Bracing all four legs, both foothands, and both truhands against the sides of the vertical cylindrical shaft, he stepped through the opening, using his truhands to carefully close the service hatch behind him. Even with eight limbs to brace himself against the dark composite walls, it was a struggle to ascend against the powerful downdraft. The untreated atmosphere being sucked down into the hive was ripe with a pervasion of exotic odors that threatened to overwhelm him. He persisted in his ascent. As expected, the air was cooler than he would have preferred, but adequately impregnated with moisture. He might get cold, but he would not dry out.
Once, he slipped, a rear leg losing its grip, threatening to send him hurling down the shaft. His other legs stiffened to take up the slack, and he quickly reasserted his stance, resuming the full brace. The supply sack strapped to the back of his abdomen now felt as if it were filled not with food and medication and survival gear but with bars of unrefined metal. The place where his thorax met his upper abdomen rubbed painfully together with each upward step, threatening to crack and expose his semiopen circulatory system. If that happened and the break was serious, he could easily bleed to death before he reached the surface.
Though always in view, the upper terminus of the shaft seemed impossibly far away. He elected not to look at it lest the distance he still had to climb discourage him. From the trembling in his legs he knew that he had already passed the point of no return. The top of the shaft was closer than the service hatch through which he had entered. Since it required almost the same energy to rise as to retreat, he clasped his mandibles tightly together and continued his ascent. His thorax pulsed with his hard breathing.
The higher he rose, the stronger became the alien stench from outside. Just when he thought his legs could no longer support him, his head slammed into something unyielding. The pain that raced down his unprotected antennae was intense. Only the shock kept him from losing his grip on the walls of the shaft entirely and plunging to the bottom. If that happened at this height he would not have to worry about rescue. Drawn inward by the suction from below, alien air entering through screened, eye-sized gaps blasted his face and exposed eyes. Ignoring the dust and grit, he reached up with both truhands to feel along the inner edge of the rim. There should be a single latch. In the near darkness he could see very little, and he was constantly having to look down to protect his eyes from the barrage of minuscule debris that threatened to rip the shielding nictitating membranes.
If he failed to locate the latch, or if it refused to open, he would have no choice but to try and work his way all the way back down the shaft to the service hatch. Given how his legs were shaking, he doubted very seriously if he would be able to make it.
He had studied the design of the air shafts closely, but perusing a schematic in the comfort of his quarters was very different from hunting for a tiny component part, trembling and exhausted, while braced only by his legs at the top of a lethally high duct full of incoming air that seemed determined to break his grip and send him hurtling downward. The delicate digits of his left truhand skimmed the place where the upper rim met the top of the shaft. They encountered an immovable obstruction. Raising his head, Desvendapur fought to see clearly in the poor light and softly moaning air. It was the latch. It _had_ to be. Using all four digits, he pressed and twisted according to the schematic he had memorized.
The latch did not respond.
Regulating his breathing as best he could, he tried again. The latch might as well have been welded shut. Refusing to concede, unable to do anything else, he readied himself for a third attempt. But he needed more leverage-or more strength.
Sending his last surge of energy and determination into his lower body, he released his grip on the shaft walls with his upper limbs. Braced now only by his four trulegs, he grasped the latch with all sixteen digits of his foothands and tru-hands while pressing and twisting. Something unyielding complained. The latch gave.
He was not sure whether his legs lost their brace before he pulled himself out or at the same time. All he knew was that he was hanging on with his upper limbs for what seemed like an eternity before he was able to finally kick, pull, and drag himself out of the shaft. He lay on the ground, breathing hard, his vision unfocused, alongside what looked like the stump of a dead diderocarpus. The last thing he had done before collapsing was to close the top of the shaft. It had snapped shut, automatically resealing.
He was committed now. He could not reopen the shaft and regain access to the hive from outside. He was trapped on the surface of an alien world, the world of the bipeds. Right where he wanted to be.
It had not been difficult to learn where the few fixed monitors were located, or when the mobile scanners passed over their respective sections of the site. Colony-based security was necessarily limited lest it attract the attention of the local human authorities. Of necessity, the majority of it was left to those renegade humans who had assisted in the establishment of the colony, and even they had to keep a low profile. Those few who had infiltrated the park authority were the most useful, but even they could not linger in the colony's vicinity. It would be difficult to explain the attraction of a patch of rain forest that, literally on the surface, was no different from the thousands of square kilometers surrounding it. So while he remained attuned and alert to the possibility, he believed that any chance of imminent discovery remained slight.
His excitement at having made it this far was muted by his exhaustion. Every joint in his exoskeleton ached. He lay on his lower abdomen, his legs folded beneath him, slowly regaining his strength. Gradually it returned, and with it, the ability to marvel at his outlandish surroundings.
The trees were all the wrong color: gray or grayish-green where they should have been dark brown. Leaves tended to be broad and spatulate, which was normal, but with their veins all too visible. It was a relief to observe distant ancestor types crawling and flying through the forest. The screech of primitive mammals, the predecessors of the dominant planetary species, pierced the sodden air. Any less humidity and Desvendapur would have been distinctly uncomfortable, but the near-normal moisture content helped to mitigate the cool temperature. He might feel a slight chill now and then, especially at night, but otherwise he anticipated no difficulty surviving.
Having devoted himself in his spare time to the study of the biology of the surface in the immediate vicinity of the colony, he was able to locate not one but several edible plants. None of them were palatable to humans, whose ability to consume and digest plant matter was notably inferior to that of the thranx. Rising, he hefted his pack and started off into the woods, choosing an easterly heading. He ignored the edible vegetation. At the moment he was not hungry, and there would be plenty to choose from in the course of his journey. Nor did he wish to leave behind any evidence of his passing.
With that in mind he was careful to step only in very wet or very dry places so as not to leave footprints, to avoid the breaking off of leaves or branches, and to disturb _as_ little of the forest litter as possible, even though there were other large animals in the forest and any such damage would likely be ascribed to them. Even a human specialist would find it hard to tell whether a branch had been snapped off by a thranx or a tapir.
As he traveled farther from the site of the colony and deeper into the untouched terrestrial rain forest his elation increased. This was what he had come for, what he had struggled so long to achieve-exposure to something utterly new and different. Already, long lines of continuous verse were scampering unbidden through his brain so voluminously that he had to halt from time to time to recite them into his scri!ber. Every tree, every flower and insect, peeping amphibian or raucous bird, inspired him to compose. He could no more stop himself from doing so than he could halt his breathing. It slowed his progress but raised his spirits.
A fruiting tree was ablaze with cacophonous color, not from flowers but from the flock of scarlet macaws busily gorging themselves in its upper b
ranches. Pausing below, Desvendapur assembled an entire sonnet, complete to rhythm and accompanying stridulation. Following a creative lull of many cycles, the explosion of artistry left him giddy. And this was only the first morning of the first day! What inspirational wonders awaited him in the cycles to come? He resolved to maintain his freedom for as long as possible, or at least until the last of his strategic supplements gave out.
It did indeed grow decidedly chilly when the sun set, but the personal covering and tubular shelter he had brought with him proved sufficient to ward off the cold. A human would have spent the night sweating in the nocturnal heat and humidity, but the comfort level of a thranx demanded more of both. Within the solitary six-legged sightseer, excitement and elation battled exhaustion. To Desvendapur's benefit, exhaustion won. He slept soundly and well into morning.
Rising, he repacked his gear and resumed his march eastward. Surrounded by a profusion of exotic edibles, he did not hesitate to try one after another, but only if he was certain of his identification. Many terrestrial growths contained toxins to discourage the attention of predacious herbivores. Some of these were deadly to humans but harmless to thranx, and vice versa. Strong botanical alkaloids that would have sickened or disabled a biped, for example, the thranx considered piquant and spicy.
Ambling along between the trees, the poet ate as he walked. Truhands reached out to pluck leaves from surrounding bushes or hanging branches. Many things a human would have considered fair game the vegetarian thranx ignored, including the abundance of insects. For Desvendapur to have consumed a plump, protein-rich grub would have been akin to a biped eating a baby monkey.
Water was everywhere, eliminating the need for him to carry a supply. Obstacles that would have given a human pause proved no impediment to a six-legged thranx. His only fear was that there might not be room enough in his scri!ber to hold all of the endless stream of invention that poured from his mandibles.
Carefully picking his way through a jumble of small fallen trees that had been washed up in one place by the annual wet-season flood, he felt something strike his middle left leg forcefully. Looking down, he was intrigued to see the three-meter long bundle of lethal curves known to the humans as a fer-de-lance drawing warily away from him. With a soft hiss it turned to slink off into the rotting litter. Its method of locomotion greatly intrigued him. Nothing half so large lived on Willow-Wane that was capable of rapid movement over land without legs. He observed its departure with interest. A glance at the limb that had absorbed the impact revealed a pair of shallow dimples in the faintly metallic blue-green chitin where the elapid's fangs had struck. When they had failed to penetrate, the aggressive and slightly bewildered snake had turned to slink off into the darkness of the forest understory.
Having paid close attention to his studies, Desvendapur had been able to identify the snake instantly. Had it bit the soft, unprotected leg of a human, pain and paralysis would have rapidly ensued and-without the prompt application of the appropriate antivenin-death. Unless struck in the eye, the soft underside of the abdomen, or between joints, an armored adult thranx ran no such risk.
Not every threat manifested by the wild rain forest could be so easily dismissed. Knowing this, Desvendapur was alert to its many dangers. A large constrictor like a boa or an anaconda could kill a thranx as readily as an unwary human. So could a startled spectacled bear or an angry caiman. By virtue of his hard exoskeleton the poet was, however, virtually immune to the attentions of the omnipresent hordes of biting, stinging, blood-sucking insects.
Despite the wonderful excess of exotic tastes freely available on the trees and bushes growing all around him, he was careful not to overindulge. It would be foolish to survive the forest only to succumb to a self-inflicted stomach upset. There would be plenty of time later to try everything.
The narrow, shallow rain forest streams were a source of constant wonder and delight, but the first sizable tributary he encountered gave him pause. It was less than five meters across, no more than half a meter deep, and devoid of visible current. Any human child could have plunged in and crossed it easily. Not so Desvendapur or any other thranx. No matter how hard they thrashed and kicked, even with all eight limbs they were feeble swimmers. Their bodies had simply not been designed with buoyancy in mind. And while members of both sapient species could keep their heads above water while they swam, humans breathed through double openings set in the center of their faces. A thranx utilized eight breathing spicules, four to each side, located on the thorax. Following immersion, these invariably found themselves situated below the surface.
Turning upstream, the poet kept alert for a place to cross. A large fallen mahogany tree trapped among rocks provided a bridge. It was shakier than he would have liked, but in the absence of alternatives he felt he had no choice but to trust it. He wanted to put as much distance as possible between himself and the colony as rapidly as he could.
The log held steady beneath his weight, and with all six legs securing his footing he was able to accomplish the potentially lethal transit without difficulty. Besides, there was nothing like tempting death to stimulate the creative muse within. Composing as he walked, the scri!ber held comfortably in one truhand, he plunged gleefully into the dense rain forest on the far shore.
In this manner he passed a number of days, camping in a different place every night, sampling the local vegetation, composing relentlessly, crossing intervening streams with an abandon that began to border on recklessness. He was drunk with delight at the sights he encountered, knowing that few if any of his kind had ever seen half as much of the world of the bipeds as he was seeing now. Via recordings, yes, but that was not the same as and could not compare with trudging through the deliciously decomposing muck of the rain forest floor, catching the flash of light from a flitting morpho or dragonfly, listening to the squawk and screech of birds arguing with tree-dwelling simians, or pausing to ingest and sample the taste of yet another exotic leaf or flower.
It was worth everything he had gone through to get here, he told himself with satisfaction. It was worth anything the authorities might do to him if he was caught. He had composed more and better in the past few days than in his entire previous lifetime. For a true artist, that made any and all consequences worthwhile.
He marveled at the miniature jewels comprising the family Dendrobatidae, the poison arrow frogs. When he encountered a sloth lumbering lugubriously between trees, he sat for hours watching it. Reaching a stream whose bottom was clearly visible through the transparent water, he chose to wade it instead of hunting for a bridge or a way around. The meter-deep water covered his legs and submerged his abdomen, coming right up to the base of his thorax. All four trulegs were underwater, a condition designed to make any sensible, right-thinking thranx exceedingly nervous. What if he stepped into a hole and went under? What if the appearance of the streambed was deceptively deeper than it appeared, or gave way beneath his feet?
Holding his breath, he deliberately lowered himself until the stream rose to his mandibles. With his spicules submerged, only his head remained above water. He could still see with his eyes, hear with his ears, taste with his antennae, but he could not breathe. He held the unnatural position for as long as his lungs would allow before finally straightening. Water trickled off his exoskeleton as he emerged onto the far bank. The experience had been empowering as well as exhilarating.
Raising the overworked scri!ber to his mandibles, he poured a stream of florid composition into the integrated pickup. As he walked and dictated, he strode into a patch of low swamp seething with voracious, newly hatched leeches. They swarmed onto his legs and promptly dropped off, unable to penetrate his exoskeleton. Those that persisted he picked off and flung aside. They tried to cling to his digits but were unable to secure a grip on the hard, smooth surface.
There were sizable native predators on Willow-Wane, and in prehistoric times primitive social thranx on Hivehom had suffered predation
at the claws of rampaging _colowact_ or the ferocious burrowing _bejajek._ Large meat-eaters tended to make a good deal of noise prior to attacking, however. So it was with more than a little surprise that Desvendapur, who thought himself by now comparatively well attuned to the movements and the rhythms of the terrestrial forest, stepped through a clump of deep green calathia and found himself confronting a round, speculative face deep of eye and carnivorous of aspect.
More than a little surprised itself, but equally intrigued, the jaguar inclined its head upward and sniffed curiously. Recognizing the quadruped from his studies, the poet halted where he was standing. One foothand reached up and back to remove the kitchen cutting tool he had appropriated from the food preparation section. It was the nearest thing to a weapon Desvendapur had been able to expropriate and bring along. Food preparators did not have access to stunners or projectile devices. Not that it mattered. Even if he had been allowed open and free access to the colony's stores he doubted if such appliances were extant. Even the rogue humans who had assisted in helping the colony to get started might balk at the unregulated importation of alien weaponry.
Taking care not to make any sudden movements that might agitate the big carnivore, Des transferred the cutting tool from his foothand to a truhand. The foothand was stronger, but the truhand was more dexterous and agile. Also, it could reach high enough to protect his face. Thranx and jaguar stared, each one utterly foreign to the other.
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