The Uplift War

92 Galactics

“They exist. They have substance! They are!”

The assembled Gubru officials and officers bobbed their downy heads and cried out in unison.

“Zooon!”

“This prize was denied us, honor was set aside, opportunity abandoned, all in the name of penny-pinching, miserly bean-counting! Now the cost will be greater, multiplied, exponentiated!”

The Suzerain of Cost and Caution stood miserably in the corner, listening amid a small crowd ef loyal assistants while it was berated from all sides. It shivered each time the conclave turned and shouted its refrain.

The Suzerain of Propriety stood tall upon its perch. It stepped back and forth, fluffing up to best display the new color that had begun to show under its molting plumage. The assembled Gubru and Kwackoo reacted to that shade with chirps of passionate devotion.

“And now a derelict, recalcitrant, stubborn one forestalls our Molt and consensus, out of which we might at least regain something. Gain honor and allies. Gain peace!”

The Suzerain spoke of their missing colleague, the military commander, who dared not, it seemed, come and face Propriety’s new color, its new supremacy.

A four-legged Kwackoo hurriedly approached, bowed, and delivered a message to its leader’s perch. Almost as an afterthought, a copy made its way to the Suzerain of Cost and Caution as well.

The news from the Pourmin transfer point was not surprising — echoes had been heard of great starships bearing down upon Garth in mighty numbers. After that debacle of an Uplift Ceremony, the new arrivals were only to be expected.

“Well?” The Suzerain of Propriety queried the several military officers who were present. “Does Beam and Talon plan a defense of this world, against all advice, all wisdom, and all honor?”

The officers, of course, did not know. They had deserted their warrior leader as the confusing, unhappy Molt-coalescence suddenly reversed direction.

The Suzerain of Propriety danced a dance of impatience. “You do me no good, do the clan no good, standing about in righteousness. Go back, seek out, return to your posts. Do your duties as he commands, but keep me informed of what he plans and does!”

Use of the male pronoun was deliberate. Though Molt was not yet complete, anyone could tell without dropping feathers which way the wind was blowing.

The officers bowed and rushed as one out of the pavilion.

93 Robert

Debris littered the now quiescent Ceremonial Mound. Stiff easterly winds riffled the lawnlike slopes, tugging at stringy rubbish blown in earlier from the distant mountains. Here and there, city chims poked through trash on the lower terraces, looking for souvenirs.

Higher up only a few pavilions still stood. Around these several dozen large black forms lazily groomed each other’s fur and gossiped with their hands, as if they had never had anything more momentous on their minds than who would mate with whom and what they would be fed next meal.

To Robert it seemed as if the gorillas were quite well satisfied with life. I envy them, he thought. In his case even a great victory did not bring an end to worry. Things were still quite dangerous on Garth. Perhaps even more so than two nights ago, when fate and coincidence intervened to surprise them all.

Life was troubling sometimes. All the time.

Robert returned his attention to his datawell and the letter the Uplift Institute officials had relayed to him only an hour before.

How odd, Robert thought, that after so many years despairing of ever winning her approval, now he had it, and didn’t know how to deal with it. Ironically, he felt sympathy for his mother; it was obviously so very difficult for her to say these things at all. He made allowances for the cool tone of the words themselves.

All Garth saw Megan Oneagle as a gracious lady and fair administrator. Only her wandering husbands and Robert himself knew the other side, the one so utterly terrified by permanent obligation and issues of private loyalty. This was the first time in all his life that Robert recalled her apologizing for something really important, something involving family and intense emotions.

Blurring of vision made him close his eyes. Robert blamed the symptoms on the fringing fields of a lifting starship, whose keening engines could be heard all the way from the spaceport. He wiped his cheeks and watched the great liner — silvery and almost angelic in its serene beauty — rise and pass overhead on its leisurely way out to space and beyond.

“One more batch of fleeing rats,” he murmured.

Uthacalthing did not bother turning to look. He lay back on his elbows watching the gray waters. “The Galactic visitors have already had more entertainment than they bargained for, Robert. That Uplift Ceremony was plenty. To most of them, the prospect of a space battle and siege are much less enticing.”

“One of each has been quite enough for me,” Fiben Bolger added without opening his eyes. He lay a little downslope, his head on Gailet Jones’s lap. For the moment, she also had little to say, but concentrated on removing a few tangles from his fur, careful of his still livid black and blue bruises. Meanwhile, Jo-Jo groomed one of Fiben’s legs.

Well, he’s earned it, Robert thought. Although the Uplift Ceremony had been preempted by the gorillas, the test scores handed down by the Institute still held. If humanity managed to get out of its present troubles and could afford the expense of a new ceremony, two rustic colonials from Garth would lead the next procession ahead of all the sophisticated chims of Terra. Though Fiben himself seemed uninterested in the honor, Robert was proud of his friend.

A female chim wearing a simple frock approached up the trail. She bowed languidly in a brief nod to Uthacalthing and Robert. “Who wants the latest news?” Michaela Noddings asked.

“Not me!” Fiben grumped. “Tell th’ Universe t’go f—”

“Fiben,” Gailet chided gently. She looked up at Michaela. “I want to hear it.”

The chimmie sat and began working on Fiben’s other shoulder. Mollified, he closed his eyes again.

“Kault has heard from his people,” Michaela said. “The Thennanin are on their way here.”

“Already.” Robert whistled. “They aren’t wasting any time, are they?”

Michaela shook her head. “Kault’s folk have already contacted the Terragens Council to negotiate purchase of the fallow gorilla genetic base and to hire Earth experts as consul…”

! .,.::*: the Council holds out for a good price.”

“Hcj;gars can’t be choosers,” Gailet suggested. “According to some of the departing Galactic observers, Earth is in pretty desperate straits, as are the Tymbrimi. If this deal means we lose the Thennanin as enemies, and maybe win them as allies instead, it could be vital.”

At the price of losing gorillas — our cousins — as clients of our own. Robert mulled. On the night of the ceremony he had only seen the hilarious irony of it all, sharing that Tymbrimi way of viewing things with Uthacalthing. Now, though, it was harder not to count the cost in serious terms.

They were never really ours in the first place, he reminded himself. At least we’ll have a say in how they’re raised. And Uthacalthing says some Thennanin aren’t as bad as many.

“What about the Gubru?” he asked. “They agreed to make peace with Earth in exchange for acceptance of the ceremony.”

“Well, it wasn’t exactly the sort of ceremony they had in mind, was it?” Gailet answered. “What do you think, Ambassador Uthacalthing?”

The Tymbrimi’s tendrils waved lazily. All of yesterday and this morning he had been Grafting little glyphs of puzzle-like intricacy, far beyond Robert’s limited ability to kenn, as if he were delighting in the rediscovery of something he had lost.

“They will act in what they see to be their own self-interest, of course,” Uthacalthing said. “The question is whether they will have the sense to know what is good for them.”

“What do you mean?”

“I mean that the Gubru apparently began this expedition with confused goals. Their Triumvirate reflected conflicting factions back home. The initial intent of their expedition here was to use the hostage population of Garth to pry secrets out of the Terragens Council. But then they learned that Earth is as ignorant as everybody else about what that infamous dolphin-ship of yours discovered.”

“Has there been any new word about the Streaker?” Robert interrupted.

Spiraling off a palanq glyph, Uthacalthing sighed. “The dolphins seem to have miraculously escaped a trap set for them by a dozen of the most fanatic patron lines — an astonishing feat by itself — and now the Streaker seems to be loose on the starlanes. The humiliated fanatics lost tremendous face, and so tensions have reached an even higher level than before. It is one more reason why the Gubru Roost Masters grow increasingly frightened.”

“So when the invaders found they couldn’t use hostages to coerce secrets out of Earth, the Suzerains searched for other ways to make some profit out of this expensive expedition,” Gailet surmised.

“Correct. But when the first Suzerain of Cost and Caution was killed it threw their leadership process out of balance. Instead of negotiating toward a consensus of policy, the three Suzerains engaged in unbridled competition for the top position in their Molt. I’m not sure that even now I understand all of the schemes that might have been involved. But the final one — the one they settled on at last — will cost them very dearly. Blatantly interfering with the proper outcome of an Uplift Ceremony is a grave matter.”

Robert saw Gailet wince in revulsion as she obviously recollected how she had been used. Without opening his eyes, Fiben reached out and took her hand. “Where does that leave us now?” Robert asked Uthacalthing.

“Both common sense and honor would demand the Gubru keep their bargain with Earth. It’s the only way out of a terrible bind.”

“But you don’t expect them to see it that way.”

“Would I remain confined here, on neutral ground, if I did? You and I, Robert, would be with Athaclena right now, dining on khoogra and other delicacies I’d cached away, and we would speak for hours of, oh, so many things. But that will not happen until the Gubru decide between logic and self-immolation.”

Robert felt a chill. “How bad could it get?” he asked in a low voice. The chims, too, listened quietly.

Uthacalthing looked around. He inhaled the sweet, chill air as if it were of fine vintage. “This is a lovely world,” he sighed. “And yet it has suffered horror. Sometimes, so-called civilization seems bent on destroying those very things which it is sworn to protect.”

94 Galactics

“After them!” cried the Suzerain of Beam and Talon. “Chase them! Pursue them!”

Talon Soldiers and their battle drones swooped down upon a small column of neo-chimpanzees, taking them by surprise. The hairy Earthlings turned to fight, firing their ill-sorted weapons upward at the stooping Gubru. Two small fireballs did erupt, emitting sprays of singed feathers, but for the most part resistance was useless. Soon, the Suzerain was stepping delicately among the blasted remains of trees and mammals. It cursed as its officers reported only chim bodies.

There had been stories of others, humans and Tymbrimi and, yes, thrice-cursed Thennanin. Had not one of them suddenly appeared out of the wilderness? They had to all be in league together! It had to be a plot!

Now there were constant messages, entreaties, demands that the admiral return to Port Helenia. That it join with the other commanders for a conclave, a meeting, a new struggle for consensus.

Consensus! the Suzerain of Beam and Talon spat on the trunk of a shattered tree. Already it could feel the ebbing of hormones, the leaching away of color that had almost been its own!

Consensus? The admiral would show them consensus! It was determined to win back its position of leadership. And the only way to do that, after that catastrophe of an Uplift Ceremony, was to demonstrate the efficacy of the military option. When the Thennanin came to claim their “Garthling” prizes, they would be met with force! Let them engage in Uplift of their new clients from deepspace!

Of course, to keep them at bay — in order to return this world for the Roost Masters — there must be complete surety that there would be no attacks from behind, from the surface. The ground opposition had to be eliminated!

The Suzerain of Beam and Talon refused even to consider the possibility that anger and revenge might also have colored its decisions. To have admitted that would be to begin to fall under the sway of Propriety. Already, several good officers had deserted down that path, only to be ordered back to their posts by the sanctimonious high priest. That was particularly galling.

The admiral was determined to win their loyalty back in its own right, with victory!

“The new detectors work, are effective, are efficient!” It danced in satisfaction. “They let us hunt the Earthlings without needing to scent special materials. We trace them by their very blood!”

The Suzerain’s assistants shared its satisfaction. At this rate, the irregulars should soon all be dead.

A pall fell over the celebration when it was reported that one of the troop carriers that had brought them here had broken down. Another casualty of the plague of corrosion that had struck Gubru equipment all over the mountains and the Vale of Sind. The Suzerain had ordered an urgent investigation.

“No matter! We shall all ride the remaining carriers. Nothing, nobody, no event shall stop our hunt!”

The soldiers chanted.

“Zooon!”

95 Athaclena

She watched as the hirsute human read the message for the fourth time, and could not help wondering whether she was doing the right thing. Rank-haired, bearded, and naked, Major Prathachulthorn looked the very essence of a wild, carnivorous wolfling … a creature far too dangerous to trust.

He looked down at the message, and for a moment all she could read were the waves of tension that coursed up his shoulders and down his arms to those powerful, tightly flexed hands.

“It appears that I am under orders to forgive you, and to follow your policies, miss.” The last word ended in a hiss. “Does this mean that I’ll be set free if I promise to be good? How can I be sure this order is for real?”

Athaclena knew she had little choice. In the days ahead she would not be able to spare the chimpower to continue guarding Prathachulthorn. Those she could rely upon to ignore the human’s command-voice were very few, and he had already nearly escaped on four separate occasions. The alternative was to finish him off here and now. And for that she simply had not the will.

“I have no doubt you would kill me the instant you discovered the message wasn’t genuine,” Athaclena replied.

His teeth seemed to flash. “You have my word on that,” he assured her.

“And on what else?”

He closed and then reopened his eyes. “According to these orders from the Government in Exile, I have no choice but to act as if I was never kidnapped, to pretend there was no mutiny, and to conform my strategy to your advice. All right. I agree to this, as long as you remember that I’m going to appeal to my commanders on Earth, first chance I get. And they will take this to the TAASF. And once Coordinator Oneagle is overruled, I will find you, my young Tymbrimi. I will come to you.”

The bald, open hatred in his mind simultaneously made her shiver and ako reassured her. The man held nothing back. Truth burned beneath his words. She nodded to Benjamin.

“Let him go.”

Looking unhappy, and avoiding eye contact with the dark-haired human, the chims lowered the cage and cut open the door. Prathachulthorn emerged rubbing his arms. Then, quite suddenly, he whirled and leaped in a high kick landing in a stance one blow away from her. He laughed as Athaclena and the chims backed away.

“Where is my command?” he asked tersely.

“I do not know, precisely,” Athaclena answered, as she tried to abort a gheer flux. “We’ve scattered into small parties and even had to abandon the caves when it was clear they were compromised.”

“What about this place?” Prathachulthorn motioned to the steaming slopes of Mount Fossey.

“We expect the enemy to stage an assault here at any moment,” she replied honestly.

“Well,” he said. “I didn’t believe half of what you told me, yesterday, about that ‘Uplift Ceremony’ and its consequences. But I’ll give you this; you and your dad do seem to have stirred up the Gubru good.”

He sniffed the air, as if already he were trying to pick up a spoor. “I assume you have a tactical situation map and a datawell for me?”

Benjamin brought one of the portable computer units forward, but Prathachulthorn held up a hand. “Not now. First, let’s get out of here. I want to get away from this place.”

Athaclena nodded. She could well understand how the man felt.

He laughed when she declined his mock-chivalrous bow and insisted that he go first. “As you wish,” he chuckled.

Soon they were swinging through the trees and running under the thick forest canopy. Not much later, they heard what sounded like thunder back where the refuge had been, even though there were no clouds in the sky.

96 Sylvie

The night was lit by fiery beacons which burst forth actinically and cast stark shadows as they drifted slowly groundward. Their impact on the senses was sudden, dazzling, overwhelming even the noise of battle and the screams of the dying.

It was the defenders who sent the blazing torches into the sky, for their assailants needed no light to guide them. Streaking in by radar and infrared, they attacked with deadly accuracy until momentarily blinded by the brilliance of the flares.

Chims fled the evening’s fireless camp in all directions, naked, carrying only food and a few weapons on their backs. Mostly, they were refugees from mountain hamlets burned down in the recent surge of fighting. A few trained irregulars remained behind in a desperate rearguard action to cover the civilians’ retreat.

They used what means they had to confuse the airborne enemy’s deadly, precise detectors. The flares were sophisticated, automatically adjusting their fulminations to best interfere with active and passive sensors. They slowed the avians down, but only for a little while. And they were in short supply.

Besides, the enemy had something new, some secret system that was letting them track chims even under the heaviest growth, even naked, without the simplest trappings of civilization.

All the pursued could dp was split up into smaller and smaller groups. The prospect facing those who made it away from here was to live completely as animals, alone or at most in pairs, wild-eyed and cowering under skies that had once been theirs to roam at will.

Sylvie was helping an older chimmie and two children climb over a vine-covered tree trunk when suddenly upraised hackles told her of gravities drawing near. She quickly signed for the others to take cover, but something — perhaps it was the unsteady rhythm of those motors — made her stay behind, peering over the rim of a fallen log. In the blackness she barely caught the flash of a dim, whitish shape, plummeting through the starlit forest to crash noisily among the branches and then disappear into the jungle gloom.

Sylvie stared down the dark channel the plunging vessel had cut. She listened, chewing on her fingernails, as debris rained down in its wake.

“Donna!” she whispered. The elderly chimmie lifted her head from under a pile of leaves. “Can you make it with the children the rest of the way to the rendezvous?” Sylvie asked. “All you have to do is head downhill to a stream, then follow that stream to a small waterfall and cave. Can you do that?”

Donna paused for a long moment, concentrating, and at last nodded. “Good,” Sylvie, said. “When you see Petri, tell him I saw an enemy scout come down, and I’m goin’ to go and look it over.”

Fear had widened the older chimmie’s eyes so that the whites shone around her irises. She blinked a couple of times, then held out her arms for the children. By the time they were gathered under her protection, Sylvie had already cautiously entered the tunnel of broken trees.

Why am I doing this? Sylvie wondered as she stepped over broken branches still oozing pungent sap. Tiny skittering motions told of native creatures seeking cover after the ruination of their homes. The smell of ozone put Sylvie’s hair on end. And then, as she drew nearer, there came another familiar odor, one of overripe bird.

Everything looked eerie in the dimness. There were absolutely no colors, only shades of Stygian gray. When the off-white bulk of the crashed aircraft loomed in front of her, Sylvie saw that it lay canted at a forty degree slope, its front end quite crumpled from the impact.

She heard a faint crackling as some piece of electronics shorted again and again. Other than that, there came no sound from within. The main hatch had been torn half off its hinges.

Touching the still warm hull for guidance, she approached cautiously. Her fingers traced the outlines of one of the gravitic impellers, and flakes of corrosion came off. Lousy maintenance, she thought, partly in order to keep her mind busy. I wonder if that’s why it crashed. Her mouth was dry and her heart felt in her throat as she reached the opening and bent to peer around the corner.

Two Gubru still lay strapped at their stations, their sharp-beaked heads lolling from slender, broken necks.

Sylvie tried to swallow. She made herself lift one foot and step gingerly onto the sloping deck. Her pulse threatened to stop when the plates groaned and one of the Talon Soldiers moved.

But it was only the broken vessel, creaking and settling slightly. “Goodall,” Sylvie moaned as she brought her hand down from her breast. It was hard to concentrate with all of her instincts screaming just to get the hell out of here.

As she had for many days, Sylvie tried to imagine what Gailet Jones would do under circumstances like this. She knew she would never be the chimmie Gailet was. That just wasn’t in the cards. But if she tried hard…

“Weapons,” she whispered to herself, and forced her trembling hands to pull the soldiers’ sidearms from their holsters. Seconds seemed like hours, but soon two racked saber rifles joined the pistols in a pile outside the hatch. Sylvie was about to lower herself to the ground when she hissed and slapped her forehead. “Idiot! Athaclena needs intelligence more than popguns!”

She returned to the cockpit and peered about, wondering if she would recognize something significant even if it lay right in front of her.

Come on. You’re a Terragens citizen with most of a college education. And you spent months working for the Gubru.

Concentrating, she recognized the flight controls, and — from symbols obviously pertaining to missiles — the weapons console. Another display, still lit by the craft’s draining batteries, showed a relief territory map, with multiple sigils and designations written in Galactic Three.

Could this be what they’re using to find us? she wondered.

A dial, just below the display, used words she knew in the enemy’s language. “Band Selector,” the label said. Experimentally, she touched it.

A window opened in the lower left corner of the display. More arcane writing spilled forth, much too complex for her. But above the text there now whirled a complex design that an adult of any civilized society would recognize as a chemical diagram.

Sylvie was no chemist, but she had had a basic education, and something about the molecule depicted there looked oddly familiar to her. She concentrated and tried to sound out the indentifier, the word just below the diagram. The GalThree syllabary came back to her.

“Hee… Heem… Hee Moog…”

Sylvie felt her skin suddenly course with goose bumps. She traced the line of her lips with her tongue and then whispered a single word.

“Hemoglobin.”

97 Galatics

“Biological warfare!” The Suzerain of Beam and Talon hopped about the bridge of the cruising battleship on which it held court and pointed at the Kwackoo technician who had brought the news. “This corrosion, this decay, this blight on armor and machinery, it was created by design?”

The technician bowed. “Yes. There are several agents — bacteria, prions, molds. When we saw the pattern counter-measures were instituted at once. It will take time to treat all affected surfaces with organisms engineered against theirs, but success will eventually reduce this to a mere nuisance.”

Eventually, the admiral thought bitterly. “How were these agents delivered?”

The Kwackoo pulled from its pouch a filmy clump of clothlike material, bound by slender strands. “When these things began blowing in from the mountains, we consulted Library records and questioned the locals. Irritating infestations occur regularly on this continental coast with the onset of winter, so we ignored them.

“However, it now appears the mountain insurgents have found a way to infect these airborne spore carriers with biological entities destructive to our equipment. By the time we were aware, the dispersal was nearly universal. The plot was most) ingenious.”

The military commander paced. “How bad, how severe, how catastrophic is the damage?”

Again, a deep bow. “One third of our planet-side transport is affected. Two of the spaceport defense batteries will be out of commission for ten planetary days.”

“Ten days!”

“As you know, we are no longer receiving spares from the homeworld.”

The admiral did not need to be reminded. Already most routes to Gimelhai had been interdicted by the approaching alien armadas, now patiently clearing mines away from the fringes of Garth system.

And if that weren’t enough, the two other Suzerains were now united in opposing the military. There was nothing they could do to prevent the coming battles if the admiral’s party chose to fight, but they could withhold both religious and bureaucratic support. The effects of that were already showing.

The pressures had built until a steady, throbbing pain seemed to pulse within the admiral’s head. “They will pay!” the Suzerain shrieked. Curse the limitations of priests and egg counters!

The Suzerain of Beam and Talon recalled with fond longing the grand fleets it had led into this system. But long ago most of those ships had been pulled away by the Roost Masters to meet other desperate needs, and probably quite a few of them were already smoking ruins or vapor, out on the contentious Galactic marches.

In order to avoid such thoughts the admiral contemplated instead the noose now tightening around the shrinking mountain strongholds of the insurgents. Soon that worry, at least, would be over forever.

And then, well, let the Uplift Institute enforce the neutrality of its sacred Ceremonial Mound in the midst of a -itched planet-space battle! Under such circumstances, mis-. ijt-s were known to fall astray: — such as into civilian towns, or even neutral ground.

Too bad! There would be commiseration, of course. Such a pity. But those were the fortunes of war!

98 Uthacalthing

No longer did he have to hold secret the yearnings in his heart, or keep contained his deep-stored reservoir of feelings. It did not matter if alien detectors pinpointed his psychic emanations, for they surely would know where to find him, when the time came.

At dawn, while the east grew gray with the cloud-shrouded sun, Uthacalthing walked along the dew-covered slopes and reached out with everything he had.

The miracle of some days back had burst the chrysalis of his soul. Where he thought only winter would forever reign, now bright shoots burst forth. To both humans and Tymbrimi, love was considered the greatest power. But there was, indeed, something to be said for irony, as well.

I live, and kenn the world as beautiful.

He poured all of his craft into a glyph which floated, delicate and light, above his wafting tendrils. To be brought to this place, so near where his schemes began… and to witness how all his jests had been turned around upon himself, giving him all he had wanted, but in such amazing ways…

Dawn brought color to the world. It was a winter land-and seascape of barren orchards and tarp-covered ships. The waters of the bay wore lines of wind-flecked foam. And yet, the sun gave warmth.

He thought of the Universe, so strange, often bizarre, and so filled with danger and tragedy.

But also surprise.

Surprise .,. . the blessing that tells one that this is real — he spread his arms to encompass it all — that even the most imaginative of us could not have made all of this up within his own mind.

He did not set the glyph free. It cast loose as if of its own accord and rose unaffected by the morning winds, to drift wherever chance might take it.

Later came long consultations with the Grand Examiner, with Kault and Cordwainer Appelbe. They all sought his advice. He tried not to disappoint them.

Around noon Robert Oneagle drew him aside and brought up again the idea of escape. The young human wanted to break out of their confinement on the Ceremonial Mound and head off with Fiben to cause the Gubru grief. They all knew of the fighting in the mountains, and Robert wanted to help Athaclena in any way possible.

Uthacalthing sympathized. “But you underestimate yourself in thinking you could ever do this, my son,” he told the young man.

Robert blinked. “What do you mean?”

“I mean that the Gubru military are now well aware of how dangerous you and Fiben are. And perhaps through some small efforts of my own they include me on their list. Why do you think they maintain such patrols, when they must have other pressing needs?”

He motioned at the craft which cruised just beyond the perimeter of Institute territory. No doubt even the coolant lines leading to the power stations were watched by expensive drones of deadly sophistication. Robert had suggested using handmade gliders, but the enemy was surely wise even to that wolfling trick by now. They had had expensive lessons.

“In this way we help Athaclena,” Uthacalthing said. “By thumbing our noses at the enemy, by smiling as if we have thought of something special which they have not. By frightening creatures who deserve what they get for having no sense of humor.”

Robert made no outward gesture to show that he understood. But to Uthacalthing’s delight he recognized the glyph the young man formed, a simple version of kiniivullun. He laughed. Obviously, it was one Robert had learned — and earned — from Athaclena.

“Yes, my strange adopted son. We must keep the Gubru painfully aware that b.oys will do what boys do.”

It was later, though, toward sunset, that Uthacalthing stood up suddenly in his dark tent and walked outside. He stared again to the east, tendrils waving, seeking.

Somewhere, out there, he knew his daughter was thinking furiously. Something, some news perhaps, had come to her. And now she was concentrating as if her life depended on it.

Then the brief, fey moment of linkage passed. Uthacalthing turned, but he did not go back to his own shelter. Instead, he wandered a little north and pulled aside the flap of Robert’s tent. The human looked up from his reading, the light of the datawell casting a wild expression onto his face.

“I believe there actually is one way by which we could get off of this mountain,” he told the human. “At least for a little while.”

“Go on,” Robert said.

Uthacalthing smiled. “Did I not once say to you — or was it your mother — that all things begin and end at the Library?”

99 Galactics

Matters were dire. Consensus was falling apart irreparably, and the Suzerain of Propriety did not know how to heal the breach.

The Suzerain of Cost and Caution had nearly withdrawn into itself. The bureaucracy operated on inertia, without guidance.

And their vital third, their strength and virility, the Suzerain of Beam and Talon, would not answer their entreaties for a conclave. It seemed, in fact, bound and determined upon a course that might bring on not only their own destruction but possibly vast devastation to this frail world as well. If that occurred, the blow to the already tottering honor of this expedition, this branch of the clan of Gooksyu-Gubru, would be more than one could stand.

And yet, what could the Suzerain of Propriety do? The Roost Masters, distracted with problems closer to home, offered no useful advice. They had counted on the expedition Triumvirate to meld, to molt, and to reach a consensus of wisdom. But the Molt had gone wrong, desperately wrong. And there was no wisdom to offer them.

The Suzerain of Propriety felt a sadness, a hopelessness, that went beyond that of a leader riding a ship headed for shoals — it was more that of a priest doomed to oversee sacrilege.

The loss was intense and personal, and quite ancient at the heart of the race. True, the feathers sprouting under its white down were now red. But there were names for Gubru queens who achieved their femaleness without the joyous consent and aid of two others, two who share with her the pleasure, the honor, the glory.

Her greatest ambition had come true, and it was a barren prospect, a lonely and bitter one.

The Suzerain of Propriety tucked her beak under her arm, and in the way of her own people, softly wept.

100 Athaclena

“Vampire plants,” was how Lydia McCue summed it up. She stood watch with two of her Terragens Marines, their skins glistening under painted layers of monolayer camouflage. The stuff supposedly protected them from infrared detection and, one could hope, the enemy’s new resonance detector as well.

Vampire plants? Athaclena thought. Indeed. It is a good metaphor.

She poured about a liter of a bright red fluid into the dark waters of a forest pool, where hundreds of small vines came together in one of the ubiquitous nutrient trading stations.

Elsewhere, far away, other groups were performing similar rituals in little glades. It reminded Athaclena of wolfling fairy tales, of magical rites in enchanted forests and mystical incantations. She would have to remember to tell her father of the analogy, if she ever got the chance.

“Indeed,” she said to Lieutenant McCue. “My chims drained themselves nearly white to donate enough blood for our purposes. There are certainly more subtle ways to do this, but none possible in the time available.”

Lydia answered with a grunt and a nod. The Earth woman was still in conflict with herself. Logically, she probably agreed that the results would have been catastrophic had Major Prathachulthorn been left in charge, weeks ago. Subsequent events had proven Athaclena and Robert right.

But Lieutenant McCue could not disassociate herself so easily from her oath. Until recently the two women had begun to become friends, talking for hours and sharing their different longings for Robert Oneagle. But now that the truth about the mutiny and kidnapping of Major Prathachulthorn was out, a gulf lay between them.

The red liquid swirled among the tiny rootlets. Clearly, the semi-mobile vines were already reacting, drawing in the new substances.

There had been no time for subtlety, only a brute force approach to the idea that had struck her suddenly, soon after hearing Sylvie’s report. Hemoglobin. The Gubru had detectors that can trace resonance against the primary constituent of Earthling blood. At such sensitivity, the devices must be frightfully expensive!

A way had to be found to counteract the new weapon or she might be left the only sapient being in the mountains. The one possible approach had been drastic, and symbolic of the demands a nation made of its people. Her own unit of guerrillas now tottered around, so depleted by her demands for raw blood that some of the chims had changed her nickname. Instead of ‘the general’ they had taken to referring to Athaclena as ‘the countess,’ and then grimacing with outthrust canines.

Fortunately, there were still a few chim technicians — mostly those who had helped Robert devise little microbes to plague enemy machinery — who could help her with this slapdash experiment.

Bind hemoglobin molecules to trace substances sought by certain vines. Hope the new combination still meets their approval. And pray the vines transfer it along fast enough.

A chim messenger arrived and whispered to Lieutenant McCue. She, in turn, approached Athaclena.

“The major is nearly ready,” the dark human woman told her. Casually, she added, “And our scouts say they detect aircraft heading this way.”

Athaclena nodded.

“We are finished here. Let us depart. The next few hours will tell.”

101 Galactics

“There! We note a concentration, gathering, accumulation of the impudent enemy. The wolflings flee in a predictable direction. And now we may strike, pounce, swoop to conquer!”

Their special detectors made plain the quarry’s converging trails through the forest. The Suzerain of Beam and Talon spoke a command, and an elite brigade of Gubru soldiery stooped upon the little valley where their fleeing prey was trapped, at bay.

“Captives, hostages, new prisoners to question… these I want!”

102 Major Prathachulthorn

The bait was invisible. Their lure consisted of little more than a barely traceable flow of complex molecules, coursing through the intricate, lacy network of jungle vegetation. In fact, Major Prathachulthorn had no way of knowing for certain that it was there at all. He felt awkward laying enfilade and ambush on the slopes overlooking a series of small ponds in an otherwise unoccupied forest vale.

And yet, there was something symmetrical, almost poetic about the situation. If this trick by some chance actually worked, there would be the joy of battle on this morn.

And if it did not, then he intended to have the satisfaction of throttling a certain slender alien neck, whatever the effects on his career and his life.

“Feng!” he snapped at one of his Marines. “Don’t scratch.” The Marine corporal quickly checked to make sure he had not rubbed off any of the monolayer coating that gave his skin a sickly greenish cast. The new material had been mixed quickly, in hopes of blocking the hemoglobin resonance the enemy were using to track Terrans under the forest canopy. Of course, their intelligence on that matter might be completely wrong. Prathachulthorn had only the word of chims, and that damned Tym -

“Major!” someone whispered. It was a neo-chimpanzee trooper, looking even more uncomfortable in green-tinted fur. He motioned quickly from midway up a tall tree. Prathachulthorn acknowledged and sent a hand gesture rippling in both directions.

Well, he thought, some of these local chims are turning into pretty fair irregulars, I’ll admit.

A series of sonic booms rocked the foliage on all sides, followed by the shriek of approaching aircraft. They swept up the narrow valley at treetop level, following the hilly terrain with computer-piloted precision. At just the right moment, Talon Soldiers and their accompanying drones spilled out of long troop carriers to fall serenely toward a certain jungle grove.

The trees there were unique in only one way, in their hunger for a certain trace chemical brought to them by far-reaching, far-trading vines. Only now those vines had delivered something else as well. Something drawn from Earthly veins.

“Wait,” Prathachulthorn whispered. “Wait for the big boys.”

Sure enough, soon they all felt the effects of approaching gravities, and on a major scale. Over the horizon appeared a Gubru battleship, cruising serenely several hundred meters above.

Here was a target well worth anything they had to sacrifice. Up until now, though, the problem had been how to know in advance where one would come. Flicker-swivvers were wonderful weapons, but not very portable. One had to set them up well in advance. And surprise was essential.

“Wait,” he murmured as the great vessel drew nearer. “Don’t spook “em.”

Down below, the Talon Soldiers were already chirping in dismay, for no enemy awaited them, not even any chim civilians to capture and send above for questioning. At any moment, one of the troopers would surely guess the truth. Still, Major Prathachulthorn urged, “Wait just a minute more, until—”

One of the chim gunners must have lost patience. Suddenly, lightning lanced upward from the heights on the opposite side of the valley. In an instant, three more streaks converged. Prathachulthorn ducked and covered his head.

Brilliance seemed to penetrate from behind, through his skull. Waves of déjà vu alternated with surges of nausea, and for a moment it felt as if a tide of anomalous gravity were trying to lift him from the forest loam. Then the concussion wave hit.

It was some time before anyone was able to look up again. When they did, they had to blink through clouds of drifting dust and grit, past toppled trees and scattered vines. A seared, flattened area told where the Gubru battle cruiser had hovered, only moments ago. A rain of red-hot debris still fell, setting off fires wherever the incandescent pieces landed.

Prathachulthorn grinned. He fired off a flare into the air — the signal to advance.

Several of the enemy’s grounded aircraft had been broken by the overpressure wave. Three, however, lifted off and made for the sites where the missiles had been fired, screaming for vengeance. But their pilots did not realize they were facing Terragens Marines now. It was amazing what a captured saber rifle could do in the right hands. Soon three more burning patches smoldered on the valley floor.

Down below grim-faced chims moved forward, and combat soon became much more personal, a bloody struggle fought with lasers and pellet guns, with crossbows and arbalests.

When it came down to hand-to-hand, Prathachulthorn knew that they had won.

I cannot leave all of the close-in stuff to these locals, he thought. That was how he came to join the chase through the forest, while the Gubru rear guard furiously tried to cover the survivors’ escape. And for as long as they lived thereafter, the chims who saw it talked about what they saw: a pale green figure in loin cloth and beard, swinging through the trees, meeting fully armed Talon Soldiers with knife and garrote. There seemed to be no stopping him, and indeed, nothing living withstood him.

It was a damaged battle drone, brought back into partial operation by self-repair circuitry — perhaps making a logical connection between the final collapse of the Gubru forces and this fearsome creature who seemed to take such joy in battle. Or maybe it was nothing more than a final burst of mechanical and electrical reflex.

He went as he would have wanted to, wearing a bitter grin, with his hands around a feathered throat, throttling one more hateful thing that did not belong in the world he thought ought to be.

103 Athaclena

So, she thought as the excited chim messenger gasped forth the joyous news of total victory. On any scale, this was the insurgents’ greatest coup.

In a sense, Garth herself became our greatest ally. Her injured but still subtly powerful web of life.

The Gubru had been lured by fragments of chim and human hemoglobin, carried to one site by the ubiquitous transfer vines. Frankly, Athaclena was surprised their makeshift plan had worked. Its success proved just how foolish had been the enemy’s overdependence on sophisticated hardware.

Now we must decide what to do next.

Lieutenant McCue looked up from the battle report the winded chim messenger had brought and met Athaclena’s eyes. The two women shared a moment’s silent communion. “I’d better get going,” Lydia said at last. “There’ll be reconsolidation to organize, captured equipment to disburse… and I am now in command.”

Athaclena nodded. She could not bring herself to mourn Major Prathachulthorn. But she acknowledged the man for what he had been. A warrior.

“Where do you think they will strike next?” she asked.

“I couldn’t begin to guess, now that their main method of tracking us has been blown. They act as if they haven’t much time.” Lydia frowned pensively. “Is it certain the Thennanin fleet is on its way here?” Lydia asked.

“The Uplift Institute officials speak about it openly on the airwaves. The Thennanin come to claim their new clients. And as part of their arrangement with my father and with Earth, they are bound to help expel the Gubru from this system.”

Athaclena was still quite in awe over the extent to which her father’s scheme had worked. When the crisis began, nearly one Garth year ago, it had been clear that neither Earth nor Tymbrim would be able to help this faraway colony. And most of the “moderate” Galactics were so slow and judicious that there was little hope of persuading one of those clans to intervene. Uthacalthing had hoped to fool the Thennanin into doing the job instead — pitting Earth’s enemies against each other.

The plan had worked beyond Uthacalthing’s expectations because of one factor her father had not know of. The gorillas. Had their mass migration to the Ceremonial Mound been triggered by the s’ustru’thoon exchange, as she had earlier thought? Or was the Institute’s Grand Examiner correct to declare that fate itself arranged for this new client race to be at the right time and place to choose? Somehow, Athaclena felt sure there was more to it than anyone knew, or perhaps ever would know.

“So the Thennanin are coming to chase out the Gubru.” Lydia seemed uncertain what to make of the situation. “Then we’ve won, haven’t we? I mean, the Gubru can’t hold them off indefinitely. Even if it were possible militarily, they’d lose so much face across the Five Galaxies that even the moderates would finally get upset and mobilize.”

The Earth woman’s perceptiveness was impressive. Athaclena nodded. “Their situation would seem to call for negotiation. But that assumes logic. The Gubru military, I’m afraid, is behaving irrationally.”

Lydia shivered. “Such an enemy is often far more dangerous than a rational opponent. He doesn’t act out of intelligent self-interest.”

“My father’s last call indicated that the Gubru are badly divided,” Athaclena said. The broadcasts from Institute Territory were now the guerrillas’ best source of information. Robert and Fiben and Uthacalthing had all taken turns, contributing powerfully to the mountain fighters’ morale and surely adding to the invader’s severe irritation.

“We’ll have to act under the assumption the gloves are off then.” The woman Marine sighed. “If Galactic opinion doesn’t matter to them, they may even turn to using space weaponry down here on the planet. We’d better disperse as widely as possible.”

“Hmm, yes.” Athaclena nodded. “But if they use burners or hell bombs, all is lost anyway. From such weapons we cannot hide.

“I cannot command your troops, lieutenant, but I would rather die in a bold gesture — one which might help stop this madness once and for all — than end my life burying my head in the sand, like one of your Earthly oysters.”

Despite the seriousness of the proposition, Lydia McCue smiled. And a touch of appreciative irony danced along the edges of her simple aura. “Ostriches,” the Earth woman corrected gently. “It’s big birds called ostriches that bury their heads.

“Now why don’t you tell me what you have in mind.”

104 Galactics

Buoult of the Thennanin inflated his ridgecrest to its maximum height and preened his shining elbow spikes before stepping out upon the bridge of the great warship, Athanasfire. There, beside the grand display, where the disposition of the fleet lay spread out in sparkling colors, the human delegation awaited him. Their leader, an elderly female whose pale hair tendrils still gleamed in places with the color of a yellow sun, bowed at a prim, correct angle. Buoult replied with a precise waistbend of his own. He gestured toward the display.

“Admiral Alvarez, I assume you can perceive for yourself that the last of the enemy’s mines have been cleared. I am ready to transmit to the Galactic Institute for Civilized Warfare our declaration that the Gubru interdiction of this system has been lifted by force majeur.”

“That is good to hear,” the woman said. Her human-style smile — a suggestive baring of teeth — was one of their easier gestures to interpret. One as experienced with Galactic affairs as the legendary Helene Alvarez surely knew the effect the wolfling expression often had on others. She must have made a conscious decision to use it.

Well, such subtle intimidations played an acceptable role in the complex game of bluff and negotiation. Buoult was honest enough to admit that he did it too. It was why he had inflated his towering crest before entering.

“It will be good to see Garth again,” Alvarez added. “I only hope we aren’t the proximate cause of yet another holocaust on that unfortunate world.”

“Indeed, we shall endeavor to avoid that at all costs. And if the worst happens — if this band of Gubru are completely out of control — then their entire nasty clan shall pay for it.”

“I care little about penalties and compensation. There are people and an entire frail ecosphere at risk here.”

Buoult withheld comment. I must be more careful, he thought. It is not meet for others to remind Thennanin — defenders of all Potential — of the duty to protect such places as Garth.

It was especially galling to be chided righteously by wolflings.

And from now on they mil be at our elbows, carping and criticizing, and we will have to listen, for they will be stage consorts to one of our clients. It is only one price we must pay for this treasure Kault found for us.

The humans were pressing negotiations hard, as was to be expected from a clan as desperate for allies as they. Already Thennanin forces had withdrawn from all areas of conflict with Earth and Tymbrim. But the Terragens were demanding much more than that in exchange for help managing and uplifting the new client race called “Gorilla.”

In effect, they were demanding that the great clan of the Thennanin ally itself with forlorn and despised wolflings and bad-boy prankster Tymbrimi! This at a time when the horrible Soro-Tandu alliance appeared to be unstoppable out on the starlanes. Why, to do so might conceivably risk annihilation for the Thennanin themselves!

If it were up to Buoult, who had had enough of Earthlings to last him a lifetime, the choice would be to tell them to go to Ifni’s Hell and seek their allies there.

But it was not up to Buoult. There had long been a strong minority streak of sympathy for Earthiclan, back home. Kault’s coup, allowing the Great Clan to achieve another treasured laurel of patronhood, could win that faction government soon. Under such circumstances, Buoult figured it wise to keep his own opinions to himself.

One of his undercommanders approached and saluted. “We have determined the positions taken up by the Gubru defense flotilla,” he reported. “They are clustered quite close to the planet. Their dispersement is unusual. Our battle computers are finding it very hard to crack.”

Hrnm, yes, Buoult thought on examining the close-in display. A brilliant arrangement of limited forces. Even original, perhaps. How unlike the Gubru.

“No matter,” he huffed. “Even if there is no subtle way, they will nonetheless see that we came with more than adequate firepower to do the job by brute force if necessary. They will concede. They must concede.”

“Of course they must,” the human admiral agreed. But she did not sound convinced. In fact, she seemed worried.

“We are ready to approach to fail-safe envelopment,” the orficer of the deck reported.

Buoult nodded quickly. “Good. Proceed. From there we can contact the enemy and announce our intentions.”

Tension built as the armada advanced closer to the system’s modest yellow sun. Although the Thennanin claimed proudly to possess no psychic powers, Buoult seemed to feel the gaze of the Earthling woman upon him, and he wondered how it was possible that he found her so intimidating.

She is only a wolfling, he reminded himself.

“Shall we resume our discussions, commander?” Admiral Alvarez asked at last.

He had no choice but to comply, of course. It would be best if much was decided before they arrived and the siege manifesto was read aloud.

Still, Buoult planned to sign no agreements until he had-a chance to confer with Kault. That Thennanin had a reputation for vulgarity and, well, frivolity, that had won him exile to this backwater world. But now he appeared to have achieved unprecedented miracles. His political power back home would be great.

Buoult wanted to tap Kault’s expertise, his apparent knack at dealing with these infuriating creatures.

His aides and the human delegation filed out of the bridge toward the meeting room. But before Buoult left he glanced one more time back at the situation tank and the deadly-looking Gubru battle array. Air noisily escaped his breathing slits.

What are the avians planning? he wondered. What shall I do if these Gubru prove to be insane?

105 Robert

In some parts of Port Helenia, there were more guard drones than ever, protecting their masters’ domains rigorously, lashing out at anyone who passed too near.

Elsewhere, however, it was almost as if a revolution had already taken place…The invader’s posters lay tattered in the gutters. Above one busy street corner Robert glimpsed a new mural that had recently been erected in place of Gubru propaganda. Painted in the style called Focalist Realism, it depicted a family of gorillas staring with dawning but hopeful sentience oat upon a glowing horizon. Protectively standing beside them, showing the way to that wonderful future, was a pair of idealized, high-browed neo-chimpanzees.

Oh, yes, there had also been a human and a Thennanin in the picture, vague and in the background. Robert thought it really nice of the artist to have remembered to include them.

The heavily guarded shuttle he was in passed through the intersection too quickly to see much detail, but he thought the rendering of the female chim hadn’t quite done Gailet justice. Fiben, on the other hand, ought to be flattered.

Soon the “free” parts of town were behind them, and they passed westward into areas patrolled with strict military discipline. When they landed their Talon Soldier guards hurried outside and stood watch as Robert and Uthacalthing left the shuttle to climb the ramp leading to the shining new Branch Library.

“This is an expensive setup, isn’t it?” he asked the Tymbrimi Ambassador. “Do we get to keep it if the Thennanin manage to kick the birds out?”

Uthacalthing shrugged. “Probably. And maybe the Ceremonial Mound as well. Your clan is due reparations, certainly.”

“But you have your doubts.”

Uthacalthing stood in the vast entranceway surveying the vaulted chamber and the towering cubic data store within. “It is just that I think it would be unwise to count your chickens before they have met the rooster.”

Robert understood Uthacalthing’s point. Even defeat for the Gubru might come at unthinkable cost.

“It’s counting one’s eggs before they’re laid,” he told the Tymbrimi, who was always anxious to improve his grasp of Anglic metaphors. This time, however, Uthacalthing didn’t thank Robert. His wide-spread eyes seemed to flash as he looked back, sidelong. “Think about it,” he said.

Soon Uthacalthing was deep in conversation with the Kanten Chief Librarian. At a loss to follow their rapid, inflected Galactic, Robert started a circuit of the new Library, taking its measure and looking at its current users.

Except for a few members of the Grand Examiner’s team, all of the occupants were avians. The Gubru present were divided by a gulf he could henn, as well as see. Nearly two thirds of them clustered over to the left. They cooed and cast disapproving glances at the smaller group, which consisted almost entirely of soldiers. The military did not give off happy vibrations, but they hid it well, strutting about their tasks with crisp efficiency, returning their peers’ disapproval with arrogant disdain.

Robert made no effort to avoid being seen. The wave of stares he attracted was pleasing. They obviously knew who he was. If just passing near caused an interruption in their work, so much the better.

Approaching one cluster of Gubru — by their ribbons obviously members of the priestly Caste of Propriety — he bowed to an angle he hoped was correct and grinned as the entire offended gaggle was forced to form up and reply in kind.

Finally Robert came upon a data station formatted in a way he understood. Uthacalthing was still immersed in con-versaticn vith the Librarian, so Robert decided to see what he couk; ::.;d out on his own.

He made very little progress. The enemy had obviously set up safeguards to prevent the unauthorized from accessing information about near-space, or the presumably converging battle fleets of the Thennanin. Still, Robert kept on trying. Time passed as he explored the current data net, finding out where the invaders had set up their blocks.

So intense was his concentration that it took a while before he grew aware that something had changed in the Library. Automatic sound dampers had kept the growing hubbub from intruding on his concentration, but when he looked up at last Robert saw that the Gubru were in an uproar. They waved their downy arms and formed tight clusters around holo-tanks. Most of the soldiers had simply vanished, from sight.

What on Garth has gotten into them? he wondered.

Robert didn’t imagine the Gubru would welcome him peering over their shoulders. He felt frustrated. Whatever was happening, it sure had them perturbed!

Hey! Robert thought. Maybe it’s on the local news.

Quickly he used his own screen to access a public video station. Until recently censorship had been severe, but during the last few days, as soldiers were called away to combat duty, the networks had fallen under the control of the Caste of Cost and Caution. Those glum, apathetic bureaucrats now hardly enforced even modest discipline.

The tank flickered, then cleared to show an excited chim reporter.

“… and so, at latest reports, it seems the surprise offensive from the Mulun hasn’t yet engaged the occupation forces. The Gubru seem unable to agree on how to answer the manifesto of the approaching forces…”

Robert wondered, had the Thennanin made their pronouncement of intent already? That had not been expected for a couple of days at least. Then one word caught in his mind.

From the Mulun?

“… We’ll now rebroadcast the statement read just five minutes ago by the joint commanders of the army right now marching on Port Helenia.”

The view in the holo-tank shifted. The chim announcer was replaced by a recently recorded image showing three figures standing against a forest background. Robert blinked. He knew these faces, two of them intimately. One was a chen named Benjamin. The other two were women he loved.

“… and so we challenge our oppressors. In combat we have behaved well, under the dicta of the Galactic Institute for Civilized Warfare. This cannot be said of our enemies. They have used criminal means and have allowed harm to noncombatant fallow species native to a fragile world.

“Worst of all, they have cheated.”

Robert gaped. The image panned back to show platoons of chims — bearing a motley assortment of weapons — trooping forth from the forest out into the open, accompanied by a few fierce-eyed humans. The one speaking into the camera was Lydia McCue, Robert’s human lover. But Athaclena stood next to her, and in his alien consort’s eyes he saw and knew who had written the words.

And he knew, without any doubt, whose idea this was.

“We demand, therefore, that they send forth their best soldiers, armed as we are armed, to meet our champions out in the open, in the Valley of the Sind…”

“Uthacalthing,” he said, hoarsely. Then again, louder. “Uthacalthing!”

The noise suppressors had been developed by a hundred million generations of librarians. But in all that time there had been only a few wolfling races. For just an instant the vast chamber echoed before dampers shut down the impolite vibrations and imposed hushed quiet once again.

There was nothing, however, to be done about running in the halls.

106 Gailet

“Recombinant Rats!” Fiben cried upon hearing the beginnings of the declaration. They watched a portable holo set up on the slopes of the Ceremonial Mound.

Gailet gestured for silence. “Be quiet, Fiben. Let me hear the rest of it.”

But the meaning of the message had been obvious from the first few sentences. Columns of irregulars, wearing makeshift uniforms of homespun cloth, marched steadily across open, winter-barren fields. Two squads of horse cavalry skirted the ragged army’s perimeter, like escapees from some pre-Contact flatmovie. The marching chims grinned nervously and watched the skies, fondling their captured or mountain-made weapons. But there was no mistaking their attitude of grim resolve.

As the cameras panned back, Fiben did a quick count. “That’s everybody,” he said in awe. “I mean, allowing for recent casualties, it’s everybody who’s had any training or would be any good at all in a fight. It’s all or nothing.” He shook his head. “Clip my blue card if I can figure what she hopes to accomplish.”

Gailet glanced up at him. “Some blue card,” she sniffed. “And I’d have to say she knows exactly what she’s doing, Fiben.”

“But the city rebels were slaughtered out on the Sind.”

She shook her head. “That was then. We didn’t know the score. We hadn’t achieved any respect or status. Anyway, there weren’t any witnesses.

“But the mountain forces have won victories. They’ve been acknowledged. And now the Five Galaxies are watching.”

Gailet frowned. “Oh, Athaclena knows what she’s doing. I just didn’t know things were this desperate.”

They sat quietly for a moment longer, watching the insurgents advance slowly across orchards and winter-barren fields. Then Fiben let out another exclamation. “What?” Gailet asked. She looked where he pointed in the tank, and it was her turn to hiss in surprise.

There, carrying a saber rifle along with the other chim soldiers, strode someone they both knew. Sylvie did not seem uncomfortable with her weapon. In fact, she appeared an island of almost zenlike calm in the sea of nervous neo-chimpanzees.

Who would’ve figured it? Gailet thought. Who would’ve thought that about her?

They watched together. There was little else they could do.

107 Galactics

“This must be handled with delicacy, care, rectitude!” the Suzerain of Propriety proclaimed. “If necessary, we must meet them one on one.”

“But the expense!” wailed the Suzerain of Cost and Caution. “The losses to be expected!”

Gently, the high priest bent over from her perch and crooned to her junior.

“Consensus, consensus… Share with me a vision of harmony and wisdom. Our clan has lost much here, and stands in dire jeopardy of losing far more. But we have not yet forfeited the one thing that will maintain us even at night, even in darkness — our nobility. Our honor.”

Together, they began to sway. A melody rose, one with a single lyric. , ,

“Zoooon. …”

Now if only their strong third were here! Coalescence seemed so near. A message had been sent to the Suzerain of Beam and Talon urging that he return to them, join them, become one with them at last.

How, she wondered. How could he resist knowing, concluding, realizing at last that it is his fate to be my male? Can an individual be so obstinate?

The three of us can yet be happy!

But a messenger arrived with news that brought despair. The battle cruises in the bay had lifted off and was heading inland with its escorts. The Suzerain of Beam and Talon had decided to act. No consensus would restrain him.

The high priest mourned.

We could have been happy.

108 Athaclena

“Well, this may be our answer,” Lydia commented resignedly.

Athaclena looked up from the awkward, unfamiliar task of controlling a horse. Mostly, she let her beast simply follow the others. Fortunately, it was a gentle creature who responded well to her coronal singing.

She peered in the direction pointed out by Lydia McCue, where scattered clouds and haze partially obscured the western horizon. Already many of the chims were gesturing that way. Then Athaclena also saw the glint of flying craft. And she kenned the approaching forces. Confusion… determination… fanaticism… regret… loathing … a turmoil of alien-tinged feelings bombarded her from the ships. But one thing was clear above all.

The Gubru were coming with vast and overwhelming strength.

The distant dots took shape. “I believe you are right, Lydia,” Athaclena told her friend. “It seems we have our answer.”

The woman Marine swallowed. “Shall I order a dispersal? Maybe a few of us can get away.” She sounded doubtful.

Athaclena shook her head. A sad glyph formed. “No. We must play this out. Call all units together. Have the cavalry bring everyone to yonder hilltop.”

“Any particular reason we should make things easy for them?”

Above Athaclena’s waving tendrils the glyph refused to become one of despair. “Yes,” she answered. “There is a reason. The best reason in all the world.”

109 Galactics

The stoop-colonel of Talon Soldiers watched the ragged army of insurgents on a holo-screen and listened as its high commander screamed in delight.

“They shall burn, shall smoke, shall curl into cinders under our fire!”

The stoop-colonel felt miserable. This was intemperate language, bereft of proper consideration of consequences. The stoop-colonel knew, deep within, that even the most brilliant military plans would eventually come to nothing if they did not take into account such matters as cost, caution, and propriety. Balance was the essence of consensus, the foundation of survival.

And yet the Earthlings’ challenge had been honorable! It might be ignored. Or even met with a decent excess of force. But what the leader of the military now planned was unpleasant, his methods extreme.

The stoop-colonel noted that it had already come to think of the Suzerain of Beam and Talon as “he.” The Suzerain of Beam and Talon was a brilliant leader who had inspired his followers, but now, as a prince, he seemed blind to the truth.

To even think of the commander in this critical way caused the stoop-colonel physical pain. The conflict was deep and visceral. .

The doors to the main lift opened and out onto the command dais stepped a trio of white-plumed messengers — a priest, a bureaucrat, and one of the officers who had deserted to the other Suzerains. They strode toward the admiral and proffered a box crafted of richly inlaid wood. Shivering, the Suzerain of Beam and Talon ordered it opened.

Within lay a single, luxuriant feather, colored iridescent red along its entire length except at the very tip.

“Lies! Deceptions! An obvious hoax!” the admiral cried, and knocked the box and its contents out of the startled messengers’ arms.

The stoop-colonel stared as the feather drifted in eddies from the air circulators before fluttering down to the deck. It felt like sacrilege to leave it lying there, and yet the stoop-colonel dared not move to pick it up.

How could the commander ignore this? How could he refuse to accept the rich, blue shades spreading now at the roots of his own down? “The Molt can reverse again,” the Suzerain of Beam and Talon cried out. “It can happen if we win victory at arms!”

Only now what he proposed would not be victory, it would be slaughter.

“The Earthlings are gathering, clustering, coming together upon a single hillmount,” one of the aides reported. “They offer, display, present us with a single, simple target!”

The stoop-colonel sighed. It did not take a priest to tell what this meant. The Earthlings, realizing that there would be no fair fight, had come together to make their demise simple. Since their lives were already forfeit, there was only one possible reason.

They do it in order to protect the frail ecosystem of this world. The purpose of their lease-grant was, after all, to save Garth. In their very helplessness the stoop-colonel saw and tasted bitter defeat. They had forced the Gubru to choose flatly between power and honor.

The crimson feather had the stoop-colonel captivated, its colors ‹loing things to its very blood. “I shall prepare my Talon Soldiers to go down and meet the Terrans,” the stoop-colonel suggested, hopefully. “We shall drop down, advance, attack in equal numbers, lightly armed, without robots.”

“No! You must not, will not, shall not! I have carefully assigned roles for all my forces. I need, require them all when we deal with the Thennanin! There shall be no wasteful squandering.

“Now, heed me! At this moment, this instant, the Earth-lings below shall feel, bear, sustain my righteous vengeance!” the Suzerain of Beam and Talon cried out. “I command that the locks be removed from the weapons of mass destruction. We shall sear this valley, and the next, and the next, until all life in these mountains—”

The order was never finished. The stoop-colonel of Talon Soldiers blinked once, then dropped its saber pistol to the deck. The clatter was followed by a double thump as first the head and then the body of the former military commander tumbled as well.

The stoop-colonel shuddered. Lying there, the body clearly showed those iridescent shades of royalty. The admiral’s blood mixed with the blue princely plumage and spread across the deck to join, at last, with the single crimson feather of his queen.

The stoop-colonel told its stunned subordinates, “Inform, tell, transmit to the Suzerain of Propriety that I have placed myself under arrest, pending the outcome, result, determination of my fate.

“Refer to Their Majesties what it is that must be done.”

For a long, uncertain time — completely on inertia — the task force continued toward the hilltop where the Earthlings had gathered, waiting. Nobody spoke. On the command dais there was hardly any movement at all.

When the report arrived itwas like confirmation of what they had known for some time. A pall of mourning had already settled over the Gubru administration compound. Now the former Suzerain of Propriety and the former Suzerain of Cost and Caution crooned together a sad dirge of loss.

Such great hopes, such fine prospects they had had on setting out for this place, this planet, this forlorn speck in empty space. The Roost Masters had so carefully planned the right oven, the correct crucible, and just the right ingredients — three of the best, three fine products of genetic manipulation, their very finest.

We were sent to bring home a consensus, the new queen thought. And that consensus has come.

It is ashes. We were wrong to think this was the time to strive for greatness.

Oh, many factors had brought this about. If only the first candidate of Cost and Caution had not died… If only they had not been fooled twice by the trickster Tymbrimi and his “Garthlings.” … If only the Earthlings had not proven so wolfishly clever at capitalizing on every weakness — this last maneuver for instance, forcing Gubru soldiery to choose between dishonor and regicide…

But there are no accidents, she knew. They could not have taken advantage if we had not shown flaws.

That was the consensus they would report to the Roost Masters. That there were weaknesses, failures, mistakes which this doomed expedition had tested and brought to light.

It would be valuable information.

Let that console me for my sterile, infertile eggs, she thought, as she comforted her sole remaining partner and lover.

To the messengers she gave one brief command.

“Convey to the stoop-colonel our pardon, our amnesty, our forgiveness. And have the task force recalled to base.”

Soon the deadly cruisers had turned about and were headed homeward, leaving the mountains and the valley to those who seemed to want them so badly.

110 Athaclena

The chims stared in amazement as Death seemed to change its mind. Lydia McCue blinked up at the retreating cruisers and shook her head. “You knew,” she said as she turned to look at Athaclena. Again she accused. “You knew!”

Athaclena smiled. Her tendrils traced faint, sad imprints in the air.

“Let us just say that I thought there was a possibility,” she said at last. “Had I been wrong, this would still have been the honorable thing to do.

“I am very glad, however, to find out that I was right.”