“This planet never developed an analogue to grasses, and all major human cereal crops are grass species.”
“Then apart from potatoes and yams, which appear to be the staff of life to them, what do these people eat? They don't have many meat animals. Although they appear to get some of their vegetable fiber and a lot of their protein from the sea. Kobayashi insists that the numbers simply don't add up.”
Beetje looked puzzled. “They have orchards and gardens.”
“There aren't many calories in rabbit food. As I see it, the Blues got badly shortchanged by Mother Nature--they don't have much in the way of domesticated plants and animals to work with, no horses or oxen, and because this continent hasn't been glaciated in a long, long time, they don't have very good soil, either.” Coldewe reached over and used Beetje's computer to call up an encyclopedia. “According to this, in nearly every human society, over 50 percent of all calories come from cereal plants. And in preindustrial human societies, the figure is closer to 80 percent. It makes me wonder how the Blues managed to build a technological civilization in the first place, if you know what I mean.”
Beetje thought for a moment. “Ozawa has a theory that the planet’s higher animals have a resting state where normal metabolic activity shuts down almost completely.”
“Like being asleep?”
“Yes and no. With mammals-people sometimes forget that human beings are mammals-about 90 percent of caloric intake goes to maintain body temperature. Even sleeping, mammals still expend a lot of energy this way, although some bats and marsupials are exceptions. Our studies indicate that some of Neighbor’s animals allow their body temperature to fluctuate as much as 10 or 15 degrees in the course of a day. The Blues may do so as well.”
“It doesn't sound like much.”
“It is, Hans. Believe me, it is.”
Coldewe went over to make himself some tea and offered Simon a cup, which he declined. “Then finish studying the issue and give Kobayashi some numbers. What’s Dr. Seki have to say this morning? Are our on-again, off-again relations with the Blues back on track?”
“Dr. Seki really is mystified this time. Usually, the Blues will try to explain why they are cutting off contact-although you know what their explanations are worth, even when we understand what they're saying, which isn't always-but this time they didn't say anything at all. It’s been what, two weeks now?”
“Closer to three. I'd like to move the contact team somewhere else and try and do business with a different set of Blues.”
Beetje shook his head “They've threatened to kill our team if they move to a different location. They were very emphatic about it”
“As I say, I'd like to deal with a different set of Blues. Even Anton is getting annoyed with them, and Anton has oceans of patience compared to me. We still don't know whether the Blues have one nation or dozens, or even whether the Blues have nations in our sense. So much for political data from the contact team.”
He gestured. “It takes the Blues an awful lot of stoop labor to maintain the canals and dikes for the water-potato fields. Anton knows more history than any three people I know, and he says
that human societies organized to do this tend to be village oriented and thoroughly authoritarian.”
“We can't assume that the Blues think like human beings, Hans,” Beetje cautioned.
“Simon, I don't know how they think, and I don't much care. Prior to mechanization--and maybe even after it--there simply isn't any place for a family farm here. Unless a hundred or so of these people work together on a given plot of land, they don't get the crops in. That strongly colors social organizations. To get the kind of massive levies you see along the Great River, you need a centralized state. Look at the results--the capital that fueled industrialization here got pooled somehow. How did the Blues get from there to here?”
“You can argue this with Pia, Hans. I'll stick to animals, thank you,” Beetje said forthrightly.
“Arguing with Pia can be fun.” Coldewe cradled his cup and drank from it. “When she gets really excited, her mind moves faster than her mouth, and the words get stuck coming out. Of course, her team is driving everybody crazy with their 'myth and symbol' approach to Blue culture. Pia tells me that evading questions is culturally shaped behavior that indicales a strain on traditional leadership and tension within a cultural idea. Just once I'd like to hear a sociologist call the Blues liars.”
“I'm noticing you're willing to discuss everything and anything except laying on a shuttle flight and sending me down to fill in for Kantaro.”
“Simon, I am miserably short of fuel for shuttle flights. Absent a genuine emergency, I need to reserve what I have to make sure we can get our people off Neighbor if our supply ship doesn't show up soon. And I hope that little tin gods reminded Mutaro to send the next supply ship by way of Suid-Afrika, because I'm tired of eating rice.”
“Hans, in a way this is an emergency.”
“There's also another reason, which has to do with whether you've looked in a mirror lately. You're not young, you're built like a twig, and you haven't been exercising.”
“Hans, I had to reconstruct two months of data we lost when Kantaro dropped his recorder,” Beetje protested.
Coldewe shook his head, thinking how much he'd like to find Ozawa's lost recorder. “Simon, even if I thought that your reasons for keeping yourself in rotten shape were wonderful, it doesn't alter facts. Now, I really would like you to make yourself useful by talking to Captain Kobayashi about this resting state business and any other little facts and sunnises you've been hoarding so we can get our statistical-information gathering on track. This is military intelligence, not science, and it doesn't have to be 100 percent right the first time. In fact, military intelligence never is.”
“Hans, I'm sorry I mentioned the resting-state hypothesis. We really don't have enough data to say anything about it yet”
Coldewe grinned. “Simon, do you remember what you told me the last time I asked you a question about amphtiles?”
Beetje looked puzzled.
“You said, 'I don't know. I only have seventeen years' data.'“
Beetje blushed scarlet
“Simon, in civilian endeavors, people who publish data before they know what they're talking about are usually called idiots. Military people who wait until they have complete data to operate from are usually called corpses.”
“All right, Hans.” Beetje steadied himself. “I will see what I can do.”
L-Day plus 399 [6-sand Rain 14]
SUPERIOR PRIVATE CHRIS HEUNIS USED THE BLADE ON THE LITTLE ENGINEER VEHICLE to build a wall in front of the recon platoon's supplies before the monsoon rains came washing into the cavern.
Someone had named the recon platoon's base camp the Tabun Bogdo, and the name stuck. With the arrival of a new monsoon season, in accordance with military custom, Section Sergeant Markus Alariesto solemnly assured his young Afrikaners that rabun was Mongolian for “mud,” while bogdo meant “more mud.”
Alariesto walked up and pitched a clean uniform into Heunis's lap. Heunis turned off the engine. “I thought we had to conserve.”
“Supply ship is headed in.” Alariesto punched him very lightly on the arm. “Get yourself dressed-we're celebrating. Boerewors on the grill.”
Aboard Zuiho, with three platoons in hibernation to reduce consumption. the imminent arrival of fresh food and new movies had touched off an impromptu saturnalia.
“Super!” Hennis exclaimed. Something dropped to the cavern floor as he unfolded the uniform. '“There's a note here.” Alariesto read it. He passed it across.
“Colonel Coldewe should stop reading old books. It says, 'Help, I'm being held
prisoner in a Chinese laundry.' “
In Orbit, HIMS [9-sand Rain 14]
POIKOLAINNEN KNOCKED TIMIDLY ON VERESHCHAGIN'S DOOR. “Sir, you, ah, have a visitor.”
The same sixth sense that had kept Vereshc
hagin alive as a soldier gave him just enough warning to retain his composure.
“Rikki! What are you doing here?”
Hendricka Sanmartin found herself a seat.“I arrived on the supply ship. Aren't you going to say hello?”
“Forgive me,” he said dryly. “I thought you were safely back on Suid-Afrika, being president.”
“I was. It took me six months to piece together what you had done, and another month to work out details of my resignation.”
“I see.” He contemplated this. “I had hoped to cover our tracks.”
“You covered them very well. You took along everyone who could tell me anything, and the key witness, Hannes Van der Merwe, vanished, quite literally into thin air as we later deduced. But having Silvershirts seize the Assembly building under orders from Steen seemed to be just the sort of coincidence you would arrange for yourself. You did arrange it, didn't you?”
“Yes. Hannes calls himself Hanno now, but he still works for Aksu. Your father recruited him originally.”
“It was not right. I would have liked you to have let me win fairly. Incidentally, the people on
Go-Nihon are annoyed with Commissioner Mutaro. He has had to divert their shipping to keep you supplied, and it is having an effect.” She eyed him speculatively. “Aren't you going to ask who is president?”
“Christos Claassen?” Vereshchagin guessed.
She nodded “He is making very sure that Steen's friends never grasp control of the Nationalist party again, which left me free to follow you--Matti tried to talk me out of it, but I did not see a place for a young, unemployed ex-president.”
“How much of your program were you able to carry out?” Vereshchagin asked quietly.
“Enough. We still control the Assembly. My people were quite dismayed when I told them I intended to resign--I pushed through some nice legislation, and they thought they would have a full four years to collect the political debts I owed them in return--but they warmed to the idea very nicely when I offered to let them resign in my place or to live with the voters when the scandal finally broke.” She turned her head. “I thought about it very carefully. It would not have been right for me to continue.”
“What about the young people who helped with your campaign?”
“Matti is still interior minister, and I left them in his care. The better ones have ministry positions, and Christos will leave them in place. By the time we get back. I think that they will be a surprise to the politicians in both parties. I even found a spot for your friend Eva in the finance ministry.” She smiled. “As it is, the politicians who cannot do higher math are scared silly at the thought that I might return in time for the next election.”
Vereshchagin smiled. “Maybe the one after that”
“I may even win. Steen and his people are snapped reeds; there is no way for them to deny what they were planning to do, even though they received a helpful push from you.”
“What, may I ask, gave us away?”
“De Ia Rey maintained vehemently that Steen had ordered him to execute the takeover, and Steen maintained with equal venom that De Ia Rey bad acted on his own.” She curled up in
Vereshchagin 's old spider chair. “At the inquest. both of them loudly trumpeted their version of events. I also found it extremely curious that the men who murdered campaign workers were part of the group that invaded the Assembly. Something was not quite right, so I made Timo Haerkoennen dig through
your computer files. When I discovered that the presumably drowned Hannes Van der Merwe was one of your people,. things began to fall into place. I pardoned everyone concerned, including you, before I resigned. You synthesized Steen's voice, didn't you?”
Vereshchagin nodded. “After you resigned. what explaination did you give for coming here?”
“None, of course. I merely reiterated my campaign promise to be sure that Suid-Afrika came in on the first floor if there was money to be made trading things with Neighbor. According to the two theories I enjoyed the best. I am either madly in love with you or your secret illegitimate daughter.”
Vereshchagin chuckled. “Has anyone on board questioned you?”
“I did field a few inquiries about the football standings.”
He paused. “How did Betje take your decision to come bere?”
“She said that she would be waiting for me and as I am still her little girl, the time dilation will not be as hard for her.”
“And do you believe that?” he asked quietly.
She shook her head. “No. She will be dead before I get back, won't sbe?”
“It is possible.”
A tear trickled down her cheek. “Oh, God. I promised myself I wouldn't cry about it anymore, and here I am already.” She wiped her face. “Abram van Zyl died in his sleep--his heart. they said.”
“Some ways to die are less painful than others. Someone once told me that bullets were kind, and for a time, I believed it.” Vereshchagin looked away. “For years, I never let it touch me, but lately, the faces keep coming to me--Raul, Hanna, Yuri Malinov, Rudi Scheel, Rhett Rettaglia--many more that you have never heard of.”
She looked at him, and then reached over to embrace him.
“Gu knows my secret. And now you. Did you actually get Matti to go out on a date'?”
Her eyes lit up as she sat back down. “Oh, he was awful, the excuses he made! And when Janine finally got him on the dance floor, oh, bow he blushed! He was so prim and so horribly embarrassed, it was funny. Growing up, I never noticed how shy he is around women.”
“Finland does have the lowest birthrate in Europe.”
“He just thinks that he is old,” Rikki said confidently. “Janine had him well in hand when I left. How are matters here? Things are not going well, are they?”
Vereshchagin shook his head. “They are not. The Pochteca, which is a governing authority, has again suspended relations. Aksu has been monitoring matters with increasing disquiet, and he is certain that they are implacing missiles at a feverish pace.”
“Has anyone discovered the recon teams you planned to send?”
“Some of the people of the mountains are seemingly aware of our presence. Thys Meiring and Pieter Kriel found books propped up in a forest clearing. They, of course, had to assume that the books were booby-trapped, so it made for an interesting morning. The books are like artists' portfolios, and the writing is a continuous script--you hold them with the spine facing away from you. Unfortunately, the planet’s inhabitants are reluctant to allow us to learn their languages, and we have no way of deciphering them. Although at least one of our sociologists affects to believe that leaving the books is a religious act of propitiation of some sort, I suspect that there are elements in Blue society that have their own message to impart to us.”
“I will get settled and see Simon to be brought up to date so that I can talk to you about what is happening without feeling an utter fool.” She stood up and kissed him lightly on the cheek. “You didn't really think you could keep me away forever, did you, Uncle Anton'?”
“No, I suppose not.”
Piotr Kolomeitsev appeared after she left. “Was that Rikki I just saw? I told you that she would eventually figure it out.”
“I had sincerely hoped it would take her much longer.”
”She knows you.” The Iceman examined Vereshchagin's face. “Simon will want her to study the lemps, and she will want to go. What will you say?”
Vereshchagin sighed deeply. “Do I have a choice, Piotr?”
“Out of curiosity, Anton.” The Iceman asked with an air of indifference, “who knows about your heart condition besides Dr. Solchava and Gu?”
Vereshchagin stopped. “How did you know?”
“I know you, too. That was why you brought Hans along, so that you would have someone who was capable of finishing what you began.” The Iceman examined Vereshchagin's face with all that was in him of compassion. “You really should tell him.�
�
L-Day plus 411 [9-rain Rain 14]
“DR. MARAIS, DR. KATAKURA.” SUPERIOR PRIVATE BRIT SMITS stuck his head inside the tent. “They're coming.”
Connie Marais put down the sock he was mending and grabbed his recorder, and he and Katakura hurried outside.
One of the two remaining members of the original delegation, Spoagusa was leading, clearly recognizable by the yellowish cast to the skin around his face. Blue etiquette was precise and un varying: seniors always walked in front of their juniors. There was a carefulness about each of them, a poise and a balance, as if every gesture and footstep was calculated not to disturb a delicate equilibrium.
Marais noted absently that three of the Blues, the “People,” assigned to the contact team had been replaced by new faces and that Ekpalawehud had moved up two places. In Blue society,
each individual was defined by his relationship to others, literally “where he sits,” and based on stray remarks, Marais and Katakura were both convinced that the eleemosynary--or pauper--class was very large. For Marais, the most unpleasant discovery was that the Blues used not one language, but several, all seemingly different, to address persons of differing social ranks.
Humans, by definition, had no social rank.
With a glance toward Keiji Katakura, Marais turned on his recorder to play the correct tones. “Nyaiikymylyieea, Spoagusa.” The language was “low” language, inferior speaking to superior. The “ny” was a marker indicating that the word was a focal point. The “a” was a gender marker; the Blues recognized singular, dual, plural, extended objects, paired or clustered objects, body parts, diminutives, abstract qualities, and locations.
The “ii” was a tense marker; the Blues recognized eleven
tenses--”now,” “earlier today,” “yesterday,” “earlier than yesterday,” “in the remote past,” “habitually,” “continually,” “hypothetically,” “in the future,” “at an indeterminate time in the future,” and “never.” The “ky” was an object-agreement marker, the “my” a benefactive marker indicating the gender of the object for whose benefit the action was taking place.
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