The Uplift War

by David Brin

  And yet, right now Uthacalthing found himself feeling numb rather than triumphant. He did not look forward to the climb ahead, a furious race into the steep towers of the Mulun range, followed by a desperate attempt that would, no doubt, result only in the two of them dying side by side.

  “You know of course, Uthacalthing, that my people will not carry out this bargain if I turn out to be mistaken. If there are no Garthlings after all, the Thennanin will repudiate me. They will pay diplomatic gild to buy out this contract, and I will be ruined.”

  Uthacalthing did not look at Kault. This was another reason for his sense of depressed detachment, certainly. A great jokester is not supposed to feel guilt, he told himself. Perhaps I have spent too much time around humans.

  The silence stretched on for a while longer, each of them brooding in his own thoughts.

  Of course Kault would be repudiated. Of course the Thennanin were not about to be drawn into an alliance, or even peace with the Earth-Tymbrimi entente. All Uthacalthing had ever hoped to accomplish was to sow confusion among his enemies. If Kault should by some miracle manage to get his message off and truly draw Thennanin armadas to this backwater system, then two great foes of his people would be drawn into a battle that would drain them … a battle over nothing. Over a nonexistent species. Over the ghosts of creatures murdered fifty thousand years ago.

  Such a great jest! I should be happy. Thrilled.

  Sadly, he knew that he could not even blame s’ustru’thoon for his inability to take pleasure out of this. It was not Athaclena’s fault that the feeling clung to him … the feeling that he had just betrayed a friend.

  Ah, well, Uthacalthing consoled himself. It is all probably moot, anyway. To get Kault the kind of message facilities he needs now will take seven more miracles, each greater than the last.

  It seemed fitting that they would probably die together in the attempt, uselessly.

  In his sadness, Uthacalthing found the energy to lift his tendrils slightly. They fashioned a simple glyph of regret as he raised his head to face Kault.

  He was about to speak when something very surprising suddenly happened. Uthacalthing felt a presence wing past in the night. He started. But no sooner had it been there than it was gone.

  Did I imagine it? Am I falling apart?

  Then it was back! He gasped in surprise, kenning as it circled the tent in an ever-tightening spiral, brushing at last against the fringes of his indrawn aura. He looked up, trying to spot something that whirled just beyond the fringe of their shelter.

  What am I doing? Trying to see a glyph? He closed his eyes and let the un-thing approach. Uthacalthing opened a kenning.

  “Puyr’iturumbul!” he cried.

  Kault swiveled. “What is it, my friend? What …?”

  But Uthacalthing had risen. As if drawn up by a string he stepped out into the cool night.

  The breeze brought odors to his nostrils as he sniffed, using all his senses to seek in the acherontic darkness. “Where are you?” Uthacalthing called. “Who is there?”

  Two figures stepped forward into a dim pool of moonlight. So it is true! Uthacalthing thought. A human had sought him out with an empathy sending, one so skillful it might have come from a young Tymbrimi.

  And that was not the end to surprises. He blinked at the tall, bronzed, bearded warrior—who looked like nothing but one of the heroes of those pre-Contact Earthling barbarian epics—and let out another cry of amazement as he suddenly recognized Robert Oneagle, the playboy son of the Planetary Coordinator!

  “Good evening, sir,” Robert said as he stopped a few meters away and bowed.

  Standing a little behind Robert, the neo-chimpanzee, Jo-Jo, wrung his hands nervously. This, certainly, was not according to the original plan. He did not meet Uthacalthing’s eyes.

  “V’hooman’ph? Idatess!” Kault exclaimed in Galactic Six. “Uthacalthing, what is a human doing here?”

  Robert bowed again. Enunciating carefully, he made formal greetings to both of them, including their full species-names. Then he went on in Galactic Seven.

  “I have come a long way, honored gentlebeings, in order to invite you all to a party.”

  83

  Fiben

  “Easy, Tycho. Easy!”

  The normally placid animal bucked and pulled at its reins. Fiben, who had never been much of a horseman, was forced to dismount hurriedly and grab the animal’s halter.

  “There now. Relax,” he soothed. “It’s just another transport going by. We’ve heard ’em all day. It’ll be gone soon.”

  As he promised, the shrieking whine faded as the flying machine passed quickly overhead and disappeared beyond the nearby trees, traveling in the direction of Port Helenia.

  A lot had changed since Fiben had first come this way, mere weeks after the invasion. Then he had walked in sunshine down a busy highway, surrounded by spring’s verdant colors. Now he felt blustery winds at his back as he passed through a valley showing all the early signs of a bitter winter. Half the trees had already dropped their leaves, leaving them in drifts across meadows and lanes. Orchards were bare of fruit, and the back roads devoid of traffic.

  Surface traffic, that is. Overhead the swarm of transports seemed incessant. Gravitics teased his peripheral nerves as Gubru machines zoomed past. The first few times, his hackles had risen from more than just the pulsing fields. He had expected to be challenged, to be stopped, perhaps to be shot on sight.

  But in fact the Galactics had ignored him altogether, apparently not deigning to distinguish one lonely chim from others who had been sent out to help with the harvest, or the specialists who had begun staffing a few of the ecological management stations once again.

  Fiben had spoken with a few of the latter, many of them old acquaintances. They told of how they had given their parole in exchange for freedom and low-level support to resume their work. There wasn’t much to be done, of course, with winter coming on. But at least there was a program again, and the Gubru seemed quite satisfied to leave them alone to do their work.

  The invaders were, indeed, preoccupied elsewhere. The real focus of Galactic activity seemed to be over to the southwest, toward the spaceport.

  And the ceremonial site, Fiben reminded himself. He didn’t really know what he was going to do in the unlikely event he actually made it through to town. What would happen if he just marched right up to the shabby house that had been his former prison? Would the Suzerain of Propriety take him back?

  Would Gailet?

  Would she even be there?

  He passed a few chims dressed in muffled cloaks, who desultorily picked through the stubble in a recently harvested field. They did not greet him, nor did he expect them to. Gleaning was a job generally given the poorest sort of Probationer. Still, he felt their gaze as he walked Tycho toward Port Helenia. After the animal had calmed a bit, Fiben clambered back onto the saddle and rode.

  He had considered trying to reenter Port Helenia the way he left it, over the wall, at night. After all, if it had worked once, why not a second time? Anyway, he had no wish to meet up with the followers of the Suzerain of Cost and Caution.

  It was tempting. Somehow, though, he figured that once was lucky. Twice would be simple stupidity.

  Anyway, the choice was made for him when he rounded a bend and found himself staring at a Gubru guard post. Two battle robots of sophisticated design whirled and focused upon him.

  “Easy does it, guys.” Fiben said it more for his own benefit than theirs. If they were programmed to shoot on sight, he never would have seen them in the first place.

  In front of the blockhouse there sat a squat armored hover craft, propped up on blocks. Two pairs of three-toed feet stuck out from underneath, and it did not take much knowledge of Galactic Three to tell that the chirped mutterings were expressing frustration. When the robots’ warning whistled forth there came a sharp bang under the hover, followed by an indignant squawk.

  Soon a pair of hooked beaks poked out of the
shadows. Yellow eyes watched him unblinkingly. One of the disheveled Gubru rubbed its dented head frill.

  Fiben pressed his lips together to fight back a smile. He dismounted and approached until he was even with the bunker, puzzled when neither the aliens nor the machines spoke to him.

  He stopped before the two Gubru and bowed low.

  They looked at each other and twittered irritably to each other. From one there came something that sounded like a resigned moan. The two Talon Soldiers emerged from under the disabled machine and stood up. Each of them returned a very slight but noticeable nod.

  Silence stretched.

  One of the Gubru whistled another faint sigh and brushed dust from its feathers. The other simply glared at Fiben.

  Now what? he tried to think, but what was he supposed to do? Fiben’s toes itched.

  He bowed again. Then, with a dry mouth, he backed away and took the horse’s tether. With affected nonchalance he started walking toward the dark fence surrounding Port Helenia, now visible just a kilometer ahead.

  Tycho nickered, swished his tail, and cut loose an aromatic crepidation.

  Tycho, pu-lease! Fiben thought. When a bend in the road at last cut off all view of the Gubru, Fiben sank to the ground. He just sat and shook for a few moments.

  “Well,” he said at last. “I guess there really is a truce after all.”

  After that, the guard post at the town gate was almost anticlimactic. Fiben actually enjoyed making the Talon Soldiers acknowledge his bow. He remembered some of what Gailet had taught him about Galactic protocol. Grudging acknowledgment from the client-class Kwackoo had been vital to achieve. To get it from the Gubru was delicious.

  It also clearly meant that the Suzerain of Propriety was holding out. It had not yet given in.

  Fiben left a trail of startled chims behind him as he rode Tycho at a gallop through the back streets of Port Helenia. One or two of them shouted at him, but at that moment he had no thought except to hurry toward the site of his former imprisonment.

  When he arrived, however, he found the iron gate open and untended. The watch globes had vanished from the stone wall. He left Tycho to graze in the unkempt garden and beat aside a couple of limp plate ivy parachutes that festooned the open doorway.

  “Gailet!” he shouted.

  The Probationer guards were gone too. Dustballs and scraps of paper blew in through the open door and rolled down the hall. When he came to the room he had shared with Gailet, Fiben stopped and stared.

  It was a mess.

  Most of the furnishings were still there, but the expensive sound system and holo-wall had been torn out, no doubt taken by the departing Probies. On the other hand, Fiben saw his personal datawell sitting right where he had left it that night.

  Gailet’s was gone.

  He checked the closet. Most of their clothes still hung there. Clearly she hadn’t packed. He took down the shiny ceremonial robe he had been given by the Suzerain’s staff. The silky material was almost glass-smooth under his fingers.

  Gailet’s robe was missing.

  “Oh, Goodall,” Fiben moaned. He spun about and dashed down the hall. It took only a second to leap into the saddle, but Tycho barely looked up from his feeding. Fiben had to kick and yell until the beast began to comprehend some of the urgency of the situation. With a yellow sunflower still hanging from his mouth, the horse turned and clomped through the gate and back onto the street. Once there, Tycho brought his head down and gamely gathered momentum.

  They made quite a sight, galloping down the silent, almost empty streets, the robe and the flower flapping like banners in the wind. But few witnessed the wild ride until they finally approached the crowded wharves.

  It seemed as if nearly every chim in town was there. They swarmed along the waterfront, a churning mass of brown, callipose bodies dressed in autumn parkas, their heads bobbing like the waters of the bay just beyond. More chims leaned precariously over the rooftops, and some even hung from drainage spouts.

  It was a good thing Fiben wasn’t on foot. Tycho was really quite helpful as he snorted and nudged startled chims aside with his nose. From his perch on the horse’s back, Fiben soon was able to spy what some of the commotion was about.

  About half a kilometer out into the bay, a dozen fishing vessels could be seen operating under neo-chimpanzee crews. A cluster of them jostled and bumped near a sleek white craft that glistened in cliquant contrast to the battered trawlers.

  The Gubru vessel was dead in the water. Two of the avian crew members stood atop its cockpit, twittering and waving their arms, offering instructions which the chim seamen politely ignored as they tied hausers to the crippled craft and began gradually towing it toward the shore.

  So what? Big deal, Fiben thought. So a Gubru patrol boat suffered a breakdown. For this all the chims in town had spilled out into the streets? The citizens of Port Helenia really must be hard up for entertainment.

  Then he realized that only a few of the townfolk were actually watching the minor rescue in the harbor. The vast majority stared southward, out across the bay.

  Oh. Fiben’s breath escaped in a sigh, and he, too, was momentarily struck speechless.

  New, shining towers stood atop the far mesa where the colonial spaceport lay. The lambent monoliths looked nothing like Gubru transports, or their hulking, globular battleships. Instead, these resembled glimmering steeples—spires which towered high and confident, manifesting a faith and tradition more ancient than life on Earth.

  Tiny winklings of light lifted from the tall starships—carrying Galactic dignitaries, Fiben guessed—and cruised westward, drawing nearer along the arc of the bay. At last the aircraft joined a spiral of traffic descending over South Point. That was where everyone in Port Helenia seemed to sense that something special was going on.

  Unconsciously Fiben guided Tycho through the crowd until he arrived at the edge of the main wharf. There a chain of chims wearing oval badges held back the crowd. So there are proctors again, Fiben realized. The Probationers proved unreliable, so the Gubru had to reinstate civil authority.

  A chen wearing the brassard of a proctor corporal grabbed Tycho’s halter and started to speak. “Hey, bub! You can’t …” Then he blinked. “Ifni! Is that you, Fiben?”

  Fiben recognized Barnaby Fulton, one of the chims who had been involved in Gailet’s early urban undergound. He smiled, though his thoughts were far across the choppy waters. “Hello, Barnaby. Haven’t seen you since the valley uprising. Glad to see you still scratchin’.”

  Now that attention had been drawn his way, chens and chimmies started nudging each other and whispering in hushed voices. He heard his own name repeated. The susurration of the crowd ebbed as a circle of silence spread around him. Two or three of the staring chims reached out to touch Tycho’s heavy flanks, or Fiben’s leg, as if to verify that they were real.

  Barnaby made a visible effort to match Fiben’s insouciance. “Whenever it itches, Fiben. Uh, one rumor had it you were s’pozed to be over there.” He gestured toward the monumental activity taking place across the harbor. “Another said you’d busted out an’ taken to the hills. A third …”

  “What did the third say?”

  Barnaby swallowed. “Some said your number’d come up.”

  “Hmph,” Fiben commented softly. “I guess all of them were right.”

  He saw that the trawlers had dragged the crippled Gubru patrol boat nearly to the dock. A number of other chim-crewed vessels cruised farther out, but none of them crossed a line of buoys that could be seen stretching all the way across the bay.

  Barnaby looked left and right, then spoke in a low voice. “Uh, Fiben, there are quite a few chims in town who … well, who’ve been reorganizing. I had to give parole when I got my brassard back, but I can get word to Professor Oakes that you’re in town. I’m sure he’d want to get together a meetin’ tonight.…”

  Fiben shook his head. “No time. I’ve got to get over there.” He motioned to where the bright
aircraft were alighting on the far headlands.

  Barnaby’s lips drew back. “I dunno, Fiben. Those watch buoys. They’ve kept everybody back.”

  “Have they actually burned anybody?”

  “Well, no. Not that I’ve seen. But—”

  Barnaby stopped as Fiben shook the reins and nudged with his heels. “Thanks, Barnaby. That’s all I needed to know,” he said.

  The proctors stood aside as Tycho stepped along the wharf. Farther out the little rescue flotilla had just come to dock and were even now tying up the prim white Gubru warcraft. The chim sailors did a lot of bowing and moved in uncomfortable crouched postures under the glare of the irritated Talon Soldiers and their fearsome battle drones.

  In contrast, Fiben steered his steed just outside of the range that would have required him to acknowledge the aliens. His posture was erect, and he ignored them completely as he rode past the patrol boat to the far end of the pier, where the smallest of the fishing boats had just come to rest.

  He swung his feet over the saddle and hopped down. “Are you good to animals?” he asked the startled sailor, who looked up from securing his craft. When he nodded, Fiben handed the dumbfounded chim Tycho’s reins. “Then we’ll swap.”

  He leaped aboard the little craft and stepped behind the cockpit. “Send a bill for the difference to the Suzerain for Propriety. You got that? The Gubru Suzerain of Propriety.”

  The wide-eyed chen seemed to notice that his jaw was hanging open. He closed it with an audible clack.

  Fiben switched the ignition on and felt satisfied with the engine’s throaty roar. “Cast off,” he said. Then he smiled. “And thanks. Take good care of Tycho!”

  The sailor blinked. He seemed about to decide to get angry when some of the chims who had followed Fiben caught up. One whispered in the boatman’s ear. The fisherman then grinned. He hurried to untie the boat’s tether and threw the rope back onto the foredeck. When Fiben awkwardly hit the pier backing up, the chim only winced slightly. “G-good luck,” he managed to say.

  “Yeah. Luck, Fiben,” Barnaby shouted.