The Uplift War

by David Brin

  In a flash Fiben knew, with uncanny certainty, that she had called it right. He rolled over quickly, in time to see the Synthian Ambassador, her nose wrinkled in disgust and whiskers curled in shame, scamper into her ship, abandoning all dignity. The hatch clanged shut.

  Someone found the right switch at last and cut off the horrible overload, leaving only a fierce aftertaste and a ringing in his ears. The members of the Honor Guard stood up, dusting themselves and muttering irritably. Some humans and chims still quivered, blinking and yawning vigorously. Only the stolid, oblivious Thennanin Ambassador seemed unaffected. In fact, Kault appeared perplexed over this unusual Earthling behavior.

  A stinkbomb. Fiben nodded. It was somebody’s idea of a practical joke.

  And I think I know whose.

  Fiben looked closely at Uthacalthing. He stared at the being who had been named Man-Friend and recalled how the slender Tymbrimi had smiled as Swoio, the pompous little Synthian, launched into her final speech. Yes, Fiben would be willing to swear on a copy of Darwin that at that very moment, just before the scoutboat malfunctioned, Uthacalthing’s crown of silvery tendrils had lifted and the ambassador had smiled as if in delicious anticipation.

  Fiben shook his head. For all of their renowned psychic senses, no Tymbrimi could have caused such an accident by sheer force of will.

  Not unless it had been arranged in advance, that is.

  The Synthian launch rose upward on a blast of air and skimmed out across the field to a safe distance. Then, in a high whine of gravitics, the glittering craft swept upward to meet the clouds.

  At Colonel Maiven’s command, the Honor Guard snapped to attention one last time. The Planetary Coordinator and her two remaining envoys passed in review.

  It might have been his imagination, but Fiben felt sure that for an instant Uthacalthing slowed right in front of him. Fiben was certain one of those wide, silver-rimmed eyes looked directly at him.

  And the other one winked.

  Fiben sighed. Very funny, he thought, hoping the Tymbrimi emissary would pick up the sarcasm in his mind. We all may be smokin’ dead meat in a week’s time, and you’re making with practical jokes.

  Very funny, Uthacalthing.

  2

  Athaclena

  Tendrils wafted alongside her head, ungentle in their agitation. Athaclena let her frustration and anger fizz like static electricity at the tips of the silvery strands. Their ends waved as if of their own accord, like slender fingers, shaping her almost palpable resentment into something …

  Nearby, one of the humans awaiting an audience with the Planetary Coordinator sniffed the air and looked around, puzzled. He moved away from Athaclena, without quite knowing why he felt uncomfortable all of a sudden. He was probably a natural, if primitive, empath. Some men and women were able vaguely to kenn Tymbrimi empathy-glyphs, though few ever had the training to interpret anything more than vague emotions.

  Someone else also noticed what Athaclena was doing. Across the public room, standing amid a small crowd of humans, her father lifted his head suddenly. His own corona of tendrils remained smooth and undisturbed, but Uthacalthing cocked his head and turned slightly to regard her, his expression both quizzical and slightly amused.

  It might have been similar if a human parent had caught his daughter in the act of kicking the sofa, or muttering to herself sullenly. The frustration at the core was very nearly the same, except that Athaclena expressed it through her Tymbrimi aura rather than an outward tantrum. At her father’s glance she hurriedly drew back her waving tendrils and wiped away the ugly sense-glyph she had been crafting overhead.

  That did not erase her resentment, however. In this crowd of Earthlings it was hard to forget. Caricatures, was Athaclena’s contemptuous thought, knowing full well it was both unkind and unfair. Of course Earthlings couldn’t help being what they were—one of the strangest tribes to come upon the Galactic scene in aeons. But that did not mean she had to like them!

  It might have helped if they were more alien … less like hulking, narrow-eyed, awkward versions of Tymbrimi. Wildly varied in color and hairiness, eerily off in their body proportions, and so often dour and moody, they frequently left Athaclena feeling depressed after too long a time spent in their company.

  Another thought unbecoming the daughter of a diplomat. She chided herself and tried to redirect her mind. After all, the humans could not be blamed for radiating their fear right now, with a war they hadn’t chosen about to fall crushingly upon them.

  She watched her father laugh at something said by one of the Earthling officers and wondered how he did it. How he bore it so well.

  I’ll never learn that easy, confident manner.

  I’ll never be able to make him proud of me.

  Athaclena wished Uthacalthing would finish up with these Terrans so she could speak to him alone. In a few minutes Robert Oneagle would arrive to pick her up, and she wanted to have one more try at persuading her father not to send her away with the young human.

  I can be useful. I know I can! I don’t have to be coddled off into the mountains for safety, like some child!

  Quickly she clamped down before another glyph-of-resentment could form above her head. She needed distraction, something to keep her mind occupied while she waited. Restraining her emotions, Athaclena stepped quietly toward two human officers standing nearby, heads lowered in earnest conversation. They were speaking Anglic, the most commonly used Earth-tongue.

  “Look,” the first one said. “All we really know is that one of Earth’s survey ships stumbled onto something weird and totally unexpected, out in one of those ancient star clusters on the galactic fringe.”

  “But what was it?” the other militiaman asked. “What did they find? You’re in alien studies, Alice. Don’t you have any idea what those poor dolphins uncovered that could stir up such a ruckus?”

  The female Earthman shrugged. “Search me. But it didn’t take anything more than the hints in the Streaker’s first beamed report to set the most fanatic clans in the Five Galaxies fighting each other at a level that hasn’t been seen in megayears. The latest dispatches say some of the skirmishes have gotten pretty damn rough. You saw how scared that Synthian looked a week ago, before she decided to pull out.”

  The other man nodded gloomily. Neither human spoke for a long moment. Their tension was a thing which arched the space between them. Athaclena kenned it as a simple but dark glyph of uncertain dread.

  “It’s something big,” the first officer said at last, in a low voice. “This may really be it.”

  Athaclena moved away when she sensed the humans begin to take notice of her. Since arriving here in Garth she had been altering her normal body form, changing her figure and features to resemble more closely those of a human girl. Nevertheless, there were limits to what such manipulations could accomplish, even using Tymbrimi body-imagery methods. There was no way really to disguise who she was. If she had stayed, inevitably, the humans would have asked her a Tymbrimi’s opinion of the current crisis, and she was loathe to tell Earthlings that she really knew no more than they did.

  Athaclena found the situation bitterly ironic. Once again, the races of Earth were in the spotlight, as they had been ever since the notorious “Sundiver” affair, two centuries ago. This time an interstellar crisis had been sparked by the first starship ever put under command of neo-dolphins.

  Mankind’s second client race was no more than two centuries old—younger even than the neo-chimpanzees. How the cetacean spacers would ever find a way out of the mess they had inadvertently created was anyone’s guess. But the repercussions were already spreading halfway across the Central Galaxy, all the way to isolated colony worlds such as Garth.

  “Athaclena—”

  She whirled. Uthacalthing stood at her elbow, looking down at her with an air of benign concern. “Are you all right, daughter?”

  She felt so small in Uthacalthing’s presence. Athaclena couldn’t help being intimidated, however gent
le he always was. His art and discipline were so great that she hadn’t even sensed his approach until he touched the sleeve of her robe! Even now, all that could be kenned from his complex aura was the whirling empathy-glyph called caridouo … a father’s love.

  “Yes, Father. I … I am fine.”

  “Good. Are you all packed and ready for your expedition then?”

  His words were in Anglic. She answered in Tymbrim-dialect Galactic Seven.

  “Father, I do not wish to go into the mountains with Robert Oneagle.”

  Uthacalthing frowned. “I had thought that you and Robert were friends.”

  Athaclena’s nostrils flared in frustration. Why was Uthacalthing purposely misunderstanding her? He had to know that the son of the Planetary Coordinator was unobjectionable as a companion. Robert was as close to a friend as she had among the young humans of Port Helenia.

  “It is partly for Robert’s sake that I urge you to reconsider,” she told her father. “He is shamed at being ordered to ‘nursemaid’ me, as they say, while his comrades and classmates are all in the militia preparing for war. And I certainly cannot blame him for his resentment.”

  When Uthacalthing started to speak she hurried on. “Also, I do not wish to leave you, Father. I reiterate my earlier arguments-of-logic, when I explained how I might be useful to you in the weeks ahead. And now I add to them this offering, as well.”

  With great care she concentrated on crafting the glyph she had composed earlier in the day. She had named it ke’ipathye … a plea, out of love, to be allowed to face danger at love’s side. Her tendrils trembled above her ears, and the construct quavered slightly over her head as it began to rotate. Finally though, it stabilized. She sent it drifting over toward her father’s aura. At that moment, Athaclena did not even care that they were in a room crowded with hulking, smooth-browed humans and their furry little chim clients. All that mattered in the world was the two of them, and the bridge she so longed to build across this void.

  Ke’ipathye fell into Uthacalthing’s waiting tendrils and spun there, brightening in his appreciation. Briefly, Athaclena gasped at its sudden beauty, which she knew had now grown far beyond her own simple art.

  Then the glyph fell, like a gentle fog of morning dew, to coat and shine along her father’s corona.

  “Such a fine gift.” His voice was soft, and she knew he had been moved.

  But … She knew, all at once, that his resolve was unshifted.

  “I offer you a kenning of my own,” he said to her. And from his sleeve he withdrew a small gilt box with a silver clasp. “Your mother, Mathicluanna, wished for you to have this when you were ready to declare yourself of age. Although we had not yet spoken of a date, I judge that now is the time for you to have it.”

  Athaclena blinked, suddenly lost in a whirl of confused emotions. How often had she longed to know what her dead mother had left in her legacy? And yet, right now the small locket might have been a poison-beetle for all the will she had to pick it up.

  Uthacalthing would not be doing this if he thought it likely they would meet again.

  She hissed in realization. “You’re planning to fight!”

  Uthacalthing actually shrugged … that human gesture of momentary indifference. “The enemies of the humans are mine as well, daughter. The Earthlings are bold, but they are only wolflings after all. They will need my help.”

  There was finality in his voice, and Athaclena knew that any further word of protest would accomplish nothing but to make her look foolish in his eyes. Their hands met around the locket, long fingers intertwining, and they walked silently out of the room together. It seemed, for a short span, as if they were not two but three, for the locket carried something of Mathicluanna. The moment was both sweet and painful.

  Neo-chimp militia guards snapped to attention and opened the doors for them as they stepped out of the Ministry Building and into the clear, early spring sunshine. Uthacalthing accompanied Athaclena down to the curbside, where her backpack awaited her. Their hands parted, and Athaclena was left grasping her mother’s locket.

  “Here comes Robert, right on time,” Uthacalthing said, shading his eyes. “His mother calls him unpunctual. But I have never known him to be late for anything that mattered.”

  A battered floater wagon approached along the long gravel driveway, rolling past limousines and militia staff cars. Uthacalthing turned back to his daughter. “Do try to enjoy the Mountains of Mulun. I have seen them. They are quite beautiful. Look at this as an opportunity, Athaclena.”

  She nodded. “I shall do as you asked, Father. I’ll spend the time improving my grasp of Anglic and of wolfling emotional patterns.”

  “Good. And keep your eyes open for any signs or traces of the legendary Garthlings.”

  Athaclena frowned. Her father’s late interest in odd wolfling folk tales had lately begun to resemble a fixation. And yet, one could never tell when Uthacalthing was being serious or simply setting up a complicated jest.

  “I’ll watch out for signs, though the creatures are certainly mythical.”

  Uthacalthing smiled. “I must go now. My love will travel with you. It will be a bird, hovering”—he motioned with his hands—“just over your shoulder.”

  His tendrils touched hers briefly, and then he was gone, striding back up the steps to rejoin the worried colonials. Athaclena was left standing there, wondering why, in parting, Uthacalthing had used such a bizarre human metaphor.

  How can love be a bird?

  Sometimes Uthacalthing was so strange it frightened even her.

  There was a crunching of gravel as the floater car settled down at the curb nearby. Robert Oneagle, the dark-haired young human who was to be her partner-in-exile, grinned and waved from behind the machine’s tiller, but it was easy to tell that his cheery demeanor was superficial, put on for her benefit. Deep down, Robert was nearly as unhappy about this trip as she was. Fate—and the imperious rule of adults—had thrown the two of them together in a direction neither of them would have chosen.

  The crude glyph Athaclena formed—invisible to Robert—was little more than a sigh of resignation and defeat. But she kept up appearances with a carefully arranged Earthling-type smile of her own.

  “Hello, Robert,” she said, and picked up her pack.

  3

  Galactics

  The Suzerain of Propriety fluffed its feathery down, displaying at the roots of its still-white plumage the shimmering glow that foretold royalty. Proudly, the Suzerain of Propriety hopped up onto the Perch of Pronouncement and chirped for attention.

  The battleships of the Expeditionary Force were still in interspace, between the levels of the world. Battle was not imminent for some time yet. Because of this, the Suzerain of Propriety was still dominant and could interrupt the activities of the flagship’s crew.

  Across the bridge, the Suzerain of Beam and Talon looked up from its own Perch of Command. The admiral shared with the Suzerain of Propriety the bright plumage of dominance. Nevertheless, there was no question of interfering when a religious pronouncement was about to be made. The admiral at once interrupted the stream of orders it had been chirping to subordinates and shifted into a stance of attentive reverence.

  All through the bridge the noisy clamor of Gubru engineers and spacers quieted to a low chittering. Their four-footed Kwackoo clients ceased their cooing as well and settled down to listen.

  Still the Suzerain of Propriety waited. It would not be proper to begin until all Three were present.

  A hatchway dilated. In stepped the last of the masters of the expedition, the third member of the triarchy. As appropriate, the Suzerain of Cost and Caution wore the black torc of suspicion and doubt as it entered and found a comfortable perch, followed by a small covey of its accountants and bureaucrats.

  For a moment their eyes met across the bridge. The tension among the Three had already begun, and it would grow in the weeks and months ahead, until the day when consensus was finally achieved—when t
hey molted and a new queen emerged.

  It was thrilling, sexual, exhilarating. None of them knew how it would end. Beam and Talon started with an advantage, of course, since this expedition would begin in battle. But that dominance did not have to last.

  This moment, for instance, was clearly one for the priesthood.

  All breaks turned as the Suzerain of Propriety lifted and flexed one leg, then the other, and prepared to pronounce. Soon a low crooning began to rise from the assembled avians.

  —zzooon.

  “We embark on a mission, holy mission,” the Suzerain fluted.

  —Zzooon—

  “Embarking on this mission, we must persevere”

  —Zzooon—

  “Persevere to accomplish four great tasks”

  —Zzooon—

  “Tasks which include Conquest for the glory of our Clan, zzooon”

  —ZZooon

  “Conquest and Coercion, so we may gain the Secret, the Secret that the animal Earthlings clutch talon-tight,

  clutch to keep from us, zzooon”

  —ZZooon—

  “Conquest, Coercion, and Counting Coup upon our enemies winning honor and submitting our foes to shame,

  avoiding shame ourselves, zzooon”

  —ZZooon—

  “Avoiding shame, as well as Conquest and Coercion, and last, and last to prove our worthiness,

  our worthiness before our ancestrals,

  our worthiness before the Progenitors whose time of Return has surely come

  Our worthiness of Mastery, zzzoooon”

  The refrain was enthusiastic.

  —ZZzooon!—

  The two other Suzerains bowed respectfully to the priest, and the ceremony was officially at an end. The Talon Soldiers and Spacers returned to work at once. But as the bureaucrats and civil servants retreated toward their own sheltered offices, they could be heard clearly but softly crooning.

  “All … all … all of that. But one thing, one thing more.…