."
"Sounds like the `test' might be a rumor planted to cover the real rumors." Wuu sounded intrigued. "The web is complicated."
"Whatever it is, truth or rumor, I want no part of it, as you seem to. If they're trying to find out who's brave or curious enough to come forth and challenge the rumors in person, they'll have to find someone besides me."
As he listened to the soldier drone on, for some reason Ryo found himself thinking of Fal. So very far away now, she was. His thoughts turned to his clanmates, always so supportive and proud of him. He thought of his life assignment. It wasn't so dull compared to most. Sometimes it had been downright exciting, even when he had spent most of his time deliberating in an office chamber instead of working in the field.
Aren't there enough challenges in life, he found himself wondering, without trying to ferret out the darker secrets of the universe, without trying to probe regions best left to those appointed to search them?
What am I doing here? came the sudden thought. He looked around the study chamber, feeling the whole ancient weight of Hivehom, of endless Daret and its secretive and bustling military establishment. What was he doing in that chamber, a simple colonial agricultural specialist, a glorified fungus tender who followed in the path of those who'd tended growths in damp tunnels before the coming of reason? Perhaps ...
Unexpectedly, the soldier emphasized a whistle, a proper name: Sed Clee. It meant nothing to Ryo, but the force the soldier had put into the whistle and the terror embodied in his movements when he'd said it were enough to shock Ryo from his momentary uncertainty.
Something was happening here on Hivehom. Something of vast and threatening import. It drew him onward while at the same time that damnably persistent part of his brain which had tormented him since birth pushed him from behind. He plunged recklessly, hungrily onward. "What is Sed Clee?"
"Nothing," the soldier replied solemnly.
"Nothing?" Wuu said.
"Nothing. A great deal of nothing, I think."
"Now you're not only being contradictory, young fellow," the impatient poet muttered, "you're being absurd."
"Not at all, sir," was the respectful reply. "When researching, one occasionally comes across irrelevant but interesting information in the files; `This information destined for Sed Clee.' `That report returned from Sed Clee.' But never any details, any exposition. Don't you see? Entirely too much nothing comes and goes from what is cataloged as a tiny military outpost. Th
e volume is far larger than a post of such size should warrant, and the information is directed to and dispatched from some of the most esoteric burrows of the military. This one, for example.
"When specifics are absent, an efficient researcher can sometimes glean information from inference. Rumors constantly emerge about the place. The one you study is not the first.
"There is more. I've never encountered a soldier who's actually been there. I've been unable to find anyone who knows of anyone who knows anyone who's ever been there."
"Secret military burial chamber," Ryo suggested.
"Not so secret. After all, the existence of Sed Clee is known," the soldier went on. "It's just that it's so obscured. There's so much formal indifference surrounding the place, not to mention deliberately casual obfuscation, that it makes one wonder if something of real importance is studied there."
"You just called it a place," Ryo pointed out.
"Statistics characterize it somewhat. The hive of Sed-Clee itself is small. Twenty thousand citizens or so supporting a few small industries and a military base, reportedly of modest size. Its exact size is classified above my level. Certainly the known information doesn't point to the installation's being responsible for anything remarkable."
"Yet you believe it may have something to do with the rumors we are tracking?" Wuu asked.
"Pardon if I seem simplistic, sir, but there is nowhere else these rumors can be ascribed to, so it seems to be the logical place to seek out. However, a number of other frightening things about Sed Clee are well known and have nothing to do with rumor.
"I am not able nor personally interested in going there. If the rumors are no more than rumors then it would be a waste of time. If they are true then I especially do not want to go there.
"But since you two are interested, and because of the admiration I hold for your work, Eint Master, and the honor you've done me in performing here this day, I have told you all that I know. There is nothing more save that I will show you what is known to be intimidating about Sed Clee."
They returned to the outer chamber. Under cover of innocuous conversation designed to allay the interest of the soldier's two associates, they proceeded to study his personal desk monitor.
Touches of the keyboard generated a map of Hivehom's northernmost continent. This map was then enlarged and the resolution steadily increased until they found themselves looking at a map of a corner of that continent.
Near its polar crest lay a region of cold where water sometimes never became a liquid, where a Thranx could survive only with environmental protection barely a step simpler than that required for survival in space.
Slightly to the south of the tiny permanent ice cap, just below the thin line of tundra that marked the end of the treeline, lay a tiny hive: Sed Clee. The military installation it supported was not revealed until the soldier touched several additional keys, whereupon a bright red dot emerged to the north of the hive.
A true destination, at last! Ryo stared at the map, at the source of rumor. "There must be some transportation if it's an integrated, formalized hive."
Other keys were touched. A network of green threads appeared on the map. Only one, so thin it was almost invisible, ran from the northern city of Ghew through six smaller hives scattered across vast undeveloped plains to Sed Clee.
"If I had a secret I wanted to hide, I'd be hard pressed to find a more isolated place," Wuu declared.
The soldier glanced up at him and gestured with his antennae for them to keep their whistles down. The other two operatives were staring curiously at them.
"Yes," the soldier said a little too loudly. "Now, if you're interested in other worlds on the periphery of our current sphere of exploration ... " The other soldiers returned to their respective tasks.
"I'd agree that this hive," their friend went on more quietly, "is about as isolated as you can get and still be on Hivehom." He scrambled the map and shut down the monitor. When he returned his attention to them his manner was entirely professional.
"I wish you luck and good hunting in your research, gentlesirs." He turned to gaze appreciatively up at Wuu. "And special thanks to you, sir, for your kindnesses."
"A trifle, my estimable young friend."
They made their own way out.
There was no doubt now where their hunt was going to take them, Ryo mused, but there was a city stop Wuu insisted on making first.
Though they would have no reason to go outside the shielded environs of Sed Clee, the poet insisted they travel prepared for any eventuality. Even a transport module could break down.
Despite the diversity to be found in the immense hive they still had difficulty locating a firm that sold as exotic an item as cold climate attire. It took several days.
The purveyor who provided the clothing asked no questions. However perverse, hobbies were the business of none but their adherents. So she simply accepted credit from Wuu and did not inquire what the two oddly matched strangers intended to do with their bizarre purchases.
They checked out of their hotel and took an internal transport to the northernmost main module terminus. From there they traveled for more than an hour in line with hundreds of similar modules, until they reached the outskirts of the metropolis.
Soon they had been switched and were accelerating with perhaps fifty other modules in a train heading due north. At regular intervals modules split off from front or back of the column. Forty, thirty, then twenty two, according to Ryo's count, were traveling steadily north northwest.
Some time earlier the transport train had emerged from subterranean concourses to travel on repulsion rails above the surface. The character of the landscape had begun to change. In place of the valley of the Moregeeon and its towering forests of ventilation pipes and air intakes, patches of steamy jungle alternated with cultivated fields and stack clumps marking the location of underground manufacturing facilities.
Hives were scattered more widely as they entered the second day of travel. They had already passed the goodsized cities of Fashmet and Pwelfree and hives were farther apart. Most of the modules they had departed Daret in concert with had split off, but they periodically acquired others and, on balance, the train had shrunken by only half a dozen.
Wuu's considerable resources enabled them to have the luxury of a private long travel unit, about a third the size of a normal eight passenger module, with two sleeping lounges and extensive hygienic facilities. The comparatively lush method of travel was something of a risk to their carefully cultivated anonymity, but one that Ryo was glad they'd decided to chance. It was a long way to Sed-Clee.
Though the module was equipped with automated food service, from time to time they varied their diet by pulling out of line to sample the distinctive regional cuisines of hives scattered along the route. Meal concluded, they would slip back to the main track and link up with the next cluster north.
Gradually the stack clusters marking the locations of subterranean industrial complexes gave way to taller, thinner pipes belching treated gases, each above a well developed mine. Haves became smaller, were set farther apart, and the jungle began to thin out. In clumps and on shady hillsides grew vegetation Ryo did not recognize.
"It makes one appreciate Willow wane all the more," Wuu observed one day as they sat watching scenery fly past their module's right side port, "when you realize that the mother world itself is a harsher place."
"I've thought that many times these past several days." Ryo didn't take his eyes from the passing landscape.
Days later found them climbing through a rugged mountain pass. Jungle assaulted the lower elevations, but higher up the rocky slopes they could just discern tall, symmetrical growths. Scrapers, Wuu said they were called. Trees that had thin, sharp excuses for leaves instead of the broad, flat variety they were familiar with. The exteriors of such plants were hard and rough, not like the smooth skin of normal vegetation. The covering was tougher and thicker than
the bark enclosing the toughest jungle hardwoods. Vines and creepers turned thin and sickly, though lichens and mosses seemed to thrive. It was very strange.
Three days before endmonth, they came downslope out of the mountains. On their northern flanks the jungle had vanished completely. Plants were still cultivated, but sparsely. Only a few vegetables flourished on the frigid northern plain. Hardship made locally grown vegetables terribly costly, but the price was high enough to encourage their planting.
On endmonth, twenty two days after leaving Daret, they reached Ghew, the northern hive city. But Ryo and Wuu did not pause; as soon as the transport computer switched them through they were hurrying north toward the first of the six hives that were links in an irregular chain leading to distant Sed Clee.
It was when they were traveling between Ublack and Erl o Iwwex, ascending through a stretch of open hilly country at just forty kilometers an hour, that Ryo woke to the nightmare. He was lying on his right side, preferred for sleeping, near the rear of the module. Only two units traveled in tandem with them now, both ahead of their own. He'd once studied the nightmare he now lived, but the shock of seeing it just outside the window was enough to make him cower on his lounge and pull the cocoon wrap practically over his antennae. "Wuu!" The poet raised himself sleepily and stared across the module at his companion. "What's the trouble? What is? ..." Then he noticed the direction of Ryo's motionless gaze and turned to stare at the same window.
Wuu climbed down from his sleeping lounge and walked over to the window. He pressed a truhand against it, felt an odd tingling sensation which he didn't identify until he touched the tips of his antennae to the glass: It was Cold. Deep Cold that seeped even through the sealed port.
Moving to the module's self contained climate controls, he turned up the interior heat and humidity. When the room had warmed further, Ryo, not wishing to appear the larva, slid from his own lounge to join Wuu in inspecting the phenomenon dominating their view.
Nor Crystal Tears Page 10