The Uplift War

by David Brin

  This time, Fiben couldn’t help himself. He shrieked in frustration. It was too much. The covering stone went sailing into the brush, and he stood there on the steep, sloping face of the cairn, cursing in the fine, expressive, indignant tones his ancestors had used before Uplift when inveighing against the parentage and personal habits of baboons.

  The red rage only lasted a few moments, but when it cleared Fiben felt better. He was hoarse and raw, and his palms hurt from slapping the hard stone, but at least some of his frustration had been vented.

  Clearly it was time to get out of here. Just beyond a thick wisp of drifting smoke, Fiben saw a large floater set down. A ramp descended and a troop of armored Gubru soldiery hurried onto the singed lawn, each accompanied by a pair of tiny, floating globes. Yep, time to scoot.

  Fiben was about to climb down when he glanced one more time into the little niche in the Tymbrimi cairn. At that moment the diffusing smoke dispersed briefly under the stiffening breeze. Sunlight burst onto the cliffside.

  A tiny flash of silvery light caught his eye. He reached into the niche and pulled on a slender thread, thin and delicate as gossamer, that had lined a crack at the back of the little crevice.

  At that moment there came an amplified squawk. Fiben swiveled and saw a squad of Gubru Talon Soldiers coming his way. An officer fumbled with the vodor at its throat, dialing among the auto-translation options.

  “ … Cathtoo-psh’v’chim’ph …

  “ … Kah-koo-kee, k’keee! EeeEeEE! k …

  “ … Hisss-s-ss pop *crackle!* …

  “ … Puna bliv’t mannennering …”

  “ … what you are doing there! Good clients do not play with what they cannot understand!”

  Then the officer caught sight of the opened niche—and Fiben’s hand stuffing something into a coverall pocket.

  “Stop! Show us what …”

  Fiben did not wait for the soldier to finish the command. He scrambled up the cairn. The blue globe throbbed as he passed, and in his mind terror was briefly pushed aside by a powerful, dry laughter as he dove over the top and slid down the other side. Laser bolts sizzled over his head, chipping fragments from the stone structure as he landed on the ground with a thump.

  Damn Tymbrimi sense of humor, was his only thought as he scrambled to his feet and dashed in the only possible direction, down the protective shadow of the cairn, straight toward the sheer cliff.

  39

  Gailet

  Max dumped a load of disabled Gubru guard disks onto the rooftop near Gailet Jones. “We yanked out their receivers,” he reported. “Still, we’ll have to be damn careful with ’em.”

  Nearby, Professor Oakes clicked his stopwatch. The elderly chen grunted in satisfaction. “Their air cover has been withdrawn, again. Apparently they’ve decided it was an accident after all.”

  Reports kept coming in. Gailet paced nervously, occasionally looking out over the roof parapet at the conflagration and confusion in Sea Bluff Park. We didn’t plan anything like this! she thought. It could be great luck. We’ve learned so much.

  Or it could be a disaster. Hard to tell yet.

  If only the enemy doesn’t trace it to us.

  A young chen, no more than twelve years old, put down his binoculars and turned to Gailet. “Semaphore reports all but one of our forward observers has come back in, ma’am. No word from that one, though.”

  “Who is it?” Gailet asked.

  “Uh, it’s that militia officer from th’ mountains. Fiben Bolger, ma’am.”

  “I might have guessed!” Gailet sighed.

  Max looked up from his pile of alien booty, his face a grimace of dismay. “I saw him. When the fence failed, he jumped over it and went running toward the fire. Um, I suppose I should’ve gone along, to keep an eye on him.”

  “You should have done no such thing, Max. You were exactly right. Of all the foolish stunts!” She sighed. “I might have known he would do something like this. If he gets captured, and gives us away …” She stopped. There was no point in worrying the others more than necessary.

  Anyway, she thought a little guiltily, the arrogant chen might only have been killed.

  She bit her lip, though, and went to the parapet to look out in the direction of the afternoon sun.

  40

  Fiben

  Behind Fiben came the familiar zip zip of the blue globe firing again. The Gubru squawked less than he might have expected; these were soldiers, after all. Still, they made quite a racket and their attention was diverted. Whether the cache defender was acting to cover his retreat or merely harassing the invaders on general principles, Fiben couldn’t speculate. In moments he was too busy even to think about it.

  One look over the edge was enough to make him gulp. The cliff wasn’t a glassy face, but neither was it the sort of route a picnicker would choose to get down to the shining sands below.

  The Gubru were shooting back at the blue globe now, but that couldn’t last long. Fiben contemplated the steep dropoff. All told, he would much rather have lived a long, quiet life as country ecologist, donated his sperm samples when required, maybe joined a real fun group family, taken up scrabble.

  “Argh!” he commented in man dialect, and stepped off over the grassy verge.

  It was a four-handed job, for sure. Gripping a knob with the tingers and tumb of his left foot, he swung way out to grab a second handhold and managed to lower himself to another ledge. A short stretch came easily, then it seemed he needed the grasping power of every extremity. Thank Goodall Uplift had left his people with this ability. If he’d had feet like a human’s, he surely would have fallen by now!

  Fiben was sweating, feeling around for a foothold that had to be there, when suddenly the cliff face seemed to lash out, batting away at him. An explosion sent tremors through the rock. Fiben’s face ground into the gritty surface as he clutched for dear life, his feet kicking and dangling in midair.

  Of all the damn … He coughed and spat as a plume of dust floated down from the cliff edge. In peripheral vision he glimpsed bright bits of incandescent stone flying out through the sky, spinning down to hissing graves in the sea below.

  The root-grubbing cairn must’ve blown!

  Then something whizzed by his head. He ducked but still caught a flash of blueness and heard, within his head, a chuckling of alien laughter. The hilarity reached a crescendo as something seemed to brush the back of his head, then faded as the blue light zipped off again, dropping to skip away southward, just above the waves.

  Fiben wheezed and sought frantically for a foothold. At last he found purchase, and he was able to lower himself to the next fairly safe resting place. He wedged himself into a narrow cleft, out of sight from the clifftop. Only then did he spare the extra energy to curse.

  Some day, Uthacalthing. Some day.

  Fiben wiped dust from his eyes and looked down.

  He had made it about halfway to the beach. If he ever reached the bottom safely it should be an easy walk to the closed amusement park at the northwestern corner of Aspinal Bay. From that point it ought to be simple to disappear into back alleys and side streets.

  The next few minutes would tell. The survivors of the Gubru patrol might assume he had been killed in the explosion, blown out to sea along with debris from the cache. Or perhaps they’d figure he would have fled by some other route. After all, only an idiot would try to climb down a bluff like this one without equipment.

  Fiben hoped he had it thought out right, because if they came down here looking for him his goose was as surely cooked as those birds in the chancery fire.

  Just ahead the sun was settling toward the western horizon. Smoke from this afternoon’s conflagration had spread far enough to contribute brilliant umber and crimson hues to the gathering sunset. Out on the water he saw a few boats, here and there. Two cargo barges steamed slowly toward the distant islands—low, brown shapes barely visible on the decks—no doubt carrying food for the hostage human population.

&nb
sp; Too bad some of the salts in the seawater on Garth were toxic to dolphins. If the third race of Terragens had been able to establish itself here, it would have been a lot harder for the enemy to isolate the inhabitants of the archipelago so effectively. Besides, ‘fins had their own way of thinking. Perhaps they’d have come up with an idea or two Fiben’s people had missed.

  The southern headlands blocked Fiben’s view of the port. But he could see traces of gleaming silver, Gubru warships or tenders involved in the construction of space defenses.

  Well, Fiben thought, nobody’s come for me yet. No hurry, then. Catch your breath before trying the rest of the trip.

  This had been the easy part.

  Fiben reached into his pocket and pulled out the shimmering thread he had found in the niche. It might easily be a spider web, or something similarly insignificant. But it was the only thing he had to show for his little adventure. He didn’t know how he would tell Athaclena that his efforts had come only to this. Well, not only this. There was also the destruction of the Tymbrimi Diplomatic Cache. That’d be another thing to have to explain.

  He took out his monocular and unscrewed the lens cover. Fiben carefully wrapped the thread into the cap and replaced it. He put the magnifier away.

  Yeah, it was going to be a real nice sunset. Embers from the fire sparkled, swept into whirling plumes by Gubru ambulances screaming back and forth from the top of the bluffs. Fiben considered reaching into a pocket for the rest of the peanuts while he watched, but right now his thirst was worse than his hunger. Most modern chims ate too much protein, anyway.

  Life’s rough, he thought, trying to find a comfortable position in the narrow notch. But then, it’s never been easy for client-class beings, has it?

  There you are, minding your own business in some rain forest, perfectly adequate in your ecological niche, then bam! Some authoritarian guy with delusions of godhood is sitting on your chest, forcing the fruit of the Tree of Knowledge down your throat. From then on you’re inadequate, because you’re being measured against the “higher” standard of your patron; no freedom; you can’t even breed as you please, and you’ve got all those “responsibilities”—Who ever heard of responsibilities back in the jungle?—responsibilities to your patrons, to your descendants.…

  Rough deal. But in the Five Galaxies there’s only one alternative, extermination. Witness the former tenants of Garth.

  Fiben licked the sweat salt from his lips and knew that it was nervous reaction that had brought on the momentary wave of bitterness. There was no point to recriminations anyway. If he were a race representative—one of those few chims deputized to speak for all neo-chimpanzees before the Terragens and the great Galactic Institutes—the issues might be worth contemplating. As it was, Fiben realized he was just procrastinating.

  I guess they forgot about me, after all, he thought, wondering at his luck.

  Sunset reached its peak in a glory of color and texture, casting rich red and orange streamers across Garth’s shallow sea.

  Hell, after a day like this, what was climbing down a steep cliff in the dark? Anticlimax, that was all.

  “Where the devil have you been!” Gailet Jones faced Fiben when he slumped through the door. She approached glowering.

  “Aw, teach.” He sighed. “Don’t scold me. I’ve had a rough day.” He pushed past her and shuffled through the house library, strewn with charts and papers. He stepped right across a large chart laid on the floor, oblivious as two of Gailet’s observers shouted indignantly. They ducked aside as he passed straight over them.

  “We finished debriefing hours ago!” Gailet said as she followed him. “Max managed to steal quite a few of their watch disks …”

  “I know. I saw,” he muttered as he stumbled into the tiny room he had been assigned. He began undressing right there. “Do you have anything to eat?” he asked.

  “Eat?” Gailet sounded incredulous. “We have to get your input to fill in gaps on our Gubru operations chart. That explosion was a windfall, and we weren’t prepared with enough observers. Half of the ones we had just stood and stared when the excitement started.”

  With a “clomp” Fiben’s coveralls fell to the floor. He stepped out of them. “Food can wait,” he mumbled. “I need a drink.”

  Gailet Jones blushed and half turned away. “You might have the courtesy not to scratch,” she said.

  Fiben turned from pouring himself a stiff shot of ping-orange brandy and looked at her curiously. Was this actually the same chimmie who had accosted him with “pink” a fortnight or so ago? He slapped his chest and waved away plumes of dust. Gailet looked disgusted.

  “I was lookin’ forward to a bath, but now I think I’ll skip it,” he said. “Too sleepy now. Gotta rest. Goin’ home, tomorrow.”

  Gailet blinked. “To the mountains?”

  Fiben nodded. “Got to pick up Tycho and head back to report to th’ gen’ral.” He smiled tiredly. “Don’t worry. I’ll tell her you’re doin’ a good job here. Fine job.”

  The chimmie sniffed disgustedly. “You’ve spent the afternoon and evening rolling in dirt and getting soused! Some militia officer! And I thought you were supposed to be a scientist!

  “Well, next time your precious general wants to communicate with our movement here in town, you make sure she sends somebody else, do you hear me?”

  She swiveled and slammed the door behind her.

  What’d I say? Fiben stared after her. Dimly he knew he could have done better somehow. But he was so tired. His body ached, from his singed toes to his burning lungs. He hardly felt the bed as he collapsed into it.

  In his dreams a blueness spun and pulsed. From it there emanated a faint something that could be likened to a distant smile.

  Amusing, it seemed to say. Amusing, but not all that much of a laugh.

  More an appetizer for things to come.

  In his sleep Fiben moaned softly. Then another image came to him, of a small neo-chimpanzee, an obvious throwback, with bony eyeridges and long arms which rested on a keyboard display strapped to its chest. The atavistic chim could not speak, but when it grinned, Fiben shivered.

  Then a more restful phase of sleep set in, and at last he went on in relief to other dreams.

  41

  Galactics

  The Suzerain of Propriety could not set foot on unsanctioned ground. Because of this it rode perched upon a gilded staff of reckoning, guided by a convoy of fluttering Kwackoo attendants. Their incessant cooing murmur was more soothing than the grave chirps of their Gubru patrons. Although the Uplift of the Kwackoo had brought them far toward the Gubru way of viewing the world, they nevertheless remained less solemn, less dignified by nature.

  The Suzerain of Propriety tried to make allowances for such differences as the clucking swarm of fuzzy, rotund clients carried the antigravity perch from the site where the body had lain. It might be inelegant, but already they could be heard gossiping in low tones over who would be chosen as replacement. Who would become the new Suzerain of Cost and Caution?

  It would have to be done soon. Messages had already been sent to the Roost Masters on the homeworld, but if need be a senior bureaucrat would be elevated on the spot. Continuity must be preserved.

  Far from being offended, the Suzerain of Propriety found the Kwackoo calming. It needed their simple songs for the distraction they offered. The days and weeks to come would be stressful. Formal mourning was only one of the many tasks ahead. Somehow, momentum toward a new policy must be restored. And, of course, one had to consider the effects this tragedy would have on the Molt.

  The investigators awaited the arrival of the perch amid a copse of toppled trees near the still smoldering chancery walls. When the Suzerain nodded for them to begin, they proceeded into a dance of presentment—part gesticulation and part audiovisual display—describing what they had determined about the cause of the explosion and fire. As the investigators chirped their findings in syncopated, a cappella song, the Suzerain made an effort to conce
ntrate. This was a delicate matter, after all.

  By the codes the Gubru might occupy an enemy embassy, yet they could still be held responsible for any damage done to it if the fault was theirs.

  Yes, yes, it occurred, did occur, the investigators reported. The building is—has been made—a gutted ruin.

  No, no, no purposeful activity has been traced, is believed to have caused these happenings. No sign that this event path was pre-chosen by our enemies and imposed without our will.

  Even if the Tymbrimi Ambassador sabotaged his own buildings, what of it? If we are not the cause, we need not pay, need not reimburse!

  The Suzerain chirped a brief chastisement. It was not up to the investigators to determine propriety, only evaluations of fact. And anyway, matters of expense were the domain of the officers of the new Suzerain of Cost and Caution, after they recovered from the catastrophe their bureaucracy had suffered here.

  The investigators danced regretful apologies.

  The Suzerain’s thoughts kept hovering in numb wonderment about what the consequences would be. This otherwise minor event had toppled the delicate balance of the Triumvirate just before another Command Conclave, and there would be repercussions even after a new third Suzerain was appointed.

  In the short term, this would help both survivors. Beam and Talon would be free to pursue what few humans remained at large, whatever the cost. And Propriety could engage in research without constant carpings about how expensive it all would be.

  And then there was the competition for primacy to consider. In recent days it had begun to grow clear just how impressive the old Suzerain of Cost and Caution had been. More and more, against all expectation, it had been the one organizing their debates, drawing their best ideas forth, pushing compromises, leading them toward consensus.

  The Suzerain of Propriety was ambitious. The priest had not liked the direction things were heading. Nor was it pleasant seeing its cleverest plans tinkered with, modified, altered to suit a bureaucrat. Especially one with bizarre ideas about empathy with aliens!