But she was startled when conversation commenced, and the humans participated-speaking not in their own language but in a crude, unsophisticated, yet impressively intelligible rendition of Low Thranx.
"How long have you known the assistant food preparator who calls himself Desvendapur?" The human female blundered slightly over the correct pronunciation of the title.
Jhywinhuran hesitated, taken aback by both the nature of the question and its source. She looked to the two thranx present for advice, only to have the eldest gesture compliance. Not politely, either. Clearly, something serious was afoot.
"I met him on the _Zenruloim_ on the journey out from Willow-Wane. He was pleasant company, and as there were only four of us bound for this world, we naturally struck up an acquaintance. I also met and became friends with the engineers Awlvirmubak and Durcenhofex."
"They do not concern us and are not involved in this matter," the eldest thranx explained, "because they are not only where they are, they are who they are."
She gestured bewilderment. "I don't understand."
"Neither do we," the elder responded. "That is one of the purposes of this meeting: to reach understanding." His antennae bobbed restlessly as he spoke, indicating no especial sentiment: only a continuing unease. "Your friend has gone missing."
"I know. I helped to file the report."
"No, you don't know," the elder corrected her. "I do not mean that he has gone missing in the accepted sense. I mean that he is nowhere to be found anywhere in the hive."
"Nor," added the male human somewhat melodramatically, "is his corpse."
"The inescapable conclusion," the younger of the two thranx told her, "is that he has gone outside."
"Outside?" Jhywinhuran's confusion gave way to disbelief. "You mean, he has left the colony? Voluntarily?"
The elder genuflected sadness mixed with concurrence. "So it must be assumed."
"But _why?"_ Acknowledging her acceptance of the human's presence, she included them in her question as well as the pair of somber supervisors. "Why would he do such a thing? Why would any member of the colony?"
The female human crossed one leg completely over another, an intriguing gesture no thranx could emulate half so fluidly. Jhywinhuran wondered at its hidden meanings. "We were really hoping you could shed some light on that, Jhywinhuran."
Hearing her name emerge from an alien throat, complete to the appropriate whistle-and-click accentuation, was a novelty the sanitation worker did not have time to enjoy. "I assure you all I have no idea."
"Think," the elder prodded her. "This is important beyond anything you can imagine. We are already, with the aid of our human friends, searching the surface above and around the colony for this absent individual, but it would be of considerable use to know who and what we are searching for."
"You keep speaking of Desvendapur as though he doesn't exist." Something deep inside her felt bound to rise, however feebly or ineffectively, to the defense of an acquaintance who had brazenly lied to her.
The two thranx exchanged gestures. It was left to the younger to explain. "He doesn't. _Crrik,_ the individual you know as Desvendapur certainly does, but that is not his identity. When your report was filed and it was determined that the individual was no longer residing within the colony, a thorough background check was run on him in the hopes of learning or at least obtaining some clue as to what might have prompted him to engage in such intemperate behavior. Given the seriousness of his apparent transgression, the check was correspondingly detailed.
"It included a search, via a surreptitious space-minus relay operated by our human friends, of records that extend all the way back to Willow-Wane-not only professional records but personal ones as well. A portion of the finished report was so extraordinary that despite the difficulty and expense a recheck was demanded. It only confirmed that which had preceded it."
"What did you find out?" The two humans were temporarily forgotten.
The younger supervisor continued the story. "Something this serious activates, as one of multiple automatic searches, a full family background check. The records of the Hive Ba show no mention of a Desvendapur living or recently deceased."
None of the four thranx mandibles were capable of dropping, in the human sense, but Jhywinhuran succeeded in conveying her astonishment at this astounding announcement by means of a simple truhand gesture. "Then who is he?"
"We think we know," the elder told her. "He is very clever, this individual, far more resourceful than one would expect of an assistant food preparator."
"I always thought him so." Her horizontal mandibles clicked softly while the verticals remained motionless. She was more than a little dazed by this latest revelation.
"It all fits together." The younger supervisor was gesturing corroboration. "Tell me, Jhywinhuran: Did your absent friend at any time ever express a more-than-passing interest in the composition of poetry?"
This time she could only stare at her interrogators in stupefied silence. It did not matter. Her hush was sufficiently eloquent.
The senior supervisor continued, his mandibles moving methodically. "On Willow-Wane there was no Desvendapur. Or Desvenbapur or Desvenkapur. Background investigation discovered a Desventapur, an elderly and well-known electronics mapper who lives in the Hive Wevk. Also a Desvenqapur, a harvester drone residing in Upper Hierxex." He shifted his abdomen on his resting bench.
"There is also a Desvengapur who is not only the right age, but also shows an interest in formal composition for purpose of performance."
"Is that the real person, the one we are talking about?" a shaky Jlrywinhuran heard herself asking.
The supervisor gestured negativity. "Desvengapur is a mid-age female."
The younger of the pair took over, his speech becoming harsh and accusatory, the clicks sharper, his whistles shriller. "No living representative of the Hive Ba bears the name Desvenbapur. But on Willow-Wane there _was_ an aspiring young poet sufficiently accomplished to be assigned the designation of soother. He managed to have himself appointed to the human outpost at Geswixt."
The human male chipped in. "Apparently this individual, for reasons we still do not know, desired contact with my kind."
"His name," the supervisor continued, "was Desvendapur. A real, existing person, according to all personnel background checks and official records."
A poet, she found herself thinking. A designated soother. No wonder her friend's "amateur" efforts had struck her as so wonderfully accomplished. There had been nothing amateurish about them, or about him, she reflected bleakly.
"He changed his name and his records." Her voice was dull, methodical, the words rising without difficulty to her mandibles. "He falsified his history and learned the trade of assistant food preparator. But why?"
"Apparently, in hopes of gaining assignment to the colony there," the female human responded. "Why he did this we still don't know. We'd certainly like to."
"Truly," declared the senior supervisor, "an explanation of his motivation would be most welcome. This Desvendapur is an individual who has been driven to take extreme measures."
Jhywinhuran indicated assent. "To make up a false identity, to equivocate repeatedly..." A sudden thought made her hesitate. "Wait. I can see how he could remake himself as an assistant food preparator named Desvenbapur, but what about his original self? Wouldn't it be missed, not only at Geswixt but elsewhere?"
"This Desvendapur's cleverness extends well beyond a talent for concocting agreeable phrases." The supervisor's tone was dark. "He participated in a short but unauthorized flight from Geswixt to the project outpost on Willow-Wane. On the return flight, the lifter that had conveyed him crashed in the mountains. It was presumed that everyone aboard perished in the fiery crash. Shortly thereafter, the name of one Desvenbapur appeared on the work rolls of the human outpost as an assistant food preparator."
She gestured astonishment. "How fortunate he was. That must have
been a remarkable stroke of luck for him and for his plans, for I assume based on what you have told me that he must have been intending something like that for a long time."
"Certainly he was," the other supervisor readily agreed, "however there is now some question as to how 'lucky' he might have been."
"What are you implying, Venerable?" she stammered.
"The crash of his transportation on its return journey to Geswixt, leaving him an illegal and therefore unrecognized presence in the project outpost, is simply too convenient to be any longer considered a coincidence. Though much time has passed since this incident occurred, the appropriate authorities are even now reviewing the relevant records." He gestured with all four hands. "It is considered a distinct possibility that your friend contrived the crash of his transportation on its return flight to Geswixt in order to obliterate his old identity while providing an opportunity for him to create and adopt a new one."
While she was digesting this inconceivable volley of information, the female human commented, in that terse, tactless fashion for which humans were both famed and notorious, "What Eirmhenqibus is saying is that your absent friend, in addition to putting in jeopardy everything we have worked to achieve here, may also be a murderer." She had some difficulty with the appropriate accents for the thranx term for "one who kills its own kind," but Jhywinhuran had no trouble comprehending what had been said.
"I... I find that hard to believe."
"Then you are in good company in this room," the senior supervisor assured her. "Murder, falsification of identity, illegal assignation of profession, and now escapement. This Desvendapur has much to answer for."
"It is not something 1 would have expected of a soother." The other supervisor was quietly incredulous. "Your friend must be found, and quickly."
Both humans nodded assent. "This part of Earth was chosen for the colony not only because the climate is conducive to your kind," the female said, "but because it represents one of the last and largest regions on the planet in which the imprint of humankind has not been heavy. Very few people come here, and those that do travel about under strict supervision or professional guidance. But if anyone should see this Desvendapur, engaged in whatever purpose he is bent upon, he will immediately be recognized for what he is: an alien wandering about on a part of the Earth's surface where no alien is supposed to be."
"I do not think I need remind you," the male roughly told her, "about the delicate nature of the ongoing negotiations between your species and ours. Your ... appearance ... unfortunately, is off-putting to those of our kind who have not yet learned how to look beyond shape in the course of establishing relations. The great mass of humanity is still not entirely comfortable with the realization that there are other intelligent species, nor the possibility that some may be more intelligent than themselves. There exists a historical racial paranoia that is only slowly being eroded by contact with such as the thranx.
"The revelation that an illegal colony has been established here, in a part of the world where an alien presence is not officially authorized, could cast a serious pall on future as well as current relations between our respective species. In another ten or fifteen years, when the population of Earth has had a reasonable period of time in which to become used to your existence and appearance, the long-term existence of the colony will officially be made public. Realizing that your kind has lived among us in harmony and without friction for a studied length of time should, our psychologists tell us, greatly facilitate the formalizing of relations."
"But not yet," the female concluded. Jhywinhuran thought she looked tired, as if she had not slept in several days. "It is too soon-much too soon. The consequences that could result from premature disclosure are alarming."
The sanitation worker did not hesitate. In spite of any personal feelings she might retain for the engaging individual whose true name it appeared was Desvendapur, she was a dutiful and conscientious member of a hive. As such, she knew that the security and integrity of the community could not be compromised.
"I understand that he must be found and brought back before his existence is discovered by any passing humans. I will help in any way I can." She gestured sharply with a truhand. "Knowing him and being somewhat familiar with his nature, I can say that having gone to the trouble and extremes you have described, he may prove reluctant to comply."
It would have been better had one of the supervisors responded, but with the abruptness for which they were noted, it was the male human who replied first.
"If that proves to be the case, then of course we'll have to kill him."
Chapter Nineteen
An irritated Cheelo was about to respond to the alien's question, but before he could, a muted hum began to tickle his ears. Scanning the surrounding rain forest, he found his gaze being drawn to the tributary from which the striking anaconda had erupted. Ignoring the thranx's queries, he walked to the water's edge and squinted upstream. The hum grew no louder, but neither did it disappear.
"What are you doing?" Putting tentative pressure on his splinted middle leg, Desvendapur eyed the silent human curiously. "If you think after all this time that you're now going to persuade me that you are a naturalist by pretending to be engaged in some kind of profound observational behavior of the local fauna, you are?"
"Shut up!" Cheelo snapped. His tone more than the curt human words induced the poet to hold his peace. Or perhaps it was the hand gesture that accompanied the admonition; a sharp, downward chopping motion that Desvendapur had not encountered before.
The poet waited until he could stand the continuing silence no longer. Mindful of the human's warning, he kept his voice low as he moved forward to stand alongside the biped. The human's aspect and attitude were indicative of a sudden wariness.
"What's going on?"
"Don't you hear it? That vibrating sound?"
Desvendapur gestured affirmatively, then remembered to nod. "Certainly. While our sense of hearing is not as acute as yours, it is perfectly adequate." He tested the air with his antennae, seeking some radical new aroma, but caught nothing. "Some local animal, a forest dweller."
"Like hell it is." Putting out a hand, Cheelo urged the alien back into the undergrowth. Together they concealed themselves as best they could behind and beneath houseplants that here in their natural habitat grew to the size of small trees.
Wordlessly, he pointed at the eagle as it came gliding down the creek, its head panning slowly from side to side. Putting aside the queasiness that arose as a consequence of contact with soft, flexible mammalian flesh, Desvendapur indicated that he understood the situation. Only when he was certain that the eagle had passed well out of sight did Cheelo emerge from the brush and indicate that the thranx could do likewise.
"I do not understand." Antennae dipped and weaved balletically as Desvendapur gazed down the streambed, then turned back to the still-watchful human. "That was a particularly dangerous creature? Poisonous, perhaps, or stronger than it appeared?"
"That wasn't no damn bird at all. Eagles _scream._ They don't hum." Single-lensed brown eyes regarded the alien. "It was a machine. I've seen it before, or another one like it. I'm hoping it was nothing more than a routine, preprogrammed forest service overflight. I don't know what their inspection and censusing schedule is like. Didn't realize until I came here that the forest service used such sophisticated scanners. I guess they disguise them like the local critters so as not to alarm the fauna."
"This forest service you speak of may in fact not do that." Desvendapur eyed his human companion evenly.
Cheelo frowned. "Bug, is there something you're not telling me?"
Truhands crocheted the atmosphere. "There might be. Just as there is something you are not telling me. If I explain myself, will you reciprocate?"
_Ay._ Yeah, sure." Still listening for any indication that the camouflaged scanner might be returning, Cheelo crossed his arms over his narrow chest and settled himself
back against a tree.
"I suspect that cloaked device does not belong to any recognized human agency."
The perplexed human's expression contorted. "What do you mean, 'recognized'?"
"I think I know why it was so well disguised. It was not meant to be identified by your local authorities. It was designed to blend in with the local life-forms. And I think it was looking for _me?_
"For _you?"_ Cheelo hesitated, then nodded knowingly. "Oh, right. Your fellow expedition members are looking for you. What is it? Past time for you to rejoin them?" Though still hopeful of finding some way of making money off the alien, Cheelo remained ambivalent about its presence and realized he wouldn't exactly be averse to its departure, either. It was slowing him down.
"Truly. But it has been time for me to rejoin them ever since I left."
The human shook his head impatiently. Explanations were not supposed to further confuse. "I don't get it."
"I am not supposed to be here."
"What? You snuck off on your own?" Cheelo chuckled softly. "How about that? A bug with balls."
"Since I have yet to master your extensive catalog of colloquialisms I will not comment on that observation. What I am saying is that I am not supposed to be here at all. In this place. On this planet."
This time Cheelo did not laugh. He stood away from the tree, his expression turning serious. "You mean your research expedition is an illegal one?"
Desvendapur hesitated only briefly. "How much can I trust you, Cheelo Montoya?"
"Completely." Expression blank, the human waited patiently.
"There is no research expedition." Turning his upper body slightly, the poet pointed eastward. "With the aid of certain select representatives of your own kind, a colony has been established in this part of your world."
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