The Uplift War

1 Fiben

There had never been such traffic at Port Helenia’s sleepy landing field — not in all the years Fiben Bolger had lived here. The mesa overlooking Aspinal Bay reverberated with the numbing, infrasonic growl of engines. Dust plumes obscured the launching pits, but that did not prevent spectators from gathering along the peripheral fence to watch all the excitement. Those with a touch of psi talent could tell whenever a starship was about to lift off. Waves of muzzy uncertainty, caused by leaky gravities, made a few onlookers blink quickly moments before another great-strutted spacecraft rose above the haze and lumbered off into the cloud-dappled sky.

The noise and stinging dust frayed tempers. It was even worse for those standing out on the tarmac, and especially bad for those forced to be there against their will.

Fiben certainly would much rather have been just about anywhere else, preferably in a pub applying pints of liquid anesthetic. But that was not to be.

He observed the frenetic activity cynically. We’re a sinking ship, he thought. And all th’ rats are saying adieu.

Everything able to space and warp was departing Garth in indecent haste. Soon, the landing field would be all but empty.

Until the enemy arrives… whoever it turns out to be.

“Pssst, Fiben. Quit fidgeting!”

Fiben glanced to his right. The chim standing next to him in formation looked nearly as uncomfortable as Fiben felt. Simon Levin’s dress uniform cap was turning dark just above his bony eye ridges, where damp brown fur curled under the rim. With his eyes, Simon mutely urged Fiben to straighten up and look forward.

Fiben sighed. He knew he should try to stand at attention. The ceremony for the departing dignitary was nearly over, and a member of the Planetary Honor Guard wasn’t supposed to slouch.

But his gaze kept drifting over toward the southern end of the mesa, far from the commercial terminal and the departing freighters. Over there, uncamouflaged, lay an uneven row of drab, black cigar shapes with the blocky look of fighting craft. Several of the small scoutboats shimmered as technicians crawled over them, tuning their detectors and shields for the coming battle.

Fiben wondered if Command had already decided which craft he was to fly. Perhaps they would let the half-trained Colonial Militia pilots draw lots to see who would get the most decrepit of the ancient war machines, recently purchased cut-rate off a passing Xatinni scrap dealer.

With his left hand Fiben tugged at the stiff collar of his uniform and scratched the thick hair below his collarbone. Old ain’t necessarily bad, he reminded himself. Go into battle aboard a thousand-year-old tub, and at least you know it can take punishment.

Most of those battered scoutboats had seen action out on the starlanes before human beings ever heard of Galactic civilization… before they had even begun playing with gunpowder rockets, singeing their fingers and scaring the birds back on homework! Earth.

The image made Fiben smile briefly. It wasn’t the most respectful thing to think about one’s patron race. But then, humans hadn’t exactly brought his people up to be reverent.

Jeez, this monkey suit itches! Naked apes like humans may be able to take this, but we hairy types just aren’t built to wear this much clothing!

At least the ceremony for the departing Synthian Consul seemed to be nearing completion. Swoio Shochuhun — that pompous ball of fur and whiskers — was finishing her speech of farewell to the tenants of Garth Planet, the humans and chims she was leaving to their fate. Fiben scratched his chin again, wishing the little windbag would just climb into her launch and get the hell out of here, if she was in such a hurry to be going.

An elbow jabbed him in the ribs. Simon muttered urgently. “Straighten up, Fiben. Her Nibs is looking this way!”

Over among the dignitaries Megan Oneagle, the gray-haired Planetary Coordinator, pursed her lips and gave Fiben a quick shake of her head.

Aw, hell, he thought.

Megan’s son, Robert, had been a classmate of Fiben’s at Garth’s small university. Fiben arched an eyebrow as if to say to the human administrator that he hadn’t asked to serve on this dubious honor guard. And anyway, if humans had wanted clients who didn’t scratch themselves, they never should have uplifted chimpanzees.

He fixed his collar though, and tried to straighten his posture. Form was nearly everything to these Galactics, and Fiben knew that even a lowly neo-chimp had to play his part, or the clan of Earth might lose face.

On either side of Coordinator Oneagle stood the other dignitaries who had come to see Swoio Shochuhun off. To Megan’s left was Kault, the hulking Thennanin envoy, leathery and resplendent in his brilliant cape and towering ridge crest. The breathing slits in his throat opened and closed like louvered blinds each time the big-jawed creature inhaled.

To Megan’s right stood a much more humanoid figure, slender and long-limbed, who slouched slightly, almost in-souciantly in the afternoon sunshine.

Uthacalthing’s amused by something. Fiben could tell. So what else is new?

Of course Ambassador Uthacalthing thought everything was funny. In his posture, in the gently waving silvery tendrils that floated above his small ears, and in the glint in his golden, wide-cast eyes, the pale Tymbrimi envoy seemed to say what could not be spoken aloud — something just short of insulting to the departing Synthian diplomat.

Swoio Shochuhun sleeked back her whiskers before stepping forward to say farewell to each of her colleagues in turn. Watching her make ornate formal paw motions in front of Kault, Fiben was struck by how much she resembled a large, rotund raccoon, dressed up like some ancient, oriental courtier.

Kault, the huge Thennanin, puffed up his crest as he bowed in response. The two uneven-sized Galactics exchanged pleasantries in fluting, highly inflected Galactic Six. Fiben knew that there was little love to be lost between them.

“Well, you can’t choose your friends, can you?” Simon whispered.

“Damn right,” Fiben agreed.

It was ironic. The furry, canny Synthians were among Earth’s few “allies” in the political and military’quagmire of the Five Galaxies. But they were also fantastically self-centered and famous cowards. Swoio’s departure as much as guaranteed there would be no armadas of fat, furry warriors coming to Garth’s aid in her hour of need.

Just like there won’t be any help from Earth, nor Tymbrim, them having enough problems of their own right now.

Fiben understood GalSix well enough to follow some of what the big Thennanin said to Swoio. Kault apparently did not think much of ambassadors who skip out on their posts.

Give the Thennanin that much, Fiben thought. Kault’s folk might be fanatics. Certainly they were listed among Earth’s present official enemies. Nevertheless, they were known everywhere for their courage and severe sense of honor.

No, you can’t always choose your friends, or your enemies.

Swoio stepped over to face Megan Oneagle. The Synthian’s bow was marginally shallower than the one she had given Kault. After all, humans ranked pretty low among the patron races of the galaxy.

And you know what that makes you, Fiben reminded himself.

Megan bowed in return. “I am sorry to see you go,” she told Swoio in thickly accented GalSix. “Please pass on to your people our gratitude for their good wishes.”

“Right,” Fiben muttered. “Tell all th’ other raccoons thanks a whole bunch.” He wore a blank expression, though, when Colonel Maiven, the human commander of the Honor Guard, looked sharply his way.

Swoio’s reply was filled with platitudes.

Be patient, she urged. The Five Galaxies are in turmoil right now. The fanatics among the great powers are causing so much trouble because they think the Millennium, the end of a great era, is at hand. They are the first to act.

Meanwhile, the moderates and the Galactic Institutes must move slower, more judiciously. But act they would, she assured. In due time. Little Garth would not be forgotten.

Sure, Fiben thought sarcastically. Why, help might be no more’n a century or two away!

The other chims in the Honor Guard glanced at one other and rolled their eyes in disgust. The human officers were more reserved, but Fiben saw that one was rotating his tongue firmly in his cheek.

Swoio stopped at last before the senior member of the diplomatic corps, Uthacalthing Man-Friend, the consul-ambassador from the Tymbrimi.

The tall E.T. wore a loose black robe that offset his pale skin. Uthacalthing’s mouth was small, and the unearthly separation between his shadowed eyes seemed very wide. Nevertheless, the humanoid impression was quite strong. It always seemed to Fiben as if the representative of Earth’s greatest ally was always on the verge of laughing at some joke, great or small. Uthacalthing — with his narrow scalp-ruff of soft, brown fur bordered by waving, delicate tendrils — with his long, delicate hands and ready humor — was the solitary being on this mesa who seemed untouched by the tension of the day. The Tymbrimi’s ironic smile affected Fiben, momentarily lifting his spirits.

Finally! Fiben sighed in relief. Swoio appeared to be finished at last. She turned and strode up the ramp toward her waiting launch. With a sharp command Colonel Maiven brought the Guard to attention. Fiben started mentally counting the number of steps to shade and a cool drink.

But it was too soon to relax. Fiben wasn’t the only one to groan low as the Synthian turned at the top of the ramp to address the onlookers one more time.

Just what occurred then — and in exactly what order — would perplex Fiben for a long time afterward. But it appeared that, just as the first fluting tones of GalSix left Swoio’s mouth, something bizarre happened across the landing field. Fiben felt a scratchiness at the back of his eyeballs and glanced to the left, just in time to see a lambency shimmer around one of the scoutboats. Then the tiny craft seemed to explode.

He’did not recall diving to the tarmac, but that’s where he found himself next, trying to burrow into the tough, rubbery surface. What is it? An enemy attack so soon?

He heard Simon snort violently. Then a chorus of sneezes followed. Blinking away dust, Fiben peered and saw that the little scoutcraft still existed. It hadn’t blown up, after all!

But its fields were out of control. They coruscated in a deafening, blinding display of light and sound. Shield-suited engineers scurried to shut down the boat’s malfunctioning probability generator, but not before the noisome display had run everyone nearby through all the senses they had, from touch and taste all the way to smell and psi.

“Whooee!” the chimmie to Fiben’s left whistled, holding her nose uselessly. “Who set off a stinkbomb!”

In a flash Fiben knew, with uncanny certainty, that she had called it right. He rolled over quickly, in time to see the Synthian Ambassador, her nose wrinkled in disgust and whiskers curled in shame, scamper into her ship, abandoning all dignity. The hatch clanged shut.

Someone found the right switch at last and cut off the horrible overload, leaving only a fierce aftertaste and a ringing in his ears. The members of the Honor Guard stood up, dusting themselves and muttering irritably. Some humans and chims still quivered, blinking and yawning vigorously. Only the stolid, oblivious Thennanin Ambassador seemed unaffected. In fact, Kault appeared perplexed over this unusual Earthling behavior.

A stinkbomb. Fiben nodded. I was somebody’s idea of a practical joke.

And I think I know whose.

Fiben looked closely at Uthacalthing. He stared at the being who had been named Man-Friend and recalled how the slender Tymbrimi had smiled as Swoio, the pompous little Synthian, launched into her final speech. Yes, Fiben would be willing to swear on a copy of Darwin that at that very moment, just before the scoutboat malfunctioned, Uthacalthing’s crown of silvery tendrils had lifted and the ambassador had smiled as if in delicious anticipation.

Fiben shook his head. For all of their renowned psychic senses, no Tymbrimi could have caused such an accident by sheer force of will.

Not unless it had been arranged in advance, that is.

The Synthian launch rose upward on a blast of air and skimmed out across the field to a safe distance. Then, in a high whine of gravities, the glittering craft swept upward to meet the clouds.

At Colonel Maiven’s command, the Honor Guard snapped to attention one last time. The Planetary Coordinator and her two remaining envoys passed in review.

It might have been his imagination, but Fiben felt sure that for an instant Uthacalthing slowed right in front of him. Fiben was certain one of those wide, silver-rimmed eyes looked directly at him.

And the other one winked.

Fiben sighed. Very funny, he thought, hoping the Tymbrimi emissary would pick up the sarcasm in his mind. We all may be smokin dead meat in a week’s time, and you’re making with practical jokes.

Very funny,. Uthacalthing.

2 Athaclena

Tendrils wafted alongside her head, ungentle in their agitation. Athaclena let her frustration and anger fizz like static electricity at the tips of the silvery strands. Their ends waved as if of their own accord, like slender fingers, shaping her almost palpable resentment into something…

Nearby, one of the humans awaiting an audience with the Planetary Coordinator sniffed the air and looked around, puzzled. He moved away from Athaclena, without quite knowing why he felt uncomfortable all of a sudden. He was probably a natural, if primitive, empath. Some men and women were able vaguely to kenn Tymbrimi empathy-glyphs, though few ever had the training to interpret anything more than vague emotions.

Someone else also noticed what Athaclena was doing. Across the pubh’c room, standing amid a small crowd of humans, her father lifted his head suddenly. His own corona of tendrils remained smooth and undisturbed, but Uthacalthing cocked his head and turned slightly to regard her, his expression both quizzical and slightly amused.

It might have been similar if a human parent had caught his daughter in the act of kicking the sofa, or muttering to herself sullenly. The frustration at the core was very nearly the same, except that Athaclena expressed it through her Tymbrimi aura rather than an outward tantrum. At her lather’s glance she hurriedly drew back her waving tendrils and wiped away the ugly sense-glyph she had been Grafting overhead.

That did not erase her resentment, however. In this crowd of Earthlings it was hard to forget. Caricatures, was Athaclena’s contemptuous thought, knowing full well it was both unkind and unfair. Of course Earthlings couldn’t help being what they were — one of the strangest tribes to come upon the Galactic scene in aeons. But that did not mean she had to like them!

It might have helped if they were more alien… less like hulking, narrow-eyed, awkward versions of Tymbrimi. Wildly varied in color and hairiness, eerily off in their body proportions, and so often dour and moody, they frequently left Athaclena feeling depressed after too long a time spent in their company.

Another thought unbecoming the daughter of a diplomat. She chided herself and tried to redirect her mind. i After all, the humans could not be blamed for radiating their fear right now, with a war they hadn’t chosen about to fall crushingly upon them.

She watched her father laugh at something said by one of the Earthling officers and wondered how he did it. How he bore it so well.

I’ll never learn that easy, confident manner.

I’ll never be able to make him proud of me.

Athaclena wished Uthacalthing would finish up with these Terrans so she could speak to him alone. In a few minutes Robert Oneagle would arrive to pick her up, and she wanted to have one more try at persuading her father not to send her away with the young human.

I can be useful. I know I can! I don’t have to be coddled off into the mountains for safety, like some child!

Quickly she clamped down before another glyph-of-resentment could form above her head. She needed distraction, something to keep her mind occupied while she waited. Restraining her emotions, Athaclena stepped quietly toward two human officers standing nearby, heads lowered in earnest conversation. They were speaking Anglic, the most commonly used Earth-tongue.

“Look,” the first one said. “All we really know is that one of Earth’s survey ships stumbled onto something weird and totally unexpected, out in one of those ancient star clusters on the galactic fringe.”

“But what was it?” the other militiaman asked. “What did they find? You’re in alien studies, Alice. Don’t you have any idea what those poor dolphins uncovered that could stir up such a ruckus?”

The female Earthman shrugged. “Search me. But it didn’t take anything more than the hints in the Streaker’s first beamed report to set the most fanatic clans in the Five Galaxies fighting each other at a level that hasn’t been seen in megayears. The latest dispatches say some of the skirmishes have gotten pretty damn rough. You saw how scared that Synthian looked a week ago, before she decided to pull out.”

The other man nodded gloomily. Neither human spoke for a long moment. Their tension was a thing which arched the space between them. Athaclena kenned it as a simple but dark glyph of uncertain dread.

“It’s something big,” the first officer said at last, in a low voice. “This may really be it.”

Athaclena moved away when she sensed the humans begin to take notice of her. Since arriving here in Garth she had been altering her normal body form, changing her figure and features to resemble more closely those of a human girl. Nevertheless, there were limits to what such manipulations could accomplish, even using Tymbrimi body-imagery methods. There was no way really to disguise who she was. If she had stayed, inevitably, the humans would have asked her a Tymbrimi’s opinion of the current crisis, and she was loathe to tell Earthlings that she really knew no more than they did.

Athaclena found the situation bitterly ironic. Once again, the races of Earth were in the spotlight, as they had been ever since the notorious “Sundiver” affair, two centuries ago. This time an interstellar crisis had been sparked by the first starship ever put under command of neo-dolphins.

Mankind’s second client race was no more than two centuries old — younger even than the neo-chimpanzees. How the cetacean spacers would ever find a way out of the mess they had inadvertently created was anyone’s guess. But the repercussions were already spreading halfway across the Central Galaxy, all the way to isolated colony worlds such as Garth.

“Athaclena—”

She whirled. Uthacalthing stood at her elbow, looking down at her with an air of benign concern. “Are you all right, daughter?”

She felt so small in Uthacalthing’s presence. Athaclena couldn’t help being intimidated, however gentle he always was. His art and discipline were so great that she hadn’t even sensed his approach until he touched the sleeve of her robe! Even now, all that could be kenned from his complex aura was the whirling empathy-glyph called caridouo … a father’s love.

“Yes, Father. I … I am fine.”

“Good. Are you all packed and ready for your expedition then?”

His words were in Anglic. She answered in Tymbrim-dialect Galactic Seven.

“Father, I do not wish to go into the mountains with Robert Oneagle.”

Uthacalthing frowned. “I had thought that you and Robert were friends.”

Athaclena’s nostrils flared in frustration. Why was Uthacalthing purposely misunderstanding her? He had to know that the son of the Planetary Coordinator was unobjectionable as a companion. Robert was as close to a friend as she had among the young humans of Port Helenia.

“It is partly for Robert’s sake that I urge you to reconsider,” she told her father. “He is shamed at being ordered to ‘nursemaid’ me, as they say, while his comrades and classmates are all in the militia preparing for war. And I certainly cannot blame him for his resentment.”

When Uthacalthing started to speak she hurried on. “Also, I do not wish to leave you, Father. I reiterate my earlier arguments-of-logic, when I explained how I might be useful to you in the weeks ahead. And now I add to them this offering, as well.”

With great care she concentrated on Grafting the glyph she had composed earlier in the day. She had named it ke’ipathye … a plea, out of love, to be allowed to face danger at love’s side. Her tendrils trembled above her ears, and the construct quavered slightly over her head as it began to rotate. Finally though, it stabilized. She sent it drifting over toward her father’s aura. At that moment, Athaclena did not even care that they were in a room crowded with hulking, smooth-browed humans and their furry little chim clients. All that mattered in the world was the two of them, and the bridge she so longed to build across this void.

Ke’ipathye fell into Uthacalthing’s waiting tendrils and spun there, brightening in his appreciation. Briefly, Athaclena gasped at its sudden beauty, which she knew had now grown far beyond her own simple art.

Then the glyph fell, like a gentle fog of morning dew, to coat and shine along her father’s corona.

“Such a fine gift.” His voice was soft, and she knew he had been moved.

But… She knew, all at once, that his resolve was unshifted.

“I offer you a kenning of my own,” he said to her. And from his sleeve he withdrew a small gilt box with a silver clasp. “Your mother, Mathicluanna, wished for you to have this when you were ready to declare yourself of age. Although we had not yet spoken of a date, I judge that now is the time for you to have it.”

Athaclena blinked, suddenly lost in a whirl of confused emotions. How often had she longed to know what her dead mother had left in her legacy? And yet, right now the small locket might have been a poison-beetle for all the will she had to pick it up.

Uthacalthing would not be doing this if he thought it likely they would meet again.

She hissed in realization. “You’re planning to fight!”

Uthacalthing actually shrugged… that human gesture of momentary indifference. “The enemies of the humans are mine as well, daughter. The Earthlings are bold, but they are only wolflings after all. They will need my help.”

There was finality in his voice, and Athaclena knew that any further word of protest would accomplish nothing but to make her look foolish in his eyes. Their hands met around the locket, long fingers intertwining, and they walked silently out of the room together. It seemed, for a short span, as if they were not two but three, for the locket carried something of Mathicluanna. The moment was both sweet and painful.

Neo-chimp militia guards snapped to attention and opened the doors for them as they stepped out of the Ministry Building and into the clear, early spring sunshine. Uthacalthing accompanied Athaclena down to the curbside, where her backpack awaited her. Their hands parted, and Athaclena was left grasping her mother’s locket.

“Here comes Robert, right on time,” Uthacalthing said, shading his eyes. “His mother calls him unpunctual. But I have never known him to be late for anything that mattered.”

A battered floater wagon approached along the long gravel driveway, rolling past limousines and militia staff cars. Uthacalthing turned back to his daughter. “Do try to enjoy the Mountains of Mulun. I have seen them. They are quite beautiful. Look at this as an opportunity, Athaclena.”

She nodded. “I shall do as you asked, Father. I’ll spend the time improving my grasp of Anglic and of wolfling emotional patterns.”

“Good. And keep your eyes open for any signs or traces of the legendary Garthlings.”

Athaclena frowned. Her father’s late interest in odd wolf-ling folk tales had lately begun to resemble a fixation. And yet, one could never tell when Uthacalthing was being serious or simply setting up a complicated jest.

“I’ll watch out for signs, though the creatures are certainly mythical.”

Uthacalthing smiled. “I must go now. My love will travel with you. It will be a bird, hovering” — he motioned with his hands — “just over your shoulder.”

His tendrils touched hers briefly, and then he was gone, striding back up the steps to rejoin the worried colonials. Athaclena was left standing there, wondering why, in parting, Uthacalthing had used such a bizarre human metaphor.

How can love be a bird?

Sometimes Uthacalthing was so strange it frightened even her.

There was a crunching of gravel as the floater car settled down at the curb nearby. Robert Oneagle, the dark-haired young human who was to be her partner-in-exile, grinned and waved from behind the machine’s tiller, but it was easy to tell that his cheery demeanor was superficial, put on for her benefit. Deep down, Robert was nearly as unhappy about this trip as she was. Fate — and the imperious rule of adults — had thrown the two of them together in a direction neither of them would have chosen.

The crude glyph Athaclena formed — invisible to Robert — was little more than a sigh of resignation and defeat. But she kept up appearances with a carefully arranged Earthling-type smile of her own.

“Hello, Robert,” she said, and picked up her pack.

3 Galactics

The Suzerain of Propriety fluffed its feathery down, displaying at the roots of its still-white plumage the shimmering flow that foretold royalty. Proudly, the Suzerain of Propriety opped up onto the Perch of Pronouncement and chirped for attention.

The battleships of the Expeditionary Force were still in interspace, between the levels of the world. Battle was not imminent for some time yet. Because of this, the Suzerain of Propriety was still dominant and could interrupt the activities of the flagship’s crew.

Across the bridge, the Suzerain of Beam and Talon looked up from its own Perch of Command. The admiral shared with the Suzerain of Propriety the bright plumage of dominance. Nevertheless, there was no question of interfering when a religious pronouncement was about to be made. The admiral at once interrupted the stream of orders it had been chirping to subordinates and shifted into a stance of attentive reverence.

All through the bridge the noisy clamor of Gubru engineers and spacers quieted to a low chittering. Their four-footed Kwackoo clients ceased their cooing as well and settled down to listen.

Still the Suzerain of Propriety waited. It would not be proper to begin until all Three were present.

A hatchway dilated. In stepped the last of the masters of the expedition, the third member of the triarchy. As appropriate, the Suzerain of Cost and Caution wore the black tore of suspicion and doubt as it entered and found a comfortable perch, followed by a small covey of its accountants and bureaucrats.

For a moment their eyes met across the bridge. The tension among the Three had already begun, and it would grow in the weeks and months ahead, until the day when consensus was finally achieved — when they molted and a new queen emerged.

It was thrilling, sexual, exhilarating. None of them knew how it would end. Beam and Talon started with an advantage, of course, since this expedition would begin in battle. But that dominance did not have to last.

This moment, for instance, was clearly one for the priesthood.

All breaks turned as the Suzerain of Propriety lifted and flexed one leg, then the other, and prepared to pronounce. Soon a low crooning began to rise from the assembled avians.

— zzooon.

“We embark on a mission, holy mission,” the Suzerain fluted.

— Zzooon —

“Embarking on this mission, we must persevere”

— Zzooon —

“Persevere to accomplish four great tasks”

— Zzooon —

“Tasks which include Conquest for the glory of our Clan, zzooon”

— ZZooon —

“Conquest and Coercion, so we may gain the Secret, the Secret that the animal Earthlings clutch talon-tight, clutch to keep from us, zzooon”

— ZZooon —

“Conquest, Coercion, and Counting Coup upon our enemies winning honor and submitting our foes to shame, avoiding shame ourselves, zzooon”

— ZZooon —

“Avoiding shame, as well as Conquest and Coercion, and last, and last to prove our worthiness,

our worthiness before our ancestrals,

our worthiness before the Progenitors whose time of Return has surely come

Our worthiness of Mastery, zzzoooon”

The refrain was enthusiastic. — ZZzooon! —

The two other Suzerains bowed respectfully to the priest, and the ceremony was officially at an end. The Talon Soldiers and Spacers returned to work at once. But as the bureaucrats and civil servants retreated toward their own sheltered offices, they could be heard clearly but softly crooning.

“All… all… all of that. But one thing, one thing more…

“First of all… survival of the nest…”

The priest looked up sharply and saw a glint in the eye of the Suzerain of Cost and Caution. And in that instant it knew that its rival had won a subtle but important point. There was triumph in the other’s eye as it bowed again and hummed lowly. “Zooon.”

4 Robert

Dappled sunlight found gaps in the rain forest canopy, illuminating streaks of brilliant color in the dim, vine-laced avenue between. The fierce gales of mid-winter had ebbed some weeks back, but a stiff breeze served as a reminder of those days, causing boughs to dip and sway, and shaking loose moisture from the prior night’s rain. Droplets made fat, plinking sounds as they landed in little shaded pools.

It was quiet in the mountains overlooking the Vale of Sind. Perhaps more silent than a forest ought to be. The woods were lush, and yet their superficial beauty masked a sickness, a malaise arising from ancient wounds. Though the air carried a wealth of fecund odors, one of the strongest was a subtle hint of decay. It did not take an empath to know that this was a sad place. A melancholy world.

Indirectly, that sadness was what had brought Earthlings here. History had not yet written the final chapter on Garth, but the planet was already on a list. A list of dying worlds.

One shaft of daylight spotlighted a fan of multicolored vines, dangling in apparent disorder from the branches of a giant tree. Robert Oneagle pointed in that direction. “You might want to examine those, Athaclena,” he said. “They can be trained, you know.”

The young Tymbrimi looked up from an orchidlike bloom she had been inspecting. She followed his gesture, peering past the bright, slanting columns of light. She spoke carefully in accented but clearly enunciated Anglic.

“What can be trained, Robert? All I see there are vines.”

Robert grinned. “Those very forest vines, Athaclena. They’re amazing things.”

Athaclena’s frown looked very human, in spite of the wide set of her oval eyes and the alien gold-flecked green of their large irises. Her slightly curved, delicate jaw and angled brow made the expression appear faintly ironic.

Of course, as the daughter of a diplomat Athaclena might have been taught to assume carefully tutored expressions at certain times when in the company of humans. Still, Robert was certain her frown conveyed genuine puzzlement. When she spoke, a lilt in her voice seemed to imply that Anglic was somehow limiting.

“Robert, you surely don’t mean that those hanging tendril-plants are pre-sentient, do you? There are a few autotrophic sophont races, of course, but this vegetation shows none of the signs. Anyway …” The frown intensified as she concentrated. From a fringe just above her ears her Tymbrimi ruff quivered as silvery tendrils waved in quest. “. . . Anyway, I can sense no emotional emissions from them at all.”

Robert grinned. “No, of course you can’t. I didn’t mean to imply they have any Uplift Potential, or even nervous systems per se. They’re just rain forest plants. But they do have a secret. Come on. I’ll show you.”

Athaclena nodded, another human gesture that might or might not be naturally Tymbrimi as well. She carefully replaced the flower she had been examining and stood up in a fluid, graceful movement.

The alien girl’s frame was slender, the proportions of her arms and legs different from the human norm — longer calves and less length in the thighs, for instance. Her slim, articulated pelvis flared from an even narrower waist. To Robert, she seemed to prowl in a faintly catlike manner that had fascinated him ever since she arrived on Garth, half a year ago.

That the Tymbrimi were lactating mammals he could tell by the outline of her upper breasts, provocatively evident even under her soft trail suit. He knew from his studies that Athaclena had two more pair, and a marsupial-like pouch as well. But those were not evident at present. Right now she seemed more human — or perhaps elfin — than alien.

“All right, Robert. I promised my father I would make the best of this enforced exile. Show me more of the wonders of this little planet.”

The tone in her voice was so heavy, so resigned, that Robert decided she had to be exaggerating for effect. The theatrical touch made her seem oddly more like a human teenager, and that in itself was a bit unnerving. He led her toward the cluster of vines. “It’s over here, where they converge down at the forest floor.”

Athaclena’s ruff — the helm of brown fur that began in a narrow stroke of down on her spine and rose up the back of her neck to end, caplike, in a widow’s peak above the bridge of her strong nose — was now puffed and riffled at the edges. Over her smooth, softly rounded ears the cilia of her Tymbrimi corona waved as if she were trying to pick out any trace of consciousness other than theirs in the narrow glade.

Robert reminded himself not to overrate Tymbrimi mental powers as humans so often did. The slender Galactics did have impressive abilities in detecting strong emotions and were supposed to have a talent for Grafting a form of art out of empathy itself. Nevertheless, true telepathy was no more common among Tymbrimi than among Earthlings.

Robert had to wonder what she was thinking. Could she know how, since they had left Port Helenia together, his fascination with her had grown? He hoped not. The feeling was one he wasn’t sure he even wanted to admit to himself yet.

The vines were thick, fibrous strands with knotty protrusions every half-meter or so. They converged from many different directions upon this shallow forest clearing. Robert shoved a cluster of the multicolored cables aside to show Athaclena that all of them terminated in a single small pool of umber-colored water.

He explained. “These ponds are found all over this continent, each connected to the others by this vast network of vines. They play a vital role in the rain forest ecosystem. No other shrubs grow near these catchments where the vines do their work.”

Athaclena knelt to get a better view. Her corona still waved and she seemed interested.

“Why is the pool colored so? Is there an impurity in the water?”

“Yes, that’s right. If we had an analysis kit I could take you from pond to pond and demonstrate that each little puddle has a slight overabundance of a different trace element or chemical. “The vines seem to form a network among the giant trees, carrying nutrients abundant in one area to other places where they’re lacking.”

“A trade compact!” Athaclena’s ruff expanded in one of the few purely Tymbrimi expressions Robert was certain he understood. For the first time since they had left the” city together he saw her clearly excited by something.

He wondered if she was at that moment Grafting an “empathy-glyph,” that weird art form that some humans swore they could sense, and even learn to understand a little. Robert knew the feathery tendrils of the Tymbrimi corona were involved in the process, somehow. Once, while accompanying his mother to a diplomatic reception, he’d noticed something that had to have been a glyph — floating, it seemed, above the ruff of the Tymbrimi Ambassador, Uthacalthing.

It had been a strange, fleeting sensation — as if he had caught something which could only be looked at with the blind spot of his eye, which fled out of view whenever he tried to focus on it. Then, as quickly as he had become aware of it, the glimpse vanished. In the end, he was left unsure it had been anything but his imagination after all.

“The relationship is symbiotic, of course,” Athaclena pronounced. Robert blinked. She was talking about the vines, of course.

“Uh, right again. The vines take nourishment from the great trees, and in exchange they transport nutrients the trees’ roots can’t dvaw out of the poor soil. They also flush out toxins and dispose of them at great distances. Pools like this one serve as banks where the vines come together to stockpile and trade important chemicals.”

“Incredible.” Athaclena examined the rootlets. “It mimics the self-interest trade patterns of sentient beings. And I suppose it is logical that plants would evolve this technique sometime, somewhere. I believe the Kanten might have begun in such a way, before the Linten gardeners uplifted them and made them starfarers.”

She looked up at Robert. “Is this phenomenon catalogued? The Z’Tang were supposed to have surveyed Garth for the Institutes before the planet was passed over to you humans. I’m surprised I never heard of this.”

Robert allowed himself a trace of a smile. “Sure, the ZTang report to the Great Library mentions the vines’ chemical transfer properties. Part of the tragedy of Garth was that the network seemed on the verge of total collapse before Earth was granted a leasehold here. And if that actually happens half this continent will turn into desert.

“Rut the Z’Tang missed something crucial. They never seem to have noticed that the vines move about the forest, very slowly, seeking new minerals for their host trees. The forest, as an active trading community, adapts. It changes. There’s actual hope that, with the right helpful nudge here and there, the network might become a centerpiece in the recovery of the planet’s ecosphere. If so, we may be able to make a tidy profit selling the technique to certain parties elsewhere.”

He had expected her to be pleased, but when Athaclena let the rootlets fall back into the umber water she turned to him with a cool tone. “You sound proud to have caught so careful and intellectual an elder race as the Z’Tang in a mistake, Robert. As one of your teledramas might put it, ‘The Eatees and their Library are caught with egg on their faces once again.’ Is that it?”

“Now wait a minute. I—”

“Tell me, do you humans plan to hoard this information, gloating over your cleverness each time you dole out portions? Or will you flaunt it, crying far and wide what any race with sense already knows — that the Great Library is not and never has been perfect?”

Robert winced. The stereotypical Tymbrimi, as pictured by most Earthlings, was adaptable, wise, and often mischievous. But right now Athaclena sounded more like any irritable, opinionated young fern with a chip on her shoulder.

True, some Earthlings went too far in criticizing Galactic civilization. As the first known “wolfling” race in over fifty megayears, humans sometimes boasted too loudly that they were the only species now living who had bootstrapped themselves into space without anybody’s help. What need had they to take for granted everything found in the Great Library of the Five Galaxies? Terran popular media tended to encourage an attitude of contempt for aliens who would rather look things up than find out for themselves.

There was a reason for encouraging this stance. The alternative, according to Terragens psychological scientists, would be a crushing racial’ inferiority complex. Pride was a vital thing for the only “backward” clan in the known universe. It stood between humanity and despair.

Unfortunately, the attitude had also alienated some species who might otherwise have been friendly to Mankind.

But on that count, were Athaclena’s people all that innocent? The Tymbrimi, also, were famed for finding loopholes in tradition and for not being satisfied with what was inherited from the past.

“When will you humans learn that the universe is dangerous, that there are many ancient and powerful clans who have no love of upstarts, especially newcomers who brashly set off changes without understanding the likely consequences!”

Now Robert knew what Athaclena was referring to, what the real source of this outburst was. He rose from the poolside and dusted his hands. “Look, neither of us really knows what’s going on out there in the galaxy right now. But it’s hardly our fault that a dolphin-crewed starship—”

“The Streaker.”

“—that the Streaker happened to discover something bizarre, something overlooked all these aeons. Anyone could have stumbled onto it! Hell, Athaclena. We don’t even know what it was that those poor neo-dolphins found! Last anyone heard, their ship was being chased from the Morgran transfer point to Ifni-knows-where by twenty different fleets — all fighting over the right to capture her.”

Robert discovered his pulse was beating hard. Clenched hands indicated just how much of his own tension was rooted in this topic. After all, it is frustrating enough whenever your universe threatens to topple in on you, but all the more so when the events that set it all off took place kiloparsecs away, amid dim red stars too distant even to be seen from home.

Athaclena’s dark-lidded eyes met his, and for the first time he felt he could sense a touch of understanding in them. Her long-fingered left hand performed a fluttering half turn.

“I hear what you are saying, Robert. And I know that sometimes I am too quick to cast judgments. It is a fault my father constantly urges me to overcome.

“But you ought to remember that we Tymbrimi have been Earth’s protectors and allies ever since your great, lumbering slowships stumbled into our part of space, eighty-nine paktaars ago. It grows wearying at times, and you must forgive if, on occasion, it shows.”

“What grows wearying?” Robert was confused.

“Well, for one thing, ever since Contact we have had to learn and endure this assemblage of wolfling clicks and growls you have the effrontery to call a language.”

Athaclena’s expression was even, but now Robert believed he could actually sense a faint something emanating from those waving tendrils. It seemed to convey what a human girl might communicate with a subtle facial expression. Clearly she was teasing him.

“Ha ha. Very funny.” He looked down at the ground.

“Seriously though, Robert, have we not, in the seven generations since Contact, constantly urged that you humans and your, clients go slow? The Streaker simply should not have been prying into places where she did not belong — not while your small clan of races is still so young and helpless.

“You cannot keep on poking at the rules to see which are rigid and which are soft!”

Robert shrugged. “It’s paid off a few times.”

“Yes, but now your — what is the proper, beastly idiom? — your cows have come home to roost?

“Robert, the fanatics won’t let go now that their passions are aroused. They will chase the dolphin ship until she is captured. And if they cannot acquire her information that way, powerful clans such as the Jophur and the Soro will seek other means to achieve their ends.”

Dust motes sparkled gently in and out of the narrow shafts of sunlight. Scattered pools of rainwater glinted where the beams touched them. In the quiet Robert scuffed at the soft humus, knowing all too well what Athaclena was driving at.

The Jophur, the Soro, the Gubru, the Tandu — those powerful Galactic patron races which had time and again demonstrated their hostility to Mankind — if they failed to capture Streaker, their next step would be obvious. Sooner or later some clan would turn its attention to Garth, or Atlast, or Calafia- — Earth’s most distant and unprotected outposts — seeking hostages in an effort to pry loose the dolphins’ mysterious secret. The tactic was even permissible, under the loose strictures established by the ancient Galactic Institute for Civilized Warfare.

Some civilization, Robert thought bitterly. The irony was that the dolphins weren’t even likely to behave as any of the stodgy Galactics expected them to.

By tradition a client race owed allegiance and fealty to its patrons, the starfaring species that had “uplifted” it to full sentience. This had been done for Pan chimpanzees and Tursiops dolphins by humans even before Contact with starfaring aliens. In doing so, Mankind had unknowingly mimicked a pattern that had ruled the Five Galaxies for perhaps three billion years.

By tradition, client species served their patrons for a thousand centuries or more, until release from indenture freed them to seek clients of their own. Few Galactic clans believed or understood how much freedom had been given dolphins and chims by the humans of Earth. It was hard to say exactly what the neo-dolphins on the Streaker’s crew would do if humans were taken hostage. But that, apparently, wouldn’t stop the Eatees from trying. Distant listening posts had already confirmed the worst. Battle fleets were coming, approaching Garth even as he and Athaclena stood here talking.

“Which is worth more, Robert,” Athaclena asked softly, “that collection of ancient space-hulks the dolphins are supposed to have found… derelicts that have no meaning at all to a clan as young as yours? Or your worlds, with their farms and parks and orbit-cities? I cannot understand the logic of your Terragens Council, ordering Streaker to guard her secret, when you and your clients are so vulnerable!”

Robert looked down at the ground again. He had no answer for her. It did sound illogical, when looked at in that way. He thought about his classmates and friends, gathering now to go to war without him, to fight over issues none of them understood. It was hard.

For Athaclena it would be as bad, of course, banished from her father’s side, trapped on a foreign world by a quarrel that had little or nothing to do with her. Robert decided to let her have the last word. She had seen more of the universe than he anyway and had the advantage of coming from an older, higher-status clan.

“Maybe you’re right,” he said. “Maybe you’re right.”

Perhaps, though, he reminded himself as he helped her lift her backpack and then hoisted his own for the next stage of their trek, perhaps a young Tymbrimi can be just as ignorant and opinionated as any human youth, a little frightened and far away from home.

5 Fiben

“TAASF scoutship Bonobo calling scoutship Proconsul… Fiben, you’re out of alignment again. Come on, old chim, try to straighten her out, will you?”

Fiben wrestled with the controls of his ancient, alien-built spacecraft. Only the open mike kept him from expressing his frustration in rich profanity. Finally, in desperation, he kicked the makeshift control panel the technicians had installed back on Garth.

That did it! A red light went out as the antigravity verniers suddenly unfroze. Fiben sighed. At last!

Of course, in all the exertion his faceplate had steamed up. “You’d think they’d come up with a decent ape-suit after all this time,” he grumbled as he turned up the defogger. It was more than a minute before the stars reappeared.

“What was that, Fiben? What’d you say?”

“I said I’ll have this old crate lined up in time!” he snapped. “The Eatees won’t be disappointed.”

The popular slang term for alien Galactics had its roots in an acronym for “Extraterrestrials.” But it also made Fiben think about food. He had been living on ship paste for days. What he wouldn’t give for a fresh chicken and palm leaf sandwich, right now!

Nutritionists were always after chims to curb their appetite for meat. Said too much was bad for the blood pressure. Fiben sniffed.

Heck, I’d settle for a jar of mustard and the latest edition of the Port Helenia Times, he thought.

“Say, Fihen, you’re always up on the latest scuttlebutt. Has anyone figured out yet who’s invading us?”

“Well, I know a chimmie in the Coordinator’s office who told me she had a friend on the Intelligence Staif who thought the bastards were Soro, or maybe Tandu.”

“Tandu! You’re kidding I hope.” Simon sounded aghast, and Fiben had to agree. Some thoughts just weren’t to be contemplated.

“Ah well, my guess is it’s probably just a bunch of Linten gardeners dropping by to make sure we’re treating the plants all right.”

Simon laughed and Fiben felt glad. Having a cheerful wingman was worth more than a reserve officer’s half pay.

He got his tiny space skiff back onto its assigned trajectory. The scoutboat — purchased only a few months back from a passing Xatinni scrap hauler — was actually quite a bit older than his own sapient race. While his ancestors were still harassing baboons beneath African trees, this fighter had seen action under distant suns — controlled by the hands, claws, tentacles of other poor creatures similarly doomed to skirmish and die in pointless interstellar struggles.

Fiben had only been allowed two weeks to study schematics and remember enough Galactiscript to read the instruments. Fortunately, designs changed slowly in the aeons-old Galactic culture, and there were basics most spacecraft shared in common.

One thing was certain, Galactic technology was impressive. Humanity’s best ships were still bought, riot Earth-made. And although this old tub was creaky and cranky, it would probably outlive him, this day.

All around Fiben bright fields of stars glittered, except where the inky blackness of the Spoon Nebula blotted out the thick band of the galactic disk. That was the direction where Earth lay, the homeworld Fiben had never seen, and now probably never would.

Garth, on the other hand, was a bright green spark only three million kilometers behind him. Her tiny fleet was too small to cover the distant hyperspacial transfer points, or even the inner system. Their ragged array of scouts, meteor-oid miners, and converted freighters — plus three modern corvettes — was hardly adequate to cover the planet itself.

Fortunately, Fiben wasn’t in command, so he did not have to keep his mind on the forlorn state of their prospects. He had only to do his duty and wait. Contemplating annihilation was not how he planned to spend the time.

He tried to divert himself by thinking about the Throop family, the small sharing-clan on Quintana Island that had recently invited him to join in their group marriage. For a modern chim it was a serious decision, like when two or three human beings decided to marry and raise a family. He had been pondering the choice for weeks.

The Throop Clan did have a nice, rambling house, good grooming habits, and respectable professions. The adults were attractive and interesting chims, all with green genetic clearances. Socially, it would be a very good move.

But there were disadvantages, as well. For one thing, he would have to move from Port Helenia back out to the islands, where most of the chim and human settlers still lived. Fiben wasn’t sure he was ready to do that. He liked the open spaces of the mainland, the freedom of mountains and wild Garth countryside.

And there was another important consideration. Fiben had to wonder whether the Throops wanted him because they really liked him, or because the Neo-Chimpanzee Uplift Board had granted him a blue card — an open breeding clearance.

Only a white card was higher. Blue status meant he could join any marriage group and father children with only minimal genetic counseling. It couldn’t help but have influenced the Throop Clan’s decision.

“Oh, quit kiddin’ yourself,” he muttered at last. The matter was moot, anyway. Right now he wouldn’t take long odds on his chances of ever even seeing home again alive.

“Fiben? You still there, kid?”

“Yeah, Simon. What’cha got?”

There was a pause.

“I just got a call from Major Forthness. He said he has an uneasy feeling about that gap in the fourth dodecant.”

Fiben yawned. “Humans are always gettin’ uneasy feelings. Alia time worryin’. That’s what it’s like being big-time patron types.”

His partner laughed. On Garth it was fashionable even for well-educated chims to “talk grunt” at times. Most of the better humans took the ribbing with good humor; and those who didn’t could go chase themselves.

“Tell you what,” he told Simon. “I’ll drift over to the ol’ fourth dodecant and give it a lookover for the Major.”

“We aren’t supposed to split up,” the voice in his headphones protested weakly. Still, they both knew having a wingman would hardly make any difference in the kind of fight they were about to face.

“I’ll be back in a jiffy,” Fiben assured his friend. “Save me some of the bananas.”

He engaged the stasis and gravity fields gradually, treating the ancient machine like a virgin chimmie on her first pink. Smoothly, the scout built up acceleration.

Their defense plan had been carefully worked out bearing in mind normally conservative Galactic psychology. The Earthlings’ forces were laid out in a mesh with the larger ships held in reserve. The scheme relied on scouts like him reporting the enemy’s approach in time for the others to coordinate a timed response.

Problem was that there were too few spouts to maintain anywhere near complete coverage.

Fiben felt the powerful thrum of engines through his seat. Soon he was hurtling across the star-field. Got to give the Galactics their due, he thought. Their culture was stodgy and intolerant — sometimes almost fascistic — but they did build well.

Fiben itched inside his suit. Not for the first time, he wished some human pilots had been small enough to qualify for duty in these tiny Xatinni scouts. It would serve them right to have to smell themselves after three days in space.

Often, in his more pensive moods, Fiben wondered if it had really been such a good idea for humans to meddle so, making engineers and poets and part-time starfighters out of apes who might have been just as happy to stay in the forest. Where would he be now, it they refrained? He’d have been dirty perhaps, and ignorant. But at least he’d be free to scratch an itch whenever he damn well pleased!

He missed his local Grooming Club. Ah, for the glory of being curried and brushed by a truly sensitive chen or chimmie, lazing in the shade and gossiping about nothing at all…

A pink light appeared in his detection tank. He reached forward and slapped the display, but the reading would not go away. In fact, as he approached his destination it grew, then split, and divided again.

Fiben felt cold. “Ifni’s incontinence …” He swore, and grabbed for the code-broadcast switch. “Scoutship Proconsul to all units. They’re behind us! Three … no, four battlecruiser squadrons, emerging from B-level hyperspace in the fourth dodecant!”

He blinked as a fifth flotilla appeared as if out of nowhere, the blips shimmering as starships emerged into real-time and leaked excess hyperprobability into the real-space vacuum. Even at this distance he could tell that the cruisers were large.

His headphones brought a static of consternation.

“My Uncle Hairy’s twice-bent manhood] How did they know there was a hole in our line there?”

“… Fiben, are you sure? Why did they pick that particular …”

“… Who th’ hell are they? Can you… ?”

The chatter shut down at once as Major Forthness broke in -on the command channel.

“Message received. Proconsul. We’re on our way. Please switch on your repeater, Fiben.”

Fiben slapped his helmet. It had been years since his militia training, and a guy tended to forget things. He switched over to telemetry so the others could share everything his instruments picked up.

Of course broadcasting all that data made him an easy target, but that hardly mattered. Clearly their foe had known where the defenders were, perhaps down to the last ship. Already he detected seeker missiles streaking toward him.

So much for steakh and surprise as the advantages of the weak. As he sped toward the enemy — whoever the devils were — Fiben noticed that the emerging invasion armada stood almost directly between him and the bright green sparkle of Garth.

“Great,” he snorted. “At least when they blast me I’ll be headed for home. Maybe a few hanks of fur will even get there ahead of the Eatees.

“If anyone wishes on a shooting star, tomorrow night, I hope they get whatever th’fuk they ask for.”

He increased the ancient scout’s acceleration and felt a rearward push even through the straining stasis fields. The moan of engines rose in pitch. And as the little ship leaped forward it seemed to Fiben that it sang a song of battle that sounded almost joyful.

6 Uthacalthing

Four human officers stepped across the brick parquet floor of the conservatory, their polished brown boots clicking rhythmically in step. Three stopped a respectful distance from the large window where the ambassador and the Planetary Coordinator stood waiting. But the fourth continued forward and saluted crisply.

“Madam Coordinator, it has begun.” The graying militia commander pulled a document from his dispatch pouch and held it out.

Uthacalthing admired Megan Oneagle’s poise as she took the proffered flimsy. Her expression betrayed none of the dismay she must be feeling as their worst fears were confirmed.

“Thank you, Colonel Maiven,” she said.

Uthacalthing couldn’t help noticing how the tense junior officers kept glancing his way, obviously wondering how the Tymbrimi Ambassador was taking the news. He remained outwardly impassive, as befitted a member of the diplomatic corps. But the tips of his corona trembled involuntarily at the froth of tension that had accompanied the messengers into the humid greenhouse.

From here a long bank of windows offered a glorious view of the Valley of the Sind, pleasantly arrayed with farms and groves of both native and imported Terran trees. It was a lovely, peaceful scene. Great Infinity alone knew how much longer that serenity would last. And Ifni was not confiding her plans in Uthacalthing, at present,

Planetary Coordinator Oneagle scanned the report briefly. “Do you have any idea yet who the enemy is?”

Colonel Maiven shook his head. “Not really, ma’am. The fleets are closing now, though. We expect identification shortly.”

In spite of the seriousness of the moment, Uthacalthing found himself once again intrigued by the quaintly archaic dialect humans used here on Garth. At every other Terran colony he had visited, Anglic had taken in a potpourri of words borrowed from Galactic languages Seven, Two, and Ten. Here, though, common speech was not appreciably different from what it had been when Garth was licensed to the humans and their clients, more than two generations ago.

Delightful, surprising creatures, he thought. Only here, for instance, would one hear such a pure, ancient form — addressing a female leader as “ma’am.” On other Terran-occupied worlds, functionaries addressed their supervisors by the neutral “ser,” whatever their gender.

There were other unusual things about Garth as well. In the months since his arrival here, Uthacalthing had made a private pastime of listening to every odd story, every strange tale brought in from the wild lands by farmers, trappers, and members of the Ecological Recovery Service. There had been rumors. Rumors of strange things going on up in the mountains.

Of course they were silly stories, mostly. Exaggerations and tall tales. Just the sort of thing you would expect from wolflings living at the edge of a wilderness. And yet they had given him the beginnings of an idea.

Uthacalthing listened quietly as each of the staff officers reported in turn. At last, though, there came a long pause — the silence of brave people sharing a common sense of doom. Only then did he venture to speak, quietly. “Colonel Maiven, are you certain the enemy is being so thorough in isolating Garth?”

The Defense Councilor bowed to Uthacalthing. “Mr. Ambassador, we know that hyperspace is being mined by enemy cruisers as close in as six million pseudometers, on at least four of the main levels.”

“Including D-level?”

“Yes, ser. Of course it means we dare not send any of our lightly armed ships out on any of the few hyperpaths available, even if we could have spared any from the battle. It also means anyone trying to get into Garth system would have to be mighty determined.”

Uthacalthing was impressed. They have mined D-level. I would not have expected them to bother. They certainly don’t want anybody interfering in this operation!

This spoke of substantial effort and cost. Someone was sparing little expense in this operation.

“The point is moot,” the Planetary Coordinator said. Megan was looking out over the rolling meadows of the Sind, with its farmsteads and environmental research stations. Just below the window a chim gardener on a tractor tended the broad lawn of Earth-breed grass surrounding Government House.

She turned back to the others. “The last courier ship brought orders from the Terragens Council. We are to defend ourselves as best we can, for honor’s sake and for the record. But beyond that all we can hope to do is maintain some sort of underground resistance until help arrives from the outside.”

Uthacalthing’s deepself almost laughed out loud, for at that moment each human in the room tried hard not to look at him! Colonel Maiven cleared his throat and examined his report. His officers pondered the brilliant, flowering plants. Still, it was obvious what they were thinking.

Of the few Galactic clans that Earth could count as friends, only the Tymbrimi had the military strength to be of much assistance in this crisis. Men had faith that Tymbrim would not let humans and their clients down.

And that was true enough. Uthacalthing knew the allies would face this crisis together.

But it was also clear that little Garth was a long way out on the fringe of things. And these days the homeworlds had to take first priority.

No matter, Uthacalthing thought. The best means to an end are not always those that appear most direct.

Uthacalthing did not laugh out loud, much as he wanted to. For it might only discomfit these poor, grief-stricken people. In the course of his career he had met some Earth-lings who possessed a natural gift for high-quality prank-sterism — a few even on a par with the best Tymbrijni. Still, so many of them were such terribly dour, sober folk! Most tried so desperately hard to be serious at the very moments when humor could most help them through their troubles.

Uthacalthing wondered.

As a diplomat I have taught myself to watch every word, lest our clan’s penchant for japes cause costly incidents. But has this been wise? My own daughter has picked up this habit from me… this shroud of seriousness. Perhaps that is why she has grown into such a strange, earnest little creature.

Thinking of Athaclena made him wish all the more he could openly make light of the situation. Otherwise, he might do the human thing and consider the danger she was in. He knew that Megan worried about her own son. She underrates Robert, Uthacalthing thought. She should better know the lad’s potential.

“Dear ladies and gentlemen,” he said, savoring the archaisms. His eyes separated only slightly in amusement. “We can expect the fanatics to arrive within days. You have made conventional plans to offer what resistance your meager resources will allow. Those plans will serve their function.”

“However?” It was Megan Oneagle who posed the question. One eyebrow arched above those brown irises — big and set almost far enough apart to look attractive in the classic Tymbrimi sense. There was no mistaking the look.

She knows as well as I that more is called for. Ah, if Robert ?has half his mother’s brains, I’ll not fear for Athaclena, wandering in the dark forests of this sad, barren world.

Uthacalthing’s corona trembled. “However,” he echoed, “it does occur to me that now might be a good time to consult the Branch Library.”

Uthacalthing picked up some of their disappointment. Astonishing creatures! Tymbrimi skepticism toward modern Galactic culture never went so far as the outright contempt so many humans felt for the Great Library!

Wolflings. Uthacalthing sighed to himself. In the space above his head he crafted the glyph called syullf-tha, anticipation of a puzzle almost too ornate to solve. The specter revolved in expectancy, invisible to the humans — although for a moment Megan’s attention seemed to flutter, as if she were just on the edge of noticing something.

Poor Wolflings. For all of its faults, the Library is where everything begins and ends. Always, somewhere in its treasure trove of knowledge, can be found some gem of wisdom and solution. Until you learn that, my friends, little inconveniences like ravening enemy battle fleets will go on ruining perfectly good spring mornings like this one!

7 Athaclena

Robert led the way a few feet ahead of her, using a machete to lop off the occasional branch encroaching on the narrow trail. The bright sunshine of the sun, Gimelhai, filtered sofdy through the forest canopy, and the spring air was warm.

Athaclena felt glad of the easy pace. With her weight redistributed from its accustomed pattern, walking was something of an adventure in itself. She wondered how human women managed to go through most of their lives with such a wide-hipped stance. Perhaps it was a sacrifice they paid for having big-headed babies, instead of giving birth early and then sensibly slipping the child into a postpartum pouch.

This experiment — subtly changing her body shape to make it seem more humanlike — was one of the more fascinating aspects of her visit to an Earth colony. She certainfy could not have moved among local crowds as inconspicuously on a world of the reptiloid Soro, or the sap-ring-creatures of Jophur. And in the process she had learned a lot more about physiological control than the instructors had-taught her back in school.

Still, the inconveniences were substantial, and she was considering putting an end to the experiment.

Oh, Ifni. A glyph of frustration danced at her tendril tips. Changing back at this point might be more effort than it’s worth.

There were limits to what even the ever-adaptable Tymbrimi physiology could be expected to do. Attempting too many alterations in a short time ran the risk of triggering enzyme exhaustion.

Anyway, it was a little flattering to kenn the conflicts taking shape in Robert’s mind. Athaclena wondered. Is he actually attracted to me? A year ago the very idea would have shocked her. Even Tymbrimi boys made her nervous, and Robert was an alien!

Now though, for some reason, she felt more curiosity than revulsion.

There was something almost hypnotic about the steady rocking of the pack on her back, the rhythm of soft boots on the rough trail, and the warming of leg muscles too long leashed by city streets. Here in the middle altitudes the air was warm and moist. It carried a thousand rich scents, oxygen, decaying humus, and the musty smell of human perspiration.

As Athaclena trudged, following her guide along the steep-sided ridgeline, a low rumbling could soon be heard coming from the distance ahead of them. It sounded like a rumor of great engines, or perhaps an industrial plant. The murmur faded and then returned with every switchback, just a little more forceful each time they drew near its mysterious source. Apparently Robert was relishing a surprise, so Athaclena bit back her curiosity and asked no questions.

At last, though, Robert stopped and waited at a.bend in the trail. He closed his eyes, concentrating, and Athaclena thought she caught, just for a moment, the flickering traces of primitive emotion-glyph. Instead of true kenning, it brought to mind a visual image — a high, roaring fountain painted in garish, uninhibited blues, and greens.

He really is getting much better, Athaclena thought. Then she joined him at the bend and gasped in surprise.

Droplets, trillions of tiny liquid lenses, sparkled in the shafts of sunlight that cut sharply through the cloud forest. The low rumble that had drawn them onward for an hour was suddenly an earthshaking growl that rattled tree limbs left and right, reverberating through the rocks and into their bones. Straight ahead a great cataract spilled over glass-smooth boulders, dashing into spume and spray in a canyon carved over persistent ages.

The falling river was an extravagance of nature, pouring forth more exuberantly than the most shameless human entertainer, prouder then any sentient poet.

It was too much to be taken in with ears and eyes alone. Athaclena’s tendrils waved, seeking, kenning, one of those moments Tymbrimi glyphcrafters sometimes spoke of — when a world seemed to join into the mesh of empathy usually reserved for living things. In a time-stretched instant, she realized that ancient Garth, wounded and crippled, could still sing.

Robert grinned. Athaclena met his gaze and smiled as well. Their hands met and joined. For a long, wordless time they stood together and watched the shimmering, ever-changing rainbows arch over nature’s percussive flood.

Strangely, the epiphany only made Athaclena feel sad, and even more regretful she had ever come to this world. She had not wanted to discover beauty here. It only made the little world’s fate seem more tragic.

How many times had she wished Uthacalthing had never accepted this assignment? But wishing seldom made things so.

As much as she loved him, Athaclena had always found her father inscrutable. His reasoning was often too convoluted for her to fathom, his actions too unpredictable. Such as taking this posting when he could have had a more prestigious one simply by asking.

And sending her into these mountains with Robert… it hadn’t been just “for her safety,” she could tell that much. Was she actually supposed to chase those ridiculous rumors of exotic mountain creatures? Unlikely. Probably Uthacalthing only suggested the idea in order to distract her from her worries.

Then she thought of another possible motive.

Could her father actually imagine that she might enter into a self-other bond… with a human? Her nostrils flared to twice their normal size at the thought. Gently, suppressing her corona in order to keep her feelings hidden, she relaxed her grip on Robert’s hand, and felt relieved when he did not hold on.

Athaclena crossed her arms and shivered.

Back home she had taken part in only a few, tentative practice bondings with boys, and those mostly as class assignments. Before her mother’s death this had been a cause of quite a few family arguments. Mathicluanna had almost despaired of her oddly reserved and private daughter. But Athaclena’s father, at least, had not pestered her to do more than she was ready for.

Until now maybe?

Robert was certainly charming and likable. With his high cheekbones and eyes pleasantly set apart, he was about as handsome as a human might hope to get. And yet, the very fact that she might think in such terms shocked Athaclena.

Her tendrils twitched. She shook her head and wiped out a nascent glyph before she could even realize what it would have been. This was a topic she had no wish to consider right now, even less than the prospect of war.

“The waterfall is beautiful, Robert,” she enunciated carefully in Anglic. “But if we stay here much longer, we shall soon be quite damp.”

He seemed to return from a distant contemplation. “Oh. Yeah, Clennie. Let’s go.” With a brief smile he turned and led the way, his human empathy waves vague and far away.

The rain forest persisted in long fingers between the hills, becoming wetter and more robust as they gained altitude. Little Garthian creatures, timid and scarce at the lower levels, now made frequent skittering rustles behind the lush vegetation, occasionally even challenging them with impudent squeaks.

Soon they reached the summit of a foothill ridge, where a chain of spine-stones jutted up, bare and gray, like the bony plates along the back of one of those ancient reptiles Uthacalthing had shown her, in a lesson book on Earth history. As they removed their packs for a rest, Robert told her that no one could explain the formations, which topped many of the hills below the Mountains of Mulun.

“Even the Branch Library on Earth has no reference,” he said as he brushed a hand along one of the jagged monoliths. “We’ve submitted a low-priority inquiry to the district branch at Tanith. Maybe in a century or so the Library Institute’s computers will dig up a report from some long-extinct race that once lived here, and then we’ll know the answer.”

“Yet you hope they do not,” she suggested.

Robert shrugged. “I guess I’d rather it were left a mystery. Maybe we could be the first to figure it out.” He looked pensively at the stones.

A lot of Tymbrimi felt the same way, preferring a good puzzle to any written fact. Not Athaclena, however. This attitude — this resentment of the Great Library — was something she found absurd.

Without the Library and the other Galactic Institutes, oxygen-breathing culture, dominant in the Five Galaxies, would long ago have fallen into total disarray — probably ending in savage, total war.

True, most starfaring clans relied far too much on the Library. And the Institutes only moderated the bickering of the most petty and vituperative senior patron lines. The present crisis was only the latest in a series that stretched back long before any now living race had come into existence.

Still, this planet was an example of what could happen when the restraint of Tradition broke down. Athaclena listened to the sounds of the forest. Shading her eyes, she watched a swarm of small, furry creatures glide from branch to branch in the direction of the afternoon sun.

“Superficially, one might not even know this was a holocaust world,” she said softly.

Robert had set their packs in the shade of a towering spine-stone and began cutting slices of soyastick salami and bread for their luncheon. “It’s been fifty thousand years since the Bururalli made a mess of Garth, Athaclena. That’s enough time for lots of surviving animal species to radiate and fill some of the emptied niches. Right now I guess you’d probably have to be a zoologist to notice the sparse species list.”

Athaclena’s corona was at full extension, kenning faint traceries of emotion from the surrounding forest. “I notice, Robert,” she said. “I can feel it. This watershed lives, but it is lonely. It has none of the life-complexity a wildwood should know. And there is no trace of Potential at all.”

Robert nodded seriously. But she sensed his distance from it all. The Bururalli Holocaust happened a long time ago, from an Earthling’s point of view.

The Bururalli had also been new, back then, just released from indenture to the Nahalli, the patron race that uplifted them to sentience. It was a special time for the Bururalli, for only when its knot of obligations was loosened at last could a client species establish unsupervised colonies of its own. When their time came the Galactic Institute of Migration had just declared the fallow world Garth ready again for limited occupation. As always, the Institute expected that local lifeforms — especially those which might some day develop Uplift Potential — would be protected at all cost by the new tenants.

The Nahalli boasted-that they had found the Bururalli a quarrelsome clan of pre-sentient carnivores and uplifted them to become perfect Galactic citizens, responsible and reliable, worthy of such a trust.

The Nahalli were proven horribly wrong.

“Well, what do you expect when an entire race goes completely crazy and starts annihilating everything in sight?” Robert asked. “Something went wrong and suddenly the Bururalli turned into berserkers, tearing apart a world they were supposed to take care of.

“It’s no wonder you don’t detect any Potential in a Garth forest, Clennie. Only those tiny creatures who could burrow and hide escaped the Bururalli’s madness. The bigger, brighter animals are all one with yesterday’s snows.”

Athaclena blinked. Just when she thought she had a grasp of Anglic Robert did this to her again, using that strange human penchant for metaphors. Unlike similes, which compared two objects, metaphors seemed to declare, against all logic, that unlike things were the same! No Galactic language allowed such nonsense.

Generally she was able to handle those odd linguistic juxtapositions, but this one had her baffled. Above her waving corona the small-glyph teev’nus formed briefly — standing for the elusiveness of perfect communication.

“I have only heard brief accounts of that era. What happened to the murderous Bururalli themselves?”

Robert shrugged. “Oh, officials from the Institutes of Uplift and Migration finally dropped by, about a century or so after the holocaust began. The inspectors were horrified, of course.

“They found the Bururalli warped almost beyond recognition, roaming the planet, hunting to death anything they could catch. By then they’d abandoned the horrible technological weapons they’d started with and nearly reverted to tooth and claw. I suppose that’s why some small animals did survive.

“Ecological disasters aren’t as uncommon as the Institutes would have it seem, but this one was a major scandal. There was galaxy-wide revulsion. Battle fleets were sent by many of the major clans and put under unified, command. Soon the Bururalli were no more.”

Athaclena nodded. “I assume their patrons, the Nahalli, were punished as well.”

“Right. They lost status and are somebody’s clients now, the price of negligence. We’re taught the story in school. Several times.”

When Robert offered the salami again, Athaclena shook her head. Her appetite had vanished. “So you humans inherited another reclamation world.”

Robert put away their lunch. “Yeah. Since we’re two-client patrons, we had to be allowed colonies, but the Institutes have mostly handed us the leavings of other peoples’ disasters. We have to work hard helping this world’s ecosystem straighten itself out, but actually, Garth is really nice compared with some of the others. You ought to see Deemi and Horst, out in the Canaan Cluster.”

“I have heard of them.” Athaclena shuddered. “I do not think I ever want to see—”

She stopped mid-sentence. “I do not …” Her eyelids fluttered as she looked around, suddenly confused. “Thu’un dun!” Her ruff puffed outward. Athaclena stood quickly and walked — half in a trance — to where the towering spine-stones overlooked the misty tops of the cloud forest.

Robert approached from behind. “What is it?”

She spoke softly. “I sense something.”

“Hmmph. That doesn’t surprise me, with that Tymbrimi nervous system of yours, especially the way you’ve been altering your body form just to please me. It’s no wonder you’re picking up static.”

Athaclena shook her head impatiently. “I have not been doing it just to please you, you arrogant human male! And I’ve asked you before kindly to be more careful with your horrible metaphors. A Tymbrimi corona is not a radio!” She gestured with her hand. “Now please be quiet for a moment.”

Robert fell silent. Athaclena concentrated, trying to kenn again…

A corona might not pick up static like a radio, but it could suffer interference. She sought after the faint aura she had felt so very briefly, but it was impossible. Robert’s clumsy, eager empathy flux crowded it out completely.

“What was it, Clennie?” he asked softly.

“I do not know. Something not very far away, off toward the southeast. It felt like people — men and neo-chimpanzees mostly — but there was something else as well.”

Robert frowned. “Well, I guess it might have been one of the ecological management stations. Also, there are isolated freeholds all through this area, mostly higher up, where the seisin grows.”

She turned swiftly. “Robert, I felt Potential! For the briefest moment of clarity, I touched the emotions of a pre-sentient being!”

Robert’s feelings were suddenly cloudy and turbulent, his face impassive. “What do you mean?”

“My father told me about something, before you and I left for the mountains. At the time I paid little attention. It seemed impossible, like those fairy tales your human authors create to give us Tymbrimi strange dreams.”

“Your people buy them by the shipload,” Robert interjected. “Novels, old movies, threevee, poems …”

Athaclena ignored his aside. “Uthacalthing mentioned stories of a creature of this planet, a native being of high Potential… one who is supposed to have actually survived the Bururalli Holocaust.” Athaclena’s corona foamed forth a glyph rare to her… syullf-tha, the joy of a puzzle to be solved. “I wonder. Could the legends possibly be true?”

Did Robert’s mood flicker with a note of relief? Athaclena felt his crude but effective ejnotional guard go opaque.

“Hmmm. Well, there is a legend,” he said. “A simple story told by wolflings. It could hardly be of interest to a sophisticated Galactic, I suppose.”

Athaclena eyed him carefully and touched his arm, stroking it gently. “Are you going to make me wait while you draw out this mystery with dramatic pauses? Or will you save yourself bruises and tell me what you know at once?”

Robert laughed. “Well, since you re so persuasive. You just might have picked up the empathy output of a Garthling.”

Athaclena’s broad, gold-flecked eyes blinked. “That is the name my father used!”

“Ah. Then Uthacalthing has been listening to old seisin hunters’ tales… Imagine having such after only a hundred Earth years here… Anyway, it’s said that one large animal did manage to escape the Bururalli, through cunning, ferocity, and a whole lot of Potential. The mountain men and chims tell of sampling traps robbed, laundry stolen from clotheslines, and strange markings scratched on unclimbable cliff faces.

“Oh, it’s probably all a lot of eyewash.” Robert smiled. “But I did recall those legends when Mother told me I was to come up here. So I figured, so that it wouldn’t be a total loss, I might as well take a Tymbrimi along to see if she could flush out a Garthling with her empathy net.”

Some metaphors Athaclena understood quite readily. Her fingernails pressed into Robert’s arm. “So?” she asked with a questing lilt. “That is the entire reason I am in this wilderness? I am to be a sniffer-out of smoke and legends for you?”

“Sure,” Robert teased. “Why else would I come out here, all alone in the mountains with an alien from outer space?”

Athaclena hissed through her teeth. But within she could not help but feel pleased. This human sardonicism wasn’t unlike reverse-talk among her own people. And when Robert laughed aloud, she found she had to join him. For the moment all worry of war and danger was banished. It was a welcome release for both of them.

“If such a creature exists, we must find it, you and I,” she said at last.

“Yeah, Clennie. We’ll find it together.”

8 Fiben

TAASF Scoutship Proconsul hadn’t outlived its pilot after all. It had seen its last mission — the ancient boat was dead in space — but within its bubble canopy life still remained.

Enough life, at least, to inhale the pungent stench of a six days unwashed ape — and to exhale an apparently unceasing string of imaginative curses.

Fiben finally ran down when he found he was repeating himself. He had long ago covered every permutation, combination, and juxtaposition of bodily, spiritual, and hereditary attributes — real and imaginary — the enemy could possibly possess. That exercise had carried him all the way through his own brief part in the space battle, while he fired his popgun weaponry and evaded counterblows like a gnat ducking sledgehammers, through the concussions of near-misses and the shriek of tortured metal, and into an aftermath of dazed, confused bemusement that he did not seem to be dead after all. Not yet at least.

When he was sure the life capsule was still working and not about to sputter out along with the rest of the scoutboat, Fiben finally wriggled out of his suit and sighed at his first opportunity to scratch in days. He dug in with a will, using not only his hands but the lingers and tumb of his left foot, as well. Finally he sagged back, aching from the pounding he had been through.

His main job had been to pass close enough to collect good data for the rest of the defense force. Fiben guessed that zooming straight down the middle of the invading fleet probably qualified. Heckling the enemy he had thrown in for free.

It seemed the interlopers failed toxappreciate his running commentary as Proconsul plunged through their midst. He’d lost count of how many times close calls came near to cooking him. By the time he had passed behind and beyond the onrush-ing armada, Proconsul’s entire aft end had been turned into a glazed-over hunk of slag.

The main propulsion system was gone, of course. There was no way to return and help his comrades in the desperate, futile struggle that followed soon after. Drifting farther and farther from the one-sided battle, Fiben could only listen helplessly.

It wasn’t even a contest. The fighting lasted little more than a day.

He remembered the last charge of the corvette, Darwin, accompanied by two converted freighters and a small swarm of surviving scoutboats. They streaked down, blasting their way into the flank of the invading host, turning it, throwing one wing of battlecruisers into confusion under clouds of smoke and waves of noisome probability waves.

Not a single Terran craft came out of that maelstrom. Fiben knew then that TAASF Bonobo, and his friend Simon, were gone.

Right now, the enemy seemed to be pursuing a few fugitives off toward Ifni knew where. They were taking their time, cleaning up thoroughly before proceeding to supine Garth.

Now Fiben resumed his cursing along a new tack. All in a spirit of constructive criticism, of course, he dissected the character faults of the species his own race was unfortunate enough to have as patrons.

Why? he asked the universe. Why did humans — those hapless, hairless, wolfling wretches — have the incredibly bad taste to have uplifted neo-chimpanzees into a galaxy so obviously run by idiots?

Eventually, he slept.

His dreams were fitful. Fiben kept imagining that he was trying to speak, but his voice would not shape the sentences, a nightmare possibility to one whose great-grandfather spoke only crudely, with the aid of devices, and whose slightly more distant ancestors faced the world without words at all.

Fiben sweated. No shame was greater than this. In his dream he sought speech as if it were an object, a thing that might be misplaced, somehow.

On looking down he saw a glittering gem lying on the ground. Perhaps this was the gift of words, Fiben thought, and he bent over to take it. But he was too clumsy! His thumb refused to work with his forefinger, and he wasn’t able to pluck the bauble out of the dust. In fact, all of his efforts seemed only to push it in deeper.

Despairing finally, he was forced to crouch down and pick it up with his lips.

It burned! In his dream he cried out as a terrible searing poured down his throat like liquid fire.

And yet, he recognized that this was one of those strange nightmares — the kind in which one could be both objective and terrified at the same time. As one dreamself writhed in agony, another part of Fiben witnessed it in a state of interested detachment.

All at once the scene shifted. Fiben found himself standing in the midst of a gathering of bearded men in black coats and floppy hats. They were mostly elderly, and they leafed through dusty texts as they argued with each other. An oldtime Talmudic conclave, he recognized suddenly, like those he had read about in comparative religions class, back at the University. The rabbis sat in a circle, discussing symbolism and biblical interpretation. One lifted an aged hand to point at Fiben.

“He that lappeth like an animal, Gideon, he shall thou not take …”

“Is that what it means?” Fiben asked. The pain was gone. Now he was more bemused than fearful. His pal, Simon, had been Jewish. No doubt that explained part of this crazy symbolism. What was going on here was obvious. These learned men, these wise human scholars, were trying to illuminate that frightening first part of his dream for him.

“No, no,” a second sage countered. “The symbols relate to the trial of the infant Moses! An angel, you’ll recall, guided his hand to the glowing coals, rather than the shining jewels, and his mouth was burned…”

“But I don’t see what that tells me!” Fiben protested.

The oldest rabbi raised his hand, and the others all went silent.

“The dream stands for none of those things. The symbolism should be obvious,” he said.

“It comes from the oldest book…”

The sage’s bushy eyebrows knotted with concern.

“… And Adam, too, ate from the fruit of the Tree of Knowledge…”

“Uh,” Fiben groaned aloud, awakening in a sweat. The gritty, smelly capsule was all around him again, and yet the vividness of the dream lingered, making him wonder for a moment which was real after all. Finally he shrugged it off. “Old Proconsul must have drifted through the wake of some Eatee probability mine while I slept. Yeah. That must be it. I’ll never doubt the stories they tell in a spacer’s bar again.”

When he checked his battered instruments Fiben found that the battle had moved on around the sun. His own derelict, meanwhile, was on a nearly perfect intersect orbit with a planet.

“Hmmmph,” he grunted as he worked the computer. What it told him was ironic. It really is Garth.

He still had a little maneuvering power in the gravity systems. Perhaps enough, just maybe, to get him within escape pod range.

And wonder of wonders, if his ephemerides were right, he might even be able to reach the Western Sea area … a bit east of Port Helenia. Fiben whistled tunelessly for a few minutes. He wondered what the chances were that this should happen. A million to one? Probably more like a trillion.

Or was the universe just suckering him with a bit of hope before the next whammy?

Either way, he decided, there was some solace in thinking that, under all these stars, someone out there was still thinking of him personally.

He got out his tool kit and set to work making the necessary repairs.

9 Uthacalthing

Uthacalthing knew it was unwise to wait much longer. Still he remained with the Librarians, watching them try to coax forth one more valuable detail before it was time at last to go.

He regarded the human and neo-chimpanzee technicians as they hurried about under the high-domed ceiling of the Planetary Branch Library. They all had jobs to do and concentrated on them intently, efficiently. And yet one could sense a ferment just below the surface, one of oarely suppressed fear.

Unbidden, rittitees formed in the low sparking of his corona. The glyph was one commonly used by Tymbrimi parents to calm frightened children.

They can’t detect you, Uthacalthing told rittitees. And yet it obstinately hovered, trying to soothe young ones in distress.

Anyway, these people aren’t children. Humans have only known of the Great Library for two Earth centuries. But they had thousands of years of their own history before that. They may still lack Galactic polish and sophistication, but that deficit has sometimes been an advantage to them.

Rarely. Rittitees was dubious.

Uthacalthing ended the argument by drawing the uncertain glyph back where it belonged, into his own well of being.

Under the vaulted stone ceiling towered a five-meter gray monolith, embossed with a rayed spiral sigil — symbol of the Great Library for three billion years. Nearby, data loggers filled crystalline memory cubes. Printers hummed and spat bound reports which were quickly annotated and carted away.

This Library station, a class K outlet, was a small one indeed. It contained only the equivalent of one thousand times all the books humans had written before Contact, a pittance compared with the full Branch Library on Earth, or sector general on Tanith.

Still, when Garth was taken this room, too, would fall to the invader.

Traditionally, that should make no difference. The Library was supposed to remain open to all, even parties fighting over the territory it stood upon. In times like these, however, it was unwise to count on such niceties. The colonial resistance forces planned to carry off what they could in hopes of using the information somehow, later.

A pittance of a pittance. Of course it had been his suggestion that they do this, but Uthacalthing was frankly amazed that the humans had gone along with the idea so vigorously. After all, why bother? What could such a small smattering of information accomplish?

This raid on the Planetary Library served his purposes, but it also reinforced his opinion of Earth people. They just never gave up. It was yet another reason he found the creatures delightful.

The hidden reason for this chaos — his own private jest — had called for the dumping and misplacing of a few specific megafiles, easily overlooked in all of this confusion. In fact, nobody appeared to have noticed when he briefly attached his own input-output cube to the massive Library, waited a few seconds, then pocketed the little sabotage device again.

Done. Now there was little to do but watch the wolflings while he waited for his car.

Off in the distance a wailing tone began to rise and fall. It was the keening of the spaceport siren, across the bay, as another crippled refugee from the rout in space came in for an emergency landing. They had heard that sound all too infrequently. Everyone already knew that there had been few survivors.

Mostly the traffic consisted of departing aircraft. Many mainlanders had already taken flight to the chain of islands in the Western Sea where the vast majority of the Earthling population still made its home. The Government was preparing its own evacuation.

When the sirens moaned, every man and chim looked up briefly. Momentarily, the workers broadcast a complex fugue of anxiety that Uthacalthing could almost taste with his corona.

Almost taste?

Oh, what lovely, surprising things, these metaphors, Uthacalthing thought. Can one taste with one’s corona? Or touch with one’s eyes? Anglic is so silly, yet so delightfully thought provoking.

And do not dolphins actually see with their ears?

Zunour’thzun formed above his waving tendrils, resonating with the fear of the men and chims.

Yes, we all hope to live, for we have so very much left to do or taste or see or kenn…

Uthacalthing wished diplomacy did not require that Tymbrimi choose their dullest types as envoys. “He had been selected as an ambassador because, among other qualities, he was boring, at least from the point of view of those back home.

And poor Athaclena seemed to be even worse off, so sober and serious.

He freely admitted that it was partly his own fault. That was one reason he had brought along his own father’s large collection of pre-Contact Earthling comic recordings. The Three Stooges, especially, inspired him. Alas, as yet Athaclena seemed unable to understand the subtle, ironic brilliance of those ancient Terran comedic geniuses.

Through Sylth — that courier of the dead-but-remembered — his long-dead wife still chided him, reaching out from beyond life to say that their daughter should be home, where her lively peers might yet draw her out from her isolation.

Perhaps, he thought. But Mathicluanna had had her try. Uthacalthing believed in his own prescription for their odd daughter.

A small, uniformed neo-chimpanzee female — a chimmie — stepped in front of Uthacalthing and bowed, her hands folded respectfully in front of her.

“Yes, miss?” Uthacalthing spoke first, as protocol demanded. Although he was a patron speaking to a client, he generously included the polite, archaic honorific.

“Y-your excellency.” The chimmie’s scratchy voice trembled slightly. Probably, this was the first time she had ever spoken to a non-Terran. “Your excellency, Planetary Coordinator Oneagle has sent word that the preparations have been completed. The fires are about to be set.

“She asks if you would like to witness your… er, program, unleashed.”

As Uthacalthing’s eyes separated wider in amusement, the wrinkled fur between his brows flattening momentarily. His “program” hardly deserved the name. It might better be called a devious practical joke on the invaders. A long shot, at best.

Not even Megan Oneagle knew what he was really up to. That necessity was a pity, of course. For even if it failed — as was likely — it would still be worthy of a chuckle or two. A laugh might help his friend through the dark times ahead of her.

“Thank you, corporal,” he nodded. “Please lead the way.”

As he followed the little client, Uthacalthing felt a faint sense of regret at leaving so much undone. A good joke required much preparation, and there was just not enough time.

If only I had a decent sense of humor!

Ah, well. Where subtlety fads us we must simply make do with cream pies.

Two hours later he was on his way back to town from Government House. The meeting had been brief, with battle fleets approaching orbit and landings expected soon. Megan Oneagle had already moved most of the government and her few remaining forces to safer ground.

Uthacalthing figured they actually had a little more time. There would be no landing until the invaders had broadcast their manifesto. The rules of the Institute for Civilized Warfare required it.

Of course, with the Five Galaxies in turmoil, many starfaring clans were playing fast and loose with tradition right now. But in this case observing the proprieties would cost the enemy nothing. They had already won. Now it was only a matter of occupying the territory.

Besides, the battle in space had showed one thing. It was clear now the enemy were Gubru.

The humans and chims of this planet were not in for a pleasant time. The Gubru Clan had been among the worst of Earth’s tormentors since Contact. Nonetheless, the avian Ga-lactics were sticklers for rules. By their own interpretation of them, at least.

Megan had been disappointed when he turned down her offer of transportation to sanctuary. But Uthacalthing had his own ship. Anyway, he still had business to take care of here in town. He bid farewell to the Coordinator with a promise to see her soon.

“Soon” was such a wonderfully ambiguous word. One of many reasons he treasured Anglic was the wolfling tongue’s marvelous untidiness!

By moonlight Port Helenia felt even smaller and more forlorn than the tiny, threatened village it was by day. Winter might be mostly over, but a stiff breeze still blew from the east, sending leaves tumbling across the nearly empty streets as his driver took him back toward his chancery compound. The wind carried a moist odor, and Uthacalthing imagined he could smell the mountains where his daughter and Megan’s son had gone for refuge.

It was a decision that had not won the parents much thanks.

His car had to pass by the Branch Library again on its way to the Tymbrimi Embassy. The driver had to slow to go around another vehicle. Because of this Uthacalthing was treated to a rare sight — a high-caste Thennanin in full fury under the streetlights.

“Please stop here,” he said suddenly.

In front of the stone Library building a large floatercraft hummed quietly. Light poured out of its raised cupola, creating a dark bouquet of shadows on the broad steps. Five clearly were cast by neo-chimpanzees, their long arms exag- , gerated in the stretched silhouettes. Two even longer penum-bral shadows swept away from slender figures standing close to the floater. A pair of stoic, disciplined Ynnin — looking like tall, armored kangaroos — stood unmoving as if molded out of stone.

Their employer and patron, owner of the largest silhouette, towered above the little Terrans. Blocky and powerful, the creature’s wedgelike shoulders seemed to merge right into its bullet-shaped head. The latter was topped by a high, rippling crest, like that of a helmeted Greek warrior.

As Uthacalthing stepped out of his own car he heard a loud voice rich in guttural sibilants.

“Natha’kl ghoom’ph? Veraich’sch hooman’vlech! Nittaro K’Anglee!”

The chimpanzees shook their heads, confused and clearly intimidated. Obviously none of them spoke Galactic Six. Still, when the huge Thennanin started forward the little Earthlings moved to interpose themselves, bowing low, but adamant in their refusal to let him pass.

This only served to make the speaker angrier. “Idatess! Nittaril kollunta …”

The large Galactic stopped abruptly on seeing Uthacalthing. His leathery, beaklike mouth remained closed as he switched to Galactic Seven, speaking through his breathing slits.

“Ah! Uthacalthing, ab-Caltmour ab-Brma abKrallnith ul-Tytlal! I see you!”

Uthacalthing would have recognized Kault in a city choked with Thennanin. The big, pompous, high-caste male knew that protocol did not require use of full species names in casual encounters. But now Uthacalthing had no choice. He had to reply in kind.

“Kault, ab-Wortl ab-Kosh ab-Rosh ab-Tothtoon ul-Paimin ul-Rammin ul-Ynnin ul-Olumimin, I see you as well.”

Each “ab” in the lengthy patronymic told of one of the patron races from which the Thennanin clan was descended, back to the eldest still living. “Ul” preceded the name of each client species the Thennanin had themselves uplifted to starfaring sentience. Kault’s people had been very busy, the last megayear or so. They bragged incessantly of their long species name.

The Thennanin were idiots.

“Uthacalthing! You are adept in that garbage tongue the Earthlings use. Please explain to these ignorant, half-uplifted creatures that I wish to pass! I have need to use the Branch Library, and if they do not stand aside I shall be forced to have their masters chastise them!”

Uthacalthing shrugged the standard gesture of regretful inability to comply. “They are only doing their jobs, Envoy Kault. When the Library is fully occupied with matters of planetary defense, it is briefly allowable to restrict access solely to the lease owners.”

Kault stared unblinkingly at Uthacalthing. His breathing slits puffed. “Babes,” he muttered softly in an obscure dialect of Galactic Twelve — unaware perhaps that Uthacalthing understood. “Infants, ruled by unruly children, tutored by juvenile delinquents!”

Uthacalthing’s eyes separated and his tendrils pulsed with irony. They crafiedfsu’usturatu, which sympathizes, while laughing.

Damn good thing Thennanin have a rock’s sensitivity to empathy. Uthacalthing thought in Anglic as he hurriedly erased the glyph. Of the Galactic clans involved in the current spate of fanaticism, the Thennanin were less repulsive than most. Some of them actually believed they were acting in the best interests of those they conquered.

It was apparent whom Kault meant when he spoke of “delinquents” leading the clan of Earth astray. Uthacalthing was far from offended.

“These infants fly starships, Kault,” he answered in the same dialect, to the Thennanin’s obvious surprise. “The neo-chimpanzees may be the finest clients to appear in half a megayear… with the possible exception of their cousins, the neo-dolphins. Shall we not respect their earnest desire to do their duty?”

Kault’s crest went rigid at the mention of the other Earthling client race. “My Tymbrimi friend, did you mean to imply that you have heard more about the dolphin ship? Have they been found?”

Uthacalthing felt a little guilty for toying with Kault. All considered, he was not a bad sort. He came from a minority political faction among the Thennanin which had a few times even spoken for peace with the Tymbrimi. Nevertheless, Uthacalthing had reasons for wanting to pique his fellow diplomat’s interest, and he had prepared for an encounter like this.

“Perhaps I have said more than I should. Please think nothing more of it. Now I am saddened to say that I really must be going. I am late for a meeting. I wish you good fortune and survival in the days ahead, Kault.”

He bowed in the casual fashion of one patron to another and turned to go. But within, Uthacalthing was laughing. For he knew the real reason Kault was here at the Library. The Thennanin could only have come looking for him.

“Wait!” Kault called out in Anglic.

Uthacalthing looked back. “Yes, respected colleague?”

“I …-. .” Kault dropped back into GalSeven. “I must speak with you regarding the evacuation. You may have heard, my ship is in disrepair. I am at the moment bereft of transport.”

The Thennanin’s crest fluttered in discomfort. Protocol and diplomatic standing were one thing, but the fellow obviously would rather not be in town when the Gubru landed. “I must ask therefore. Will there be some opportunity to discuss the possibility of mutual aid?” The big creature said it in a rush.

Uthacalthing pretended to ponder the idea seriously. After all, his species and Kault’s were officially at war right now. He nodded at last. “Be at my compound about midnight tomorrow night — no later than a mictaar thereafter, mind you. And please bring only a minimum of baggage. My boat is small. With that understood, I gladly offer you a ride to sanctuary.”

He turned to his neo-chimp driver. “That would only be courteous and proper, would it not, corporal?”

The poor chimmie blinked up at Uthacalthing in confusion. She had been selected for this duty because she knew GalSeven. But that was a far cry from penetrating the arcana that were going on here.

“Y-yessir. It, it seems like the kind thing to do.”

Uthacalthing nodded, and smiled at Kault. “There you are, my dear colleague. Not merely correct, but kind. It is well when we elders learn from such wise precociousness, and add that quality to our own actions, is it not?”

For the first time, he saw the Thennanin blink. Turmoil radiated from the creature. At last though, relief won out over suspicion that he was being played for the fool. Kault bowed to Uthacalthing. And then, because Uthacalthing had included her in the conversation, he added a brief, shallow nod to the little chimmie.

“For my clientsss and myssselfff, I thank you,” he said awkwardly in Anglic. Kault snapped his elbow spikes, and his Ynnin clients followed him as he lumbered into the floater. The closing cupola cut off the sharp dome light at last. The chims from the Library looked at Uthacalthing gratefully.

The floater rose on its gravity cushion and moved off rapidly. Uthacalthing’s driver held the door of his own wheelcar for him, but he stretched his arms and inhaled deeply. “I am thinking that it might be a nice idea to go for a walk,” he told her. “The embassy is only a short distance from here. Why don’t you take a few hours off, corporal, and spend some time with your family and friends?”

“B-but ser …”

“I will be all right,” he said firmly. He bowed, and felt her rush of innocent joy at the simple courtesy. She bowed deeply in return.

Delightful creatures, Uthacalthing thought as he watched the car drive off. I have met a few neo-chimpanzees who even seem to have the glimmerings of a true sense of humor.

I do hope the species survives.

He started walking. Soon he had left the clamor of the Library behind him and passed into a residential neighborhood. The breeze had left the night air clear, and the city’s soft lights did not drive away the flickering stars. At this time the Galactic rim was a ragged spill of diamonds across the sky. There were no traces to be seen of the battle in space; it had been too small a skirmish to leave much visible residue.

All around Uthacalthing were sounds that told of the difference of this evening. There were distant sirens and the growl of aircraft passing overhead. On nearly every block he heard someone crying… voices, human or chim, shouting or murmuring in frustration and fear. On the fluttering level of empathy, waves beat up against one another in a froth of emotion. His corona could not deflect the inhabitants’ dread as they awaited morning.

Uthacalthing did not try to keep it out as he strolled up dimly lit streets lined with decorative trees. He dipped his tendrils into the churning emotional flux and drew forth above him a strange new glyph. It floated, nameless and terrible, Time’s ageless threat made momentarily palpable.

Uthacalthing smiled an ancient, special kind of smile. And at that moment nobody, not even in the darkness, could possibly have mistaken him for a human being.

There are many paths, … he thought, again savoring the open, undisciplined nuances of Anglic.

He left the thing he had made to hang in the air, dissolving slowly behind him, as he walked under the slowly wheeling pattern of the stars.

10 Robert

Robert awoke two hours before dawn.

There was a period of disorientation as the strange feelings and images of sleep slowly dissipated. He rubbed his eyes, trying to clear his head of muzzy, clouded confusion.

He had been running, he recalled. Running as one does sometimes but only in dreams — in long, floating steps that reach for leagues and seem barely to touch down. Around him had shifted and drifted vague shapes, mysteries, and half-born images that slipped out of reach even as his waking mind tried to recall them.

Robert looked over at Athaclena, lying nearby in her own sleeping bag. Her brown Tymbrimi ruff — that tapered helm of soft brown fur — was puffed out. The silvery tendrils of her corona waved delicately, as if probing and grappling with something invisible in the space overhead.

She sighed and spoke very low — a few short phrases in the rapid, highly syllabic Tymbrimi dialect of Galactic Seven.

Perhaps that explained his own strange dreams, Robert realized. He must have been picking up traces of hers!

Watching the waving tendrils, .he blinked. For just a moment it had seemed as if something was there, floating in the air just above the sleeping alien girl. It had been like… like …

Robert frowned, shaking his head. It hadn’t been like anything at all. The very act of trying to compare it to something else seemed to drive the thing away even as he thought about it.

Athaclena sighed and turned over. Her corona settled down. There were no more half glimmers in the dimness.

Robert slid out of his bag and fumbled for his boots before standing. He felt his way around the towering spine-stone beneath which they had made camp. There was barely enough starlight to find a path among the strange monoliths.

He came to a promontory looking over toward the westward mountain chain, and the northern plains to his right. Below this ridgetop vantage point there lay a gently rippling sea of dark woods. The trees filled the air with a damp, heavy aroma.

Resting his back against a spine-stone, he sat down on the ground to try to think.

If only the adventure were all there was to this trip. An idyllic interlude in the Mountains of Mulun in the company of an alien beauty. But there was no forgetting, no escaping the guilty sureness that he should not be here. He really ought to be with his classmates — with his militia unit — facing the troubles alongside them.

That was not to be, however. Once again, his mother’s career had interfered with his own life. It was not the first time Robert had wished he were not the son of a politician.

He watched the stars, sparkling in bright strokes that followed the meeting of two Galactic spiral arms.

Perhaps if I had known more adversity in my life, I might be better prepared for what’s to come. Better able to accept disappointment.

It wasn’t just that he was the son of the Planetary Coordinator, with all of the advantages that came with status. It went beyond that.

All through childhood he had noticed that where other boys had stumbled and suffered growing pains, he had always somehow had the knack of moving gracefully. Where most had groped their way in awkwardness and embarrassment toward adolescence and sexuality, he had slipped into pleasure and popularity with all the comfort and ease of putting on an old shoe.

His mother — and his starfarer father, whenever Sam Tennace sojourned on Garth — had always emphasized that he should watch the interactions of his peers, not simply let things happen and accept them as inevitable. And indeed, he began to see how, in every age group, there were a few like him — for whom growing up was easier somehow. They stepped lightly through the morass of adolescence while everyone else slogged, overjoyed to find an occasional patch of solid ground. And it seemed many of those lucky ones accepted their happy fate as if it were some sign of divine election. The same was true of the most popular girls. They had no empathy, no compassion for more normal kids.

In Robert’s case, he had never sought a reputation as a playboy. But one had come, over time, almost against his will. In his heart a secret fear had started to grow: a superstitition that he had confided in nobody. Did the universe balance all things? Did it take away to compensate for whatever it gave? The Cult of Ifni was supposed to be a starfarer’s joke. And yet sometimes things seemed so contrived!

It was silly to suppose that trials only hardened men, automatically making them wise. He knew many who were stupid, arrogant, and mean, in spite of having suffered.

Still …

Like many humans, he sometimes envied the handsome, flexible, self-sufficient Tymbrimi. A young race by Galactic standards, they were nevertheless old and galaxy-wise compared with Mankind. Humanity had discovered sanity, peace, and a science of mind only a generation before Contact. There were still plenty of kinks to be worked out of Terragens society. The Tymbrimi, in comparison, seemed to know themselves so well.

Is that the basic reason why I am attracted to Athaclena? Symbolically she is the elder, the more knowledgeable one. It gives me an opportunity to be awkward and stumble, and enjoy the role.

It was all so confusing, and Robert wasn’t even certain of his own feelings. He was having fun up here in the mountains with Athaclena, and that made him ashamed. He resented his mother bitterly for sending him, and felt guilty about that as well.

Oh, if only I’d been allowed to fight! Combat, at least, was straightforward and easy to understand. It was ancient, honorable, simple.

Robert looked up quickly. The’re, among the stars, a pinpoint had flared up to momentary brilliance. As he watched, two more sudden brightnesses burst forth, then another. The sharp, glowing sparks lasted long enough for him to note their positions.

The pattern was too regular to be an accident. . . twenty degree intervals above the equator, from the Sphinx all the way across to the’Batman, where the red planet Tloona shone in the middle of the ancient hero’s belt.

So, it has come. The destruction of the synchronous satellite network had been expected, but it was startling actually to witness it. Of course this meant actual landings would not be long delayed.

Robert felt a heaviness and hoped that not too many of his human and chim friends had died.

I never found out if I had what it takes when things really counted. Now maybe I never will.

He was resolved about one thing. He would do the job he had been assigned — escorting a noncombatant alien into the mountains and supposed safety. There was one duty he had to perform tonight, while Athaclena slept. As silently as he could, Robert returned to their backpacks. He pulled the radio set from his lower left pouch and began disassembling it in the dark.

He was halfway finished when another sudden brightening made him look up at the eastern sky. A bolide streaked flame across the glittering starfield, leaving glowing embers in its wake. Something was entering fast, burning as it penetrated the atmosphere.

The debris of war.

Robert stood up and watched the manmade meteor lay a fiery trail across the sky. It disappeared behind a range of hills not more than twenty kilometers away. Perhaps much closer.

“God keep you,” he whispered to the warriors whose ship it must have been.

He had no fear of blessing his enemies, for it was clear which side needed help tonight, and would for a long time to come.

11 Galactics

The Suzerain of Propriety moved about the bridge of the flagship in short skips and hops, enjoying the pleasure of pacing while Gubru and Kwackoo soldiery ducked out of the way.

It might be a long time before the Gubru high priest would enjoy such freedom of movement again. After the occupation force landed, the Suzerain would not be able to set foot on the “ground” for many miktaars. Not until propriety was assured and consolidation complete could it touch the soil of the planet that lay just ahead of the advancing armada.

The other two leaders of the invasion force — the Suzerain of Beam and Talon and the Suzerain of Cost and Caution — did not have to operate under such restrictions. That was all right. The military and the bureaucracy had their own functions. But to the Suzerain of Propriety was given the task of overseeing Appropriateness of Behavior for the Gubru expedition. And to do that the priest would have to remain perched.

Far across the command bridge, the Suzerain of Cost and Caution could be heard complaining. There had been unexpected losses in the furious little fight the humans had put up. Every ship put out of commission hurt the Gubru cause in these dangerous times.

Foolish, short-sighted carping, the Suzerain of Propriety thought. The physical damage done by the humans’ resistance had been far less significant than the ethical and legal harm. Because the brief fight had been so sharp and effective, it could not simply be ignored. It would have to be credited.

The Earth wolflings had recorded, in action, their opposition to the arrival of Gubru might. Unexpectedly, they had done it with meticulous attention to the Protocols of War.

That gesture of resistance by the tiny Earthling flotilla meant that the Suzerain would have to remain perched for at least the initial part of the occupation. It would have to find an excuse, now, the sort of casus belli that would let the Gubru proclaim to the Five Galaxies that the Earthlings’ lease on Garth was null and void.

Until that happened, the Rules of War applied, and in enforcing them, the Suzerain of Propriety knew there would be conflicts with the other two commanders. Its future lovers and competitors. Correct policy demanded tension among them, even if some of the laws the priest had to enforce struck it, deep down, as stupid.

The Suzerain fluttered its downy coat. It commanded one of its servitors, a fluffy, imperturbable Kwackoo, to bring a feather-blower and groomer.

12 Athaclena

That morning Athaclena could tell that something had happened the night before. But Robert said little in answer to her questions. His crude but effective empathy shield blocked her attempts at kenning.

Athaclena tried not to feel insulted. After all, her human friend had only just begun learning to use his modest talents. He could not know the many subtle ways an empath could use to show a desire for privacy. Robert only knew how to close the door completely.

Breakfast was quiet. When Robert spoke she answered in monosyllables. Logically, Athaclena could understand his guardedness, but then there was no rule that said she had to be outgoing, either.

Low clouds crested the ridgelines that morning, to be sliced by rows of serrated spine-stones. It made for an eerie, foreboding scene. They hiked through the tattered wisps of brumous fog in silence, gradually climbing higher in the foothills leading toward the Mountains of Mulun. The air was still and seemed to carry a vague tension Athaclena could not identify. It tugged at her mind, drawing forth unbeckoned memories.

She recalled a time when she had accompanied her mother into the northern mountains on Tymbrim — riding gurval-back up a trail only slightly wider than this one — to attend a Ceremony of Uplift for the Tytlal.

Uthacalthing had been away on a diplomatic mission, and nobody knew yet what type of transport her father would be able to use for his return trip. It was an all-important question, for if he was able to come all the way via A-level hyperspace and transfer points, he could return home in a hundred days or less. If forced to travel by D-level — or worse, normal space — Uthacalthing might be away for the rest of their natural lives.

The Diplomatic Service tried to inform its officers’ families as soon as these matters were clear, but on this occasion they had taken far too long. Athaclena and her mother had started to become public nuisances, throwing irksome anxiety shimmers all over their neighborhood. At that point it had been politely hinted that they ought to get out of the city for a while. The Service offered them tickets to go watch the representatives of the Tytlal undergo another rite of passage on the long path of Uplift.

Robert’s slick mind shield reminded her of Mathicluanna’s closely guarded pain during that slow ride into purple-frosted hills. Mother and daughter hardly spoke to each other at all as they passed through broad fallow parklands and at last arrived at the grassy plain of an ancient volcano caldera. There, near a solitary symmetrical hilltop, thousands of Tymbrimi had gathered near a swarm of brightly colored canopies to witness the Acceptance and Choice of the Tytlal.

Observers had come from many distinguished starfaring clans — Synthians, Kanten, Mrgh’4luargi — and of course a gaggle of cachinnatous humans. The Earthlings mixed with their Tymbrimi allies down near the refreshment tables, making a boisterous high time of it. She remembered her attitude then, upon seeing so many of the atrichic, bromopnean creatures. Was I really Such a snob? Athaclena wondered.

She had sniffed disdainfully at the noise the humans made with their loud, low laughter. Their strange, applanate stares were everywhere as they strutted about displaying their bulging muscles. Even their females looked like caricatures of Tymbrimi weightlifters.

Of course, Athaclena had barely embarked on adolescence back on that day. Now, on reflection, she recalled that her own people were just as enthusiastic and flamboyant as the humans, waving their hands intricately and sparking the air with brief, flashing glyphs. This was, after all, a great day. For the Tytlal were to “choose” their patrons, and their new Uplift Sponsors.

Various dignitaries rested under the bright canopies. Of course the immediate patrons of the Tymbrimi, the Caltmour, could not attend, being tragically extinct. But their colors and sigil were in view, in honor of those who had given the Tymbrimi the gift of sapience.

Those present were honored, however^ by a delegation of the chattering, stalk-legged Brma, who had uplifted the Caltmour long, long ago.

Athaclena remembered gasping, her corona crackling in surprise, when she saw that another shape curled under a dark brown covering, high upon the ceremonial mount. It was a Krallnith! The seniormost race in their patron-line had sent a representative! The Krallnith were nearly torpid by now, having given over most of their waning enthusiasm to strange forms of meditation. It was commonly assumed they would not be around many more epochs. It was an honor to have one of them attend, and offer its blessing to the latest members of their clan.

Of course, it was the Tytlal themselves who were the center of attention. Wearing short silvery robes, they nonetheless looked much like those Earth creatures known as otters. The Tytlal legatees fairly radiated pride as they prepared for their latest rite of Uplift.

“Look,” Athaclena’s mother had pointed. “The Tytlal have elected their muse-poet, Sustruk, to represent them. Do you recall meeting him, Athaclena?”

Naturally she remembered. It had been only the year before, when Sustruk visited their home back in the city. Uthacalthing had brought the Tytlal genius by to meet his wife and daughter, shortly before he was to leave on his latest mission.

“Sustruk’s poetry is simpleminded doggerel,” Athaclena muttered.

Mathicluanna looked at her sharply. Then her corona waved. The glyph she crafted was sh’cha’kuon, the dark mirror only your own mother knew how to hold up before you. Athaclena’s resentment reflected back at her, easily seen for what it was. She looked away, shamed.

It was, after all, unfair to blame the poor Tytlal for reminding her of her absent father.

The ceremony was indeed beautiful. A glyph-choir of Tymbrimi from the colony-world Juthtath performed “The Apotheosis of Lerensini,” and even the bare-pated humans stared in slack-jawed awe, obviously kenning some of the intricate, floating harmonies. Only the bluff, impenetrable Thennanin ambassadors seemed untouched, and they did not seem to mind at all being left out.

After that the Brma singer Kuff-KufFt crooned an ancient, atonal paean to the Progenitors.

One bad moment for Athaclena came when the hushed audience listened to a composition specially created for the occasion by one of the twelve Great Dreamers of Earth, the whale named Five Bubble Spirals. While whales were not officially sentient beings, that fact did not keep them from being honored treasures. That they dwelled on Earth, under the care of “wolfling” humans, was one more cause for resentment by some of the more conservative Galactic clans.

Athaclena recalled sitting down and covering her ears while everyone else swayed happily to the eerie cetacean music. To her it was worse than the sound of houses falling. Mathicluanna’s glance conveyed her worry. My strange daughter, what are we to do with you? At least Athaclena’s mother did not chide aloud or in glyph, embarrassing her in public.

At last, to Athaclena’s great relief, the entertainment ended. It was the turn of the Tytlal delegation, the time of Acceptance and Choice.

Led by Sustruk, their great poet, the delegation approached the supine Krallnith dignitary and bowed low. Then they made their allegiance to the Brma representatives, and afterward expressed polite submissiveness to the humans and other patron-class alien visitors.

The Tymbrimi Master of Uplift received obeisance last. Sustruk and his consort, a Tytlal scientist named Kihimik, stepped ahead of the rest of their delegation as the mated pair chosen above all others to be “race representatives.” Alternately, they replied as the Master of Uplift read a list of formal questions and solemnly noted their answers.

Then the pair came under the scrutiny of the Critics from the Galactic Uplift Institute.

Thus far it had been a perfunctory version of the Fourth Stage Test of Sentience. But now there was one more chance for the Tytlal to fail. One of the Galactics focusing sophisticated instruments on Sustruk and Kihimik, was a Soro… no friend of Athaclena’s clan. Possibly the Soro was looking for an excuse, any excuse, to embarrass the Tymbrimi by rejecting their clients.

Discreetly buried under the caldera was equipment that had cost Athaclena’s race plenty. Right now the scrutiny of the Tytlal was being cast all through the Five Galaxies. There was much to be proud of today, but also some potential for humiliation.

Of course Sustruk and Kihimik passed efasily. They bowed low to each of the alien examiners. If the Soro examiner was disappointed, she did not show it.

The delegation of furry, short-legged Tytlal ambled up to a cleared circle at the top of the hill. They began to sing, swaying together in that queer, loose-limbed manner so common among the creatures of their native planet, the fallow world where they had evolved into pre-sentience, where the Tymbrimi had found and adopted them for the long process of Uplift.

Technicians focused the amplifier which would display for all those assembled, and billions on other worlds, the choice the Tytlal had made. Underfoot, a deep rumbling told of powerful engines at work.

Theoretically, the creatures could even decide to reject their patrons and abandon Uplift altogether, though there were so many rules and qualifications that in practice it was almost never allowed. Anyway, nothing like that was expected on that day. The Tymbrimi had excellent relations with their clients.

Still, a dry, anxious rustling swept the crowd as the Rite of Acceptance approached completion. The swaying Tytlal moaned, and a low hum rose from the amplifier. Overhead a holographic image took shape, and the crowd roared with laughter and approval. It was the face of a Tymbrimi, of course, and one everyone recognized at once. Oshoyoythuna, Trickster of the City of Foyon, who had included several Tytlal as helpers in some of his most celebrated jests.

Of course the Tytlal had reaffirmed the Tymbrimi as their patrons, but choosing Oshoyoythuna as their symbol went far beyond that! It exclaimed the Tytlal’s pride in what it really meant to be part of their clan.

After the cheering and laughter died down, there remained only one part of the ceremony to finish, the selection of the Stage Consort, the species who would speak for the Tytlal during the next phase of their Uplift. The humans, in their strange tongue, called it the Uplift Midwife.

The Stage Consort had to be of a race outside of the Tymbrimi’s own clan. And while the position was mostly ceremonial, a Consort could legally intervene on the new client species’ behalf, if the Uplift process appeared to be in trouble. Wrong choices in the past had created terrible problems.

No one had any idea what race the Tytlal had chosen. It was one of those rare decisions that even the most meddlesome patrons, such as the Soro, had to leave to their charges.

Sustruk and Kihimik crooned once more, and even from her position at the back of the crowd Athaclena could sense a growing feeling of anticipation rising from the furry little clients. The little devils had cooked up something, that was certain!

Again, the ground shuddered, the amplifier murmured once more, and holographic projectors formed a blue cloudiness over the crest of the hill. In it there seemed to float murky shapes, flicking back and forth as if through backlit water.

Her corona offered no clue, for the image was strictly visual. She resented the humans their sharper eyesight as a shout of surprise rose from the area where most of the Earthlings had congregated. All around her, Tymbrimi were standing up and staring. She blinked. Then Athaclena and her mother joined the rest in amazed disbelief.

One of the murky figures flicked up to the foreground and stopped, grinning out at the audience, displaying a long, narrow grin of white, needle-sharp teeth. There was a glittering eye, and bubbles rose from its glistening gray brow.

The stunned silence lengthened. For in all of Ifhi’s starfield, nobody had expected the Tytlal to choose dolphins!

The visiting Galactics were stricken dumb. Neo-dolphins… why the seeond client race of Earth were the youngest acknowledged sapients in all five galaxies — much younger than the Tytlal themselves! This was unprecedented. It was astonishing.

It was…

It was hilarious! The Tymbrimi cheered. Their laughter rose, high and clear. As one, their coronae sparkled upward a single, coruscating glyph of approval so vivid that even the Thennanin Ambassador seemed to blink and take notice. Seeing that their allies weren’t offended, the humans joined in, hooting and slapping their hands together with intimidating energy.

Kihimik and most of the other assembled Tytlal bowed, accepting their patrons’ accolade. Good clients, it seemed they had worked hard to come up with a fine jest for this important day. Only Sustruk himself stood rigid at the rear, still quivering from the strain.

All around Athaclena crested waves of approval and joy. She heard her mother’s laughter, joining in with the others.

But Athaclena herself had backed away, edging out of the cheering crowd until there was room to turn and flee. In a full gheer flux, she ran and ran until she passed the caldera’s rim and could drop down the trail out of sight or sound. There, overlooking the beautiful Valley of Lingering Shadows, she collapsed to the ground while the waves of enzyme reaction shook her.

That horrible dolphin…

Never since that day had she confided in anyone what she had seen in the eye of the imaged cetacean. Not to her mother, nor even her father, had she ever told the truth… that she had sensed deep within that projected hologram a glyph, one rising from Sustruk himself, the poet of the Tytlal.

Those present thought it was all a grand jest, a magnificent blague. They thought they knew why the Tytlal had chosen the youngest race of Earth as their Stage Consort… to honor the clan with a grand and harmless joke. By choosing dolphins, they seemed to be saying that they needed no protector, that they loved and honored their Tymbrimi patrons without reservation. And by selecting the humans’ second clients, they also tweaked those stodgy old Galactic clans who so disapproved of the Tymbrimi’s friendship with wolf-lings. It was a fine gesture. Delicious.

Had Athaclena been the only one, then, to see the deeper truth? Had she imagined it? Many years later on a distant planet, Athaclena shivered as she recalled that day.

Had she been the only one to pick up Sustruk’s third harmonic of laughter and pain and confusion? The muse-poet died only days after that episode, and he took his secret with him to his grave.

Only Athaclena seemed to sense that the Ceremony had been no joke, after all, that Sustruk’s image had not come from his thoughts but out of Time! The Tytlal had, indeed, chosen their protectors, and the choice was in desperate earnest.

Now, only a few years later, the Five Galaxies had been sent into turmoil over certain discoveries made by a certain obscure client race, the youngest of them all. Dolphins.

Oh, Earthlings, she thought as she followed Robert higher into the Mountains of Mulun. What have you done? No, that was not the right question. What, oh what is it you are planning to become?

That afternoon the two wanderers encountered a steep field of plate ivy. A plain of glossy, wide-brimmed plants covered the southeastward slope of the ridge like green, overlapping scales on the flank of some great, slumbering beast. Their path to the mountains was blocked.

“I’ll bet you’re wondering how we’ll get across all this to the other side,” Robert asked.

“The slope looks treacherous,” Athaclena ventured. “And it stretches far in both directions. I suppose we’ll have to turn around.”

There was something in the fringes of Robert’s mind, though, that made that seem unlikely. “These are fascinating plants,” he said, squatting next to one of the plates — a shieldlike inverted bowl almost two meters across. He grabbed its edge and yanked backward hard. The plate stretched away from the tightly bound field until Athaclena could see a tough, springy root attached to its center. She moved closer to help him pull, wondering what he had in mind.

“The colony buds a new generation of these caps every few weeks, each layer overlapping the prior one,” Robert explained as he grunted and tugged the fibrous root taut.

“In late autumn the last layers of caps flower and becoijie wafer thin. They break off and catch the strong winter winds, sailing into the sky, millions of ’em. It’s quite a sight, believe me, all those rainbow-colored kites drifting under the clouds, even if it is a hazard to flyers.”

“They are seeds, then?” Athaclena asked.

“Well, spore carriers, actually. And most of the pods that litter the Sind in early winter are sterile. Seems the plate ivy used to rely on some pollinating creature that went extinct during the Bururalli Holocaust. Just one more problem for the ecological recovery teams to deal with.” -Robert shrugged. “Right now, though, in the springtime, these early caps are rigid and strong. It’ll take some doing to cut one free.”

Robert drew his knife and reached under to slice away at the taut fibers holding the cap down. The strips parted suddenly, releasing the tension and throwing Athaclena back with the bulky plate on top of her.

“Oops! I’m sorry, Clennie.” She felt Robert’s effort to suppress laughter as he helped her struggle out from under the heavy cap. Just like a bby… Athaclena thought.

“Are you okay?”

“I am fine,” she answered stiffly, and dusted herself off. Tipped over, the plate’s inner, concave side looked like a bowl with a thick, central stem of ragged, sticky strands.

“Good. Then why don’t you help me carry it over to that sandy bank, near the dropoff.”

The field of plate ivy stretched around the prominence of the ridge, surrounding it on three sides. Together they hefted the detached cap over to where the bumpy green slope began, laying it inner face up.

Robert set to work trimming the ragged interior of the plate. After a few minutes he stood back and examined his handiwork. “This should do.” He nudged the plate with his foot. “Your father wanted me to show you everything I could about Garth. In my opinion your education’d be truly lacking if I never taught you to ride plate ivy.”

Athaclena looked from the upended plate to the scree of slick caps. “Do you mean …” But Robert was already loading their gear into the upturned bowl. “You cannot be serious, Robert.”

He shrugged, looking up at her sidelong. “We can backtrack a mile or two and find a way around all this, if you like.”

“You aren’t joking.” Athacleana sighed. It was bad enough that her father and her friends back home thought her too timid. She could not refuse a dare offered by this human. “Very well, Robert, show me how it is done.”

Robert stepped into the plate and checked its balance. Then he motioned for her to join him. She climbed into the rocking thing and sat where Robert indicated, in front of him with her knees on either side of the central stump.

It was then, with her corona waving in nervous agitation, that it happened again. Athaclena sensed something that made her convulsively clutch the rubbery sides of the plate, setting it rocking.

“Hey! Watch it, will you? You almost tipped us over!”

Athaclena grabbed his arm while she scanned the valley below. All around her face a haze of tiny tendrils fluttered. “I kenn it again. It’s down there, Robert. Somewhere in the forest!”

’What? What’s down there?”

“The entity I kenned earlier! The thing that was neither man nor chimpanzee! It was a little like either, and yet different. And it reeks with Potential!”

Robert shaded his eyes. “Where? Can you point to it?”

Athaclena concentrated. She tried localizing the faint brush of emotions.

“It … it is gone,” she sighed at last.

Robert radiated nervousness. “Are you sure it wasn’t just a chim? There are lots of them up in these hills, seisin gatherers and conservation workers.”

Athaclena cast a palang glyph. Then, recalling that Robert wasn’t likely to notice the sparkling essence of frustration. She shrugged to indicate approximately the same nuance.

“No, Robert. I have met many neo-chimpanzees, remember? The being I sensed was different! I’d swear it wasn’t fully sapient, for one thing. And, there was a feeling of sadness, of submerged power. …”

Athaclena turned to Robert, suddenly excited. “Can it have been a ‘Garthling’? Oh, let’s hurry! We might be able to get closer!” She settled in around the center post and looked up at Robert expectantly.

“The famed Tymbrimi adaptability,” Robert sighed. “All of a sudden you’re anxious to go! And here I’d been hoping to impress and arouse you with a white-knuckler ride.”

Boys, she thought again, shaking her head vigorously. How can they think such things, even in jest?

“Stop joking and let’s be off!” she urged.

He settled into the plate behind her. Athaclena held on tightly to his knees. Her tendrils waved about his face, but Robert did not complain. “All right, here we go.”

His musty human aroma was close around her as he pushed off and the plate began to slip forward.

It all came back to Robert as their makeshift sled accelerated, skidding and bouncing over the slick, convex caps of plate ivy. Athaclena gripped his knees tightly, her laughter higher and more bell-like than a human girl’s. Robert, too, laughed and shouted, holding Athaclena as he leaned one way and then the other to steer the madly hopping sled.

Must’ve been eleven years old when I did this last.

Every jounce and leap made his heart pound. Not even an amusement park gravity ride was like this! Athaclena let out a squeak of exhilaration as they sailed free and landed again with a rubbery rebound. Her corona was a storm of silvery threads that seemed to crackle with excitement.

I only hope I remember how to control this thing right.

Maybe it was his rustiness. Or it might have been Athaclena’s presence, distracting him. But Robert was just a little late reacting when the near-oak stump — a remnant of the forest that had once grown on this slope — loomed suddenly in their path.

Athaclena laughed in delight as Robert leaned hard to the left, swerving their crude boat wildly. By the time she sensed his sudden change of mood their spin was already a tumble, out of control. Then their plate caught on something unseen. Impact swerved them savagely, sending the contents of the sled flying.

At that moment luck and Tymbrimi instincts were with Athaclena. Stress hormones surged and reflexes tucked her head down, rolling her into a ball. On impact her body made its own sled, bouncing and skidding atop the plates like a rubbery ball.

It all happened in a blur. Giants’ fists struck her, tossed her about. A great roar filled her ears and her corona blazed as she spun and fell, again and again.

Finally Athaclena tumbled to a halt, still curled up tight, just short of the forest on the valley floor. At first she could only lie there as the gheer enzymes made her pay the price for her quick reflexes. Breath came in long, shuddering gasps; her high and low kidneys throbbed, struggling with the sudden overload.

And there was pain. Athaclena had trouble localizing it. She seemed only to have picked up a few bruises and scrapes. So where… ?

Realization came in a rush as she uncurled and opened her eyes. The pain was coming from Robert! Her Earthling guide was broadcasting blinding surges of agony!

She got up gingerly, still dizzy from reaction, and shaded her eyes to look around the bright hillside. The human wasn’t in sight, so she sought him with her corona. The searing painflood led her stumbling awkwardly over the glossy plates to a point not far from the upended sled.

Robert’s legs kicked weakly from under a layer of broad plate ivy caps. An effort to back out culminated in a low, muffled moan. A sparkling shower of hot agones seemed to home right in on Athaclena’s corona.

She knelt beside him. “Robert! Are you caught on something? Can you breathe?”

What foolishness, she realized, asking multiple questions when she could tell the human was barely even conscious!

I must do something. Athaclena drew her jack-laser from her boot top and attacked the plate ivy, starting well away from Robert, slicing stems and grunting as she heaved aside the caps, one at a time.

Knotty, musky vines remained tangled around the human’s head and arms, pinning him to the thicket. “Robert, I’m going to cut near your head. Don’t move!”

Robert groaned something indecipherable. His right arm was badly twisted, and so much distilled ache fizzed around him that she had to withdraw her corona to keep from fainting from the overload. Aliens weren’t supposed to commune this strongly with Tymbrimi! At least she had never believed it possible before this.

Robert gasped as she heaved the last shriveled cap away from his face. His eyes were closed, and his mouth moved as if he were silently talking to himself. What is he doing now?

She felt the overtones of some obviously human rite-of-discipline. It had something to do with numbers and counting. Perhaps it was that “self-hypnosis” technique all humans were taught in school. Though primitive, it seemed to be doing Robert some good.

“I’m going to cut away the roots binding your arm now,” she told him.

He jerked his head in a nod. “Hurry, Clennie. I’ve… I’ve never had to block this much pain before. …” He let out a shivering sigh as the last rootlet parted. His arm sprang free, floppy and broken.

What now? Athaclena worried. It was always hazardous to interfere with an injured member of an alien race. Lack of training was only part of the-problem. One’s most basic succoring instincts might be entirely wrong for helping someone of another species.

Athaclena grabbed a handful of coronal tendrils and twisted them in indecision. Some things have to be universal!

Make sure the victim keeps breathing. That she had done automatically.

Try to stop leaks of bodily fluids. All she had to go on were some old, pre-Contact “movies” she and her father had watched on the journey to Garth — dealing with ancient Earth creatures called cops and robbers. According to those films, Robert’s wounds might be called “only scratches.” But she suspected those ancient story-records weren’t particularly strong on realism.

Oh, if only humans weren’t so frail!

Athaclena rushed to Robert’s backpack, seeking the radio in the lower side pouch. Aid could arrive from Port Helenia in less than an hour, and rescue officials could tell her what to do in the meantime.

The radio was simple, of Tymbrimi design, but nothing happened when she touched the power switch.

No. It has to work! She stabbed it again. But the indicator stayed blank.

Athaclena popped the back cover. The transmitter crystal had been removed. She blinked in consternation. How could this be?

They were cut off from help. She was completely on her own.

“Robert,” she said as she knelt by him again. “You must guide me. I cannot help you unless you tell me what to do!”

The human still counted from one to ten, over and over. She had to repeat herself until, at last, his eyes came into focus. “I … I think my arm’s b- busted, Clennie. …” He gasped. “Help get me out of the sun… then, use drugs. …”

His presence seemed to fade away, and his eyes rolled up as unconsciousness overcame him. Athaclena did not approve of a nervous system that overloaded with pain, leaving its owner unable to help himself. It wasn’t Robert’s fault. He was brave, but his brain had shorted out.

There was one advantage, of course. Fainting damped down his broadcast agony. That made it easier for her to drag him backward over the spongy, uneven field of plate ivy, attempting all the while not to shake his broken right arm unduly.

Big-boned, huge-thewed, overmuscled human! She cast a glyph of great pungency as she pulled his heavy body all the way to the shady edge of the forest.

Athaclena retrieved their backpacks and quickly found Robert’s first aid kit. There was a tincture she had seen him use only two days before, when he had caught his finger on a wood sliver. This she slathered liberally over his lacerations.

Robert moaned and shifted a little. She could feel his mind struggle upward against the pain. Soon, half automatically, he was mumbling numbers to himself once again.

Her lips moved as she read the Anglic instructions on a container of “flesh foam,” then she applied the sprayer onto his cuts, sealing them under a medicinal layer.

That left the arm — and the agony. Robert had mentioned drugs. But which drugs?

There were many little ampules, clearly labeled in both Anglic and GalSeven. But directions were sparse. There was no provision for a non-Terran having to treat a human without benefit of advice.

She used logic. Emergency medicines would be packaged in gas ampules for easy, quick administration. Athaclena pulled out three likely looking glassine cylinders. She bent forward “until the silvery strands of her corona fell around Robert’s face, bringing close his human aroma — musty and in this case so very male. “Robert,” she whispered carefully in Anglic. “I know you can hear me. Rise within yourself! I need your wisdom out in the here-and-now.”

Apparently she was only distracting him from his rite-of-discipline, for she sensed the pain increase. Robert grimaced and counted out loud.

Tymbrimi do not curse as humans do. A purist would say they make “stylistic statements of record” instead. But at times like this few would be able to tell the difference. Athaclena muttered caustically in her native tongue.

Clearly Robert was not an adept, even at this crude “self-hypnosis” technique. His pain pummeled the fringes of her mind, and Athaclena let out a small trill, like a sigh. She was unaccustomed to having to keep out such an assault. The fluttering of her eyelids blurred vision as would a human’s tears.

There was only one way, and it meant exposing herself more than she was accustomed, even with her family. The prospect was daunting, but there didn’t seem to be any choice. In order to get through to him at all, she had to get a lot closer than this.

“I … I am here, Robert. Share it with me.”

She opened up to the narrow flood of sharp, discrete agones — so un-Tymbrimi, and yet so eerily familiar, almost as if they were recognizable somehow. The quanta of agony dripped to an uneven pump beat. They were little hot, searing balls — lumps of molten metal.

…lumps of metal…?

The weirdness almost startled Athaclena out of contact. She had never before experienced a metaphor so vividly. It was more than just a comparison, stronger than saying that one thing was like another. For a moment, the agones had been glowing iron globs that burned to touch…

To be human is strange indeed.

Athaclena tried to ignore the imagery. She moved toward the agone nexus until a barrier stopped her. Another metaphor? This time, it was a swiftly flowing stream cf pain — a river that lay across her path.

What she needed was an usunltlan, a protection field to carry her up the flood to its source. But how did one shape the mind-stuff of a human!

Even as she wondered, drifting smoke-images seemed to fall together around her. Mist patterns flowed, solidified, became a shape. Athaclena suddenly found she could visualize herself standing in a small boat! And in her hands she held an oar.

Was this how usunltlan manifested in a human’s mind? As a metaphor?

Amazed, she began to row upstream, into the stinging maelstrom.

Forms floated by, crowding and jostling in the fog surrounding her. Now one blur drifted past as a distorted face. Next, some bizarre animal figure snarled at her. Most of the grotesque things she glimpsed could never have existed in any real universe.

Unaccustomed to visualizing the networks of a mind, it took Athaclena some moments to realize that the shapes represented memories, conflicts, emotions.

So many emotions! Athaclena felt an urge to flee. One might go mad in this place!

It was Tymbrimi curiosity that made her stay. That and duty.

This is so strange, she thought as she rowed through the metaphorical swamp. Half blinded by drifting drops of pain, she stared in wonderment. Oh, to be a true telepath and know, instead of having to guess, what all these symbols meant.

There were easily as many drives as in a Tymbrimi mind. Some of the strange images and sensations struck her as familiar. Perhaps they harkened back to times before her race or Robert’s learned speech — her own people by Uplift and humans doing it the hard way — back when two tribes of clever animals lived very similar lives in the wild, on far separated worlds.

It was most odd seeing with two pairs of eyes at once. There was the set that looked in amazement about the metaphorical realm and her real pair which saw Robert’s face inches from her own, under the canopy of her corona.

The human blinked rapidly. He had stopped counting in his confusion. She, at least, understood some of what was happening. But Robert was feeling something truly bizarre. A word came to her: déjà vu… quick half-rememberings of things at once both new and old.

Athaclena concentrated and crafted a delicate glyph, a fluttering beacon to beat in resonance with his deepest brain harmonic. Robert gasped and she felt him reach out after it.

His metaphorical self took shape alongside her in the little boat, holding another oar. It seemed to be the way of things, at this level, that he did not even ask how he came to be there.

Together they cast off through the flood of pain, the torrent from his broken arm. They had to row through a swirling cloud of agones, which struck and bit at them like swarms of vampire bugs. There were obstacles, snags, and eddies where strange voices muttered sullenly out of dark depths.

Finally they came to a pool, the center of the problem. At its bottom lay the gestalt image of an iron grating set in a stony floor. Horrible debris obstructed the drain.

Robert quailed back in alarm. Athaclena knew these had to be emotion-laden memories — their fearsomeness given shape in teeth and claws and bloated^-awful faces. How could humans let such clutter accumulate? She was dazed and more than a little frightened by the ugly, animate wreckage.

“They’re called neuroses,” spoke Robert’s inner voice. He knew what they were “looking” at and was fighting a terror far worse than hers. “I’d forgotten so inany of these things! I had no idea they were still here.”

Robert stared at his enemies below — and Athaclena saw that many of the faces below were warped, angry versions of his own.

“This is my job now, Clennie. We learned long before Contact that there is only one way to deal with a mess like this. Truth is the only weapon that works:”

The boat rocked as Robert’s metaphoric self turned and dove into the molten pool of pain.

Robert!

Froth rose. The tiny craft began to buck and heave, forcing her to hold tightly to the rim of the strange usunltlan. Bright, awful hurt sprayed on all sides. And down near the grating a terrific struggle was taking place.

In the outer world, Robert’s face ran streams of perspiration. Athaclena wondered how much more of this he could take.

Hesitantly, she sent her image-hand down into the pool. Direct contact burned, but she pushed on, reaching for the grating.

Something grabbed her hand! She yanked back but the grip held. An awful thing wearing a horrid version of Robert’s face leered up at her with an expression twisted almost out of recognition by some warped lust. The thing pulled hard, trying to drag her into the noisome pool. Athaclena screamed.

Another shape streaked in to grapple with her assailant. The scaly hold on her arm released and she fell back into the boat. Then the little craft started speeding away! All around her the lake of pain flowed toward the drain. But her boat moved rapidly the other way, upstream against the flow.

Robert is pushing me out, she realized. Contact narrowed, then broke. The metaphorical images ceased abruptly. Athaclena blinked rapidly, in a daze. She knelt on the soft ground. Robert held her hand, breathing through clenched teeth.

“Had to stop you, Clennie… That was dangerous for you. …”

“But you are in such pain!”

He shook his head. “You showed me where the block was. I … I can take care of that neurotic garbage now that I know it’s there … at least well enough for now. And… and have I told you yet that a guy wouldn’t have any trouble at all falling in love with you?”

Athaclena sat up abruptly, amazed at the non sequitur. She held up the three gas ampules. “Robert, you must tell me which of these drugs will ease the pain, yet leave you conscious enough to help me!”

He squinted. “The blue one. Snap it under my nose, but don’t breathe any yourself! No … no telling what para-endorphins would do to you.”

When Athaclena broke the ampule a small, dense cloud of vapor spilled out. About half went in with Robert’s next breath. The rest quickly dispersed.

With a deep, shuddering sigh, Robert’s body seemed to uncoil. He looked up at her again with a new light in his eyes. “I don’t know if I could have maintained consciousness much longer. But it was almost worth it… sharing my mind with you.”

In his aura it seemed that a simple but elegant version of zunour’thzun danced. Athaclena was momentarily taken aback.

“You are a very strange creature, Robert. I…”

She paused. The zunour’thzun … it was gone now, but she had not imagined kenning that glyph. How could Robert have learned to make it?

Athaclena nodded and smiled. The human mannerisms came easily, as if imprinted.

“I was just thinking the same thing, Robert. I… I, too, found it worthwhile.”

13 Fiben

Just above a cliff face, near the rim of a narrow mesa, dust still rose in plumes where some recent crashing force had torn a long, ugly furrow in the ground. A dagger-shaped stretch of forest had been shattered in a few violent seconds by a plunging thing that roared and skipped and struck again — sending earth and vegetation spraying in all directions — before finally coming to rest just short of the sheer precipice.

It had happened at night. Not far away, other pieces of even hotter sky-debris had cracked stone and set fires, but here the impact had been only a glancing blow.

Long minutes after the explosive noise of collision ebbed there remained other disturbances. Landslides rattled down the nearby cliff, and trees near the tortured path creaked and swayed. At the end of the furrow, the dark object that had wreaked this havoc emitted crackling, snapping sounds as superheated metal met a cool fog sweeping up from the valley below.

At last things settled down and began returning to normal. Native animals nosed out into the open again. A few even approached, sniffed the hot thing in distaste, then moved on about the more serious business of living one more day.

It had been a bad landing. Within the escape pod, the pilot did not stir. That night and another day passed without any sign of motion.

At last, with, a cough and a low groan, Fiben awoke. “Where… ? What… ?” he croaked.

His first organized thought was to notice that he had just spoken Anglic. That’s good, he considered, numbly. No brain damage, then.

A neo-chimpanzee’s ability to use language was his crucial possession, and far too easily lost. Speech aphasia was a good way to get reassessed — maybe even registered as a genetic probationer.

Of course samples of Fiben’s plasm had already been sent to Earth and it was probably too late to recall them, so did it really matter if he were reassessed? He had never really cared what color his procreation card was, anyway.

Or, at least, he didn’t care any more than the average chim did.

Oh, so we’re getting philosophical, now? Delaying the inevitable? No dithering, Fiben old chim. Move! Open your eyes. Grope yourself. Make sure everything’s still attached.

Wryly put, but less easily done. Fiben groaned as he tried to lift his head. He was so dehydrated that separating his eyelids felt like prying apart a set of rusty drawers.

At last he managed to squint. He saw that the clearshield of the pod was cracked and streaked with soot. Thick layers of dirt and seared vegetation had been speckled, sometime since the crash, by droplets of light rain.

Fiben discovered one of the reasons for his disorientation — the capsule was canted more than fifty degrees. He fumbled with the seat’s straps until they released, letting him slump against the armrest. He gathered a little strength, then pounded on the jammed hatch, muttering hoarse curses until the catch finally gave way in a rain of leaves and small pebbles.

Several minutes of dry sneezing ensued, finishing with. him draped over the hatch rim, breathing hard.

Fiben gritted his teeth. “Come on,” he muttered subvo-cally. “Let’s get outta here!” He heaved himself up. Ignoring the uncomfortable warmth of the outer shell and the screaming of his own bruises, he squirmed desperately through the opening, turning and reaching for a foothold outside. He felt dirt, blessed ground. But when he let go of the hatch his left ankle refused to support him. He toppled over and landed with a painful thump.

“Ow!” Fiben said aloud. He reached underneath and pulled forth a sharp stick that had pierced his ship briefs. He glared at it before throwing it aside, then sagged back upon the mound of debris surrounding the pod.

Ahead of him, about twenty feet away, dawn’s light showed the edge of a steep dropoff. The sound of rushing water rose from far below. Uh, he thought in bemused wonder at his near demise. Another few meters and I wouldn’t’ve been so thirsty right now.

With the rising sun the mountainside across the valley became clearer, revealing smoky, scorched trails where larger pieces of space-junk had come down. So much for old Proconsul, Fiben thought. Seven thousand years of loyal service to half a hundred big-time Galactic races, only to be splattered all over a minor planet by one Fiben Bolger, client of wolflings, semi-skilled militia pilot. What an undignified end for a gallant old warrior.

But he had outlived the scoutboat after all. By a little while at least.

Someone once said that one measure of sentience was how much energy a sophont spent on matters other than survival. Fiben’s body felt like a slab of half-broiled meat, yet he found the strength to grin. He had fallen a couple million miles and might yet live to someday tell some smart-aleck, two-generations-further-uplifted grandkids all about it.

He patted the scorched ground beside him and laughed in a voice dry with thirst.

“Beat that, Tarzan!”

14 Uthacalthing

“…We are here as friends of Galactic Tradition, protectors of propriety and honor, enforcers of the will of the ancient ones who founded the Way of Things so long ago…”

Uthacalthing was not very strong in Galactic Three, so he used his portable secretary to record the Gubru Invasion Manifesto for later study. He listened with only half an ear while going about completing the rest of his preparations.

…with only half an ear… His corona chirped a spark of amusement when he realized he had used the phrase in his thoughts. The human metaphor actually made his own ears itch!

The chims nearby had their receivers tuned to the Anglic translation, also being broadcast from the Gubru ships. It was an “unofficial” version of the manifesto, since Anglic was considered only a wolfling tongue, unsuitable for diplomacy.

Uthacalthing crafted iyuth’tsaka, the approximate equivalent of a nose-thumb and raspberry, at the invaders. One of his neo-chimpanzee assistants looked up at him with a puzzled expression. The chim must have some latent psi ability, he realized. The other three hairy clients crouched under a nearby tree listening to the doctrine of the invading armada.

“…in accordance with protocol and all of the Rules of War, a rescript has been delivered to Earth explaining our grievances and our demands for redress…”

Uthacalthing set one last seal into place over the hatch of the Diplomatic Cache. The pyramidal structure stood on a bluff overlooking the Sea of Cilmar, just southwest of the other buildings of the Tymbrimi Embassy. Out over the ocean all seemed fair and springlike. Even today small fishing boats cruised out on the placid waters, as if the sky held nothing unfriendlier than the dappled clouds.

In the other direction, though, past a small grove of Thula great-grass, transplanted from his homeworld, Uthacal-thing’s chancery and official quarters lay empty and abandoned.

Strictly speaking, he could have remained at his post. But Uthacalthing had no wish to trust the invaders’ word that they were still following all of the Rules of War. The Gubru were renowned for interpreting tradition to suit themselves.

Anyway, he had made plans.

Uthacalthing finished the seal and stepped back from the Diplomatic Cache. Offset from the Embassy itself, sealed and warded, it was protected by millions of years of precedent. The chancery and other embassy buildings might be fair game, but the invader would be hard-pressed to come up with a satisfactory excuse for breaking into this sacrosanct depository.

Still, Uthacalthing smiled. He had confidence in the Gubru.

When he had backed away about ten meters he concentrated and crafted a simple glyph, then cast it toward the top of the pyramid where a small blue globe spun silently. The warder brightened at once and let out an audible hum. Uthacalthing then turned and approached the waiting chims.

“…list as our first grievance that the Earthlings’ client race, formally known as Tursiops amicus, or ‘neo-dolphin,’ has made a discovery which they do not share. It is said that this discovery portends major consequences to Galactic Society.

The Clan of Gooksyu-Gubru, as a protector of tradition and the inheritance of the Progenitors, will not be excluded! It is our legitimate right to take hostages to force those half-formed water creatures and their wolfling masters to divulge their hoarded information…”

A small corner of Uthacalthing’s thoughts wondered just what the humans’ other client race had discovered out there beyond the Galactic disk. He sighed wistfully. The way things worked in the Five Galaxies, he would have to take a long voyage through D-level hyperspace and emerge a million years from now to find out the entire story. By then, of course, it would be ancient history.

In fact, exactly what Streaker had done to trigger the present crisis hardly mattered, really. The Tymbrimi Grand Council had calculated that an explosion of some sort was due within a few centuries anyway. The Earthlings had just managed to set it off a bit early. That was all.

Set it off early… Uthacalthing hunted for the right metaphor. It was as if a child had escaped from a cradle, crawled straight into a den of Vl’Korg beasts, and slapped the queen right in the snout!

“…second grievance, and the precipitate cause for our ennomic intervention here, is our strong suspicion that Uplift irregularities are taking place on -the planet Garth!

“In our possession is evidence that the semi-sentient client species known as ‘neo-chimpanzee’ is being given improper guidance, and is not being properly served by either its human patrons or its Tymbrimi consorts…”

The Tymbrimi? Improper consorts? Oh, you arrogant avians shall pay for that insult, Uthacalthing vowed.

The chims hurried to their feet and bowed low when he approached. Syulff-kuonn glimmered briefly at the tips of his corona as he returned the gesture.

“I wish to have certain messages delivered. Will you serve me?”

They all nodded. The chims were obviously uncomfortable with each other, coming as they did from such different social strata.

One was dressed proudly in the uniform of a militia officer. Two others wore bright civilian clothes. The last and most shabbily dressed chim bore a kind of breast panel-display with an array of keys on both sides, which let the poor creature perform a semblance of speech. This one stood a little behind and apart from the others and barely lifted his gaze from the ground.

“We are at your service,” said the clean-cut young lieutenant, snapping to attention. He seemed completely aloof to the sour glances the gaudily clad civilians cast his way.

“That is good, my young friend.” Uthacalthing grasped the chim’s shoulder and held out a small black cube. “Please deliver this to Planetary Coordinator Oneagle, with my compliments. Tell her that I had to delay my own departure to Sanctuary, but I hope to see her soon.”

I am not really lying, Uthacalthing reminded himself. Bless Anglic and its lovely ambiguity!

The chim lieutenant took the cube and bowed again at precisely the correct angle for showing bipedal respect to a senior patron ally. Without even looking at the others, he took off at a run toward his courier bike.

One of the civilians, apparently thinking Uthacalthing would not overhear, whispered to his brightly clad colleague. “I hope th’ blue-card pom skids on a mud puddle an’ gets his shiny uniform all wet.”

Uthacalthing pretended not to notice. It sometimes paid to let others believe Tymbrimi hearing was as bad as their eyesight.

“These are for you,” he told the two in the flashy clothes, and he tossed each of them a small bag. The money inside was GalCoin, untraceable and unquestionable through war and turmoil, for it was backed by the contents of the Great Library itself.

The two chims bowed to Uthacalthing, trying to imitate the officer’s precision. He had to suppress a delighted laugh, for he sensed their foci — each chim’s center of consciousness — had gathered in the hand holding the purse, excluding nearly all else from the world.

“Go then, and spend it as you will. I thank you for your past services.”

The two members of Port Helenia’s small criminal underworld spun about and dashed off through the grove. Borrowing another human metaphor, they had been “his eyes and ears” since he had arrived here. No doubt they considered their work completed now.

And thank you for what you are about to do, Uthacalthing thought after them. He knew this particular band of probationers well. They would spend his money well and gain an appetite for more. In a few days, there would be only one source of such coin.

They would have new employers soon, Uthacalthing was sure.

“… have come as friends and protectors of pre-sentient peoples, to see that they are given proper guidance and membership in a dignified clan…”

Only one chim remained, trying to stand as straight as he could. But the poor creature could not help shifting his weight nervously, grinning anxiously.

“And what — ” Uthacalthing stopped abruptly. His tendrils waved and he turned to look out over the sea.

A streak of light appeared from the headland across the bay, spearing up and eastward into the sky. Uthacalthing shaded his eyes, but he did not waste time envying Earthling vision. The glowing ember climbed into the clouds, leaving a kind of trail that only he could detect. It was a shimmering of joyful departure that surged and then faded in a few brief seconds, unraveling with the faint, white contrail.

Oth’thushutn, his aide, secretary, and friend, was flying their ship out through the heart of the battle fleet surrounding Garth. And who could tell? Their Tymbrimi-made craft was specially built. He even might get through.

That was not Oth’thushutn’s job, of course. His task was merely to make the attempt.

Uthacalthing reached forth in kenning. Yes, something did ride down that burst of light. A sparkling legacy. He drew in Oth’thushtn’s final glyph and stored it in a cherished place, should he ever make it home to tell the brave Tym’s loved ones.

Now there were only two Tymbrimi on Garth, and Athaclena was as safe as could be provided for. It was time for Uthacalthing to see to his own fate.

“. . .to rescue these innocent creatures from the warped Uprearing they are receiving at the hands of wolflings and criminals…”

He turned back to the little chim, his last helper. “And what about you, Jo-Jo? Do you want a task, as well?”

Jo-Jo fumbled with the keys of his panel display.

YES, PLEASE

HELP YOU IS ALL I ASK

Uthacalthing smiled. He had to hurry off and meet Kault. By now the Thennanin Ambassador would be nearly frantic, pacing beside Uthacalthing’s pinnace. But the fellow could just wait a few moments more.

“Yes,” he told Jo-Jo. “I think there is something you can do for me. Do you think you can keep a secret?”

The little genetic reject nodded vigorously, his soft brown eyes filled with earnest devotion. Uthacalthing had spent a lot of time with Jo-Jo, teaching him things the schools here on Garth had never bothered to try — wilderness survival skills and how to pilot a simple flitter, for instance. Jo-Jo was not the pride of neo-chimp Uplift, but he had a great heart,

and more than enough of a certain type of cunning that Uthacalthing appreciated.

“Do you see that blue light, atop the cairn, Jo-Jo?”

JO-JO REMEMBERS,

the chim keyed.

JO-JO REMEMBERS ALL YOU SAID.

“Good.” Uthacalthing nodded. “I knew you would. I shall count on you, my dear little friend.” He smiled, and Jo-Jo grinned back, eagerly.

Meanwhile, the computer-generated voice from space droned on, completing the Manifesto of Invasion.

“… and give them over for adoption by some appropriate elder clan — one that will not lead them into improper behavior…”

Wordy birds, Uthacalthing thought. Silly things, really.

“We’ll show them some ‘improper behavior,’ won’t we, Jo-Jo?”

The little chim nodded nervously. He grinned, even though he did not entirely understand.

15 Athaclena

That night their tiny campfire cast yellow and orange flickerings against the trunks of the near-oaks.

“I was so hungry, even vac-pac stew tasted delicious,” Robert sighed as he put aside his bowl and spoon. “I’d planned to make us a meal of baked plate ivy roots, but I don’t guess either of us will have much appetite fpr that delicacy soon.”

Athaclena felt she understood Robert’s tendency to make irrelevant remarks like these. Tymbrimi and Terran both had ways of making light of disaster — part of the unusual pattern of similarity between the two species.

She had eaten sparingly herself. Her body had nearly purged the peptides left over from the gheer reaction, but she still felt a little sore after this afternoon’s adventure.

Overhead a dark band of Galactic dust clouds spanned fully twenty percent of the sky, outlined by bright hydrogen nebulae. Athaclena watched the starry vault, her corona only slightly puffed out above her ears. From the forest she felt the tiny, anxious emotions of little native creatures.

“Robert?”

“Hmmm? Yes, Clennie?”

“Robert, why did you remove the crystals from our radio?”

After a pause, his voice was serious, subdued. “I’d hoped not to have to tell you for a few days, Athaclena. But last night I saw the communication satellites being destroyed. That could only mean the Galactics have arrived, as our parents expected.

“The radio’s crystals can be picked up by shipborne resonance detectors, even when they aren’t powered. I took ours out so there’d be no chance of being found that way. It’s standard doctrine.”

Athaclena felt a tremor at the tip of her ruff, just above her nose, that shivered over her scalp and down her back. So, it has begun.

Part of her longed to be with her father. It still hurt that he had sent her away rather than allow her to stay at his side where she could help him.

The silence stretched. She kenned Robert’s nervousness. Twice, he seemed about to speak, then stopped, thinking better of it. Finally, she nodded. “I agree with your logic in removing the crystals, Robert. I even think I understand the protective impulse that made you refrain from telling me about it. You should not do that again, though. It was foolish.”

Robert agreed, seriously. “I won’t, Athaclena.”

They lay in silence for a while, until Robert reached over with his good hand and touched hers. “Clennie, I … I want you to know I’m grateful. You saved my life—”

“Robert,” she sighed tiredly.

“—but it goes beyond that. When you came into my mind you showed me things about myself… things I’d never known before. That’s an important favor. You can read all about it in textbooks, if you want. Self-deception and neuroses are two particularly insidious human plagues.”

“They are not unique to humans, Robert.”

“No, I guess not. What you saw in my mind was probably nothing by pre-Contact standards. But given our history, well, even the sanest of us needs reminding from time to time.”

Athaclena had no idea what to say, so she remained silent. To have lived in Humanity’s awful dark ages must have been frightening indeed.

Robert cleared his throat. “What I’m trying to say is that I know how far you’ve gone to adapt yourself — learning human expressions, making little changes in your physiology …”

“An experiment.” She shrugged, another human mannerism. She suddenly realized that her face felt warm. Capillaries were opening in that human reaction she had thought so quaint. She was blushing!

“Yeah, an experiment. But by rights it ought to go both ways, Clennie. Tymbrimi are renowned around the Five Galsbaes for their adaptability. But we humans are capable of learning a thing or two, also.”

She looked up. “What do you mean, Robert?”

“I mean that I’d like you to show me some more about Tymbrimi ways. Your customs. I want to know what your landsmen do that’s equivalent to an amazed stare, or a nod, or a grin.”

Again, there was a flicker. Athaclena’s corona reached, but the delicate, simple, ghostly glyph he had formed vanished like smoke. Perhaps he was not even aware he had crafted it.

“Um,” she said, blinking and shaking her head. “I cannot be sure, Robert. But I think perhaps youhave already begun.”

Robert was stiff and feverish when they struck camp the next morning. He could only take so much anesthetic for his fractured arm and remain able to walk.

Athaclena stashed most of his gear in the notch of a gum beech tree and cut slashes in the bark to mark the site.

Actually, she doubted anyone would ever be back to reclaim it. “We must get you to a physician,” she said, feeling his brow. His raised temperature clearly was not a good sign.

Robert indicated a narrow slot between the mountains to the south. “Over that way, two days march, there’s the Mendoza Freehold. Mrs. Mendoza was a nurse practitioner before she married Juan and took up farming.”

Athaclena looked uncertainly at the pass. They would have to climb nearly a thousand meters to get over it.

“Robert, are you sure this is the best route? I’m certain I have intermittently sensed sophonts emoting from much nearer, over that line of hills to the east.”

Robert leaned on his makeshift staff and began moving up the southward trail. “Come on, Clennie,” he said over his shoulder. “I know you want to meet a Garthling, but now’s hardly the time. We can go hunting for native pre-sentients after I’ve been patched up.”

Athaclena stared after him, astonished by the illogic of his remark. She caught up with him. “Robert, that was a strange thing to say! How could I think of seeking out native creatures, no matter how mysterious, until you were tended! The sophonts I have felt to the east were clearly humans and chimps, although I admit there was a strange, added element, almost like …”

“Aha!” Robert smiled, as if she had made a confession. He walked on.

Amazed, Athaclena tried to probe his feelings, but the human’s discipline arid determination was incredible for a member of a wolfling race. All she could tell was that he was disturbed — and that it had something to do with her mention of sapient thoughts east of here.

Oh, to be a true telepath! Once more she wondered why the Tymbrimi Grand Council had not defied the rules of the Uplift Institute and gone ahead to develop the capability. She had sometimes envied humans the privacy they could build around their lives and resented the gossipy invasiveness of her own culture. But right now she wanted only to break in there and find out what he was hiding!

Her corona waved, and if there had been any Tymbrimi within half a mile they would have winced at her angry, pungent opinion of the way of things.

Robert was showing difficulty before they reached the crest of the first ridge, httle more than an hour later. Athaclena knew by now that the glistening perspiration on his brow meant the same thing as a reddening and fluffing of a Tymbrimi’s corona — overheating.

When she overheard him counting under his breath, she knew that they would have to rest. “No.” He shook his head. His voice was ragged. “Let’s just get past this ridge and into the next valley. From there on it’s shaded all the way to the pass.” Robert kept trudging.

“There is shade enough here,” she insisted, and pulled him over to a rock jumble covered by creepers with umbrella-like leaves, all linked by the ubiquitous transfer-vines to the forest in the valley floor.

Robert sighed as she helped him sit back against a boulder in the shade. She wiped his forehead, then began unwrapping his splinted right arm. He hissed through his teeth.

A faint purpling discolored the skin near where the bone had broken. “Those are bad signs, aren’t they, Robert?”

For a moment she felt him begin to dissemble. Then he reconsidered, shaking his head. “N-no. I think there’s an infection. I’d better take some more Universal …”

He started to reach for her pack, where his aid kit was being carried, but his equilibrium failed and Athaclena had to catch him.

“Enough, Robert. You cannot walk to the Mendoza Freehold. I certainly cannot carry you, and I’ll not leave you alone for two or three days!

“You seem to have some reason to wish to avoid the people who I sensed to the east of here. But whatever it is, it cannot match the importance of saving your life!”

Robert let her pop a pair of blue pills into his mouth and sipped from the canteen she held for him. “All right, Clennie,” he sighed. “We’ll turn eastward. Only promise you’ll corona-sing for me, will you? It’s lovely, like you are, and it helps me understand you better… and now I think we’d better get startedbecause I’m babbling. That’s one sign that a human being is deteriorating. You should know that by now.”

Athaclena’s eyes spread apart and she smiled. “I was already aware of that, Robert. Now tell me, what is the name of this place where we are going?”

“It s called the Howletts Center. It’s just past that second set of hills, over that way.” He pointed east by southeast.

“They don’t like surprise guests,” he went on, “so we’ll want to talk loudly as we approach.”

Taking it by stages, they made it over the first ridge shortly before noon and rested in the shade by a small spring. There Robert fell into a troubled slumber.

Athaclena watched the human youth with a feeling of miserable helplessness. She found herself humming Thlufall-threela’s famous “Dirge of Inevitability.” The poignant piece for aura and voice was over four thousand years old, written during the time of sorrow when the Tymbrimi patron race, the Caltmour, were destroyed in a bloody interstellar war.

Inevitability was not a comfortable concept for her people, even less than for humans. But long ago the Tymbrimi had decided to try all things — to learn all philosophies. Resignation, too, had its place.

Not this time! she swore. Athaclena coaxed Robert into his sleeping bag and got him to swallow two more pills. She secured his arm as best she could and piled rocks alongside to keep him from rolling about.

A low palisade of brush around him would, she hoped, keep out any dangerous animals. Of course the Bururalli had cleared Garth’s forests of any large creatures, but that did not keep her from worrying. Would an unconscious human be safe then, if she left him alone for a little while?

She placed her jack-laser within reach of his left hand and a canteen next to it. Bending down she touched his forehead with her sensitized, refashioned lips. Her corona unwound and fell about his face, caressing it with delicate strands-so she could give him a parting benediction in the manner of her own folk, as well.

A deer might have run faster. A cougar might have slipped through the forest stillness more silently. But Athaclena had never heard of those creatures. And even if she had, a Tymbrimi did not fear comparisons. Their very race-name was adaptability.

Within the first kilometer automatic changes had already been set in motion. Glands rushed strength to her legs, and changes in her blood made better use of the air she breathed. Loosened connective tissue opened her nostrils wide to pass still more, while elsewhere her skin tautened to prevent her breasts from bouncing jarringly as she ran.

The slope steepened as she passed out of the second narrow valley and up a game path toward the last ridge before her goal. Her rapid footfalls on the thick loam were light and soft. Only an occasional snapping twig announced her coming, sending the forest creatures scurrying into the shadows. A chittering of little jeers followed her, both in sound and unsubtle emanations she picked up with her corona.

Their hostile calls made Athaclena want to smile, Tymbrimi style. Animals were so serious. Only a few, those nearly ready for Uplift, ever had anything resembling a sense of humor. And then, after they were adopted and began Uplift, all too often their patrons edited whimsy out of them as an “unstable trait.”

After the next kilometer Athaclena eased back a bit. She would have to pace herself, if for no other reason than she was overheating. That was dangerous for a Tymbrimi.

She reached the crest of the ridge, with its chain of ubiquitous spine-stones, and slowed in order to negotiate the maze of jutting monoliths. There, she rested briefly. Leaning against one of the tall rocky outcrops, breathing heavily, she reached out with her corona. The tendrils waved, searching.

Yes! There were humans close by! And neo-chimpanzees, too. By now she knew both patterns well.

And… she concentrated. There was something else, also. Something tantalizing.

It had to be that enigmatic being she had sensed twice before! There was that queer quality that at one moment seemed Earthly and then seemed to partake strongly of this world. And it was pre-sentient, with a dark, serious nature of its own.

If only empathy were more of a directional sense! She moved forward, tracing a way toward the source through the maze of stones.

A shadow fell upon her. Instinctively, she leaped back and crouched — hormones rushing combat strength into her hands and arms. Athaclena sucked air, fighting down the gheer reaction. She had been expecting to encounter some small, feral survivor of the Bururalli Holocaust, not anything so large!

Calm down, she told herself. The silhouette standing on the stone overhead was a large biped, clearly a cousin to Man and no native of Garth. A chimpanzee could never pose a threat to her, of course.

“H-hello!” She managed Anglic over the trembling left by the receding gheer. Silently she cursed the instinctive reactions which made Tymbrimi dangerous beings to cross but which shortened their lives and often embarrassed them in polite company.

The figure overhead stared down at her. Standing on two legs, with a belt of tools around its waist, it was hard to discern against the glare. The bright, bluish light of Garth’s sun was disconcerting. Even so, Athaclena could tell that this one was very large for a chimpanzee.

It did not react. In fact, the creature just stared down at her.

A client race as young as neo-chimpanzees could not be expected to be too bright. She made allowances, squinting up at the dark, furry figure, and enunciated slowly in Anglic.

“I have an emergency to report. There is a human being,” she emphasized, “who is injured not far from here. He needs immediate attention. You must please take me to some humans, right now.” She expected an immediate response, but the creature merely shifted its weight and continued to stare. Athaclena was beginning to feel foolish. Could she have encountered a particularly stupid chim? Or perhaps a deviant or a sport? New client races produced a lot of variability, sometimes including dangerous throwbacks — witness what had happened to the Bururalli so recently here on Garth.

Athaclena extended her senses. Her corona reached out and then curled in surprise!

It was the pre-sentient! The superficial resemblance — the fur and long arms — had fooled her. This wasn’t a chim at all! It was the alien creature she had sensed only minutes ago!

No wonder the beast hadn’t responded. It had had no patron yet to teach it to talk! Potential quivered and throbbed. She could sense it just under the surface.

Athaclena wondered just what one said to a native pre-sophont. She looked more carefully. The creature’s dark, furry coat was fringed by the sun’s glare. Atop short, bowed legs it carried a massive body culminating in a great head with a narrow peak. In silhouette, its huge shoulders merged without any apparent neck.

Athaclena recalled Ma’chutallil’s famed story about a spacegleaner who encountered, in forests far from a colony settlement, a child who had been brought up by wild limbrunners. After catching the fierce, snarling little thing in his nets, the hunter had aura-cast a simple version of sh’cha’huon, the mirror of the soul.

Athaclena formed the empathy glyph as well as she could remember it.

SEE IN ME — AN IMAGE OF THE VERY YOU

The creature stood up. It reared back, snorting and sniffing at the air.

She thought, at first, it was reacting to her glyph. Then a noise, not far away, broke the fleeting connection. The pre-sentient chuffed — a deep, grunting sound — then spun about and leaped away, hopping from spine-stone to spine-stone until it was gone from sight.

Athaclena hurried after, but uselessly. In moments she had lost the trail. She sighed finally and turned back to the east, where Robert had said the Earthling “Howletts Center” lay. After all, finding help had to come first.

She started picking her way through the maze of spine-stones. They tapered off as the slope descended into the next valley. That was when she passed around a tall boulder and nearly collided with the search party.

“We’re sorry we frightened you, ma’am,” the leader of the group said gruffly. His voice was somewhere between a growl and the croaking of a pond full of bug-hoppers. He bowed again. “A seisin picker came in and told us of some sort of ship crash out this way, so we sent out a couple of search parties. You haven’t seen anythin’ like a spacecraft comin’ down, have you?”

Athaclena still shivered from the Ifni-damned overreac-tion. She must have looked terrifying in those first few seconds, when surprise set off another furious change response. The poor creatures had been startled. Behind the leader, four more chims stared at her nervously.

“No, I haven’t,” Athaclena spoke slowly and carefully, in order not to tax the little clients. “But I do have a different sort of emergency to report. My comrade — a human being — was injured yesterday afternoon. He has a broken arm and a possible infection. I must speak to someone in authority about having him evacuated.”

The leader of the chims stood a bit above average in height, nearly a hundred and fifty centimeters tall. Like the others he wore a pair of shorts, a tool-bandoleer, and a light backpack. His grin featured an impressive array of uneven, somewhat yellowed teeth.

“I’m sufficiently in authority. My name is Benjamin, Mizz… Mizz…” His gruff voice ended in a questioning tone.

“Athaclena. My- companion’s name is Robert Oneagle. He is the son of the Planetary Coordinator.”

Benjamin’s eyes widened. “I see. Well, Mizz Athac-… well ma’am… you must have heard by now that Garth’s been interdicted by a fleet of Eatee cruisers. Under th’ emergency we aren’t supposed to use aircars if we can avoid it. Still, my crew here is equipped to handle a human with th’ sort of injuries you described. If you’ll lead us to Mr. Oneagle, we’ll see he’s taken care of.”

Athaclena’s relief was mixed with a pang as she was reminded of larger matters. She had to ask. “Have they determined who the invaders are yet? Has there been a landing?”

The chimp Benjamin was behaving professionally and his diction was good, but he could not disguise his perplexity as he looked at her, tilting his head as if trying to see her from a new angle. The others frankly stared. Clearly they had never seen a person like her before.

“Uh, I’m sorry, ma’am, but the news hasn’t been too specific. The Eatees… uh.” The chim peered at her. “Uh, pardon me, ma’am, but you aren’t human, are you?”

“Great Caltmour, no!” Athaclena bristled. “What ever gave you the …” Then she remembered all the little external alterations she had made as part of her experiment. She must look very close to human by now, especially with the sun behind her. No wonder the poor clients had been confused!

“No,” she said again, more softly. “I am no human. I am Tymbrimi.”

The chims sighed and looked quickly at one another. Benjamin bowed, arms crossed in front of him, for the first time offering the gesture of a client greeting a member of a patron-class race.

Athaclena’s people, like humans, did not believe in flaunting their dominance over their clients. Still, the gesture helped mollify her hurt feelings. When he spoke again, Benjamin’s diction was much better.

“Forgive me, ma’am. What I meant to say was that I’m not really sure who the invaders are. I wasn’t near a receiver when their manifesto was broadcast, a couple of hours ago. Somebody told me it was the Gubru, but there’s another rumor they’re Thennanin.”

Athaclena sighed. Thennanin or Gubru. Well, it could have been worse. The former were sanctimonious and narrow-minded. The latter were often vile, rigid, and cruel. But neither were as bad as the manipulative Soro, or the eerie, deadly Tandu.

Benjamin whispered to one of his companions. The smaller chimp turned and hurried down the trail the way they had come, toward the mysterious Howletts Center. Athaclena caught a tremor of anxiety. Once again she wondered what was going on in this valley that Robert had tried to steer her away from, even at risk to his own health.

“The courier will carry back word of Mr. Oneagle’s condition and arrange transport,” Benjamin told her. “Meanwhile, we’ll hurry to give him first aid. If you would only lead the way …”

He motioned her ahead, and Athaclena had to put away her curiosity for now. Robert clearly came first. “All right,” she said. “Let us go.”

As they passed under the standing stone where she had had her encounter with the strange, pre-sentient alien, Athaclena looked up. Had it really been a “Garthling”? Perhaps the chims knew something about it. Before she could begin to ask, however, Athaclena stumbled, clutching at her temples. The chims stared at the sudden waving of her corona and the startled, narrow set of her eyes.

It was part sound — a keening that crested high, almost beyond hearing — and partly a sharp itch that crawled up her spine.

“Ma’am?” Benjamin looked up at her, concerned. “What is it?”

Athaclena shook her head. “It’s… It is…”

She did not finish. For at that moment there was a flash of gray over the western horizon — something hurtling through the sky toward them — too fasti Before Athaclena could flinch it had grown from distant dot to behemoth size. Just that suddenly a giant ship appeared, stock-still, hovering directly over the valley.

Athaclena barely had enough time to cry out, “Cover your ears!” Then thunder broke, a crash and roar that knocked all of them to the ground. The boom reverberated through the maze of stones and echoed off the surrounding hillsides. Trees swayed — some of them cracking and toppling over — and leaves were ripped away in sudden, fluttering cyclones.

Finally the pealing died away, diffracting and diminishing into the forest. Only after that, and blinking away tremors of shock, did they at last hear the low, loud growl of the ship itself. The gray monster cast shadows over the valley, a huge, gleaming cylinder. As they stared the great machine slowly settled lower until it dropped below the spine-stones and out of sight. The hum of its engines fell to a deep rumble, uncovering the sound of rockfalls on the nearby slopes.

The chims slowly stood up and held each others’ hands nervously, whispering to each other in hoarse, low voices. Benjamin helped Athaclena to stand. The ship’s gravity fields had struck her fully extended corona unprepared. She shook her head, trying to clear it.

“That was a warship, wasn’t it?” Benjamin asked her. “These other chims here haven’t ever been to space, but I went up to see the old Vesarius when it visited, a couple years back, and even she wasn’t as big as that thing!”

Athaclena sighed. “It was, indeed, a warship. Of Soro design, I think. The Gubru are using that fashion now.” She looked down at the Earthling. “I would say that Garth is no longer simply interdicted, Chim Benjamin. An invasion has begun.”

Benjamin’s hands came together. He pulled nervously at one opposable thumb, then the other. “They’re hovering over the valley. I can hear ’em! What are they up to?”

“I don’t know,” she said. “Why don’t we go look?”

Benjamin hesitated, then nodded. He led the group back to a point where the spine-stones opened up and they could gaze out over the valley.

The warship hovered about four kilometers east of their position and a few hundred meters above the ground, draping its immense shadow over a small cluster of off-white buildings on the valley floor. Athaclena shaded her eyes against the bright sunshine reflected from its gunmetal gray flanks.

The deep-throated groan of the giant cruiser was ominous. “It’s just hoverin’ there! What are they doing?” one of the chims asked nervously.

Athaclena shook her head in Anglic. “I do not know.” She sensed fear from humans and neo-chimps in the settlement below. And there were other sources of emotion as well.

The invaders, she realized. Their psi shields were down, an arrogant dismissal of any possibility of defense. She caught a gestalt of thin-boned, feathered creatures, descendants of some flightless, pseudo-avian species. A rare real-view came to her briefly, vividly, as seen through the eyes of one of the cruiser’s officers. Though contact only lasted milliseconds, her corona reeled back in revulsion.

Gubru, she realized numbly. Suddenly, it was made all too real.

Benjamin gasped. “Look!”

Brown fog spilled forth from vents in the ship’s broad underbelly. Slowly, almost languidly, the dark, heavy vapor began to fall toward the valley floor.

The fear below shifted over to panic. Athaclena quailed back against one of the spine-stones and wrapped her arms over her head, trying to shut out the almost palpable aura of dread.

Too much! Athaclena tried to form a glyph of peace in the space before her, to hold back the pain and horror. But every pattern was blown away like spun snow before the hot wind of a flame.

“They’re killing th’ humans and “rillas!” one of the chims on the hillside cried, running forward. Benjamin shouted after him. “Petrie! Come back here! Where do you think you’re going?”

“I’m goin’ to help!” the younger chim yelled back. “And you would too, if you cared! You can hear ’em screamin’ down there!” Ignoring the winding path, he started scrambling down the scree slope itself — the most direct route toward the roiling fog and the dim sounds of despair.

The other two chims looked at Benjamin rebelliously, obviously sharing the same thought. “I’m goin’ too,” one said.

Athaclena’s fear-narrowed eyes throbbed. What were these silly creatures doing now?

“I’m with you,” the last one agreed. In spite of Benjamin’s shouted curses, both of them started down the steep slope.

“Stop thi», right now!”

They turned and stared at Athaclena. Even Petrie halted suddenly, hanging one-handed from a boulder, blinking up at her. She had used the Tone of Peremptory Command, for only the third time in her life.

“Stop this foolishness and come back here immediately!” she snapped. Athaclena’s corona billowed out over her ears. Her carefully cultured human accent was gone. She enunciated Anglic in the Tymbrimi lilt the neo-chimpanzees must have heard on video countless times. She might look rather human, but no human voice could make exactly the same sounds.

The Terran clients blinked, open-mouthed.

“Return at once,” she hissed.

The chims scrambled back up the slope to stand before her. One by one, glancing nervously at Benjamin and following his example, they bowed with arms crossed in front of them.

Athaclena fought down her own shaking in order to appear outwardly calm. “Do not make me raise my voice again,” she said lowly. “We must work together, think coolly, and make appropriate plans.”

Small wonder the chims shivered and looked up at her, wide-eyed. Humans seldom spoke to chims so peremptorily. The species might be indentured to man, but by Earth’s own law neo-chimps were nearly equal citizens.

We Tymbrimi, though, are another matter. Duty, simple duty had drawn Athaclena out of her totanoo — her fear-induced withdrawal. Somebody had to take responsibility to save these creatures’ lives.

The ugly brown fog had stopped spilling from the Gubru vessel. The vapor spread across the narrow valley like a dark, foamy lake, barely covering the buildings at the bottom.

Vents closed. The ship began to rise.

“Take cover,” she told them, and led the chims around the nearest of the rock monoliths. The low hum of the Gubru ship climbed more than an octave. Soon they saw it rise over the spine-stones.

“Protect yourselves.”

The chims huddled close, pressing their hands against their ears.

One moment the giant invader was there, a thousand meters over the valley floor. Then, quicker than the eye could follow, it was gone. Displaced air clapped inward like a giant’s hand and thunder batted them again, returning in rolling waves that brought up dust and leaves from the forest below.

The stunned neo-chimps stared at each other for long moments as the echoes finally ebbed. Finally the eldest chim, Benjamin, shook himself. He dusted his hands and grabbed the young chen named Petrie by the back of his neck, marching the startled chim over to face Athaclena.

Petrie looked down shamefaced. “I … I’m sorry, ma’am,” he muttered gruffly. “It’s just that there are humans down there and… and my mates. …”

Athaclena nodded. One should try not to be too hard on a well-intended client. “Your motives were admirable. Now that we are calm though, and can plan, we’ll go about helping your patrons and friends more effectively.”

She offered her hand. It was a less patronizing gesture than the pat on the head he seemed to have expected from a Galactic. They shook, and he grinned shyly.

When they hurried around the stones to look out over the valley again, several of the Terrans gasped. The brown cloud had spread over the lowlands like a thick, filthy sea that flowed almost to the forest slopes at their feet. The heavy vapor seemed to have a sharply defined upper boundary barely licking at the roots of nearby trees.

They had no way of knowing what was going on below, or even if anybody still lived down there.

“We will split into two groups,” Athaclena told them. “Robert Oneagle still requires attention. Someone must go to him.”

The thought of Robert lying semi-conscious back there where she had left him was an unrelenting anxiety in her mind. She had to know he was being cared for. Anyway, she suspected most of these chims would be better off going to Robert’s aid than hanging around this deadly valley. The creatures were too shaken and volatile up here in full view of the disaster. “Benjamin, can your companions find Robert by themselves, using the directions I have given?”

“You mean without leading them there yourself?” Benjamin frowned and shook his head. “Uh, I dunno, ma’am. I … I really think you ought to go along.”

Athaclena had left Robert under a clear landmark, a giant quail-nut tree close to the main trail. Any party sent from here should have no trouble finding the injured human.

She could read the chim’s emotions. Part of Benjamin anxiously wished to have one of the renowned Tymbrimi here to help, if possible, the people in the valley. And yet he had chosen to try to send her away!

The oily smoke churned and rolled below. She could distantly sense many minds down there, turbulent with fear.

“I will remain,” she said firmly. “You have said these others are a qualified rescue team. They can certainly find Robert and help him. Someone must stay and see if anything can be done for those below.”

With a human there might have been argument. But the chimps did not even consider contradicting a Galactic with a made up mind. Client-class sophonts simply did not do such things.

In Benjamin she sensed a partial relief. . . and a counterpoint of dread.

The three younger chims shouldered their packs. Solemnly they headed westward through the spine-stones, glancing back nervously until they passed out of sight.

Athaclena let herself feel relieved for Robert’s sake. But underneath it all remained a nagging fear for her father. The enemy must certainly have struck Port Helenia first.

“Come, Benjamin. Let’s see what can be done for those poor people down there.”

For all of their unusual and rapid successes in Uplift, Terran geneticists still had a way to go with neo-dolphins and neo-chimpanzees. Truly original thinkers were still rare in both species. By Galactic standards they had made great strides, but Earthmen wanted even more rapid progress. It was almost as if they suspected their clients might have to grow up very quickly, very soon.

When a good mind appeared in Tursiops or Pongo stock, it was carefully nurtured. Athaclena could tell that Benjamin was one of those superior specimens. No doubt this chim had at least a blue card procreation right and had already sired many children.

“Maybe I’d better scout ahead, ma’am,” Benjamin suggested. “I can climb these trees and stay above the level of the gas. I’ll go in and find out how things lie, and then come back for you.”

Athaclena felt the chim’s turmoil as they looked out on the lake of mysterious gas. Here it was about ankle deep, but farther into the valley it swirled several man-heights into the trees.

“No. We’ll stay together,” Athaclena said firmly. “I can climb trees too, you know.”

Benjamin looked her up and down, apparently recalling stories of the fabled Tymbrimi adaptability. “Hmmm, your folk might have once been arboreal at that. No respect intended.” He gave her a wry, unhinged grin. “All right then, miss, let’s go.”

He took a running start, leaped into the branches of a near-oak, scampered around the trunk and darted down another limb. Then Benjamin jumped across a narrow gap to the next tree. He held onto the bouncing branch and looked back at her with curious brown eyes.

Athaclena recognized a challenge. She breathed deeply several times, concentrating. Changes began with a tingling in her hardening fingertips, a loosening in her chest. She exhaled, crouched, and took off, launching herself into the near-oak. With some difficulty she imitated the chim, move by move.

Benjamin nodded in approval as she landed next to him. Then he was off again.

They made slow progress, leaping from tree to tree and creeping around vine-entangled trunks. Several times they were forced to backtrack around clearings choked with the slowly settling fumes. They tried not to breathe when stepping over thicker wisps of the heavy gas, but Athaclena could not help picking up a whiff of pungent, oily stuff. She told herself that her growing itch was probably psychosomatic.

Benjamin kept glancing at her surreptitiously. The chim certainly noticed some of the changes she underwent as the minutes passed — a limbering of the arms, a rolling of the shoulders and loosening and opening of the hands. He clearly had never expected to have a Galactic keep up with him this way, swinging through the trees.

He almost certainly did not know the price the gheer transformation was going to cost her. The hurt had already begun, and Athaclena knew this was only the beginning.

The forest was full of sounds. Small animals scurried past them, fleeing the alien smoke and stench. Athaclena picked up quick, hot pulses of their fear. As they reached the top of a knoll overlooking the settlement, they could hear faint cries — frightened Terrans groping about in a soot-dark forest.

Benjamins’ brown eyes told her that those were his friends down there. “See how the stuff clings to the ground?” he said. “It hardly rises a few meters over the tops of our buildings. If only we’d built one tall structure!”

“They would have blasted that building first,” Athaclena pointed out. “And then released their gas.”

“Hmmph.” Benjamin nodded. “Well, let’s go see if any of my mates made it into the trees. Maybe they managed to help a few of the humans get high enough as well.”

She did not question Benjamin about his hidden fear — the thing he could not bring himself to mention. But there was something added to his worry about the humans and chims below, as if that were not already enough.

The deeper they went into the valley, the higher among the branches they had to travel. More and more often they were forced to drop down, stirring the smoky, unraveling wisps with their feet as they hurried along their arboreal highway. Fortunately, the oily gas seemed to be dissipating at last, growing heavier and precipitating in a fine rain of gray dust.

Benjamin’s pace quickened as they caught glimpses of the off-white buildings of the Center beyond the trees. Athaclena followed as well as she could, but it was getting harder and harder to keep up with the chim. Enzyme exhaustion took its toll, and her corona was ablaze as her body tried to eliminate heat buildup.

Concentrate, she thought as she crouched on one waving branch. Athaclena flexed her legs and tried to sight on the blur of dusty leaves and twigs opposite her.

Go.

She uncoiled, but by now the spring was gone from her leap. She barely made it across the two-meter gap. Athaclena hugged the bucking, swaying branch. Her corona pulsed like fire.

She clutched the alien wood, breathing open-mouthed, unable to move, the world a blur. Maybe it’s more than just gheer pain, she thought. Maybe the gas isn’t just designed for Terrans. It could be killing me.

It took a couple of moments for her eyes to focus again, and then she saw little more than a black-bottomed foot covered with brown fur … Benjamin, clutching the tree branch nimbly and standing over her.

His hand softly touched the waving, hot tendrils of her corona. “You just wait here and rest, miss. I’ll scout ahead an’ be right back.”

The branch shuddered once more, and he was gone.

Athaclena lay still. She could do little else except listen to faint sounds coming from the direction of the Howletts Center. Nearly an hour after the departure of the Gubru cruiser she could still hear panicky chimp shrieks and strange, low cries from some animal she couldn’t recognize.

The gas was dissipating but it still stank, even up here. Athaclena kept her nostrils closed, breathing through her mouth.

Pity the poor Earthlings, whose noses and ears must remain open all the time, for all the world to assault at will. The irony did not escape her. For at least the creatures did not have to listen with their minds.

As her corona cooled, Athaclena felt awash in a babble of emotions… human, chimpanzee, and that other variety that flickered in and out, the “stranger” that had by now become almost familiar. Minutes passed, and Athaclena felt a little better… enough to crawl along the limb to where .branch met trunk. She sat back against the rough bark with a sigh, the flow of noise and emotion surrounding her.

Maybe I’m not dying after all, at least not right away.

Only after a little while longer did it dawn on her that something was happening quite nearby. She could sense that she was being watched — and from very close! She turned and drew her breath sharply. From the branches of a tree only six meters away, four sets of eyes stared back at her — three pairs deep brown and a fourth bright blue.

Barring perhaps a few of the sentient, semi-vegetable Kanten, the Tymbrimi were the Galactics who knew Earth-lings best. Nevertheless, Athaclena blinked in surprise, uncertain just what it was she was seeing.

Closest to the trunk of that tree sat an adult female neo-chimpanzee — a “chimmie” — dressed only in shorts, holding a chim baby in her arms. The little mother’s brown eyes were wide with fear.

Next to them was a small, smooth-skinned human child dressed in denim overalls. The little blond girl smiled back at Athaclena, shyly.

But it was the fourth and last being in the other tree that had Athaclena confused.

She recalled a neo-dolphin sound-sculpture her father had brought home to Tymbrim from his travels. This was just after that episode of the ceremony of Acceptance and Choice of the Tytlal, when she had behaved so strangely up in that extinct volcano caldera. Perhaps Uthacalthing had wanted to play the sound-sculpting for her to draw her out of her moodiness — to prove to her that the Earthly cetaceans were actually charming creatures, not to be feared. He had told her to close her eyes and just let the song wash over her.

Whatever his motive, it had had the opposite effect. For in listening to the wild, untamed patterns, she had suddenly found herself immersed in an ocean, hearing an angry sea squall gather. Even opening her eyes, seeing that she still sat in the family listening room, did not help. For the first time in her life, sound overwhelmed vision.

Athaclena had never listened to the cube again, nor known anything else quite so strange… until encountering the eerie metaphorical landscape within Robert Oneagle’s mind, that is.

Now she felt that way again! For while the fourth creature across from her looked, at first, like a very large chimpanzee, her corona was telling quite another story. It cannot be!

Calmly, placidly, the brown eyes looked back at her. The being obviously far outweighed all the others combined, yet it held the human child on its lap delicately, carefully. When the little girl squirmed, the big creature merely snorted and shifted slightly, neither letting go nor taking its gaze from Athaclena. Unlike normal chimpanzees, its face was very black. Ignoring her aches, Athaclena edged forward slowly so as not to alarm them. “Hello,” she said carefully in Anglic.

The human child smiled again and ducked her head shyly against her furry protector’s massive chest. The neo-chimp mother cringed back in apparent fear.

The massive creature with the high, flattened face merely nodded twice and snorted again. It fizzed with Potential!

Athaelena had only once before encountered a species living in that narrow zone between animal and accepted client-class sophont. It was a very rare state in the Five Galaxies, for any newly discovered pre-sentient species was soon registered and licensed to some starfaring clan for Uplift and indenture.

It dawned on Athaclena that this being was already far along toward sentience!

But the gap from animal to thinker was supposed to be impossible to cross alone! True, some humans still clung to quaint ideas from the ignorant days before Contact — theories proposing that true intelligence could be “evolved.” But Galactic science assured that the threshold could only be passed with the aid of another race, one who had already crossed it.

So it had been all the way back to the fabled days of the first race — the Progenitors — billions of years ago.

But nobody had ever traced patrons for the humans. That was why they were called k’chu-non… wolflings. Might their old idea contain a germ of truth? If so, might this creature also… ?

Ah, no! Why did I not see it at once?

Athaclena suddenly knew this beast was not a natural find. It was not the fabled “Garthling” her father had asked her to seek. The family resemblance was simply too unmistakable.

She was looking at a gathering of cousins, sitting together on that branch high above the Gubru vapors. Human, neo-chimpanzees, and… what?

She tried to recall what her father had said about humanity’s license to occupy their homeworld, the Earth. After Contact, the Institutes had granted recognition of mankind’s de facto tenancy. Still, there were Fallow Rules and other restrictions, she was certain.

And a few special Earth species had been mentioned in particular.

The great beast radiated Potential like … A metaphor came to Athaclena, of a beacon burning in the tree across from her. Searching her memory Tymbrimi fashion, she at last drew forth the name she had been looking for.

“Pretty thing,” she asked softly. “You are a gorilla, aren’t you?”

16 The Howletts Center

The beast tossed its great head and snorted. Next to it, the mother chimp whimpered softly and regarded Athaclena with obvious dread.

But the little human girl clapped her hands, sensing a game. ”Rilla! Jonny’s a Villa! Like me!” The child’s small fists thumped her chest. She threw back her head and crowed a high-pitched, ululating yell.

A gorilla, Athaclena looked at the giant, silent creature in wonderment, trying to remember what she had -been told in passing so long ago.

Its dark nostrils flared as it sniffed in Athaclena’s direction, and used its free hand to make quick, subtle hand signs to the human child.

“Jonny wants to know if you’re going to be in charge, now,” the little girl lisped. “I hope so. You sure looked tired when you stopped chasing Benjamin. Did he do something bad? He got away, you know.”

Athaclena moved a little closer. “No,” she said. “Benjamin didn’t do anything bad. At least not since I met him — though I am beginning to suspect—”

Athaclena stopped. Neither the child nor the gorilla would understand what she now suspected. But the adult chim knew, clearly, and her eyes showed fear.

“I’m April,” the small human told her. “An” that’s Nita. Her baby’s name is Cha-Cha. Sometimes chimmies give their babies easy names to start ’cause-they don’t talk so good at first,” she confided.

Her eyes seemed to shine as she looked at Athaclena. “Are you really a Tym… bim… Tymmbimmie?”

Athaclena nodded. “I am Tymbrimi.”

April clapped her hands. “Ooh. They’re goodguys! Did you see the big spaceship? It came with a big boom, and Daddy made me go with Jonny, and then there was gas and Jonny put his hand over my mouth and I couldn’t breathe!”

April made a scrunched up face, pantomiming suffocation.

“He let go when we were up in th’ trees, though. We found Nita an’ Cha-Cha.” She glanced over at the chims. “I guess Nita’s still too scared to talk much.”

“Were you frightened too?” Athaclena asked.

April nodded seriously. “Yeth. But I had to stop being scared. I was th’ only man here, and I hadda be in charge, and take care of ever’body.

“Can you be in charge now? You’re a really pretty Tymbimmie.”

The little girl’s shyness returned. She partly buried herself against Jonny’s massive chest, smiling out at Athaclena with only one eye showing.

Athaclena could not help staring. She had never until now realized this about human beings — of what they were capable. In spite of her people’s alliance with the Terrans, she had picked up some of the common Galactic prejudice, imagining that the “wolflings” were still somehow feral, bestial. Many Galactics thought it questionable that humans were truly ready to be patrons. No doubt the Gubru had expressed that belief in their War Manifesto.

This child shattered that image altogether. By law and custom, little April had been in charge of her clients, no matter how young she was. And her understanding of that responsibility was clear.

Still, Athaclena now knew why both Robert and Benjamin had been anxious not to lead her here. She suppressed her initial surge of righteous anger. Later, she would have to find a way to get word to her father, after she had verified her suspicions.

She was almost beginning to feel Tymbrimi again as the gheer reaction gave way to a mere dull burning along her muscles and neural pathways. “Did any other humans make it into the trees?” she asked.

Jonny made a quick series of hand signs. April interpreted, although the little girl may not have clearly understood the implications. “He says a few tried. But they weren’t fast enough… Most of’em just ran aroun’ doin’ ‘Man-Things.’ That’s what Villas call the stuff humans do that Villas don’t understand,” she confided lowly.

At last the mother chim, Nita, spoke. “The g-gas …” She swallowed. “Th” gas m-made the humans weak.” Her voice was barely audible. “Some of us chims felt it a little. … I don’t think the Villas were bothered.”

So. Perhaps Athaclena’s original surmise about the gas was correct. She had suspected it was not intended to be immediately lethal. Mass slaughter of civilians was something generally frowned upon by the Institute for Civilized Warfare. Knowing the Gubru, the intent was probably much more insidious than that.

There was a cracking sound to her right. The large male chim, Benjamin, dropped onto a branch two trees away. He called out to Athaclena.

“It’s okay now, miss! I found Dr. Taka and Dr. Schultz. They’re anxious to talk to you!”

Athaclena motioned for him to approach. “Please come here first, Benjamin.”

With typical Pongo exaggeration, Benjamin let out a long-suffering sigh. He leaped branch to branch until he came into view of the three apes and the human girl. Then his jaw dropped and his balancing grip almost slipped. Frustration wrote across his face. He turned to Athaclena, licking his lips, and cleared his throat.

“Don’t bother,” she told him. “I know you have spent the last twenty minutes trying, in the midst of all this turmoil, to arrange to have the truth hidden. But it was to no avail. I know what has been going on here.”

Benjamin’s mouth clapped shut. Then he shrugged. “So?” he sighed.

To the four on the branch Athaclena asked, “Do you accept my authority?”

“Yeth,” April said. Nita glanced from Athaclena to the human child, then nodded.

“All right, then. Stay where you are until somebody comes for you. Do you understand?”

“Yes’m.” Nita nodded again. Jonny and Cha-Cha merely looked back at her.

Athaclena stood up, finding her balance on the branch, and turned to Benjamin. “Now let us talk to these Uplift specialists of yours. If the gas has not completely incapacitated them, I’ll be interested to hear why they have chosen to violate Galactic Law.”

Benjamin looked defeated. He nodded resignedly.

“Also,” Athaclena told him as she landed on the branch next to him. “You had better catch up with the chims and gorillas you sent away — in order that I would not see them. They should be called back.

“We may need their help.”

17 Fiben

Fiben had managed to fashion a crutch out of shattered tree limbs lying near the furrow torn up by his escape pod. Cushioned by tatters of his ship-suit, the crutch jarred his shoulder only partially out of joint each time He leaned on it.

Hummph, he thought. If the humans hadn’t straightened our spines and shortened our arms I could’ve knuckle-walked back to civilization.

Dazed, bruised, hungry… actually, Fiben was in a pretty good mood as he picked his way through obstacles on his way northward. Hell, I’m alive. I can’t really complain.

He had spent quite a lot of time in the Mountains of Mulun,.doing ecological studies for the Restoration Project, so he could tell that he had to be in the right watershed, not too far from known lands. The varieties of vegetation were all quite recognizable, mostly native plants but also some that had been imported and released into the ecosystem to fill gaps left by the Bururalli Holocaust.

Fiben felt optimistic. To have survived this far, even up to crash-landing in familiar territory … it made him certain that Ifhi had further plans for him. She had to be saving him for something special. Probably a fate that would be particularly annoying and much more painful than mere starvation in the wilderness.

Fiben’s ears perked and he looked up. Could he have imagined that sound?

No! Those were voices! He stumbled down the game path, alternately skipping and pole-vaulting on his makeshift crutch, until he came to a sloped clearing overlooking a steep canyon.

Minutes passed as he peered. The rain forest was so damn dense!

There! On the other side, about halfway downslope, six chims wearing backpacks could be seen moving rapidly through the forest, heading toward some of the still smoldering wreckage of TAASF Proconsul. Right now they were quiet. It was just a lucky break they had spoken as they passed below his position.

“Hey! Dummies! Over here!” He hopped on his right foot and waved his arms, shouting. The search party stopped. The chim’s looked about, blinking as the echoes bounced around the narrow defile. Fiben’s teeth bared and he couldn’t help growling low in frustration. They were looking everywhere but in his direction!

Finally, he picked up the crutch, whirled it above his head, and threw it out over the canyon.

One of the chims exclaimed, grabbing another. They watched the tumbling branch crash into the forest. That’s right, Fiben urged. Now think. Retrace the arc backwards.

Two of the searchers pointed up his way and saw him waving. They shrieked in excitement, capering in circles.

Forgetting momentarily his own little regression, Fiben muttered under his breath. “Just my luck to be rescued by a bunch of grunts. Come on, guys. Let’s not make a thunder dance out of it.”

Still, he grinned when they neared his hillside clearing. And in all the subsequent hugging and backslapping he forgot himself and let out a few glad hoots of his own.

18 Uthacalthing

His little pinnace was the last craft to take off from the Port Helenia space-field. Already detection screens showed battle cruisers descending into the lower atmosphere.

Back at the port, a small force of militiamen and Terragens Marines prepared to make a futile last stand. Their defiance was broadcast on all channels.

“… We deny the invader’s rights to land here. We claim the protection of Galactic Civilization against their aggression. We refuse the Gubru permission to set down on our legal lease-hold.

“In earnest of this, a small, armed, Formal Resistance Detachment awaits the invaders at the capital spaceport. Our challenge…”

Uthacalthing guided his pinnace with nonchalant nudges on the wrist and thumb controllers. The tiny ship raced southward along the coast of the Sea of Cilmar, faster than sound. Bright sunshine reflected off the broad waters to his right.

… should they dare to face us being to being, not cowering in their battleships…

Uthacalthing nodded. “Tell them, Earthlings,” he said softly in Anglic. The detachment commander had sought his advice in phrasing the ritual challenge. He hoped he had been of help.

The broadcast went on to list the numbers and types of weapons awaiting the descending armada at the spaceport, so the enemy would have no justification for using overpowering force. Under circumstances such as these, the Gubru would have no choice but to assail the defenders with ground troops. And they would have to take casualties.

If the Codes still hold, Uthacalthing reminded himself. The enemy may not care about the Rules of War any longer. It was hard to imagine such a situation. But there had been rumors from across the far starlanes…

A row of display screens rimmed his cockpit. One showed cruisers coming into view of Port Helenia’s public news cameras. Others showed fast fighters tearing up the sky right over the spaceport.

Behind him Uthacalthing heard a low keening as two stilt-like Ynnin commiserated with each other. Those creatures, at least, had been able to fit into Tymbrimi-type seats. But their hulking master had to stand.

Kault did not just stand, he paced the narrow cabin, his crest inflating until it bumped the low ceiling, again and again. The Thennanin was not in a good mood.

“Why, Uthacalthing?” he muttered for what was not the first time. “Why did you delay for so long? We were the very last to get out of there!”

Kault’s breathing vents puffed. “You told me we would leave night before last! I hurried to gather a few possessions and be ready and you did not come! I waited. I missed opportunities to hire other transport while you sent message after message urging patience. And then, when you came at last after dawn, we departed as blithely as if we were on a holiday ride to the Progenitors’ Arch!”

Uthacalthing let his colleague grumble on. He had already made formal apologies and paid diplomatic gild in compensation. No more was required of him.

Besides, things were going just the way he had planned them to.

A yellow light flashed on the control board, and a tone began to hum.

“What is that?” Kault shuffled forward in agitation. “Have they detected our engines?”

“No.” And Kault sighed in relief.

Uthacalthing went on. “It isn’t the engines. That light means we’ve just been scanned by a probability beam.”

“What?” Kault nearly screamed. “Isn’t this vessel shielded? You aren’t even using gravities! What anomalous probability could they have picked up?”

Uthacalthing shrugged, as if the human gesture had been born to him. “Perhaps the unlikelihood is intrinsic,” he suggested. “Perhaps it is something about us, about our own fate, that is glowing along the worldlines. That may be what they detect.”

Out of his right eye he saw Kault shiver. The Thennanin race seemed to have an almost superstitious dread of anything having to do with the art/science of reality-shaping. Uthacalthing allowed looth’troo — apology to one’s enemy — to form gently within his tendrils, and reminded himself that his people and Kault’s were officially at war. It was within his rights to tease his enemy-and-friend, as it had been ethically acceptable earlier, when he had arranged for Kault’s own ship to be sabotaged.

“I shouldn’t worry about it,” he suggested. “We’ve got a good head start.”

Before the Thennanin could reply, Uthacalthing bent forward and spoke rapidly in GalSeven, causing one of the screens to expand its image.

“ThwiU’kou-chlliou!” he cursed. “Look at what they are doing!”

Kault turned and stared. The holo-display showed giant cruisers hovering over the capital city, pouring brown vapor over the buildings and parks. Though the volume was turned down, they could hear panic in the voice of the news announcer as he described the darkening skies, as if anyone in Port Helenia needed his interpretation.

“This is not well.” Kault’s crest bumped the ceiling more rapidly. “The Gubru are being more severe than the situation or their war rights here merit.”

Uthacalthing nodded. But before he could speak another yellow light winked on.

“What is it now?” Kault sighed.

Uthacalthing’s eyes were at their widest separation. “It means we are being chased by pursuit craft,” he replied. “We may be in for a fight. Can you work a class fifty-seven weapons console,, Kault?”

“No, but I believe one of my Ynnin—”

His reply was interrupted as Uthacalthing shouted, “Hold on!” and turned on the pinnace’s gravities. The ground screamed past under them. “I am beginning evasive maneuvers,” he called out.

“Good,” Kault whispered through his neck vents.

Oh, bless the Thennanin thick skull, Uthacalthing thought.

He kept control over his facial expression, though he knew his colleague had the empathy sensitivity of a stone and could not pick up his joy.

As the. pursuing ships started firing on them, his corona began to sing.

19 Athaclena

Green fingers of forest merged with the lawns and leafy-colored buildings of the Center, as if the establishment were intended to be inconspicuous from the air. Although a wind from the west had finally driven away the last visible shreds of the invader’s aerosol, a thin film of gritty powder covered everything below a height of five meters, giving off a tangy, unpleasant odor.

Athaclena’s corona no longer shrank under an overriding roar of panic. The mood had changed amid the buildings. There was a thread of resignation now… and intelligent anger.

She followed Benjamin toward the first clearing, where she caught sight of small groups of neo-chimps running pigeon-toed within the inner compound. One pair hurried by carrying a muffled burden on a stretcher.

“Maybe you shouldn’t go down there after all, miss,” Benjamin rasped. “I mean it’s obvious the gas was designed to affect humans, but even us chims feel a bit woozy from it. You’re pretty important …”

“I am Tymbrimi,” Athaclena answered coolly. “I cannot sit here while I am needed by clients and by my peers.”

Benjamin bowed in acquiescence. He led her down a stairlike series of branches until she set foot with some relief on the ground. The pungent odor was thicker here. Atnaclena tried to ignore it, but her pulse pounded from nervousness.

They passed what had to have been facilities for housing and training gorillas. There were fenced enclosures, playgrounds, testing areas. Clearly an intense if small-scale effort had gone on here. Had Benjamin really imagined that he could fool her simply by sending the pre-sentient apes into the jungle to hide?

She hoped none of them had been hurt by the gas, or in the panicky aftermath. She remembered from her brief History of Earthmen class that gorillas, although strong, were also notoriously sensitive — even fragile — creatures.

Chims dressed in shorts, sandals, and the ubiquitous tool-bandoleers hurried to and fro on serious errands. A few stared at Athaclena as she approached, but they did not stop to speak. In fact, she heard very few words at all.

Stepping lightly through the dark dust, they arrived at the center of the encampment. There, at last, she and her guide encountered humans. They lay on couches on the steps of the main building, a mel and a fem. The male human’s head was entirely hairless, and his eyes bore traces of epicanthic folding. He looked barely conscious.

The other “man” was a tall, dark-haired female. Her skin was very black — a deep, rich shade Athaclena had never encountered before. Probably she was one of those rare “pure breed” humans who retained the characteristics of their ancient “races.” In contrast, the skin color of the chims standing next to her was almost pale pink, under their patchy covering of brown hair.

With the help of two older-looking chims, the black woman managed to prop herself up on one elbow as Athaclena approached. Benjamin stepped forward to make the introductions.

“Dr. Taka, Dr. Schultz, Dr. M’Bzwelli, Chim Frederick, all of the Terran Wolfling Clan, I present you to the respected Athaclena, a Tymbrimi ab-Caltmour ab-Brma ab-Krallnith ul-Tytlal.”

Athaclena glanced at Benjamin, surprised he was able to recite her species honorific from memory.

“Dr. Schultz,” Athaclena said, nodding to the chim on the left. To the woman she bowed slightly lower. “Dr. Taka.” With one last head incline she took in the other human and chim. “Dr. M’Bzwelli and Chim Frederick. Please accept my condolences over the cruelty visited on your settlement and your world.”

The chims bowed low. The woman tried to, as well, but she failed in her weakness.

“Thank you for your sentiments,” she replied, laboriously. “We Earthlings will muddle through, I’m sure. … I do admit I’m a little surprised to see the daughter of the Tymbrimi ambassador pop out of nowhere right now.”

I’ll just bet you are, Athaclena thought in Anglic, enjoying, this once, the flavor of human-style sarcasm. My presence is nearly as much a disaster to your plans as the Gubru and their gas!

“I have an injured friend,” she said aloud. “Three of your neo-chimpanzees went after him, some time ago. Have you heard anything from them?”

The woman nodded. “Yes, yes. We just had a pulse from the search party. Robert Oneagle is conscious and stable. Another group we had sent to seek out a downed flyer will be joining them shortly, with full medical equipment.”

Athaclena felt a tense worry unwrap in the corner of her mind where she had put it. “Good. Very good. Then I wil turn to other matters.’

Her corona’blossomed out as she formed kuouwassooe, the glyph of presentiment — though she knew these folk would barely catch its fringes, if at all.

“First, as a member of a race that has been in alliance with yours ever since you wolflings burst so loudly upon the Five Galaxies, I offer my assistance during this emergency. What I can do as a fellow patron, I shall do, requiring in return only whatever help you can give me in getting in touch with my father.”

“Done.” Dr. Taka nodded. “Done and with our thanks.”

Athaclena took a step forward. “Second — I must exclaim my dismay on discovering the function of this Center. I find you are engaged in unsanctioned Uplift activities on … on a fallow species!”

The four directors looked at each other. By now Athaclena could read human expressions well enough to know their chagrined resignation. “Furthermore,” she went on, “I note that you had the poor taste to commit this crime on the planet Garth, a tragic victim of past ecological abuse—”

“Now just a minute!” Chim Frederick protested. “How can you compare what we’re doing with the holocaust of the Burur—”

“Fred, be quiet!” Dr. Schultz, the other chim, cut in urgently.

Frederick blinked. Realizing it was too late to take back the interruption, he muttered on. “. . . th’ only planets Earthclan’s been allowed to settle have been other Eatees’ messes. …”

The second human, Dr. M’Bzwelli, started coughing. Frederick shut up and turned away.

The human male looked up at Athaclena. “You have us against the wall, miss.” He sighed. “Can we ask you to let us explain before you press charges? We’re… we’re not representatives of our government, you understand. We are… private criminals.”

Athaclena felt a funny sort of relief. Old pre-Contact Earthling flat movies — especially those copsandrobbers thrillers so popular among the Tymbrimi — often seemed to revolve around some ancient lawbreaker attempting to “silence the witness.” A part of her had wondered just how atavistic these people actually were.

She exhaled deeply and nodded. “Very well, then. The question can be put aside during the present emergency. Please tell me the situation here. What is the enemy trying to accomplish with this gas?”

“It weakens any human who breathes it,” Dr. Taka answered. “There was a broadcast an hour ago. The invader announced that affected humans must receive the antidote within one week, or die.

“Of course they are offering the antidote only in urban areas.

“Hostage gas!” Athaclena whispered. “They want all the planet’s humans as pawns.”

“Exactly. We must ingather or drop dead in six days.”

Athaclena’s corona sparked anger. Hostage gas was an irresponsible weapon, even if it was legal under “certain limited types of war.

“What will happen to your clients?” Neo-chimps were only a few centuries old and should not be left unwatched in the wilderness.

Dr. Taka grimaced, obviously worried as well. “Most chims seem unaffected by the gas. But they have so few natural leaders, such as Benjamin or Dr. Schultz here.”

Schultz’s brown, simian eyes looked down at his human friend. “Not to worry, Susan. We will, as you say, muddle through.” He turned back to Athaclena. “We’re evacuating the humans in stages, starting with the children and old folks tonight. Meanwhile, we’ll start destroying this compound and all traces of what’s happened here.”

Seeing that Athaclena was about to object, the elderly neo-chimp raised his hand. “Yes, miss. We will provide you with cameras and assistants, so you may collect your evidence, first. Will that do? We would not dream of thwarting you in your duty.”

Athaclena sensed the chim geneticist’s bitterness. But she had no sympathy for him, imagining how her father would feel when he learned of this. Uthacalthing liked Earthlings.’ This irresponsible criminality would wound him deeply.

“No sense in handing the Gubru a justification for their aggression,” Dr. Taka added. “The matter of the gorillas can go to the Tymbrimi Grand Council, if you wish. Our allies may then decide where to go from there, whether to press formal charges or leave our punishment to our own government.”

Athaclena saw the logic in it. After a moment she nodded. “That will do, then. Bring me your cameras and I shall record this burning.”

20 Galactics

To the fleet admiral — the Suzerain of Beam and Talon — the argument sounded silly. But of course that was always the way of it among civilians. Priests and bureaucrats always argued. It was the fighters who believed in action!

Still, the admiral had to admit that it was thrilling to take part in their first real policy debate as a threesome. This was the way Truth was traditionally attained among the Gubru, through stress and disagreement, persuasion and dance, until finally a new consensus was reached.

And eventually…

The Suzerain of Beam and Talon shook aside the thought. It was much too soon to begin contemplating the Molt. There would be many more arguments, much jostling and maneuvering for the highest perch, before that day arrived.

As for this first debate, the admiral was pleased to find itself in the position of arbiter between its two bickering peers. This was a good way to begin.

The Terrans at the small spaceport had issued a well-written formal challenge. The Suzerain of Propriety insisted that Talon Soldiers must be sent to overcome the defenders in close combat. The Suzerain of Cost and Caution did not agree. For some time they circled each other on the dais of the flagship’s bridge, eyeing each other and squawking pronouncements of argument.

The Suzerain of Cost and Caution thus insisted that this expedition was only one of many engagements currently sapping the strength of the clan of Gooksyu-Gubru. In fact, it was rather a side-battle. Matters were tense across the Galactic spiral. In such times, it was the job of the Suzerain of Cost and Caution to protect the clan from overextending itself.

The Suzerain of Propriety huffed its feathers indignantly in response.

Observing from its own perch of command, the Suzerain of Beam and Talon watched the struggle to see if any clear patterns of dominance were about to manifest themselves. It was thrilling to hear and see the excellent argument-dances performed by those who had been chosen to be the admiral’s mates. All three of them represented the finest products of “hot-egg” engineering, designed to bring out the best qualities of the race.

Soon, it was obvious that its peers had reached a stalemate. It would be up to Suzerain of Beam and Talon to decide.

It certainly would be less costly if the expeditionary force could simply ignore the insolent wolflings below until the hostage gas forced them to surrender. Or, with a simple order, their redoubt could be reduced to slag. But the Suzerain of Propriety refused to accept either option. Such actions would be catastrophic, the priest insisted.

The bureaucrat was just as adamant not to waste good soldiers on what would be essentially a gesture.

Deadlocked, the two other commanders eyed the Suzerain of Beam and Talon as they circled and squawked, fluffing their glowing white down. Finally, the admiral ruffled its own plumage and stepped onto the dais to join them.

The issue was decided. A stoop-colonel of the Talon Soldiers saluted and hurried off with the order.

Of course with this resolution Propriety’s perch position would rise a little. Caution’s descended. But the quest for dominance had only just begun.

So it had been for their distant ancestors, before the Gooksyu turned the primitive proto-Gubru into starfarers. Wisely, their patrons had taken the ancient patterns and shaped and expanded them into a useful, logical form of government for a sapient people.

Still, part of the older function remained. The Suzerain of Beam and Talon shivered as the tension of argument was released. And although all three of them were still quite neuter, the admiral felt a momentary thrill that was deeply, thoroughly sexual.

21 Fiben and Robert

The two rescue parties encountered each other more than a mile into the high pass. It was a somber gathering. The three who had started out that morning with Benjamin were too tired to do more than nod to the subdued group returning from the crash site.

But the battered pair who had been rescued exclaimed on seeing each other.

“Robert! Robert Oneagle! When did they let you out of study hall? Does your mommy know where you are?”

The’ injured chim leaned on a makeshift crutch and wore the singed remains of a tattered TAASF ship-suit. Robert looked up at him from the stretcher and grinned through an anesthetic haze.

“Fiben! In Goodall’s name, was that you I saw smokin’ out of the sky? Figures. What’d you do, fry ten megacredits’ worth of scoutboat?”

Fiben rolled his eyes. “More like five megs. She was an old tub, even if she did all right by me.”

Robert felt a strange envy. “So? I guess we got whomped.”

“You could say that. One on one we fought well. Would’ve been all right if there’d been enough of us.”

Robert knew what his friend meant. “You mean there’s no limit to what could’ve been accomplished wjth—”

“With an infinite number of monkeys?” Fiben cut in. His snort was a little less than a laugh but more than an ironic grin.

The other chims blinked in consternation. This level of banter was a bit over their heads, but what was more disturbing was how blithely this chen interrupted the human son of the Planetary Coordinator!

“I wish I could’ve been there with you,” Robert said seriously.

Fiben shrugged. “Yeah, Robert. I know. But we all had orders.” For a long moment they were silent. Fiben knew Megan Oneagle well enough, and he sympathized with Robert.

“Well I guess we’re both due for a stint in the mountains, assigned to holdin’ down beds and harassing nurses.” Fiben sighed, gazing toward the south. “If we can stand the fresh air, that is.” He looked down to Robert. “These chims told me about the raid on the Center. Scary stuff.”

“Clennie’ll help ’em straighten things out,” Robert answered. His attention had started to drift. They obviously had him doped to a dolphin’s blowhole. “She knows a lot … a lot more’n she thinks she does.”

Fiben had heard about the daughter of the Tymbrimi ambassador. “Sure,” he said softly, as the others lifted the stretcher once again. “An Eatee’ll straighten things out. More Hkely’n not, that girl friend of yours will have everybody thrown in the clink, invasion or no invasion!”

But Robert was now far away. And Fiben had a sudden strange impression. It was as if the human mel’s visage was not entirely Terran any longer. His dreamy smile was distant and touched with something… unearthly.

22 Athaclena

A large number of chims returned to the Center, drifting in from the forest where they had been sent to hide. Frederick and Benjamin set them to work dismantling and burning the buildings and their contents. Athaclena and her two assistants hurried from site to site, carefully recording everything before it was put to the.torch.

It was hard work. Never in her life as a diplomat’s daughter had Athaclena felt so exhausted. And yet she dared not let any scrap of evidence go undocumented. It was a matter of duty.

About an hour before dusk a contingent of gorillas trooped into the encampment, larger, darker, more crouched and feral-looking than their chim guardians. Under careful direction they took up simple tasks, helping to demolish the only home they had ever known.

The confused creatures watched as their Training and Testing Center and the Clients’ Quarters melted into slag. A few even tried to halt the destruction, stepping in front of the smaller, soot-covered chims and waving vigorous hand signs — trying to tell them that this was a bad thing.

Athaclena could see how, by their lights, it wasn’t logical. But then, the affairs of patron-class beings often did seem foolish.

Finally, the big pre-clients were left standing amid eddies of smoke with small piles of personal possessions — toys, mementos, and simple tools — piled at their feet. They stared blankly at the wreckage, not knowing what to do.

By dusk Athaclena had been nearly worn down by the emotions that fluxed through the compound. She sat on a tree stump, upwind of the burning clients’ quarters, listening to the great apes’ low, chuffing moans. Her aides slumped nearby with their cameras and bags of samples, staring at the destruction, the whites of their eyes reflecting the flickering flames.

Athaclena withdrew her corona until all she could henn was the Unity Glyph — the coalescence to which all the beings within the forest valley contributed. And even that under-image wavered, flickered. She saw it metaphorically — weepy, drooping, like a sad flag of many colors.

There was honor here, she admitted reluctantly. These scientists had been violating a treaty, but they couldn’t be accused of doing anything truly unnatural.

By any real measure, gorillas were as ready for Uplift as chimpanzees had been, a hundred Earth years before Contact. Humans had been forced to make compromises, back when Contact brought them into the domain of Galactic society. Officially, the tenancy treaty which sanctioned their rights to their homeworld was intended to see to it that Earth’s fallow species list was maintained, so its stock of Potential for sentience would not be used up too quickly.

But everyone knew that, in spite of primitive man’s legendary penchant for genocide, the Earth was still a shining example of genetic diversity, rare in the range of types and forms that had been left untouched by Galactic civilization.

Anyway… when a pre-sentient race was ready for Uplift, it was ready!

No, clearly the treaty had been forced on humans while they were weak. They were allowed to claim neo-dolphins and neo-chimps — species already well on the road to sapiency before Contact. But the senior clans weren’t about to let Homo sapiens go uplifting more clients than anybody else around!

Why, that would have given wolflings the status of senior patrons!

Athaclena sighed.

It wasn’t fair, certainly. But that did not matter. Galactic society depended on oaths kept. A treaty was a solemn vow, species to species. Violations could not go unreported.

Athaclena wished her father were here. Uthacalthing would know what to make of the things she had witnessed here — the well-intended work of this illegal center, and the vile but perhaps legal actions of the Gubru.

Uthacalthing was far away, though, too far even to touch within the Empathy Net. All she could tell was that his special rhythm still vibrated faintly on the nahakieri level. And while it was comforting to close her eyes and inner ears and gently kenn it, that faint reminder of him told her little. Nahakieri essences could linger longer after a person left this life, as they had for her dead mother, Mathicluanna. They floated like the songs of Earth-whales, at the edges of what might be known by creatures who lived by hands and fire.

“Excuse me, ma’am.” A voice that was hardly more than a raspy growl broke harshly over the faint under-glyph, dispersing it- Athaclena shook her head. She opened her eyes to see a neo-chimp with soot-covered fur and shoulders stooped from exhaustion.

“Ma’am? You all right?”

“Yes. I am fine. What is it?” Anglic felt harsh in her throat, already irritated from smoke and fatigue.

“Directors wanna see you, ma’am.”

A spendthrift with words, this one. Athaclena slid down from the stump. Her aides groaned, chim-theatrically, as they gathered their tapes and samples and followed behind.

Several lift-lorries stood at the loading dock. Chims and gorillas carried stretchers onto flyers, which then lifted off into the gathering night on softly humming gravities. Their lights faded away into the direction of Port Helenia.

“I thought all the children and elderly were already evacuated. Why are you still loading humans in such a hurry?”

The messenger shrugged. The stresses of the day had robbed many of the chims of much of their accustomed spark. Athaclena was sure that it was only the presence of the gorillas — who had to be set an example — that prevented a mass attack of stress-atavism. In so young a client race it was surprising the chims had done so well.

Orderlies hurried to and from the hospital facility, but they seldom bothered the two human directors directly. The neo-chimp scientist, Dr. Schultz, stood in front of them and seemed to be handling most matters himself. At his side, Chim Frederick had been replaced by Athaclena’s old traveling companion, Benjamin.

On the stage nearby lay a small pile of documents and record cubes containing the genealogy and genetic record of every gorilla who had ever lived here.

“Ah, respected Tymbrimi Athaclena.” Schultz spoke with hardly a trace of the usual chim growl. He bowed, then shook her hand in the manner preferred by his people — a full clasp which emphasized the opposable thumb.

“Please excuse our poor hospitality,” he pleaded. “We had intended to serve a special supper from the main kitchen… sort of a grand farewell. But we’ll have to make do with canned rations instead, I’m afraid.”

A small chimmie approached carrying a platter stacked with an array of containers.

“Dr. Elayne Soo is our nutritionist,” Schultz continued. “She tells me you might find these delicacies palatable.”

Athaclena stared at the cans. Koothra! Here, five hundred parsecs from home, to find an instant pastry made in her own hometown! Unable to help it, she laughed aloud.

“We have placed a full load of these, plus other supplies, aboard a flitter for you. We recommend you abandon’ the craft soon after leaving here, of course. It won’t be long before the Gubru have their own satellite network in place, and thereafter air traffic will be impractical.”

“It won’t be dangerous to fly toward Port Helenia,” Athaclena pointed out. “The Gubru will expect an influx for many days, as people seek antidote treatments.” She motioned at the frantic pace of activity. “So why the near-panic I sense here? Why are you evacuating the humans so quickly? Who… ?”

Looking as if he feared to interrupt her, Schultz nevertheless cleared his throat and shook his head meaningfully. Benjamin gave Athaclena a pleading look.

“Please, ser,” Schultz implored with a low voice. “Please speak softly. Most of our chims haven’t really guessed …” He let the sentence hang.

Athaclena felt a cold thrill along her ruff. For the first time she looked closely at the two human directors, Taka and M’Bzwelli. They had remained silent all along, nodding as if understanding and approving everything being said.

The black woman, Dr. Taka, smiled at her, unblinkingly. Athaclena’s corona reached out, then curled back in revulsion.

She whirled on Schultz. “You are killing her!”

Schultz nodded miserably. “Please, ser. Softly. You are right, of course. I have drugged my dear friends, so they can put up a good front until my few good chim administrators can finish here and get our people away without a panic. It was at their own insistence. Dr. Taka and Dr. M’Bzwelli felt they were slipping away too quickly from effects of the gas.” He added sadly, weakly.

“You did not have to obey them! This is murder!”

Benjamin looked stricken. Schultz nodded. “It was not easy. Chim Frederick was unable to bear the shame even this long and has sought his own peace. I, too, would probably take my life soon, were my death not already as inevitable as my human colleagues.”

“What do you mean?”

“I mean that the Gubru do not appear to be very good chemists!” The elderly neo-chimp laughed bitterly, finishing with a cough. “Their gas is killing some of the humans. It acts faster than they said it would. Also, it seems to be affecting a few of us chims.”

Athaclena sucked in her breath. “I see.” She wished she did not.

“There is another matter we thought you should know about,” Schultz said. “A news report from the invaders. Unfortunately, it was in Galactic Three; the Gubru spurn Anglic and our translation program is primitive. But we know it regarded your father.”

Athaclena felt removed, as if she were hovering above it all. In this state her numbed senses gathered in random details. She could kenn the simple forest ecosystem — little native animals creeping back into the valley, wrinkling their noses at the pungent dust, avoiding the area near the Center for the fires that still flickered there.

“Yes.” She nodded, a borrowed gesture that all at once felt alien again. “Tell me.”

Schultz cleared his throat. “Well, it seems your father’s star cruiser was sighted leaving the planet. It was chased by warships. The Gubru say that it did not reach the Transfer Point.

“Of course one cannot trust what they say. …”

Athaclena’s hips rocked slightly out of joint as she swayed from side to side. Tentative mourning — like a trembling of the lips as a human girl might begin to sense desolation.

No. I will not contemplate this now. Later. I will decide later what to feel.

“Of course you may have whatever aid we can offer,” Chim Schultz continued quietly. “Your flitter has weapons, as well as food. You may fly to where your friend, Robert Oneagle, has been taken, if you wish.

“We hope, however, that you will choose to remain with the evacuation for a time, at least until the gorillas are safely hidden in the mountains, under the care of some qualified humans who might have escaped.”

Schultz looked up at her earnestly, his brown eyes harrowed with sadness.

“I know it is a lot to ask, honored Tymbrimi Athaclena, but will you take our children under your care for a time, as they go into exile in the wilderness?”

23 Exile

The gently humming gravitic craft hovered over an uneven row of dark, rocky ridge-spines. Noon-shortened shadows had begun to grow again as Gimelhai passed its zenith and the flyer settled into the dimness between the stone spines. Its engines grumbled into silence.

A messenger awaited its passengers at the agreed rendezvous. The chim courier handed Athaclena a note as she stepped out of the machine, while Benjamin hurried to spread radar-fouling camouflage over the little flitter.

In the letter Juan Mendoza, a’freeholder above Lome Pass, reported the safe arrival of Robert Oneagle and little April Wu. Robert was recuperating well, the message said. He might be up and about in a week or so.

Athaclena felt relieved. She wanted very much to see Robert — and not only because she needed advice on how to handle a ragged band of refugee gorillas and neo-chimpanzees.

Some of the Howletts Center chims — those affected by the Gubran gas — had gone to the “city with the humans, hoping antidote would be given as promised… and that it would work. She had left only a handful of really responsible chim technicians to assist her.

Perhaps more chims would show up, Athaclena told herself — and maybe even some human officials who had escaped gassing by the Gubru. She hoped that somebody in authority might appear and take over soon.

Another message from the Mendoza household was written by a chim survivor of the battle in space. The militiaman requested help getting in touch with the Resistance Forces.

Athaclena did not know how to reply. In the late hours last night, as great ships descended upon Port Helenia and the towns on the Archipelago, there had been frantic telephone and radio calls to and from sites all over the planet. There were reports of ground fighting at the spaceport. Some said that it was even hand to hand for a time. Then there was silence, and the Gubru armada consolidated without further incident.

It seemed that in half a day the resistance so carefully planned by the Planetary Council had fallen completely apart. All traces of a chain of command had dissolved; for nobody had foreseen the use of hostage gas. How could anything be. done when nearly every human on the planet was taken so simply out of action?

A scattering of chims were trying to organize here and there, mostly by telephone. But few had thought out any but the most nebulous plans.

Athaclena put away the slips of paper and thanked the messenger. Over the hours since the evacuation she had begun to feel a change within herself. What had yesterday been confusion and grief had evolved into an obstinate sense of determination.

I will persevere. Uthacalthing would require it of me and I will not let him down.

Wherever I am, the enemy will not thrive near me.

She would also preserve the evidence she had gathered, of course. Someday the opportunity might come to present it to Tymbrimi authorities. It could give her people an opportunity to teach the humans a badly needed lesson on how to behave as a Galactic patron race must, before it was too late.

If it was not too late already.

Benjamin joined her at the sloping edge of the ridge top. “There!” He pointed into the valley below. “There they are, right on time.”

Athaclena shaded her eyes. Her corona reached forth and touched the network around her. Yes. And now I see them, as well.

A long column of figures moved through the forest below, some small ones — brown in color — escorting a more numerous file of larger, darker shapes. Each of the big creatures carried a bulging backpack. A few had dropped to the knuckles of one hand as they shuffled along. Gorilla children ran amidst the adults, waving their arms for balance.

The escorting chims kept alert watch with beam rifles clutched close. Their attention was directed not on the column or the forest but at the sky.

The heavy equipment had already made it by circuitous routes to limestone caves in the mountains. But the exodus would not be safe until all the refugees were there at last, in those underground redoubts.

Athaclena wondered what was going on now in Port Helenia, or on the Earth-settled islands. The escape attempt of the Tymbrimi courier ship had been mentioned twice more by the invaders, then never again.

If nothing else, she would have to find out if her father was still on Garth, and if he still lived.

She touched the locket hanging from the thin chain around her neck, the tiny case containing her mother’s legacy — a single thread from Mathicluanna’s corona. It was cold solace, but she did not even have that much from Uthacalthing.

Oh, Father. How could you leave me without even a strand of yours to guide me?

The column of dark shapes approached rapidly. A low, growling sort of semi-music rose from the valley as they passed by, like nothing she had ever heard before. Strength these creatures had always owned, and Uplift had also removed some of their well-known frailty. As yet their destiny was unclear, but these were, indeed, powerful entities.

Athaclena had no intention of remaining inactive, simply a nursemaid for a gang of pre-sentients and hairy clients. One more thing Tymbrimi shared with humans was understanding of the need to act when wrong was being done. The letter from the wounded space-chim had started her thinking.

She turned to her aide.

“I am less than completely fluent in the languages of Earth, Benjamin. I need a word. One that describes an unusual type of military force.

“I am thinking of any army that moves by night and in the shadow of the land. One that strikes quickly and silently, using surprise to make up for small numbers and poor weapons. I remember reading that such forces were common in the pre-Contact history of Earth. They used the conventions of so-called civilized legions when it suited them, and innovation when they liked.

“It would be a k’chu-non krann, a wolfling army, unlike anything now known. Do you understand what I am talking about, Benjamin? Is there a word for this thing I have in mind?”

“Do you mean… ?” Benjamin looked quickly down at the column of partly uplifted apes lumbering through the forest below, rumbling their low, strange marching song.

He shook his head, obviously trying to restrain himself, but his face reddened and finally the guffaws burst out, uncontainable. Benjamin hooted and fell against a spine-stone, then over onto his back. He rolled in the dust of Garth and kicked at the sky, laughing.

Athaclena sighed. First back on Tymbrim, then among humans, and now here, with the newest, roughest clients known — everywhere she found jokers.

She watched the chimpanzee patiently, waiting for the silly little thing to catch its breath and finally let her in on what it found so funny.