The Uplift War

43 Uthacalthing

Inky stains marred the fen near the place where the yacht had foundered. Dark fluids oozed slowly from cracked, sunken tanks into the waters of the broad, flat estuary. Wherever the slick trails touched, insects, small animals, and the tough salt grass all died.

The little spaceship had bounced and skidded when it crashed, scything a twisted trail of destruction before finally plunging nose first into the marshy river mouth. For days thereafter the wreck lay where it had come to rest, slowly leaking and settling into the mud.

Neither rain nor the tidal swell could wash away the battle scars etched into its scorched flanks. The yacht’s skin, once allicient and pretty, was now seared and scored from near-miss after near-miss. Crashing had only been the final insult.

Incongruously large at the stern of a makeshift boat, the Thennanin looked across the intervening flat islets to survey the wreck. He stopped rowing to ponder the harsh reality of his situation.

Clearly, the ruined spaceship would never fly again. Worse, the crash had made a sorrowful mess of this patch of marshlands. His crest puffed up, a rooster’s comb ridged with spiky gray fans.

Uthacalthing lifted his own paddle and politely waited for his fellow castaway to finish his stately contemplation. He hoped the Thennanin diplomat was not about to serve up yet another lecture on ecological responsibility and the burdens of patronhood. But, of course, Kault was Kault.

“The spirit of this place is offended,” the large being said, his breathing slits rasping heavily. “We sapients have no business taking our petty wars down into nurseries such as these, polluting them with space poisons.”

“Death comes to all things, Kault. And evolution thrives on tragedies.” He was being ironic, but Kault, of course, took him seriously. The Thennanin’s throat slits exhaled heavily.

“I know that, my Tymbrimi colleague. It is why most registered nursery worlds are allowed to go through their natural cycles unimpeded. Ice ages and planetoidal impacts are all part of the natural order. Species are tempered and rise to meet such challenges.

“However, this is a special case. A world damaged as badly as Garth can only take so many disasters before it goes into shock and becomes completely barren. It is only a short time since the Bururalli worked out their madness here, from which this planet has barely begun to recover. Now our battles add more stress… such as that filth.”

Kault gestured, pointing at the fluids leaking from the broken yacht. His distaste was obvious.

Uthacalthing chose, this time, to keep his silence. Of course every patron-level Galactic race was officially environmentalist. That was the oldest and greatest law. Those spacefaring species who did not at least declare fealty to the Ecological Management Codes were wiped out by the majority, for the protection of future generations of sophonts.

But there were degrees. The Gubru, for instance, were less interested in nursery worlds than in their products, ripe pre-sentient species to be brought into the Gubru Clan’s peculiar color of conservative fanaticism. Among the other lines, the Soro took great joy in the manipulation of newly fledged client races. And the Tandu were simply horrible.

Kault’s race was sometimes irritating in their sanctimonious pursuit of ecological purity, but at least theirs was a fixation Uthacalthing could understand. It was one thing to burn a forest, or to build a city on a registered world. Those types of damage would heal in a short time. It was quite another thing to release long-lasting poisons into a biosphere, poisons which would be absorbed and accumulate. Uthacalthing’s own distaste at the oily slicks was only a little less intense than Kault’s. But nothing could be done about it now.

“The Earthlings had a good emergency cleanup team on this planet, Kault. Obviously the invasion has left it inoperative. Perhaps the Gubru will get around to taking care of this mess themselves.”

Kault’s entire upper body twisted as the Thennanin performed a sneezelike expectoration. A gobbet struck one of the nearby leafy fronds. Uthacalthing had come to know that this was an expression of extreme incredulity.

“The Gubru are slackers and heretics! Uthacalthing, how can you be so naively optimistic?” Kault’s crest trembled and his leathery lids blinked. Uthacalthing merely looked back at his fellow castaway, his lips a compressed line.

“Ah. Aha,” Kault rasped. “I see! You test my sense of humor with a statement of irony.” The Thennanin made his ridge crest inflate briefly. “Amusing. I get it. Indeed. Let us proceed.”

Uthacalthing turned and lifted his oar again. He sighed and crafted tu’fluk, the glyph of mourning for a joke not properly appreciated.

Probably, this dour creature was selected as ambassador to an Earthling world because he has what passes for a great sense of humor among Thennanin. The choice might have been a mirror image of the reason Uthacalthing himself had been chosen by the Tymbrimi … for his comparatively serious nature, for his restraint and tact.

No, Uthacalthing thought as they rowed, worming by patches of struggling salt grass. Kault, my friend, you did not get the joke at all. But you will.

It had been a long trek back to the river mouth. Garth had rotated more than twenty times since he and Kault had to abandon the crippled ship in midair, parachuting into the wilderness. The Thennanin’s unfortunate Ynnin clients had panicked and gotten their parasails intertangled, causing them to fall to their deaths. Since then, the two diplomats had been solitary companions.

At least with spring weather they would not freeze. That was some comfort.

It was slow going in their makeshift boat, made from stripped tree branches and parasail cloth. The yacht was only a few hundred meters from where they had sighted it, but it took the better part of four hours to wend through the frequently tortuous channels. Although the terrain was very flat, high grass blocked their view most of the way.

Then, suddenly, there it was, the broken ruin of a once-sleek little ship of space.

“I still do not see why we had to come back to the wreck,” Kault rasped. “We got away with sufficient dietary supplements to let us live off the land. When things calm down we can intern ourselves—”

“Wait here,” Uthacalthing said, not caring that he interrupted the other. Thennanin weren’t fanatical about that sort of punctilio, thank Ifni. He slipped over the side of the boat and into the water. “There is no need that both of us risk approaching any closer. I will continue alone.”

Uthacalthing knew his fellow castaway well enough to read Kault’s discomfort. Thennanin culture put great store in personal courage — especially since space travel terrified them so.

“I will accompany you, Uthacalthing.” He moved to put the oar aside. “There may be dangers.”

Uthacalthing stopped him with a raised hand. “Unnecessary, colleague and friend. Your physical form isn’t suited for this mire. And you may tip the boat. Just rest. I’ll only be a few minutes.”

“Very well, then.” Kault looked visibly relieved. “I shall await you here.”

Uthacalthing stepped through the shallows, feeling for his footing in the tricky mud. He skirted the swirls of leaked ship-fluid and made toward the bank where the broken back of the yacht arched over the bog.

It was hard work. He felt his body try to alter itself to better handle the effort of wading through the muck, but Uthacalthing suppressed the reaction. The glyph nuturunow helped him keep adaptations to a minimum. The distance just wasn’t worth the price the changes would cost him.

His ruff expanded, partly to support nuturunow and partly as his corona felt among the weeds and grass for presences. It was doubtful anything here could harm him. The Bururalli had seen to that. Still, he probed the surrounding area as he waded, and caressed the empathy net of this marshy life-stew.

The little creatures were all around him, all the basic, standard forms: sleek and spindly birds, scaled and horn-mouthed reptiloids, hairy or furry types which scuttled among the reeds. It had long been known that there were three classic ways for oxygen-breathing animals to cover themselves. When skin cells buckled outward it led to feathers. When they buckled inward there was hair. When they thickened, flat and hard, the animal had scales.

All three had developed here, and in a typical pattern. Feathers were ideal for avians, who needed maximum insulation for minimum weight. Fur covered the warm-blooded creatures, who could not afford to lose heat.

Of course, that was the only surface. Within, there was a nearly infinite number of ways to approach the problem of living. Each creature was unique, each world a wonderful experiment in diversity. A planet was supposed to be a great nursery, and deserved protection in that role. It was a belief both Uthacalthing and his companion shared.

His people and Kault’s were enemies — not as the Gubru were to the humans of Garth, of course, but of a certain style — registered with the Institute for Civilized Warfare. There were many types of conflict, most of them dangerous and quite serious. Still, Uthacalthing liked this Thennanin, in a way. That was preferable. It was usually easier to pull a jest on someone you liked.

His slick leggings shed the greasy water as he slogged up onto the mudbank. Uthacalthing checked for radiation, then stepped lightly toward the shattered yacht.

Kault watched the Tymbrimi disappear around the flank of the broken ship. He sat still, as he had been bid, using the paddle occasionally to stroke against the sluggish current and keep away from the oozing spijls. Mucus bubbled from his breathing slits to drive out the stench.

Throughout the Five Galaxies the Thennanin were known as tough fighters and doughty starfarers. But it was only on a living, breathing planet that Kault and his kind could relax. That was why their ships, so resembled worlds themselves, solid and durable. A scout craft made by his people would not have been swatted from the sky as this one had, by a mere terawatt laser! The Tymbrimi preferred speed and maneuverability over armor, but disasters such as this one seemed to bear out the Thennanin philosophy.

The crash had left them with few options. Running the Gubru blockade would have been chancy at best, and the other alternative had been hiding out with the surviving human officials. Hardly choices one lingered over.

Perhaps the crash had been the best possible branching for reality to take, after all. At least here there was the dirt and water, and they were amid life.

Kault looked up when Uthacalthing reappeared around the corner of the wreck, carrying a small satchel. As the Tymbrimi envoy slipped into the water, Uthacalthing’s furry ruff was fully expanded. Kault had learned that it was not as efficient at dissipating excess heat as the Thennanin crest.

Some groups within his clan took facts like these as evidence of intrinsic Thennanin superiority, but Kault belonged to a faction that was more charitable in outlook. Each lifeform had its niche in the evolving,Whole, they believed. Even the wild and unpredictable wolfling humans. Even-heretics.

Uthacalthing’s corona fluffed out as he worked his way back to the boat, but it was not because he was overheated. He was Grafting a special glyph.

Lurrunanu hovered under the bright sunshine. It coalesced in the field of his corona, gathered, strained forward eagerly, then catapulted over toward Kault, dancing over the big Thennanin’s crest as if in delighted curiosity.

The Galactic appeared oblivious. He noticed nothing, and he could not be blamed for that. After all, the glyph was nothing. Nothing real.

Kault helped Uthacalthing climb back aboard, grabbing his belt and pulling him into the rocky boat head first. “I recovered some extra dietary supplements and a few tools we might need,” Uthacalthing said in Galactic Seven as he rolled over. Kault steadied him.

The satchel broke open and bottles rolled onto the fabric bottom. Lurrunanu still hovered above the Thennanin, awaiting the right moment. As Kault reached down to help collect the spilled items, the whirling glyph pounced!

It struck the famed Thennanin obstinacy and rebounded. Kault’s bluff stolidity was too tough to penetrate. Under Uthacalthing’s prodding, lurrunanu leapt again, furiously hurling itself against the leathery creature’s crest at just the moment Kault picked up a bottle that was lighter than the others and handed it to Uthacalthing. But the alien’s obdurate skepticism sent the glyph reeling back once more.

Uthacalthing tried a final time as he fumbled with the bottle and put it away, but this time lurrunanu simply shattered against the Thennanin’s impenetrable barrier of assumptions.

“Are you all right?” Kault asked.

“Ohv fine.” Uthacalthing’s ruff settled down and he exhaled in frustration. Somehow, he would have to find a way to excite Kault’s curiosity!

Oh well, he thought. I never expected it to be easy. There will be time.

Out there ahead of them lay several hundred kilometers of wildlands, then the Mountains of Mulun, and finally the Valley of the Sind before they could reach Port Helenia. Somewhere in that expanse Uthacalthing’s secret partner waited, ready to help execute a long, involved joke on Kault. Be patient, Uthacalthing told himself. The best jests do take time.

He put the satchel under his makeshift seat and secured it with a length of twine. “Let us be off. I believe we’ll find good fishing by the far bank, and those trees will make for good shelter from the midday sun.”

Kault rasped assent and picked up his oar. Together they worked their way through the marsh, leaving the derelict yacht behind them to settle slowly into the endurant mud.

44 Galactics

In orbit above the planet the invasion force entered a new phase of operation.

At the beginning, there had been the assault against a brief, surprisingly bitter, but almost pointless resistance. Then came the consolidation and plans for ritual and cleansing. All through this, the major preoccupation of the fleet had been defensive.

The Five Galaxies were in a turmoil. Any of a score of other alliances might have also seen an opportunity in seizing Garth. Or the Terran/Tymbrimi alliance — though hard beset elsewhere — might choose to counterattack here. The tactical computers calculated that the wolflings would be stupid to do so, but Earthlings were so unpredictable, one could never tell.

Too much had been invested in this theater already. The clan of the Gooksyu-Gubru could not afford a loss here.

So the battle fleet had arrayed itself. Ships kept watch over the five local layers of hyperspacBi over nearby transfer points, over the cometary time-drop nexi.

News came of Earth’s travails, of the desperation of the Tymbrimi, and of the tricksters’ difficulties in acquiring allies among the lethargic Moderate clans. As the interval stretched it became clear that no threat would come from those directions.

But some of the other great clans were busy. Those who were quick to see advantage. Some were engaged in futile searches for the missing dolphin ship. Others used the confusion as a convenient excuse to carry through on ancient grudges. Millennia-old agreements unraveled like gas clouds before sudden supernovae. Flame licked at the ancient social fabric of the Five Galaxies. From the Gubru Home Perch came new orders. As soon as ground-based defenses were completed, the greater part of the fleet must go on to other duties. The remaining force should be more than adequate to hold Garth against any reasonable threat.

The Roost Masters did accompany the order with compensations. To the Suzerain of Beam and Talon they awarded a citation. To the Suzerain of Propriety they promised an improved Planetary Library for the expedition on Garth.

The new Suzerain of Cost and Caution needed no compensation. The orders were victory in themselves for they manifested caution in their essence. The chief bureaucrat won molt points, badly needed in its competition with its more experienced peers.

The naval units set forth for the nearest transfer point, confident that matters on Garth were well in beak and hand. The ground forces, however, watched the great battleships depart with slightly less certitude. Down on the planet’s surface there were portents of a minor resistance movement. The activity — as yet hardly more than a nuisance — had started among the chimpanzee population in the back country. As they were cousins and clients of men, their irritating and unbecoming behavior came as no surprise. The Gubru high command took precautions. Then they turned their attention to other matters.

Certain items of information had come to the attention of the Triumvirate — data taken from an enemy source — information having to do with Planet Garth itself. The hint might turn out to be nothing at all. But if it were true the possibilities were vast!

In any event, these things had to be looked into. Important advantages might be at stake. In this, all three Suzerains agreed completely. It was their first taste of true consensus together.

A platoon of Talon Soldiers kept watch over the expedition making its way into the mountains. Slender avians in battle dress swooped just over the trees, the faint whine of their flight harnesses carrying softly down the narrow canyons. One hover tank cruised ahead on point and another guarded the convoy’s rear.

The scientist investigators in their floater barges rode amidst this ample protection. The vehicles headed upland on low cushions of air. Perforce they avoided the rough, spiny ridgetops. There was no hurry, though. The rumor they chased was probably nothing at all, but the Suzerains insisted that it be checked out, just in case.

Their goal came into sight late on the second day. It was a flattened area at the bottom of a narrow valley. A number of buildings had burned to the ground here, not too long ago.

The hover tanks took positions at opposite ends of the scorched area. Then Gubru scientists and their Kwackoo client-assistants emerged from the barges. Standing back from the still stinking ruins, the avians chirped commands to whirring specimen robots, directing the search for clues. Less fastidious than their patrons, the fluffy white Kwackoo dove right into the wreckage, squawking excitedly as they sniffed and probed.

One conclusion was clear immediately. The destruction had been deliberate. The wreckers had wanted to hide something under the smoke and ruin.

Twilight came with subtropical suddenness. Soon the investigators were working uncomfortably under the glare of spotlights. At last the team commander ordered a halt. Full-scale studies would have to wait for morning.

The specialists retired into their barges for the night, chattering about what they had already discovered. There were traces, hints of things exciting and not a little disturbing.

Still, there would be ample time to do the work by day. The technicians closed their barges against the darkness. Six drone watchers rose to hover in silent, mechanical diligence, spinning patiently above the vehicles. Garth turned slowly under the starry night. Faint creakings and rustles told of the busy, serious work of the nocturnal forest creatures — hunting and being hunted. The watcher drones ignored them, rotating unperturbed. The night wore on.

Not long before dawn, new shapes moved through the starlit lanes underneath the trees. The smaller local beasts sought cover and listened as the newcomers crept past, slowly, warily.

The watcher drones noticed these new animals, too, and measured them against their programmed criteria. Harmless, came the judgment. Once again, they did nothing.

45 Athaclena

“They’re sitting ducks,” Benjamin said from his vantage point on the western hillside.

Athaclena glanced up at her chim aide-de-camp. For a moment she struggled with Benjamin’s metaphor. Perhaps he was referring to the enemy’s avian nature?

“They appear to be complacent, if that is what you mean,” she said. “But they have reason. The Gubru rely upon battle robots more extensively than we Tymbrimi — We find them because they are expensive and overly predictable. Nevertheless, those drones can be formidable.”

Benjamin nodded seriously. “I’ll remember that, ser.”

Still, Athaclena sensed that he was unimpressed. He had helped plan this morning’s foray, coordinating with representatives of the Port Helenia resistance. Benjamin was blithely certain of its success.

The town chims were to launch a predawn attack in the Vale of Sind just before action was scheduled to begin here. The official aim was to sow confusion among the enemy; and maybe do him some harm he would remember. Athaclena wasn’t certain that was really possible. But she had agreed to the venture anyway. She did not want the Gubru finding out too much from the ruins of the Howletts Center.

Not yet.

“They’ve set up camp under the ruins of the old main building,” Benjamin said. “Right where we expected them to plant themselves.”

Athaclena looked at the chim’s solid-state night binoculars uncomfortably. “You are certain those devices aren’t detectable?”

Benjamin nodded without looking up. “Yes’m. We laid instruments like these out on a hillside near a cruising gasbot, and its flightpath didn’t even ripple. We’ve narrowed down the list of materials the enemy’s able to sniff. Soon …”

Benjamin stiffened. Athaclena felt his sudden- tension.

“What is it?”

The chen crouched forward. “I see shapes movin’ through the trees. It must be our guys gettin’ into position. Now we’ll find out if those battle robots are programmed the way you expected.”

Distracted as he was, Benjamin did not offer to share the binoculars. So much for patron-client protocol, Athaclena thought. Not that it mattered. She preferred to reach out with her own senses.

Down below she detected three different species of biped arranging themselves around the Gubru expedition. If Benjamin had spotted them they certainly had to be well within range of the enemy’s sensitive watch drones.

And yet the robots did nothing! Seconds beat past, and the whirling drones did not fire on the shapes approaching under the trees. Nor did they alert their sleeping masters.

She sighed in increased hope. The machines’ restraint was a crucial piece of information. The fact that they spun on silently told her volumes about what was happening not only here on Garth but elsewhere, beyond the flecked star-field that glittered overhead. It told her something about the state of the Five Galaxies as a whole.

There is still law, Athaclena thought. The Gubru are constrained.

Like many other fanatic clans, the Gubru Alliance was not pristine in its adherence to the codes of planetary/ecological management. Knowing the avians’ dour paranoia, she had figured that they would program their defense robots one way if the rules were still valid, and quite another if they had fallen.

If chaos had completely taken over the Five Galaxies, the Gubru would have programmed their machines to sterilize hundreds of acres rather than allow any risk to their feathery frames.

But if the Codes held, then the enemy did not yet dare break them. For those same rules might protect them, if the tide of war turned against their faction.

Rule Nine Hundred and Twelve: Where possible, non-combatants must be spared. That held for noncombatant species, even more than individuals, especially on a catastrophe world such as Garth. Native forms were protected by billion-year-old tradition.

“You are trapped by your own assumptions, you vile things,” she murmured in Galactic Seven. Obviously the Gubru had programmed their machines to watch for the trappings of sapiency — factory-produced weapons, clothing, machinery — never imagining that an enemy might assail their camp naked, indistinguishable from the animals of the forest!

She smiled, thinking of Robert. This part had been his idea.

Gray, antelucan translucence was spreading across the sky, gradually driving out the fainter stars. To Athaclena’s left their medic, the elderly chimmie Elayne Soo, looked at her all-metal watch. She tapped its lens significantly. Athaclena nodded, giving permission for matters to proceed.

Dr. Soo cupped her mouth and uttered a high trilling sound, the call of a fyuallu bird. Athaclena did not hear the snapping twang of bowstrings as thirty crossbows fired. She tensed though. If the Gubru had invested in really sophisticated drones…

“Gotcha!” Benjamin exulted. “Six little tops, all broken to bits! The robots are all down!”

Athaclena breathed again. Robert was down there. Now, perhaps, she could believe that he and the others had a chance. She touched Benjamin’s shoulder, and the chim reluctantly handed over the binoculars.

Someone must have noticed when the monitor screens went blank. There was a faint hum, and the upper hatch of one of the hover tanks opened. A helmeted figure peered about the quiet meadow, its beak working in alarm as it saw the wreckage of a nearby watch robot. A sudden movement rustled the branches nearby. The soldier whirled about with its laser drawn as something or someone leaped forth from one of the neighboring trees. Blue lightning blazed at the dark figure.

It missed. The confused Gubru gunner couldn’t track a dim shape that neither flew nor fell but swung across the narrow clearing at the end of a long vine! Bright bolts went wide two more times, and then the soldier’s chance was gone.” There was a “crack” as the shadowy figure wrapped its legs around the slender avian and snapped its spine.

Athaclena’s triple pulse beat fast as she saw Robert’s silhouette stand on the turret of the tank, over the crumpled body of the Talon Soldier. He raised an arm to signal, and suddenly the clearing was filled with running forms.

Chims hurried among the tanks and floaters, carrying earthenware bottles. Behind them shambled larger figures bearing bulky packs. Athaclena heard Benjamin mutter to himself in suppressed resentment. It had been her choice to include gorillas in this operation, and the decision was not popular.

“… thirty-five… thirty-six …” Elayne Soo counted off the seconds. As the dawn light spread they could see chims clambering over the alien vehicles. This was gamble number three. Would surprise delay the inevitable reaction long enough?

Their luck ran out after thirty-eight seconds. Sirens shrieked, first from the lead tank and then from the one in the rear.

“Look out!” someone cried below.

The furry raiders scattered for the trees as Talon Soldiers tumbled out of their hover barges, firing searing blasts from their saber rifles. Chims fell screaming, batting at burning fur, or toppled silently into the undergrowth, holed from front to back. Athaclena clamped down on her corona in order not to faint under their agony.

This was her first taste of full-scale war. Right now there seemed to be no joke, only suffering and pointless, hideous death.

Then Talon Soldiers began falling. The avians hopped about seeking targets that had disappeared into the trees and were struck down by missiles as they stood. The fighters adjusted their weapons to seek out energy sources, but there were no lasers out there to home in on, no pulse-projectors, not even chemically powered pellet guns. Meanwhile crossbow bolts whizzed like stinging gnats. One by one, the Gubru warriors jerked and fell.

First one tank, then the other, began to rise on growling blasts of air. The lead vehicle turned. Its triple barrels then started blasting swaths through the forest.

The tops of towering trees seemed to hang in midair for brief moments as their centers exploded, before plummeting earthward in a haze of smoke and flying wood chips.’ Taut vines whipped back and forth like agonized snakes, spraying their hard-won liquors in all directions. Chims screamed as they spilled from shattered branches.

Is it worth it? Oh, can anything be worth this?

Athaclena’s corona had expanded in the emotion of the moment, and she felt a glyph start to take shape. Angrily she rejected the unformed sense image, an answer to her question. She wanted no laughing Tymbrimi poignancies now. She felt like weeping, human style, but did not know how.

The forest was afroth with fear, and native animals fled the devastation. Some ran right over Athaclena and Benjamin, squeaking in their panicked desperation to get away. The radius of slaughter spread as the deadly vehicles opened up on everything in sight. Explosions and flame were everywhere.

Then, as abruptly as it had started firing, the lead tank stopped! First one, then another barrel glowed reddish white and shut down. Half of the noise abated.

The other fighting machine seemed to be suffering similar problems, but that one tried to continue firing, in spite of its crackling, drooping barrels.

“Duck!” Benjamin cried out as he pulled Athaclena down. The crew on the hillside took cover just in time as the rear tank exploded in a searing, actinic flash. Pieces of metal and shape-plast armor whistled by overhead.

Athaclena blinked away the sharp afterimage. In a momentary confusion brought on by sensory overload, she wondered why Benjamin was so obsessed with Earthly waterfowl.

“The other one’s jammed!” Somebody shouted. Sure enough, by the time Athaclena was able to look again it was easy to see smoke rising from the lead tank’s apron. The turret emitted grinding noises, and it seemed unable to move. Mixed with the pungent odor of burning vegetation came the sharp smell of corrosion.

“It worked!” Elayne Soo exulted. Then she was over the top and gone, running to tend the wounded.

Benjamin and Robert had proposed using chemicals to disable a Gubru patrol. Athaclena then modified the plan to suit her own purposes. She did not want dead Gubru, as had been their policy so far. This time she wanted live ones.

There they were now, bottled up inside their vehicles, unable to move or act. Their communications antennae were melted, and anyway, by now the attacks in the Sind had surely begun. The Gubru High Command had worries enough closer to home. Help would be some time coming.

Silence held for a moment as debris rained to the forest floor. Dust slowly settled.

Then there was heard a growing chorus of high shrieks — shouts of glee unaltered since before Mankind began meddling with chimpanzee genes. Athaclena heard another sound, as well … a rolling, ululating cry of triumph — Robert’s “Tarzan” call.

Good, she thought. It is good to know he lived through all that killing.

Now if only he follows the plan and stays out of sight from now on!

Chims were emerging from the toppled trees, some hurrying to help Dr. Soo with the injured. Others took up positions around the disabled machines.

Benjamin was looking to the northwest, where a few stars faded before the dawn. Faint, warlike rumblings could be heard coming from that direction. “I wonder how Fiben and the city boys are doin’ at their end,” he said.

For the first time Athaclena set her corona free. Released at last, it crafted kuhunnagarra … the essence of indeterminacy postponed. “It is beyond our grasp,” she told him. “Here, in this place, is where We act.”

With a raised hand she signaled her hillside units forward.

46 Fiben

Smoke rose from the Valley of the Sind. Scattered fires had broken out in wheat fields and among the orchards, injecting soot into a morning fast growing pale and dim.

A hundred meters high in the air, perched on the rough wooden frame of a handmade kite, Fiben used field glasses to scan the scattered conflagrations. The fighting had not gone at all well here in the Sind. The operation had been intended as a quick hit-and-run uprising — a way to hurt the invader. But it had turned into a rout.

And now the cloud deck was dropping, as if overladen with dark smoke and the sinking of their hopes. Soon he wouldn’t be able to see beyond a kilometer or so.

“Fiben!”

Below and to the left, not far from the kite’s blocky shadow, Gailet Jones waved up at him. “Fiben, do you see anything of C group? Did they get the Gubru guard post?”

He shook his head, exaggeratedly.

“No sign of them!” he called. “But there’s dust from ” enemy armor!”

“Where? How much? We’ll give you more slack so you can get a better—”

“No way!” he shouted. “I’m comin’ down now.”

“But we need data—”

He shook his head emphatically. “There are patrols all over the place! We’ve got to get out of here!” Fiben motioned to the chims controlling his tether rope.

Gailet bit her lip and nodded. They started reeling him in.

As the attack collapsed and their communications unraveled, Gailet had only become more frantic for information. Frankly, he couldn’t blame her. He, too, wanted to know what was happening. He had friends out there! But right now it might be better to think of their own skins.

And it all started so well, he thought as his craft slowly descended. The uprising had begun when chim workers employed at Gubru construction sites set off explosives carefully emplaced over the last week. At five of the eight target sites, satisfying fiery plumes had risen to meet the dawn sky.

But then the advantages of technology began to be seen. It -had been mind-numbing, witnessing how quickly the automated defense systems of the enemy responded, scything through advancing teams of irregular fighters before their assaults could barely begin. To his knowledge not a single of the more important objectives had been taken, let alone held.

All told, things did not look good at all.

Fiben was forced to luff the kite, spilling air as the crude glider dropped. The ground rushed up, and he gathered his legs for the impact. It came with a jarring thud. He heard one of the wooden spars break as the wing took up most of the shock.

Well, better a spar than a bone. Fiben grunted as he undid his harness and wrestled free of the heavy homespun fabric. A real parasail, with composite struts and duracloth wings, would have been an awful lot better. But they still didn’t know what it was about some manufactured goods that the invader was able to home in on. So he had insisted on homemade — and clumsy — substitutes.

The big, scarred chim named Max stood watch nearby, a captured Gubru laser rifle in one hand. He offered a hand. “You okay, Fiben?”

“Yeah, Max, fine. Let’s get this thing broken down.”

His crew hurried to disassemble the kite and get it under the cover of the nearby trees. Gubru floaters and fighters had been whistling overhead ever since the ill-fated foray had begun before dawn. The kite was almost insignificant, virtually invisible to radar or infrared. Still, they had surely been pushing their luck using it in daylight like this.

Gailet met them at the edge of the orchard. She had been reluctant to believe in the Gubru secret weapon — the enemy’s ability to detect manufactured goods. But she had gone along partway at his insistence. The chimmie wore a half-length brown robe over shorts and a homespun tunic. She clutched a notebook and stylus to her breast.

Getting her to leave behind her portable data screen had taken a major effort of persuasion.

If Fiben had imagined for a moment that he saw relief on her face when he picked himself out of the wreckage, he stood corrected. She was all business now.

“What did you see? How heavy were the enemy reinforcements from Port Helenia? How close did Yossy’s team get to the skynet battery?”

Good chens and chimmies have died this morning, but all she seems to care about is her damned data!

The space-defense strongpoint had been one of several targets of opportunity. Until now the few piddling ambushes in the mountains had hardly been enough to raise the enemy’s notice. Fiben had insisted that the first raid would have to count big. They would never find the enemy so unprepared again.

And yet Gailet had planned the operation in the Vale of Sind around her observers, not the fighting units. To her, information was more important than any harm they might do to the enemy. And to Fiben’s surprise the general had agreed.

He shook his head. “There’s a lot of smoke over in that direction, so I guess maybe Yossy accomplished something.” Fiben dusted himself off. There was a tear in his homespun overalls. “I saw plenty of enemy reinforcements moving about. It’s all up here.” He tapped his head.

Gailet grimaced, obviously wishing she could hear it all right now. But the plan had been to be away well before this. It was getting awfully late. “Okay, we’ll debrief you later. By now this rendezvous must be compromised.”

You gotta be kidding, Fiben thought, sarcastically. He turned. “You guys got that thing buried yet?”

The three chims in the kite team were kicking leaves over a low mound under the bulging roots of a fook sap tree. “All done, Fiben.” They began collecting their hunting rifles stacked beneath another tree.

Fiben frowned. “I think we’d better get rid of those. They’re Terran-make.”

Gailet shook her head emphatically. “And replace them with what? If we’re stuck with just our six or ten captured Gubru lasers, what can we accomplish? I’m willing to attack the enemy stark naked if I have to, but not unarmed!” Her brown eyes were hot.

Fiben felt his own anger. “You’re willing to attack. Why not go after the damn birds with a sharpened pencil then! That’s your favorite weapon.”

“That’s not fair! I’m taking all these notes because—”

She never finished the remark. Max interrupted, shouting, “Take cover!”

The sudden whistle of split air became a rocking boom as something white flashed past nearly at treetop level. Fallen leaves whirled and floated out upon the meadow in its wake. Fiben did not remember diving behind a knotted tree root, but he peered over it in time to see the alien craft rise and come about at the crest of the far hill, then begin its return run.

He felt Gailet nearby. Max was to the left, already high in the branches of another tree. The others had flattened themselves over to the right, closer to the verge of the orchard.

Fiben saw one of them raise his weapon as the scoutcraft approached again.

“No!” he shouted, realizing he was already too late.

The edge of the meadow erupted. Gobbets of earth were thrown skyward, as if by angry demons. In the blink of an eye the maelstrom ripped through the nearest trees, propelling fragments of leaves, branches, dirt, flesh, and bone through the air in all directions.

Gailet stared at the chaos, slack-jawed. Fiben threw himself onto her just before the rolling explosion swept past them. He felt the wake of the white fighting craft as it roared past. Surviving trees rattled and shook from the momentum of displaced air. A steady rain of debris fell onto Fiben’s back.

“Hmm-mmmph!”

Gailet’s face emerged from under his arm. She gasped. “Get friggin’ offa me before I suffocate, you smelly, flea-crackin’, moth-eaten …”

Fiben saw the enemy scout plane disappear over the hill. He got up quickly. “Come on,” he said, hauling her to her feet. “We’ve got to get out of here.”

Gailet’s colorful curses ceased abruptly as she stood up. She gasped at the sight of what the Gubru weapon had done, staring as one does at what is too horrible to believe.

Bits of wood had been stirred vigorously with the grisly remains of three would-be warriors. The chims’ rifles lay scattered among the wreckage.

“If you’re plannin’ on grabbing one of those weapons, you’re on your own, sister.”

Gailet blinked, then she shook her head and mouthed one word. No. She was convinced.

Then she whirled. “Max!”

She started toward where they had last seen her big, dour servant. But just then there came a rumbling sound.

Fiben stopped her. “Troop transports. We haven’t got time. If he’s alive and can get away he will. Let’s go!”

The drone of giant machines drew closer. She resisted, still. “Oh, for Ifni’s sake, think of saving your notes!” he urged.

That struck home. Gailet let him drag her along. She stumbled after him for a few paces, then caught her stride. Together they began to run.

Some girl, Fiben thought as they fled under the cover of the trees. She might be a pain in the ass, but at least she’s got spunk. First time she’s ever seen anything like that, and she doesn’t even throw up.

Yeah? Another little voice seemed to say inside him. And when did you ever see such a mess, either? Space battles are neat, clean, compared to this.

Fiben admitted to himself that the biggest reason he had not puked was that he’d be damned if he’d ever let himself lose his breakfast in front of this particular chimmie. He’d never give her the satisfaction.

Together they splashed across a muddy stream and sought cover away from there.

47 Athaclena

It was all up to Benjamin now.

Athaclena and Robert watched from cover up on the slopes as their friend approached the grounded Gubru convoy. Two other chims accompanied Benjamin, one holding high a flag of truce. Its device was the same as the symbol for the Library — the rayed spiral of Galactic Civilization.

The chim emissaries had doffed homespun and were now decked out in silvery formal robes, cut in a style appropriate for bipeds of their form and status. It took courage to approach this way. Although the vehicles were disabled — there had not been a sign of activity for more than half an hour — the three chims had to be wondering what the enemy would do.

“Ten to one the birds try using a robot first,” Robert muttered, his eyes intent on the scene below.

Athaclena shook her head. “No bet, Robert. Notice! The door to the center barge is opening.”

From their vantage point they could survey the entire clearing. The wreckage of the Howletts Center buildings loomed darkly over one still smoldering hover tank. Its sister, useless barrels drooping, lay canted on its shattered pressure-skirts.

In between the two wrecked fighting machines, from one of the disabled barges, a floating shape emerged.

“Right,” Robert sniffed in disgust. It was, indeed, a robot. It, too, carried a flapping banner, another depiction of the rayed spiral.

“Damn birds won’t admit chims are above the level of groundworms, not unless they’re forced to,” Robert commented. “They’ll try to use a machine to handle the parlay. I only hope Benjamin remembers what he’s supposed to do.”

Athaclena touched Robert’s arm, partly to remind him to keep his voice down. “He knows,” she said softly. “And he has Elayne Soo to help him.” Nevertheless, they shared a formless feeling of helplessness as they watched. This was patron-level business. Clients should not be asked to face a situation such as this alone.

The floating drone — apparently one of the Gubru’s sample collection ’bots, hastily adapted to diplomatic functions — came to a halt four meters from the advancing chims, who had already stopped and planted their banner. The robot emitted a squeal of indignant chatter that Athaclena and Robert could not quite make out. The tone, however, was peremptory.

Two of the chims backed up a step, grinning nervously.

“You can do it, Ben!” Robert growled. Athaclena saw knots stand out in his well-muscled arms. If those bulges had been Tymbrimi change glands, instead… She shivered at the comparison and looked back to the scene below.

Down in the valley, Chim Benjamin stood rock still, apparently ignoring the machine. He waited. At last its tirade ran down. There was a moment of silence. Then Benjamin made a simple arm motion — exactly as Athaclena had taught him — contemptuously dismissing the nonliving from involvement in sapient affairs.

The robot squawked again, this time louder, and with a trace of desperation.

The chims simply stood and waited, not even deigning to answer the machine. “What hauteur,” Robert sighed. “Good going, Ben. Show ’em you got class.”

Minutes passed. The tableau held.

“This convoy of Gubru came into the mountains without psi shields!” Athaclena announced suddenly. She touched her right temple as her corona waved. “That or the shields were wrecked in the attack. Either way, I can tell they are growing nervous.”

The invaders still possessed some sensors. They would be detecting movement in the forest, runners drawing nearer. The second assault group would arrive soon, this time bearing modern weapons.

The Resistance had kept its greatest power in reserve for the sake of surprise. Antimatter tended to give off resonances that were detectable from a long way away. Now, though, it was time to show all of their cards. By now the enemy would know that they were not safe, even within their armored craft.

Abruptly, and without ceremony, the robot rose and fled to the center barge. Then, after a brief pause, the lock cycled open again and a new pair of emissaries emerged.

“Kwackoo,” Robert announced.

Athaclena suppressed the glyph syrtunu. Her human friend did have a propensity for proclaiming the obvious.

The fluffy white quadrupeds, loyal clients of the Gubru, approached the parlay point gobbling to each other excitedly. They loomed large as they arrived in front of the chims. A vodor hung from one thick, feathery throat, but the translator machine remained silent.

The three chims folded their hands before themselves and bowed as one, inclining their heads to an angle of about twenty degrees. They straightened and waited.

The Kwackoo just stood there. It was apparent who was ignoring whom this time.

Through the binoculars Athaclena saw Benjamin speak. She cursed the need to watch all this without any way to listen in.

The chim’s words were effective, however. The Kwackoo chirped and blatted in flustered outrage. Through the vodor came words too faint to pick out, but the results were nearly instantaneous. Benjamin did not wait for them to finish. He and his companions picked up their banner, turned about, and marched away.

“Good fellow,” Robert said in satisfaction. He knew chims. Right now their shoulder blades must be itching terribly, yet they sauntered coolly.

The lead Kwackoo stopped speaking. It stared, nonplussed. Then it began hopping and giving out sharp cries. Its partner, too, seemed quite agitated. Now those on the hill could hear the amplified voice of the vodor, commanding “. . . come back! …” over and over again.

The chims continued walking toward the line of trees until, at last, Athaclena and Robert heard the word.

“. . .come back… PLEASE!…”

Human and Tymbrimi looked at each other and shared a smile. That was half of what this fight had been about.

Benjamin and his party halted abruptly. They turned around and sauntered back. With the spiral standard in place once more they stood silently, waiting. At last, quivering from what must have been terrible humiliation, the feathered emissaries bowed.

It was a shallow bow — hardly a bending of two out of four knees — but it served. Indentured clients of the Gubru had recognized as their equals the indentured clients of human beings. “They might have chosen death over this,” Athaclena whispered in awe, though she had planned for this very thing. “The Kwackoo are nearly sixty thousand Earth years old. Neo-chimpanzees have been sapient for only three centuries, and are the clients of wolflings.” She knew Robert would not be offended by her choice of words. “The Kwackoo are far enough along in Uplift that they have the right to choose death over this. They and the Gubru must be stupefied, and have not thought out the implications. They probably can barely believe it is happening.”

Robert grinned. “Just wait till they hear the rest of it. They’ll wish they’d chosen the easy way out.”

The chims answered the bow at the same angle. Then, with that distasteful formality out of the way, one of the giant avioids spoke quickly, its vodor mumbling an Anglic translation.

“The Kwackoo are probably demanding to speak with the leaders of the ambush,” Robert commented, and Athaclena agreed.

Benjamin betrayed his nervousness by using his hands as he replied. But that was no real problem. He gestured at the ruins, at the destroyed hover tanks, at the helpless barges and the forest on all sides, where vengeful forces were converging to finish the job.

“He’s telling them he is the leader.”

That was the script, of course. Athaclena had written it, amazed all the while how easily she had adapted from the subtle Tymbrimi art of dissemblement to the more blatant, human technique of outright lying.

Benjamin’s hand gestures helped her follow the conversation. Through empathy and her own imagination, she felt she could almost fill in the rest.

“We have lost our patrons,” Benjamin had rehearsed saying. “You and your masters have taken them from us. We miss them, and long for their return. Still, we know that helpless mourning would not make them proud of us. Only by action may we show how well we have been uplifted.

“We are therefore doing as they have taught us — behaving as sapient creatures of thought and honor.

“In honor’s name then, and by the Codes of War, I now demand that you and your masters offer their parole, or face the consequences of our legal and righteous wrath!”

“He is doing it,” Athaclena whispered half in wonder.

Robert coughed as he tried not to laugh aloud. The Kwackoo seemed to grow more and more distressed as Benjamin spoke. When he finished, the feathery quadrupeds hopped and squawked. They puffed and preened and objected loudly.

Benjamin, though, would not be bluffed. He referred to his wrist chronometer then spoke three words.

The Kwackoo suddenly stopped protesting. Orders must have arrived, for all at once they bowed again, swiveled, and sped back to the center barge at a gallop.

The sun had risen above the line of hills to the east. Splashes of morning light blazed through the lanes of shattered trees. It grew warm out on the parlay ground, but the chims stood and waited. At intervals Benjamin glanced to his watch and called out the time remaining.

At the edge of the forest Athaclena saw their special weapons team begin setting up their only antimatter projector. Certainly the Gubru were aware of it, too.

She heard Robert softly counting out the minutes.

Finally — in fact nearly at the very last moment — the hatches of all three hover craft opened. From each emerged a procession. The entire complement of Gubru, dressed in the glistening robes of senior patrons, led the way. They crooned a high-pitched song, accompanied by the basso of their faithful Kwackoo.

The pageantry was steeped in ancient tradition. It had its roots in epochs long before life had crawled ashore on the Earth. It wasn’t hard to imagine how nervous Benjamin and the others must feel as those to be paroled assembled before them. Robert’s own mouth felt dry. “Remember to bow again,” he urged in a whisper.

Athaclena smiled, having the advantage of her corona. “Have no fear, Robert. He will remember.” And indeed, Benjamin folded his hands before him in the deeply respectful fashion of a junior client greeting a senior patron. The chims bowed low.

Only a flash of white betrayed the fact that Benjamin was grinning from ear to ear.

“Robert,” she said, nodding in satisfaction. “Your people have done very well by theirs, in only four hundred years.”

“Don’t give us the credit,” he answered. “It was all there in the raw from the start.”

The paroled avians departed toward the Valley of the Sind on foot. No doubt they would be picked up before long. Even if they were not, Athaclena had ordered that word go out. They were to reach home base unmolested. Any chim who touched one feather would be outlawed, his plasm dumped into sewers, his gene-line extinguished. The matter was that serious.

The procession disappeared down the mountain road. Then the hard work began.

Crews of chims hurried to strip the abandoned vehicles in the precious time remaining before retribution arrived. Gorillas chuffed impatiently, grooming and signing to one another as they awaited loads to carry off into the hills.

By then Athaclena had already moved her command post to a spine-covered ridge two miles farther into the mountains. She watched through binoculars as the last salvage was loaded and hauled away, leaving nearly empty hulks under the shadows of the ruined buildings.

Robert had left much earlier, at Athaclena’s insistence. He was departing again on another mission tomorrow and needed to get his rest.

Her corona waved, and she kenned Benjamin before his softly slapping feet could be heard padding up the trail. When he spoke his voice was somber.

“General, we’ve had word by semaphore that the attacks in the Sind failed. A few Eatee construction sites were blown up, but the rest of the assault was nearly a total disaster.”

Athaclena closed her eyes. She had expected as much. They had too many security problems down below, for one thing. Fiben had suspected the town-side resistance was compromised by traitors.

And yet Athaclena had not disallowed the attacks. They had served a valuable purpose by distracting the Gubru defense forces, keeping their quick-reaction fighters busy for from here. She only hoped that not too many chims had lost their lives drawing the invader’s ire.

“The day balances out,” she told her aide. Their victories would have to be symbolic, she knew. To try to expel the enemy with forces such as theirs would be futile. With her growing knack at metaphors she likened it to a caterpillar attempting to move a tree.

No, what we win, we will achieve through subtlety.

Benjamin cleared his throat. Athaclena looked down at him. “You still do not believe we should have let them leave alive,” she told him.

He nodded. “No, ser, I do not. I think I understand some of what you told me about symbolism and all that… and I’m proud you seem to think we handled the parole ceremony all right. But I still believe we should’ve burned them all.”

“Out of revenge?”

Benjamin shrugged. They both knew that was how the majority of the chims felt. They couldn’t care less about symbols. The races of Earth tended to look upon all the bowing and fine class distinctions of the Galactics as the mincing foolishness of a mired, decadent civilization.

“You know that’s not what I think,” Benjamin said. “I’d go along with your logic — about us scoring a real coup here today just by getting them to talk to us — if it weren’t for one thing.”

“What thing is that?”

“The birds had a chance to snoop around the center. They saw traces of Uplift. And I can’t rule out the possibility they caught a glimpse of the gorillas themselves, through the trees!” Benjamin shook his head. “I just don’t think we should’ve allowed them to walk out of here after that,” he said.

Athaclena put a hand on her aide’s shoulder. She did not speak because there did not seem to be anything to say.

How could she explain it to Benjamin?

Syulff-kuonn took form over her head, whirling with satisfaction at the progress of things, things her father had planned.

No, she could not explain to Benjamin that she had insisted on bringing the gorillas along, on making them part of the raid, as a step in a long, involved, and very practical joke.

48 Fiben and Gailet

“Keep your head down!” Fiben growled.

“Will you stop snapping at me?” Gailet answered hotly. She lifted her eyes just to the tops of the surrounding grass stems. “I just want to see if—”

The words cut off as Fiben swept her supporting arms out from under her. She landed with a grunt of expelled air and rolled over spitting dirt. “You pit-scratching, flea-bitten—”

Her eyes remained eloquent even with Fiben’s hand clamped firmly over her mouth. “I told you,” he whispered. “With their sensors, if you can see them it means they’ve got to see you. Our only chance is to crawl like worms until we can find a way to blend back into the civilian chim population.!”

From not far away came the hum of agricultural machinery. The sound had drawn them here. If they could only get close enough to mingle with the farmers, they might yet escape the invaders’ dragnet.

For all Fiben knew, he and Gailet might be the only survivors of the ill-fated uprising in the valley. It was hard to imagine how the mountain guerrillas under Athaclena’s command could have done any better. The insurrection seemed all washed up from where he lay.

He drew back his hand from Gailet’s mouth. If looks could kill, he thought, contemplating the expression in her eyes. With her hair matted and mud-splattered, she was hardly the picture of the serene chimmie intellectual.

“I … thought… you… said …” she whispered deliberately, emphasizing calmness, “that the enemy couldn’t detect us if we wear only native-made materials.”

“That’s if they’re being lazy and only counting on their secret weapon. But don’t forget they’ve also got infrared, radar, seismic sonar, psi — ” He stopped suddenly. A low whine approached from his left. If it was the harvester they had heard before, there might be a chance to catch a ride.

“Wait here,” he whispered.

Gailet grabbed his wrist. “No! I’m coming with you!” She looked quickly left and right, then lowered her eyes. “Don’t… don’t leave me alone.”

Fiben bit his lip. “All right. But stay down low, right behind me.”

They moved single file, hugging the ground. Slowly the whine grew louder. Soon Fiben felt a faint tingling up the back of his neck.

Gravities, he thought. It’s close.

How close he didn’t realize until the machine slipped over the grasstops, coming into view just two meters away.

He had been expecting a large vehicle. But this thing was about the size of a basketball and was covered with silvery and glassy knobs — sensors. It bobbed gently in the afternoon breeze, regarding them.

Aw hell. He sighed, sitting up on his haunches and letting his arms drop in resignation. Not far away he heard faint voices. No doubt this thing’s owners.

“It’s a battle drone, isn’t it?” Gailet asked tiredly.

He nodded. “A sniffer. Cheap model, I think. But good enough to find and hold us.”

“What do we do?”

He shrugged. “What can we do? We’d better surrender.”

Behind his back, however, he sifted through the dark soil. His fingers closed around a smooth stone.

The distant voices were coming this way. What th’ heck, he thought.

“Listen, Gailet. When I move, duck. Get outta here. Get your notes to Athaclena, if she’s still alive.”

Then, before she could ask any questions, he let out a shout and hurled the stone with all his might.

Several things happened all at once. Pain erupted in Fiben’s right wrist. There was a flash of light, so bright that it dazzled him. Then, during his leap forward, countless stinging pinpricks rained up and down his chest.

As he sailed toward the thing a sudden, strange feeling overcame Fiben, one that said that he had performed this act before — lived this particular moment of violence — not once or twice, but a hundred times, in a hundred prior lives. The wave of familiarity, hooked on the flickering edge of memory, washed over him as he dove through the drone’s pulsing gravitic field to wrap himself over the alien machine.

The world bucked and spun as the thing tried to throw him off. Its laser blasted at his shadow and grass fires broke out. Fiben held on for his life as the fields and the sky blended in a sickening blur.

The induced sense of déjà vu actually seemed to help! Fiben felt as if he had done this countless times! A small, rational corner of his mind knew that he hadn’t, but the memory misfunction said different and gave him a false confidence he badly needed right then as he dared to loosen the grip of his injured right hand and fumbled for the robot’s control box.

Ground and sky merged. Fiben tore a fingernail prying at the lid, breaking the lock. He reached in, grabbed wires.

The machine spun and careened, as if sensing his intention. Fiben’s legs lost their grip and whipped out. He was whirled around like a rag doll. When his left hand gave way he held on only by a weakening grip on the wires themselves — round and round and round…

At that moment only one thing in the world was not a blur: the lens of the robot’s laser, directly in front of him.

Goodbye, he thought, and closed his eyes.

Then something tore loose. He flew away, still holding wires in his right hand. When crunching impact came, it was almost anticlimactic. He cried out and rolled up just short of one of the smoldering fires.

Oh, there was pain, all right. Fiben’s ribs felt as if one of the big female gorillas at the Howletts Center had been affectionate with him all night. He had been shot at least twice. Still, he had expected to die. No matter what came after this, it was good just to be alive.

He blinked away dust and soot. Five meters away the wreckage of the alien probe hissed and sputtered inside a ring of blackened, smoking grass. So much for the vaunted quality of Galactic hardware.

What Eatee shyster sold the Gubru that piece of shit? Fiben wondered. I don’t care, even if it was a Jophur made often smelly sap rings, I’d kiss him right now, I really would.

Excited voices. Running feet. Fiben felt a sudden hope. He had expected Gubru to come after their downed probe. But these were chims! He winced and held his side as he managed to stand. He smiled.

The expression froze on his face when he saw who was approaching.

“Well, well, what do we have here? Mr. Bluecard himself! Looks like you’ve been running more obstacle courses, college boy. You just don’t seem to know when you’re beat.”

It was a tall chen with carefully shaved facial hair and a mustache, elegantly waxed and curled. Fiben recognized the leader of the Probationer gang at the Ape’s Grape. The one calling himself Irongrip.

Of all the chims in all the world, why did it have to be him?

Others arrived. The bright zipsuits bore an added feature, a sash and arm patch, each bearing the same sigil … a claw outstretched, three sharp talons glistening in holographic threat.

They gathered around him carrying modified saber rifles, obviously members of the new collaborators’ militia he and Gailet had heard rumors of.

“Remember me, college boy?” Irongrip asked, grinning. “Yes, I thought you would. I sure do remember you.”

Fiben sighed as he saw Gailet Jones brought forward, held firmly by two other Probationers. “Are you all right?” she asked softly. He could not read the expression in her eyes. Fiben nodded. There seemed to be little to say.

“Come on, my young genetic beauties.” Irongrip laughed as he took Fiben hard just above his wounded right wrist. “We’ve got some people we want you to meet. And this time, there won’t be any distractions.”

Fiben’s gaze was torn away from Gailet’s as a jerk on his arm sent him stumbling. He lacked the strength to put up a useless struggle.

As his captors dragged him ahead of Gailet, he had his first chance to look around and saw that they were only a few hundred meters from the edge of Port Helenia! A pair of wide-eyed chims in work dungarees watched from the running boards of a nearby cultivator.

Fiben and Gailet were being taken toward a small gate in the alien wall, the barrier that undulated complacently over the countryside like a net settled firmly over their lives.

49 Galactics

The Suzerain of Propriety displayed its agitation by huffing and dancing a brief series of hops on its Perch of Declamation. The half-formed squirms had actually delayed appearing before its judgment, withholding the news for more than a planetary rotation!

True, the survivors of the mountain ambush were still in shock. Their first thought had been to report to military command. And the military, busy cleaning up the last of the abortive insurrections in the nearby flatlands, had made them wait. What, after all, was a minor scuffle in the hills compared with a nearly effective assault on the deep-space defense battery?

The Suzerain could well understand how such mistakes were made. And yet it was frustrating. The affair in the mountains was actually far more significant than any of the other outbreaks of wild guerrilla warfare.

“You should have extinguished — caused an end — eliminated yourselves!”

The Suzerain chirped and danced out its chastisement before the Gubru scientists. The specialists still looked ruffled and unpreened from their long trek out of the hills. Now they slumped further in dejection.

“In accepting parole you have injured — caused harm — reduced our propriety and honor,” the Suzerain finished chiding.

If they had been military the high priest might have demanded reparations from these and their families. But most of their escorts had been killed, and scientists were often less concerned or knowledgeable in matters of propriety than soldiers.

The Suzerain decided to forgive them.

“Nevertheless, your decision is understood — is given sanction. We shall abide by your parole.”

The technicians danced in relief. They would not suffer humiliation or worse upon returning to their homes. Their solemn word would not be repudiated.

The parole would be costly however. These scientists had to depart from the Garth system at once and not be replaced for at least a year. Furthermore, an equal number of human beings had to be released from detention!

The Suzerain suddenly had an idea. This brought on a rare flutter of that strange emotion, amusement. It would order sixteen humans freed, all right, but the mountain chimpanzees would not be reunited with their dangerous masters. The released humans would be sent to Earth!

That would certainly satisfy the propriety of the parole. The solution would be expensive, true, but not nearly as much as letting such creatures loose again on the main continent of Garth!

It was stunning to contemplate that neo-chimpanzees might have achieved what these reported they had done in the mountains. How could it be? The proto-clients they had observed in town and in the valley hardly seemed capable of such finesse.

Might there, indeed, be humans out there still?

The thought was daunting, and the Suzerain did not see how it would be possible. According to census figures the number unaccounted for was too small to be significant anyway. Statistically, all of those should simply be dead.

Of course the gas bombings would have to be stepped up. The new Suzerain of Cost and Caution would complain, for the program had proved very expensive. But now the Suzerain of Propriety would side with the military completely.

There was a faint stirring. The Suzerain of Propriety felt a twinge inside. Was it an early sign of a change of sexual state? It should not begin yet, when things were still so unsettled, and dominance not yet decided among the three peers. The molting must wait until propriety had been served, until consensus had been reached, so that it would be clear who was strongest!

The Suzerain chirped a prayer to the lost Progenitors, and the others immediately crooned in response.

If only there was some way to be sure which way the battles were going, out in the Galactic swirl! Had the dolphin ship been found yet? Were the fleets of some alliance even now approaching the returned Ancient Ones to call up the end of all things?

Had the time of Change already begun?

If the priest were certain that Galactic Law had indeed broken down irreparably, it would feel free to ignore this unpalatable parole and its implied recognition of neo-chimpanzee sapiency.

There were consolations, of course. Even with humans to guide them, the near-animals would never know the right ways to take advantage of that recognition. That was the way of wolfling-type species. Ignoring the subtleties of the ancient Galactic culture, they barged ahead using the direct approach, and nearly always died.

Consolation, it chirped. Yes, consolation and victory.

There was one more matter to take care of — potentially, the most important of all. The priest addressed the leader of the expedition again.

“Your final parole agreement was to avoid — to abjure — to forswear ever visiting that site again.”

The scientists danced agreement. One small place on the surface of Garth was forbidden the Gubru until the stars fell, or until the rules were changed.

“And yet, before the attack you found — did discover — did uncover traces of mysterious activity — of gene meddling — of secret Uplift?”

That too had been in their report. The Suzerain questioned them carefully about details. There had only been time for a cursory examination, but the hints were compelling. The implications staggering.

Up in those mountains the chimpanzees were hiding a pre-sentient race! Prior to the invasion, they and their human patrons had been engaging in Uplift of a new client species!

So! The Suzerain danced. The data recovered from the Tymbrimi cairn was no lie! Somehow, by some miracle, this catastrophe world has given birth to a treasure! And now, in spite of Gubru mastery of the surface and the sky, the Earth-lings continued to hoard their discovery to themselves!

No wonder the planetary Branch Library had been ransacked of its Uplift files! They had tried to hide the evidence.

But now, the Suzerain rejoiced, we know of this wonder.

“You are dismissed — released — set upon your ships for home,” it told the bedraggled scientists. Then the Suzerain turned to its Kwackoo aides, gathered below its perch.

“Contact the Suzerain of Beam and Talon,” it said with unaccustomed brevity. “Tell my peer that I wish a colloquy at once.” One of the fluffy quadrupeds bowed at once, then scurried off to call the commander of the armed forces.

The Suzerain of Propriety stood still upon its perch, disallowed by custom from setting foot upon the surface until the ceremonies of protection had been completed.

Its weight shifted from time to time, and it rested its beak on its chest while standing deep in thought.