Diuturnity's Dawn

by Foster, Alan Dean;

  A frantic Skettle was in the process of trying to deliver himself of this explanation when the cylinder Briann and Twikanrozex were conveying as rapidly as possible toward the exit supplied its own clarification.

  Explosively.

  21

  It was a locality Lyrkenparmew never expected to have to visit. It was not necessary that he do so now. Through the highly covert channels that were open to him, he could have requested that the individual in question return to meet with him, instead of him going to see her. But upon learning the details of what had happened, and knowing the suffering she had already endured on behalf of their mutual interests, he felt it was incumbent upon him to repay the honors.

  Which was why he found himself, bundled and shivering beneath an overcast sky, walking slowly through an open, neatly tended garden asprout with vegetables so alien in shape and coloring he felt he might have fallen into the proverbial pupae land of psychedelic metamorphosis. At the moment, there was only one biped tending to the fantastic, exotic growths. She did so for purposes of therapy, he had been informed. What benefit there was to be gained from attending to an excrescence the shade and shape of agorn!eyak he could not imagine. Just looking at it threatened to upset both his stomachs.

  Fanielle glanced up at his approach. Rising, she wiped sweat from her forehead and dirt from her gloved hands. It was a pleasant, cool day, but the thranx envoy was obviously uncomfortable.

  "No, yrr!kk, " he replied when she suggested they go inside. "It is cold out here, but private. Let your friends think we are discussing the merits of rehabilitative agriculture." He searched her face, trying to apply what knowledge he had acquired of the multiple meanings conveyable by the wonderfully flexible human countenance. Insofar as he could tell, he detected there neither fear nor permanent damage. "I have seen the official report dealing with your unfortunate encounter. While vacationing outside Daret you were accosted by fanatical adherents of a xenophobically antihuman sect called the Bwyl. You fled, were chased, and were rescued by local peace patrollers called by the staff of the retreat, whereupon you lapsed into unconsciousness." His tone was candidly solicitous. "You suffered no permanent scarring, physical or psychological?"

  She managed a thin smile. "I retain my fondness for your people, if that's what you mean. Physically, I'm fine." Her expression shifted as unpredictably as the low clouds overhead. A captivated Lyrkenparmew looked closer.

  "Fascinating. There appears to be saline fluid leaking from the sockets in which your optics reside."

  Reaching up, she wiped at her eyes with the back of one hand. The gesture rubbed a few grains of Hivehom soil into one eye, which resulted in an increased flow of the liquid to which her visitor referred. While the agent looked on, she fought to regain control of her emotions.

  "It's an involuntary expression of remorse," she explained, seeking refuge in biology. "Analogous to certain of your sorrowing gestures. We call it crying . I'm crying for Haflunormet."

  "A credit to his hive, his clan, and his family." Lyrkenparmew gestured appropriate melancholy. "Much merit did he bring to them."

  "You have no idea." Putting down the nitrogen fixer, she settled herself into a sitting position alongside the cucumbers. They thrived in the clean air and fine soil of the Mediterranea Plateau, hundreds of parsecs from home. Responding to her action, Lyrkenparmew folded his legs beneath him and settled on the ventral side of his abdomen. She gazed evenly at her visitor.

  "What do you know about a human outpost world called Comagrave?"

  The agent gestured emphatically. "Until just recently, viyyrp, very little. A small outpost world undergoing exploration by your kind. Apparently, some serious unpleasantness occurred there recently that resulted in the expulsion of all transient AAnn on the planet." His next gesture probably should not have been translated, but Fanielle recognized it anyway. "I can't say that I, or anyone else in my section, is disappointed by the news. There was talk of a massacre perpetrated by the AAnn at a scientific site of considerable importance."

  She nodded slowly, enveloped by the atavistic, loamy musk of freshly turned earth. Something black and slinky slithered through the dirt by her legs. Convergent evolution in earthworms, she thought as she watched its oily progress: refuge for a mind overwhelmed by clashes on a galactic scale. Nematodes crawling near her toes.

  I'm getting silly, she told herself firmly, and this visit is serious.

  "There's more to it than that. Much more." A glance showed that they were alone, and the device she was wearing beneath her gardening dress would ensure their privacy from any stray electronic pickups. "Haflunormet found out about it. In a way, that information contributed to his death. He had just finished telling me the details when we were attacked."

  Lyrkenparmew gestured second-degree empathy swirled with intense curiosity. "Details of the incident were even then common knowledge. What about it was there that could prompt a violent assault on your persons, even by extreme xenophobes?"

  She considered how best to tell him. "Insofar as Haflunormet was able to determine from the available records, the AAnn on Comagrave had no intention of attacking the archeological dig. Haflunormet became convinced they were provoked into doing so."

  Unlike humans, Lyrkenparmew could not frown. But at the moment, he wished he could. It was so much more economical than waving one's limbs about. "Provoked? By whom?"

  "By a resident thranx exoarcheologist named Pilwondepat." At the agent's gesture of disbelief, she added, "Haflunormet found proof. Enough to convince the skeptical. I don't know where it is now, or how he stored it, but without the requisite commands I'm sure it would be extremely difficult to recover." She put her fixer aside and pushed back the brim of her shade hat. "However, from the details he gave me, I'm sure thatI could reconstruct the necessary evidence."

  Lyrkenparmew was silent for a while, trying to comprehend the magnitude of what the human female had told him. If true in all details, it was an exceedingly dangerous bundle of knowledge. He eyed the biped closely. He liked a majority of humans, and this one more than most. Besides, she was Bryn'ji! . All of which, notwithstanding, did not prevent him from contemplating how best he might execute her and still slip away from the human outpost unnoticed.

  No, that would not be necessary, he told himself. If she had intended to release the information, she would already have done so. And, she certainly wouldn't be sitting there in the dirt, relating it to someone she knew was likely to kill her to prevent its release. It was sufficient to reaffirm what he already knew: They were of different body, but like mind.

  "If the substance of Haflunormet's report was to achieve general dissemination, it would rejuvenate human-AAnn relations while severely impacting those between your kind and mine." Feathery antennae waved gently. "I need not tell you that those are presently entering a most sensitive stage."

  "No, you need not." Idly, she contemplated an incipient radish. "We want the same thing, Lyrkenparmew. You, I, poor Haflunormet, everyone who has worked so hard and for so long to achieve our final goal." Picking up a handful of alien earth, she let it trickle out between her dirt-smudged fingers. "But we might not have any choice. We may have to release the information and try to spin it as best we can."

  "Why in the name of the Eight Original Great Hives would we want to do that?" Lyrkenparmew's disbelief was plain to see in his flowing gestures.

  She swallowed hard. "Because others besides myself know the truth of what happened on Comagrave. Those xenophobes who attacked me and Haflunormet, who call themselves the hiveless clan Bwyl, are still in custody. I know - I've checked. But they have been allowed outside communication. I don't think there's any question but that they've passed the general thrust of Haflunormet's story, which they overheard that day on the lookout at the retreat, along to others of their kind." Her expression was stricken. "It's too late, Lyrkenparmew. Too late. By now the Bwyl have spread it to all their branches, possibly even off Hivehom. So you see, we can't bury it. All we can
do is try to preempt their disclosure."

  Lyrkenparmew considered a moment before gesturing with both right hands. "Is that what is worrying you so? Let them disclose all they want. Their story will not be believed."

  "You don't understand." Full of regret for the consequences she knew would ensue the instant the story reached the unrestricted media, she looked at him intently. "Details can be researched, traced, unearthed. The truth can be reconstructed. Slowly, perhaps, but when the Bwyl release their version of what happened on Comagrave, some dedicated pundit oblivious to the consequences will find it intriguing enough to pursue.";

  "Girritt, that might have been the case a month or two ago, but no longer." The four delicate manipulative digits of a truhand reached out to brush against her forearm. "You haven't heard about what happened yesterday on Dawn?"

  "Dawn?" Her expression twisted. "What has that colony got to do with what happened on Comagrave?"

  "Directly, nothing. Coincidentally, perhaps quite a good deal." He gestured meaningful apology. "The details will not arrive through regular diplomatic channels until tomorrow morning, but I could not be certain of what you knew and what you did not without asking." He gestured meaningfully. "Our mutual confidants have their own sources. Because of what happened on Dawn, the Bwyl can now spew any tales they like. Whatever their superficial veracity, they will not be believed. Dawn has destroyed their credibility as a responsible clan. Anything they choose to say from now on will be regarded as a fabrication."

  Fanielle mined her memory. "I remember reading something about Dawn recently. The usual mundane fodder that those of us in the diplomatic service are expected to assimilate. Wasn't some kind of elaborate seminar or multispecies conclave going to be held there?"

  "You are scurrying down the right burrow, but to the wrong destination," he corrected her with utmost finesse. "The term you are seeking in Low Thranx is drim!!ata ."

  "Oh, that's right." She remembered now. "A fair. Something to promote interspecies harmony and understanding while hopefully making a little money on the side. It was to be quite a production, I recall now. The locals were putting everything they could muster into the effort, hoping it would raise their profile on the colonial scene. Planetary promotion, investment opportunities, tourism - that sort of thing."

  Lyrkenparmew gesticulated sharp irony. "If it was attention they were seeking, they more than achieved their objective. But not for the reasons you might think." Emphasizing the importance of what he was about to say, he switched seamlessly to speaking in High Thranx. "Fan'l Anju, this has been an eventful succession of correlative time-parts. It seems that elements of the very same renegade clan that attacked you and Haflunormet at the Retreat of Xer!kex planned to disrupt this fair, setting off bombs and shooting visitors indiscriminately. By coincidence, the identical notion appears to have appealed to a group of similarly xenophobic humans who call themselvesthe Preservers ." He gestured confusion. "I am always astonished at the organizations and individuals formed to promote destruction who identify themselves with names like Preserver, or Savior, or Rescuer, and the like.

  "Unaware at first of each other's existence and aims, these two groups apparently learned of their parallel intentions and presence sometime before attempting to carry them out. The scheme propounded by the human group was particularly insidious." He leaned toward her, bowing slightly from his thorax.

  "That both of these antisocial organizations were found out and reported just in time for the domestic patrollers to prevent widespread disaster was due to the good work and intervention of a pair of theologians, or padres as they call themselves, who notified the local authorities. As a consequence, many hundreds of lives were saved and a diplomatic disaster was averted." Lyrkenparmew executed a gesture involving his entire upper body that Fanielle recognized as indicative of extreme regret. "Unfortunately, both of these heroic ecclesiastics perished in the course of the operation."

  "That's too bad," she remarked sincerely.

  "For them, yes. And personally, I would prefer they had survived." He straightened. "But since they did not, their unintentional sacrifice, combined with the debacle on Comagrave that has been ascribed to the AAnn, presents us with an exceptional opportunity."

  She rested her hands in her lap. "I don't follow you, Lyrkenparmew."

  Compound eyes glittered in the sun as the envoy drew his protective warming garments tighter around him. "One of these ill-starred padres was thranx. His companion was human. Don't you see? Thranx and human give their lives to save humans and thranx." He gestured first-degree significance. "The cause of unification has, inadvertently, acquired its first martyrs."

  She considered the possibilities. They were striking. "Did they intend to become martyrs, these two?"

  "Most probably not, but it will not matter to the general media that serve both our kind. Among humans, they will be remembered as having given their lives to save babies and innocents. Among my people, they will be thought of as two brave soldiers who sacrificed their bodies to seal a critical opening into a vulnerable burrow. It comes to the same thing. A report filed by two human patrollers who barely survived the final encounter corroborates the details of the matter." He gestured diffidently.

  "The fringe belief system to which this pair belonged calls itself the United Church. A grandiose appellation, crrk!k, for so modest an organization - though I am told it is gaining adherents at a surprisingly rapid rate. Despite the fact that the sacrifice of their two disciples on Dawn will bring them a considerable amount of beneficial publicity, the leaders of this religious order interestingly want nothing to do with the promoting of it. They are sorry for the death of two of their own, but their doctrine apparently does not believe in or sanction the concept of martyrdom. They say there is no future in it.

  "As long as they don't directly oppose our efforts to promote or make use of this sacrifice, be it intentional or otherwise, their indifference won't affect the results." Much intrigued by everything Lyrkenparmew had told her, Fanielle's active brain was starting to rev with possibilities. "And with the Bwyl utterly discredited, as you point out, by their actions, Haflunormet's investigation of the events on Comagrave becomes just one more apocryphal rant against closer cooperation." For the first time in many days, a smile began to spread across her suntanned countenance.

  "This is wonderful!"

  "Yes, ri!t , wonderful it is, Fan'l." Moving closer, he extended his b-thorax in order to be able to reach and caress her forehead with both antennae. The touch was so light as to be nearly imperceptible. "I have been in frantic consultation with our supporters inside the Great Hive. They agree that now is the time to make an all-out push for amalgamation. Our supporters on Earth concur. A formal recommendation based on our earlier proposals is to be made in your government sometime during the Second Season of Gathering, when the publicity from the incidents on Dawn and Comagrave is predicted to have achieved maximum visibility. Both political efforts will be closely coordinated."

  She was nodding understandingly, her face lit by rising excitement. "I'll do everything I can to help from my circumscribed position, of course."

  "It may not be so circumscribed as you think. You are to be elevated in status. Raised to a higher level of significance within your profession."

  She eyed the insectoid uncertainly. "I've heard nothing about a promotion."

  "Sources," the thranx explained with admirable tact. "Do not reject the advancement. It will be useful to our mutual interests."

  "Of course," she told him. Reaching over, she plucked a carrot from a row of green sprouts and showed it to the agent. "You can digest some of our food just as we can eat some of yours, so long as it's plant-derived. Have you ever had a carrot? Fresh grown. From my own little patch here." She extended the vegetable.

  Taking it in his truhands, Lyrkenparmew inspected the yellow spike uncertainly. "How does one eat it?"

  "Raw or cooked. Your mandibles will have no trouble with it. Go on," she urged him.
"Try it. I know its composition lies well within the tolerances of your internal chemistry. I wouldn't offer it to you otherwise. Break off the root first and eat it from the bottom."

  Hesitantly, the agent followed her instructions. Placing the end of the carrot between his mandibles, he bit down with all four, snapping off a piece between them. Having nothing to chew with, he had to wait for it to make the journey to his upper, grinding gut. The release of exotic, alien juices followed.

  "That is . . . delightful," he finally was able to tell her. "A c'rt, you called it?"

  "Carrot," she corrected him. If she could learn the two principal thranx dialects, then the agent could master Terranglo. Althoughc'rt had a nice, succinct ring to it. Perhaps the word could be compromised. Another addition to that strange multispecies patois its adherents were calling symbospeech, she decided absently.

  "Whether it wants to or not, this United Church is going to gain a number of new followers as a result of all the fanfare. I suppose I'm going to have to study up on it further in case I'm asked to comment." She let out a resigned sigh. "These faddish creeds come and go, especially in an era of galactic exploration."

  "Yes," Lyrkenparmew agreed. "Such caprices are common among the thranx as well. The great majority are inevitably defined by their transitory nature. I'm sure that when the incident on Dawn becomes part of the public memory as opposed to an item of current interest, the same fate will befall this sect as well."

  She nodded as she fondly surveyed the rest of the garden. "It certainly sounds like an eccentric little philosophy. Maybe there will at least be a laugh or two to be had from looking into it."

  "Hopefully," Lyrkenparmew added. "For professional reasons only, of course."

  "Of course," she agreed. "What else?"