The attache drummed his fingers on the arm of his chair. "I still haven't heard a strong enough reason. It's insane to take up arms against one race on behalf of another that we have no relations with."
"The whole experiment sounded insane when Ryo first proposed it," Bonnie reminded him. "There's something else you haven't thought of. None of you." Her gaze included Sanchez. "What of the larvae we've borrowed from the Paszex Nursery? Their parents and clanmates are all back there. If they're killed we'll have relations of a different sort to deal with, far more complicated relations.
"Also, by assisting the locals we have a chance to insinuate ourselves into their good graces. That would greatly aid the Project." She looked hard at the attache. "Not hinder or finish it, as you claim. I feel it's time to take the next step, according to the Project programming. We can't stay hidden here forever."
"A most succinct summation." Bhadravati smiled pleasantly at the attache. "I should very much like to have a gun, please. In the interest of furthering the Project." This sentiment was echoed strongly by most of the others in the chamber.
Ryo's feelings were confused. It was marvelous finally to have committed the humans against the AAnn. He would rather have accomplished it under different circumstances, in a different place, but the web of existence had dictated it be in Paszex. He would cope.
At the same time, the presence of weapons on board the shuttle was a discomfiting revelation. Not one had see fit to come forward to tell him about it. Perhaps, he mused, because my reaction was anticipated.
In spite of the successes and accomplishments of the past months, had Wuu in the final analysis been right all along? Were these strange bipeds he had befriended really incurably warlike and violent? Or was the presence of arms here merely an understandable human reaction and precaution?
Dissection of philosophies would have to wait. All that mattered now was getting to Paszex as rapidly as possible. The harvester could rush there faster than the humans' shuttle, which had been made a part of the landscape.
Of course, the AAnn ships might not be heading for Paszex. That would spare him a lot of trouble.
Perhaps three dozen armed humans were ready and it was impossible to fit them all inside the harvester. The excess sat on top, clung to the sides. Ryo thoughtfully set the interior thermostat at near freezing, which his passengers found delightfully refreshing.
How long ago had he rumbled through the jungle in a survey crawler on a similar mission, to try and disrupt an AAnn attack on his home? Surely, if the AAnn were intent on Paszex again they would remember and post guards around their shuttles. But they would be expecting only a possible charge by agricultural machinery, not a heavily armed force of aliens.
The military attache was present with his several associates. As trained soldiers, they easily and immediately assumed command. Ryo noticed how alert they appeared, how intense in posture and speech. That worried him as much as the presence of weapons had.
He'd observed humans in a warlike state months ago, when Bonnie and the lamented Loo had escaped from their military prison on northern Hivehom. That he could understand. Then they'd been motivated by fear. He wasn't sure what was motivating the humans now.
With the humans on top and sides hanging on tightly, Ryo gently put the versatile harvester on lift. There was no point in trying to hug the earth now, and they didn't have days in which to slog through the jungle. On full hover he set the craft for Paszex.
They set down into the trees at a sufficient distance to keep them off AAnn detection equipment. It took as long to negotiate the final short stretch of jungle separating them from the hive fields as it had to hover all the way from the glade.
The invaders had set down in a different orchard. As in the previous nightmare, smoke was rising from ruined ventilators and intakes. For some perverse reason the AAnn seemed to have selected Paszex as a test hive for their inimical soirees. Ryo had no idea how many small, isolated hives on Willow wane and other colony worlds had suffered similar repeated attacks, but it was obvious that an alliance with the humans was more necessary than his own government was willing to admit.
Distant explosions sounded from the direction of the hive. "We will approach stealthily at first," Ryo was telling the military attache, "and try to slip close to them. I found that if you threaten their shuttles' engines they will "
But the attache was already making loud mouth noises which even the knowledgeable Ryo could not interpret. Then the humans fell like lice from the sides and rear of the harvester, and were running remarkably mobile zigzag patterns through the field of shoulder high weoneon and asfi.
It's doubtful that their numbers would have overawed the well trained AAnn soldiery. On the other hand, the sight of several dozen alien creatures waving alien devices as they charged from supposedly empty jungle shrieking at the tops of their lungs and generally comporting themselves like dangerous mental defectives would be enough to unsettle the most self possessed warrior of any race.
The AAnn guards fired wildly and often blindly while the humans picked their shots with surprising accuracy. Bonnie, Captain Sanchez, Dr. Bhadravati, and all those whom Ryo had come to think of as peaceful, gentle scholars were blasting away with an enthusiasm that made Ryo feel very sad for them. He was no longer frightened of the possibilities they presented. Fear had become pity.
They need us, these poor bipeds, he told himself. He watched as an energy bolt seared the wingtip of one shuttlecraft. They need us far more than we need them. They are the ones who should be crying for alliance.
The earth erupted and he ducked below the harvester's roof for protection. A shot had struck something more than volatile within the body of the farther AAnn ship. It disintegrated in a storm of flaming plastic and flying metal shards. The explosion knocked the other shuttle over on its side, crumpling landing gear and one of the four wings.
Several of the humans had been shot, but the damage had been done. The startled AAnn who had not perished grouped themselves into a surrender formation, threw down their weapons, and linked arms in a gesture of defiant submission. They glared through slit pupils at the peculiar beings surrounding them.
Ryo watched and wondered what the commander of the AAnn base ship orbiting somewhere above must be thinking. He did not know if the AAnn suffered from panic. Other AAnn were staggering from the intact shuttlecraft. Those returning hastily from the underground corridors of Paszex took note of the submission ceremony their fellows were performing and joined in.
It was not until evening that it dawned on the invaders how greatly they outnumbered their captors. By then it was too late to organize any resistance. Besides, they had performed the submission ceremony. Regardless of their anger, they had committed themselves. So they contented themselves with much internal grumbling, intense study of the alien victors, and disparaging comments about their officers, who'd mistaken strangeness for superiority.
By then the inhabitants of the stricken community had begun to emerge. The local Servitors were joined by ordinary citizens who'd armed themselves with utensils and manufacturing implements. The captured AAnn regarded them with unconcealed disdain, their tails twitching listlessly as they shuffled about under the watchful gaze of the humans. Meanwhile the hivefolk kept their distance, their curiosity focused more on their fearful saviors than on the belligerent AAnn.
Eventually someone noticed Ryo standing among and conversing with the bipeds. He reluctantly made his way to the strangely garbed Thranx, striving to get no nearer the monstrous aliens than was absolutely necessary.
"I am Kerarilzex," the Elder announced. His antennae were withered, but not his voice. "I am Six on the Hive Council of Eight. We would give our thanks to these peculiar visitors" he'd been about to use the Thranx word for monster and at the last minute thought better of it "but I would not know how to do so. It appears you can converse with them." Then he made a slow gesture of third degree uncertainty c
oupled with one of rising amazement. "I believe I believe I may know you, youngster. Can it be that you are of the Zex?"
"I am called Ryozenzuzex, Elder."
"The young agricultural expert who vanished so long ago. Truly do I remember you!" He paused, thinking furiously. "Word came to us all the way from Ciccikalk that you had become something of a dangerous renegade."
"Something of that, yes. I am a renegade from and danger to the blind, the callous, and the reactionary. No one else has anything to fear from me." Now that the AAnn had been neutralized, other problems in their own fashion more serious were beginning to resurface.
"Rest deep and warm, Elder. Neither I nor my friends," and he indicated the monsters, "are any threat to the hive. The contrary is true. All will be explained." I hope, he add silently. "All that matters is what I have accomplished in my absence."
Bonnie had walked over to stand next to him. She was gazing with interest at the Elder, who found the attention very upsetting.
"Who are these ... creatures, and how have you come to be among them?" he asked.
"It's a long story," Bonnie said via the appropriate whistles and clicks.
The Elder was flabbergasted. Reflexively, he threw back a stream of questions.
"I don't understand," she told him patiently. "You'll have to speak more slowly. I'm not very fluent yet."
Ryo translated the rough places for both of them. The Elder's active mind was homing in on another unsettling thought.
"We thank you for our hive's salvation. I think we will be safe from AAnn depredations from now on. Would you by any chance know what happened to six children who were taken from the Nursery several months ago? Their Nurse vanished with them. A heinous crime."
"And a necessary one, I'm afraid." Ryo was past caring what local Elders thought. Having broken so many important laws in a comparatively brief span he had no compunction at mentioning yet another perfidy.
"The Nurse Falmiensazex had nothing to do with the disappearance." He had to hesitate before he could go on. "She lies in a comasleep. That was my fault. It was also necessary."
The Elder was watching him shrewdly. "You call it necessary, yet you show signs of remorse."
"She is was my premate."
"Ah." The council member was trying to sort events in his mind. "And the larvae?"
"All are well, healthy, and maturing." In areas you can't begin to imagine, he added silently.
"There will have to be an adjudication, of course," murmured the Elder.
"Of course."
"What are they talking about?" Bonnie asked him.
"My most recent crimes. I will have to surrender myself soon to confinement."
Bonnie hefted her rifle. "Not if you don't want to, you won't. You're too valuable, too important to the Project to languish in some cell while we try and muddle through first contact without you, Ryo."
"I assure you everything will turn out all right." He put first a truhand and then a foothand on her arm. "A society functions because its citizens choose to abide by its laws."
"That sounds funny coming from you."
"So I am selective." There was no accompanying gesture of humor. Bonnie wondered if that was for the benefit of the watchful Elder.
"The matter must be discussed, Bonnie. It will take time."
As it turned out, it did not.
An echo of the thunder they'd hidden from earlier now rose out of the south. It grew to deafening proportions as half a dozen sleek shuttlecraft passed low overhead. They commenced a wide turn that would bring them circling back toward Paszex.
Bonnie and the other humans had a bad moment until they noticed the loud and clearly celebratory reaction of the hivefolk. "Our ships," Ryo told her in response to the unasked question.
"Late again," muttered the Elder Kerarilzex, "but at least in force this time. I hope others caught the command ship before it could flee orbit. Words will be composed," he added darkly. "This is the fifth time in the last seventy years. Other hives endure worse. I do not believe the people will stand for it much longer."
"And well you shouldn't," Bonnie agreed in passable Low Thranx.
The Thranx commanding officer, of the fifteenth rank, had stared through his compensating viewer as his modest armada passed low over the site of Paszex. He made mental note of the two ruined AAnn warshuttles, the cluster of AAnn prisoners, the armed hivefolk, and the astonishing aliens in their midst.
There was no immediate way of ascertaining which side the horrific bipeds were on. He could not fire on them since they were mixed in with the hivefolk. It was very frustrating.
The military of both species were livid. The bureaucrats were most upset. The politicians were confused and angry. The scientists were disturbed.
Each group had dreamed of holding center, stage when an intelligent, space traversing race was contacted. Instead, the moment of glory had been usurped by some secretive researchers, a mutinous human crew, and an outcast alien agriculturalist.
There were pains and problems. The parents of the boys and girls who'd traveled to Willow wane as part of the Project did their best to muster a feeling of betrayal. True, they had agreed to commit their children to Project control in return for a year of free room, board, and education, but to some of them the whole business still seemed like kidnaping. None had thought to inquire as to the precise location of the Project school or its distance from their homes.
The idea of lifting a group of impressionable youngsters and then plunking them down among a bunch of pale wormlike monsters grated against the public conscience. No one, of course, gave a thought to the effect the children might have had on the impressionable Thranx larvae.
The Thranx populace had an advantage because it had already been exposed to two semi intelligent species and the AAnn. It was their highly developed sense of propriety that suffered most. Events had not unfolded according to carefully prepared procedures. When procedure was violated well, the Thranx were very strong on organization and rather less so at improvisation, and you simply did not improvise first contact with an alien race.
There was also the matter of larval abduction. Unlike the humans, Ryo did not have the permission of parents to enroll their offspring in the Project school. His action was kidnapping, whatever the motives.
Ryo didn't care. He agreed with everything the adjudicators said. All that mattered was the Project. Its apparent success was vindication enough for him. None of the larvae had been harmed, physically or mentally, by their experience. The Nursery supervisors who attended them could attest to that.
It's very hard to rouse public opinion against someone who politely agrees with everything his prosecutors say while patiently awaiting martyrdom.
His strongest condemnation carne not from government or public but from Fal. Under proper care she recovered rapidly from her comasleep, whereupon she laid into him far more devastatingly than any hivemother. Against her list of outrages he could offer only one thought in his defense: the fact that he had succeeded.
As to the avowed success of the Project, even the most jingoistic member of either species could not deny the evidence. Not only did the Thranx larvae and human children tolerate each other, they had grown nearly inseparable. Monster played happily alongside monster.
Recordings showing human children gamboling with their Thranx counterparts rapidly dispelled the initial outcry that had arisen on Earth and her colonies. How can something be considered a monster when a seven year old girl with pigtails can ride it bareback, or a couple of boys can tussle with it in a sandpile and all three are obviously having a wonderful time?
Reaction among the Thranx was, in accord with their nature, somewhat slower in forming. Grudging acceptance began to appear when chips revealed that the horribly flexible alien adolescents had no intention of butchering and barbecuing their larval companions.
A major ticklish problem was partially resolved when the Radical Agnostic theolog
ians of Earth discovered their exact counterparts among the Aesthetic Philosopher sect of Hivehom. They answered the nervous and awkward question raised by many as to which side the Deity might be on by proclaiming that he was most likely sitting back and watching the whole business with considerable amusement.
Twenty years would pass before the first treaties were drawn and more than that before the boldest among both species brought up the specter of Amalgamation. For the time being, preliminary agreements were sufficient. They were attested to and duly recorded by wary officials on both sides whose hands had been forced, not by strength of arms or superior intellectual power, but by children cavorting in a playroom.
Ryo was formally relieved of his long neglected agricultural duties and assigned to the permanent contact group. This was placed outside Paszex, which now assumed an importance beyond the export of vegetable products and handicrafts. Many of the latter, incidentally, were traded to the humans of the Project. Once again the pioneers had stolen a march on the official planners. Trade had begun.
The airfield was hastily enlarged so it could handle shuttlecraft. First official visitors were exchanged, and as a few handicrafts and mechanisms traversed the gulf between the stars, it was discovered that the profit motive was another characteristic human and Thranx shared.
So it was that contact was not forged so much as hastily cobbled together. But it was a beginning, the most important part of understanding.
Even Fal eventually reconciled with her now famous premate, though he was still regarded as a traitor among some of his own kind and an enemy spy in certain unrelentingly paranoid human circles. Wuuzelansem was brought from Ciccikalk, still suspicious of humankind but more flexible than most Thranx. His conversion came rapidly when some of the humans became fluent enough to admire his poetry.
"I don't know how we did without them for so long," he once muttered to Ryo after a recital. "Their appreciation of true art seems as boundless as their enthusiasm. The government may acquire an ally, but I have acquired something far more valuable."
Nor Crystal Tears Page 24