Diuturnity's Dawn

by Foster, Alan Dean;

  There was no answer.

  He tried again, with the same result. Nordelmatcen's attention was still concentrated on the swirling, cheerful crowd. "Trouble with their units. Perhaps they are in a location that restricts short-range, closed-beam communications. Try Yiwespembor and Cuwenarfot."

  Beskodnebwyl did so, to another nonresponse. "Possibly there is something wrong with my unit." He extended a truhand. "Let me have yours."

  Nordelmatcen obediently passed over his own communicator. Beskodnebwyl first tried Vedburankex and Hynwupletmur again, only to be rewarded with the same pensive electronic silence. It was the same for Yiwespembor and Cuwenarfot, who were supposed to be milling about among the largest of the eating pavilions that had been built out into the shallows of the lake. If they were in position, as they ought to already have been for several time-parts, there should be nothing around to interfere with the receptiveness of their communicators.

  Growing increasingly concerned, Beskodnebwyl proceeded to try to contact every one of the widely scattered armed teams. It quickly became apparent that the rest of the Bwyl either could not or would not respond. As for the possibility that Nordelmatcen's as well as his own communicator was defective, that was a likelihood so unreasonable as to be beneath consideration. Designed to take a lot of mistreatment, field communicators simply did not fail. The thought that two could falter in such close proximity to one another was not to be believed. Beskodnebwyl did not even bother to try Deimovjenbir's unit.

  They were standing on a raised platform that wound its way through the interspecies exhibition of art. While it was conceivable that some of the larger sculptures might block communication to and from the east, there was nothing to divert beams being broadcast in the other three directions. Searching for an explanation, Beskodnebwyl could conceive of none.

  Then Nordelmatcen was striving to suppress an instinctive stridulation as he tapped his mentor on the thorax and pointed sharply.

  Beskodnebwyl recognized the strike team that was walking rapidly toward the art exhibit. They had just appeared inside one of the entrances on the far side of the pavilion. Sujbirwencex and Waspulnatun were looking around more than was necessary, and their antennae were positively dancing. There appeared to be nothing wrong with them, either physically or mentally. For the first time since he had started scanning, Beskodnebwyl received an acknowledgment in response to his query signal.

  He was about to ask if the recently arrived team members were having similar difficulties contacting other members of the group when Sujbirwencex and Waspulnatun were abruptly swarmed by a collapsing ring of humans and thranx. Shocked by the swiftness of the maneuver, Beskodnebwyl could only stare, one finger still on thesend contact of his communicator. It was as if a portion of the milling crowd had collapsed on top of the stunned pair. Neither had a chance to fire a shot in their own defense, or even unlimber one of the many weapons they carried. One time-part fraction they had been making straight for Beskodnebwyl and Nordelmatcen; the next, both were in custody and in the process of being disarmed.

  Deimovjenbir benefited from a slightly different perspective on the calamity. "Sujbirwencex and Waspulnatun have both been immobilized. Whether by fume, shock, or other means I cannot say, but both are now lying on their sides and offering no resistance."

  Beskodnebwyl's colleague was not quite right. As the three dismayed thranx looked on, Sujbirwencex managed to wrest free a small hand weapon not yet confiscated by her attackers. She was immediately swarmed, but not before she succeeded in getting off at least one shot. A few nearby wanderers looked on in shock as the explosive shell blew one human patroller in half. In response, the downed Sujbirwencex received half a dozen blasts of varying intensity from at least three different kinds of weapons. The ferocious counterattack left little behind suitable for future identification.

  From the brief but lethal confrontation nary a sound was heard.

  "Silencing sphere," Nordelmatcen clicked unnecessarily. Whoever had ambushed the two Bwyl carried equipment to ensure that whatever else resulted from any confrontations and challenges, crowd panic would not be among them. The throng of sightseers had been effectively and efficiently shielded from the unsettling sounds of violent verbal and physical combat. One human and one Bwyl lay dead on the pavilion floor, but only those visitors who had been close enough to observe the challenge directly had any inkling that anything untoward had taken place in their midst. It was all very slick and masterful. The actions of the ambushers smacked of extensive training and ample rehearsal.

  They suggested, inescapably, the participation of skilled professionals.

  Deimovjenbir moved to discard his unnecessary outer garb, the better to access his firepower. "We have been betrayed! The burrow where we have stored our secrets has been breached!"

  "No." Though he disagreed with his clan mate's appraisal of the situation, Beskodnebwyl was also scrambling to unlimber his weapons. "The Skettle folk would not do that. Revealing us would gain them nothing, since the first Bwyl to be captured would immediately expose them in turn."

  Deimovjenbir almost had the streamlined launcher free and ready to lock in position on Nordelmatcen's back, where it could be clipped firmly to the other thranx's wing cases to provide an excellent mobile firing platform.

  "But someone has delivered us up to the Dawn authorities. I cannot envision who. Somehow, somewhere, there must have been a fault in our planning. We will locate it, however."

  "Srrillp! Yes we will!" Nordelmatcen avowed. He was fully alert now, alive with anticipation as he prepared to join his honored mentor in blowing the adulterated physical arts pavilion to splinters. "There is no reason to wait any longer to begin what we came for."

  "No, crr!!t !" Deimovjenbir slipped a compressed charge into the launcher now resting securely on his colleague's back.

  He was preparing to activate the firing sequence when a pair of very small shells composed almost entirely of radioactively neutral depleted uranium passed through his head, entering via the left compound eye and exiting at the back of the skull. Barely slowed by the organic contact, they continued onward to pierce the wall of the pavilion and eventually fall harmlessly into the lake. Slowly, the four trulegs of the Bwyl gave way in response to an absence of instructions from their controlling cerebrum, and the gleaming blue-green body slumped to the floor. The extended truhand never came closer than half a meter to the firing mechanism of the launcher fixed to Nordelmatcen's back.

  Emitting the sharpest, most piercing whistle of which he was capable, Nordelmatcen sprang forward on all four trulegs, firing a pair of hand weapons as he leaped. Undeadened by a silencing sphere, the racket his firearms made was as loud as the death of his friend and colleague had been comparatively silent. Humans scattered and let out satisfying screams. Less prone to panic, adult and adolescent thranx nonetheless broke out in alarmed clicks and stridulations, adding to the general confusion. Meanwhile, Beskodnebwyl used the diversion to force his way in the opposite direction, finding a path through the forest of sculptures. Human, thranx, and jointly conceived alike, the towering works of art seemed to be leering down at him. Or worse, laughing.

  The ensuing uproar lasted less than a couple of minutes. Firing madly, Nordelmatcen brought down one human and one thranx patroller before he was obliterated in a hail of gunfire as lethal as it was diverse. Alert for any surprises, such as booby-trapped internal organs, plainclothes police surrounded the shattered remnants of the insectoid terrorist. One kicked at the badly burned head, which had been separated from the rest of the body.

  "Stupid bug - pardon, thranx - bastard. What are they trying to accomplish with all this?"

  His female companion made a disgusted sound in her throat, behind her face shield. "We'll know when the psychs get to the live ones and their human cronies who've already been taken into custody." Raising her gaze, she stared hard at the raised walkway from which the dead thranx had leaped. "There's another dead one up there. I thought I saw three."


  Her comrade pushed at the back of his slightly too-tight helmet. "Dunno. Must've just been the two. We've been mostly picking 'em up in twos."

  "I guess you're right." It was her turn to nudge the black-streaked insectoid head with a booted foot. "Funny how the color drains out of the eyes when they die. Their equivalent of a human closing her lids, I guess."

  Her fellow officer shrugged. "Dead is dead. Me, I leave the dirty details to the biologists." He brightened slightly. "Hey, you ought to join me and Vermenyarkex one night."

  "Why? Is there such a thing as a thranx strip club?" she replied dryly.

  "I wouldn't know." Her partner looked hurt. "He said something about sharing some special hi-ups that work equally well on both our metabolisms."

  "Oh, that's different, then." Holstering her pistol in its hidden compartment inside her casual tropical blouse, she turned to rejoin the rest of the covert patrol. "Let's make sure we've got the rest of this mess cleaned up, first."

  Lawlor and Rabukanu were getting nervous. Everything had gone according to plan: their arrival at the fair, the gradual dispersal of the group, the casual stroll to their assigned position. No one had contested their entrance or challenged their presence. Uniformed security personnel had ignored them, treating them like any other visitors. They had followed a memorized, circuitous route to the Pavilion of Cooperative Science and remained there, wandering through and about the exhibits until they were as sick of each and every one as they were of the unrestrained fraternizing of thranx and human tourists. Still, they waited. And waited.

  They continued to wait, but with a growing sense of unease long months of training could no longer dispel. Around them, the crowds thickened. There was no indication anything was amiss at the fair.

  Then Rabukanu frowned and pointed. "Isn't that Botha and Marion?"

  Lawlor strained to see past a drifting tactile holo that was entertaining a clutch of delighted, laughing children. A pair of adolescent thranx, their blue-green exoskeletons jewel-like with the freshness of recent emergence from pupahood, looked on in silence, striving to puzzle out the attraction the yellow-and-pink electronic apparition held for their human counterparts.

  A well-dressed - indeed, overdressed - middle-aged couple had just entered the far side of this quadrant of the extensive pavilion. Their constant glancing to right and left betrayed no ulterior motives: Striving to see everything at once was a common affliction among fairgoers. Then Marion happened to meet Lawlor's distant glance. Despite the range, she stared fixedly in his direction, as if trying to impart a question through sheer force of expression.

  "It's them, for sure." Lawlor blinked. "What are they doing in here? They're supposed to be working the health and gengineering displays."

  "She looks confused." At a distance, Rabukanu's eyesight was slightly sharper than that of his companion. "Maybe you were right when you wondered a few minutes ago if something's gone wrong."

  "What about Botha?" After Skettle, the engineer was the most admired member of the group.

  Rabukanu fought to see through the noisy, milling throng. "Hard to say. He never looks confused."

  "Well, something must be up for them to vacate their position." Lawlor checked his timer. "Elkannah's late."

  The other man did not bother to corroborate. "There's still plenty of time. More accurate to say that he's not early. Maybe he and Martine had to take a more roundabout route to the communications center. Maybe they were delayed. It's plenty early. Relax."

  "Yar, surely I'll relax." Beneath his lightweight tropical jacket, strips of explosive material vied for room with a brace of exceedingly stylized pistols. The pockets of his pants held handfuls of tacnites. He forbore from sarcastically pointing out to his companion that neither of them had come dressed for leisure. "What are they doing?"

  "Still coming this way." The more laid-back Rabukanu shrugged. "Maybe they just want to kill a few minutes." He wore the unpleasant, sadistic smile of a schoolteacher who enjoys humiliating his students. "As opposed to bugs. Or maybe something's rendered their assigned position untenable. You know that if that happens we're supposed to join up and share locations. A number of possible developments might have forced them to make a move."

  Lawlor scanned the eddying herd of sightseers. "Yar, you're right." He could not repress another quick glance at his timer. "I just wish Elkannah would do the communications facilities so we can get to work."

  "Itchy to lay down a little arson?" Rabukanu's smile vanished. "Me, too. Know what a fried bug smells like?"

  Lawlor did not reply. Rabukanu had an irritating tendency to repeat himself. It was an old joke among the group, and he didn't need any distractions right now. Instead, he focused on their approaching collaborators, still wondering what had driven them to abandon their assigned location. Rabukanu's appraisal of the situation had been reassuring, but a lingering concern continued to nag at him.

  It all happened so fast he hardly had time to react. One minute, their compatriots were strolling toward them; the next, they had been smothered by more than a dozen tourists. Men, women, even a couple of teenage girls. Except they were not tourists. Coagulating restraints glued Marion's fingers together and her hands to her sides, rendering her immediately helpless. Botha managed to retreat a couple of steps before a shaped shot of soporific mist splashed his wide-eyed face. One sniff, and he collapsed like a broken doll. Moving with far more athletic grace and digital dexterity than any dozen tourists could muster, the party of plainclothes agents wrapped up the two terrorists as efficiently as a swarm of communal arachnids enwebbing a trapped moth.

  Lawlor stood frozen where he had been standing. "How did they know? How did they know? "

  Once more it was left to the sharp-eyed Rabukanu to explain what was happening. "Weapons sensors. I think I can see the bulge of one under one woman's jacket." He smiled faintly. "I thought she was awfully well equipped, but I had no clue. Funny - if we were all carrying nothing but the components of the explosives, the sensor probably wouldn't pick anything up. Elkannah erred on that one."

  Lawlor found himself disagreeing as he reached inside his shirt and brought out the three-thirds of an explosive whole. "We can't wait for him and Martine anymore. We can't wait for anyone." His eyes were blazing in advance of the fires he was preparing to set.

  His companion looked at him in alarm. "Hey, we can't start anything on our own! You know the rules. In the event of a general breakdown in planning, we're supposed to dispose of our materials and make our way out of here and offworld, so we can strike again later somewhere else."

  "Distractions of evil. Suck bug blood!" Lawlor was backing away from his colleague. "I didn't spend a year busting my brain and my butt in training just to walk away from this." Pressing the three sections of the explosive components together, he slapped the resultant compaction against a nearby pillar and doused it with catalytic fluid. The three-centimeter square instantly began emitting smoke. Reaching inside his jacket, he used one hand to draw a pistol while the other fumbled frantically for more squares. While his words had been frenzied, his expression fully reflected his inner zealotry. Catching sight of the pistol, nearby visitors screamed and ducked or ran for cover.

  With a curse, Rabukanu saw that several of the agents who had taken Botha and Marion down were now looking in his direction, pointing and jabbering excitedly. They'd probably already recorded his image, he thought helplessly. For better or worse, the decision toact had been made. He hoped Skettle would not be too upset. Maybe it would turn out to be a good thing. Time was running.

  As the wild-eyed Lawlor stumbled away from him, Rabukanu started digging for his own carefully stored essentials. If they could just set off one or more detonations, they might have a chance to slip away unscathed in the ensuing turmoil. Already, there were indications of general panic among those tourists who were close enough to see what was happening.

  The catalyst would take several minutes to fully bind the tripartite ingredients
into an explosive whole. The delay was intended to allow those planting the devices enough time to escape the blast zone, but not enough for possible searchers to find the weapon.

  If only, Rabukanu thought as he prepared a second explosive patch, Skettle could take out the central communications facilities, the general chaos and destruction they had come to Dawn to wreak would manifest itself fully, to the greater glory and preservation of an unadulterated humankind. Fired with the devotion that had led him to give his life to Elkannah Skettle and to the Preservers, he prepared to apply the explosive patch to an exterior wall of the pavilion. Around him, humans and a few thranx continued to scatter. Their screams and stridulations melted together into a dull ache at the back of his mind.

  As if from far away, he heard Lawlor alternately howling defiance at the onrushing agents and spewing frantic warnings into his communicator. Probably trying to alert the others, Rabukanu knew. The crisp electric spang of the other man's pistol going off penetrated the general tumult like a sore-throated trumpet criticizing a balm of violins. Then he smelled something sweet as chocolate and stifling as a pillow. Reaching for a single tacnite, he managed to drag a stiffening thumb down the short length of the electronic trigger.

  The powerful little grenade was still clutched firmly in his fingers when it went off.

  As Lawlor's crazed, bloodthirsty alert was received by those of his fellow Preservers who were still at large, they quickly came to the shocked realization that their purpose and presence had somehow been exposed to the authorities. One couple was taken into custody even as they were preoccupied with listening to the broadcast. Another pair were debating whether to try to flee the grounds or proceed with their assignment when they were enveloped by a sphere of silence and a strong dose of the same immobilizing gas that had toppled their comrade Rabukanu.