Putting Up Roots

Chapter Eighteen

The trainees sat frozen as the banging came again on the closed door. Only Winnie Carlson had the nerve to stand up, walk over to it, and call “Who’s there?”

“It’s us,” said an impatient voice from outside. “Come on! Why do you have the door locked?”

Everyone gasped in relief, and Winnie leaned forward and rested her head for a moment on the frame as if she were praying. “Just a second, Topaz. I’m doing it.” She worked the lock with fingers that trembled a little, and opened the door. “Come on in, girl.”

“We can’t yet.” Topaz had backed up until she was standing a few feet away. “You’ll have to dim the lights first.”

“Why?” But Winnie gestured to Josh, who went and reduced the room lighting to a lower level.

“That enough?” he said.

“A little bit more,” Topaz said from outside. “Bright lights are bad. That should be enough, though, you can hold it there.” She moved inside, turned, and stood waiting. She was filthy and her clothes were torn and ragged, but she had a smile on her face. “Come on,” she said in a coaxing voice. “Come on in.”

Two figures entered side by side. One of them was Dawn. Unlike Topaz, she seemed as fresh and clean as if she had just bathed and dressed. She was smiling, too. Under her left arm she carried a big sketch pad. Her right hand held the paw of an animal that stood on its hind legs and slowly walked with her into the dimly lit room.

A few feet inside the door, Dawn sat down cross-legged on the floor. The animal sank onto its haunches beside her.

“I told you that a rupert has eyes!” Ruby said. “Maybe now you’ll believe me.”

Everyone stared at the strange newcomer. Fully upright, it was maybe four feet tall. Most of that was body, because all four limbs were short and stubby. The gray, beadlike scales that covered the torso suggested a family relationship to both the bodger and the spangle. Like the bodger, the front of the rupert’s face carried a long, flexible trunk. Each side of the sleek head sprouted great winglike ears of iridescent blue and white. Those organs were in constant motion, turning from side to side.

There were also major differences from both spangles and bodgers. The most noticeable one was the eyes, black and beady and somehow too small for the rest of the head. They appeared to be fixed in their field of view. Although the ears turned to face and examine different members of the group in the dining area—the rupert seemed as interested in the humans as they were in it—the little dark eyes moved only with the whole head.

Josh looked at the paw that Dawn was holding, and saw that it had three short fingers and no thumb. He also noticed, for the first time, a thin strap that ran around the rupert’s middle and had hanging from it a bulging pouch about six inches square.

He stood up and pointed to it. “He’s got a carrying bag! That’s a sign of intelligence, if anything is. I told you ruperts weren’t just animals.”

“His ‘carrying bag,’ as you call it,” Topaz said coldly, “happens to be her purse. Ruperts are like humans. The females are smarter than the males. And she’s really shy, so keep your voice down.”

Topaz probably had more to say, but as she was speaking she had moved closer to Josh and noticed for the first time Sol Brewster, lying unconscious and shielded by the table. Her mouth opened wide. She pointed without saying another word.

“I know, I know.” Winnie sighed. “We have lots to tell you, and you must have at least as much to tell us. Why don’t we prepare some food, and then we’ll talk? I think this is going to be a long night.”

“Why not eat that?” Topaz pointed to the still-simmering pot and the great heap of rice, both of which had been ignored for the past half hour. She looked again at Brewster’s body, which was lying face down. “Is it the food? Did he get food poisoning?”

“No, it’s not the food,” Winnie said. “I did that to him. But we can’t eat the food over there because it may be poisoned.”

Topaz stared at her, wide-eyed, and sank onto a seat next to Josh. “I thought Dawn and I were the ones with a story to tell. I guess I was wrong.”

“I believe we both do.” Winnie turned to Rick. “Can you rustle something up quick? Nothing fancy, and while it’s getting ready I’ll try to explain things to Topaz and Dawn.”

“Easy.” But Rick looked doubtfully at Topaz. “Unless I have to feed him, too.”

“Her,” Topaz said emphatically. “But it’s all right. Ruperts won’t eat our food, any more than we’ll eat theirs. She’ll go outside and get something if she wants it. She has a name, by the way. Dawn?”

Dawn nodded and picked up the sketchpad. She drew on it a series of marks, like little kites and darts and dashes. The rupert studied what she was doing, and after a few seconds made a clicking, hissing sound, followed by a high-pitched whistle.

“There,” Topaz said. “G-ss-ee. I can’t really pronounce it, nor can Dawn. But we’ve been calling her Gussie, and she responds to that and doesn’t seem to mind.” She stood up, moved over to Brewster, and bent down to examine him more closely. “What’s that on his face, and on the floor?”

“Sour cream,” said Sapphire. She beamed at Topaz, and in her pleasure at her sister’s return she seemed for the first time in days free of snap withdrawal symptoms.

“Sour cream.” Topaz sank back onto a chair. “You knocked Brewster out with sour cream? And it was Winnie Carlson that did it to him, right? And before that, he was poisoning your food. Nothing we got up to competes with that. I have to know what’s been happening here.”

“It’s messy,” said Winnie. “And I don’t just mean literally. The rest of you, be patient. Topaz and Dawn have to hear this from the beginning.”

She started again with her explanations. Josh found himself dividing his attention between what Winnie was saying and the actions of Dawn and the rupert. The latter two were completely silent, but while Winnie talked they constantly exchanged drawings. The rupert held a pen clumsily between two of her short fingers. She seemed to draw quickly and skillfully, and she and Dawn were obviously communicating. But what were they saying to each other?

One of Winnie’s statements suddenly caught Josh’s attention. She was adding to the ideas and suspicions that she had presented to them before.

“Actually,” Winnie was saying, “we were given a hint, very early, as to what Brewster might have found on Solferino. Do you remember when you were in the cargo aircar on the way to the Barbican Hills, and you heard an educational recording? It said that Solferino is only four-fifths the diameter of Earth, but that the surface gravity is almost exactly the same. And the recording went on to point out the reason, which is that the average density of Solferino is twenty-six percent higher than the density of Earth. What the recording didn’t say is that Earth is itself an exceptionally dense planet. In fact, it’s the densest world in the solar system. Earth’s interior is mostly solid iron. So Sol Brewster probably asked himself, what is it that makes Solferino even denser than the Earth? Well, it could be normal heavy elements, like lead and uranium and thorium. But most of the heaviest elements are radioactive, and there were no reports of high radiation levels on Solferino. Another answer, though, and one that probably occurred to Brewster, is that there could be lots of stable transuranics here. They are super-heavy, heavier than any elements formed naturally, but because they are stable they are not radioactive. I think that’s when he probably began to examine the geobotanical properties of the stable transuranics, and plan his search…”

Winnie went on talking, but Josh was suddenly distracted by Dawn’s actions. She had looked up from the pad, where the rupert was busily drawing, and she was staring at him. When she saw that she had his attention, she nodded and beckoned. He stood up and went to kneel at her side.

“What?” He spoke in a whisper.

“G-ss-ee.” Her pronunciation was much closer to the sound that the rupert had made than Topaz’s effort. She took his hand and placed in it one of the rupert’s paws. “Joshua.”

He suddenly realized what she was doing. It was his formal introduction, as a member of Dawn’s family, to the rupert. He didn’t smile—he couldn’t even guess the rupert equivalent of a smile—but he did his best to say “G-ss-ee” just as Dawn had said it. The rough paw rubbed backward and forward on the palm of his hand. It was surprisingly warm. Ruperts were warm-blooded, and they must have a body temperature quite a bit above humans.

“Outside,” Dawn said.

“Me?” Josh didn’t really want to go outside. He wanted to hear anything new that Winnie might have to say, and he was also starving. Rick looked as though he almost had something ready to serve.

“G-ss-ee outside.” Dawn stood up, and the rupert did the same. Fully upright, it was about his height kneeling.

“Wait a minute.” Josh stood up, too, and turned to Winnie. He waited for her to finish her sentence—she was talking now about the way Brewster had destroyed computer data banks—and asked, “Is it all right for Dawn and the rupert to go outside?”

“I think so. Will they come back?”

“Dawn will, if we ask her to. I don’t know about the rupert.”

“We don’t own her. Gussie can do whatever she wants to do.” Winnie nodded. “All right, they can both go.”

Dawn was already moving toward the door. The rupert followed, after a final sweeping survey of the group in the dining room. Topaz caught Josh’s eye. She had an I-told-you-so look on her face. He wondered just what she and Dawn had been doing in the two days they had been gone, and how long it would be before he found out.

“Where was I?” Winnie asked. “Right, the computers. We lost the ability to communicate off-planet. That’s when I really became worried about Brewster’s plans. I knew I might have to do something, and without any outside assistance.”

“That’s the piece I still can’t believe,” said Topaz. She stared at Brewster’s great length sprawled out along the floor. “He’s at least two meters tall, and he has all the muscles. I guess I’ll have to believe that you were able to fight him and knock him cold, because the others insist that they saw you do it. But I don’t see how. That can’t be any part of a Foodlines maintenance technician’s training.”

“You’re probably right.” Winnie looked sheepish. “Though I can’t say for sure, because I’m not really a maintenance technician. I haven’t been quite honest with you. I don’t work for FoodLines, and they didn’t send me here.”

That was enough to get everyone’s attention. There was a long, electric silence. Hag stopped looking longingly at the door through which Dawn and Gussie had left. Rick abandoned his cooking and came to join the rest of the group around the table.

“So who do you work for?” Sig asked at last.

“I am an agent for the SDSI—the Solar Department of Special Investigations.”

“A secret agent!” Amethyst said. “Wow.”

“It’s not what you might think.” Winnie smiled wearily. “Lots of nights with not enough sleep, and lots of being ordered around like dirt by crooks and creeps. I’ve been trained to look after myself, without needing weapons. Normally there is no need for them. Most cases involve some bending of a corporate franchise, and maybe a bit of illegal export. There’s usually not much action in my job.”

“Except tonight,” Topaz said. “You had plenty of action tonight. But you’re still not being honest with us.”

“I’m doing my best.”

“I don’t see that. If you were sent here by SDSI, you must have known all about Sol Brewster and what he was doing, before you ever left Earth. Otherwise, why come in the first place?”

“I was sent because SDSI believed that something illegal was happening, here on Solferino. But it had nothing to do with Sol Brewster, and Unimine, and stable transuranics. When I came through the node network, Sol Brewster was just a name—the name of the person I was supposed to report to. And the message to him, saying that I was on the way, didn’t come from Foodlines at all. It was a fake—like my credentials.”

Josh was losing track. Too many things were happening at once. Was he the only slow one in the group? If so, might as well admit it.

“I don’t understand this,” he said, and he saw other heads nodding in agreement. “Could you give it to us again. You weren’t sent here to investigate Brewster, or what Unimine might be doing on Solferino. And you weren’t sent here by Foodlines, to maintain their equipment. So why were you sent here?”

“Because SDSI had suspicions that something might be happening on this planet. Something that Foodlines was doing. Something even worse than what Brewster has been doing.”

“It couldn’t be!” Sapphire protested. “You said he’s a murderer.”

“He is. But that isn’t the worst thing in the universe.”

“There isn’t anything worse.”

“I wish you were right, Sapphire. But there is. It’s something called genocide.”

Sapphire sank back in her chair. It was Ruby, sitting huddled in the crook of her arm, who said, “What’s genocide?”

“I’m not sure I want to tell you.” Winnie shook her head sadly, but she went on. “I wish the word didn’t even exist. Genocide means killing not just one person, or a few people, or even a lot of people, but a whole race of people. It would also apply to killing off an entire intelligent species.”

“Gussie!” Amethyst shouted. “And the ruperts. Oh, no!”

“It’s all right, Amy, it hasn’t happened. And we’ll make sure it doesn’t.” Winnie turned to address the whole group. “You may not have a very high opinion of the government of Earth. It certainly hasn’t done much for you during your lives. But Earth has worried for centuries about the problem of meeting other intelligences in the universe. There are definite rules. The most important ones are, first, that no intelligent species can be exterminated, exploited, or reduced to slavery. And second, that the home world of any intelligent species belongs to that species. It cannot be exploited by any human group.”

“Brewster told us that the ruperts aren’t intelligent,” said Rick.

“He did. But he wasn’t making that up. He was quoting the official position adopted by Foodlines.”

“But ruperts are intelligent,” Topaz said. “You only have to spend five minutes with Gussie, and you’d know it.”

“I agree. So why do you think that Foodlines takes the opposite position, in every official filing of information back in the solar system?”

There was a moment’s silence, then Topaz said uneasily, “So they can keep Solferino?”

“Exactly. They suspect that there are terrific opportunities here for new biological products. If they ever hinted that ruperts might be intelligent, they’d be in danger of losing their exploration rights.”

“But what can Foodlines do about the ruperts?” Hag asked. “I mean, they’re here. People know they are here.”

“True. But no one on Earth knows that they are intelligent. Foodlines will insist that they are just animals, and ignore them. The ruperts are very shy, and they come out mainly at night. Unless you happen to be someone like Dawn, with great empathy for other species, you would never meet one. Foodlines can act as if ruperts don’t exist.”

“Act as if they don’t exist for long enough,” said Sig. “And eventually…”

“You are too old for your years, Sig Lasker.” Winnie frowned, but it was obvious that although she was angry it was not with Sig. “Quite right. Eventually, they will not exist. Not if you destroy their habitats, and deprive them of their natural food supplies, and maybe shoot any that you happen to see. Then the problem is solved. I hate to say this, but the people at Foodlines who made the decision to keep quiet about the ruperts learned that lesson on Earth. Humans have made thousands of Earth species extinct, in just that way, right back to the beginning of history.”

“I don’t get it.” Topaz was pushing right up against Josh. The group had been gathering closer and closer, as if they could not face alone the ideas that they were hearing. “I thought Unimine were the bad guys in all this. Now you seem to be saying the villain is Foodlines. And I don’t understand why, if Foodlines kept quiet about the ruperts, the government back on Earth sent you out here to find out what was going on.”

“It’s both of them, sweetie.” Winnie was sitting in the middle, with everyone crowded around her. “It’s Unimine and FoodLines, though of course I didn’t know that before I came out here. People in solar system government noticed that the first reports from Solferino said ruperts were the most intelligent life form on the planet, and fairly smart animals. Then later reports didn’t say anything about ruperts. Not one word. That’s when somebody in SDSI thought it might be worth taking a look. But a quiet look, so no one would become suspicious and start to destroy evidence or change behavior patterns. That’s why I was sent under cover, as a maintenance technician. As for your other question, don’t think of what’s going on here in terms of Sol Brewster and ruperts and the death of a particular exploration team. Think of huge, powerful, rich conglomerates, run by people who will never get within light-years of Solferino. There’s an old saying, but it’s as true today as when it was first stated: Power corrupts; and absolute power corrupts absolutely. The people at the top of Foodlines and Unimine have immense power. What they care about isn’t you and me, or individual rights, or even species rights. What they think about are company interests and corporate advantage. Foodlines wants control of Solferino, and for that control the conglomerate will gladly sacrifice the ruperts. Unimine doesn’t care about ruperts, either, any more than Foodlines does. Unimine wants to take over Solferino to get at the stable transuranics, but can’t do that as long as there are Foodlines representatives here. Only if every human on Solferino dies, or leaves, can Unimine move in and file for development rights. Now you see the plan. The original exploration team dies, officially of unknown causes. Then we die—Brewster picked you out, you know, as kids whose disappearance wasn’t likely to create a lot of screaming from their heartbroken parents.”

The trainees exchanged unhappy looks, but no one tried to argue with Winnie.

“Finally, when we are safely dead and disappeared, Brewster leaves,” she went on. “And Unimine has a clear road to occupy Solferino. They can apply for mineral development rights, because no one else is on the planet, and Foodlines’s license depends on maintaining a presence. So what if they have to strip-mine a whole planet to get at the transuranics? So what if you have something at the end that’s a dark, lifeless world? All you had here, according to the official record, were low-level native life forms. Wipe them out, they only get in the way. Reduce the surface of Solferino to raw magma. And then show real nerve: Try for a terraforming contract from solar government, to make this world habitable again by humans.”

It had been a long speech, delivered with great intensity and few interruptions. Everyone sat spellbound, until Topaz said, “But now they’re going to be found out, aren’t they? They won’t get away with it. What will happen to them?”

“I can make a guess, but you won’t want to hear this. Brewster will be charged with murder. Unimine will deny that they ever had anything to do with him. Foodlines will say that he certainly wasn’t working for them in what he did on Solferino—which in a sense is quite true—and they’ll drop him like a hot rock. So Brewster will have no one protecting him. He will be punished. But the real villains are the people right at the top of the conglomerates, the heads of Foodlines and Unimine. They allow this sort of thing to happen, and they even encourage it. And they’ll escape without a slap on the wrist. At the very worst, there might be a small fine for concealing information. Even there, I’m not sure. They will act innocent, and say, well, nothing happened, did it? The ruperts are alive and well. So what are you charging us with?”

The silence that followed was long and unhappy. Saph looked at Sig and shook her head. It was Winnie herself who finally sat up, sniffed, and said, “What’s that?”

“Oh, no.” Rick had been part of the group, as mesmerized as anyone. Now he jumped to his feet. “The food!”

He ran over to the oven. “It’s cinders. It’s all ruined.”

“Then don’t worry about it.” Winnie stood up and stretched her back as though it hurt. “We’re not fated to eat hot food tonight, I can tell. Put out anything that’s cold and quick, Rick; and you, Josh, go bring Dawn in. I don’t want to lose her again. Then we’ll hear from Topaz, if she feels up to talking. And then”—she yawned hugely—“then I don’t know about you people, but I’m ready for a bit of sleep.”