CHAPTER
5
His head hurt. No, he corrected himself. Everything hurt. Sitting up required the kind of coordination between bruised brain and battered muscles he was not sure he possessed. The effort caused one particular place on his forehead to shout with pain. Wincing, he reached up and felt the abraded flesh. When he brought his fingers down he saw that they were covered with a sticky, largely dried mixture of grit, dirt, and some reddish material. From his wrist hung a shattered bracelet. What was the latter’s purpose? Odd. He could not assign a name to it. As his thoughts began to unspool, he found that he could not assign names to a great many things. Himself, for example.
Who am I? he found himself wondering. The clearer his thinking became, the more that utter bewilderment replaced the aches and pains that seemed to vibrate through every part of his body. Where am I? What is this place? Strive though he might, he found only a great gray void where knowledge ought to be. Though many things around him felt familiar, he could not assign them specific names. He knew, for example, what a rock was, but when he searched his addled thoughts for a word to apply to the object, none was forthcoming. He knew all about rocks, he felt instinctively. He just couldn’t put names to them. He even felt that he knew what was wrong with him, but he could no more call up the term than he could remember where he was, or where he had come from.
A surge of empathy filled him. Turning toward its source, he found himself gazing down at an exquisitely colored coiling shape. He did not recognize it. It was friendly, though. He could sense that, even if he could not identify the creature. Slitted green eyes gazed up at him as if imploring some additional form of recognition. Not knowing what else to do, he let it slither into his lap. It curled up there, apparently satisfied, a flood of contentment surging forth from it in waves that washed across his bemused mind like a soothing touch on his cheek. It did nothing to help him identify the creature that clearly had a close attachment to him—but it made him feel better.
He sat like that for some time, staring at the canyon at his feet, observing the strange airborne creatures that drifted back and forth along its impressive length. He could not put a name to any of them, or to the sparse but hardy growths with whom he shared the rocky ledge, or to the canyon itself. Try as he might, he could not put a name to anything.
Is this my home? he found himself wondering. No, that couldn’t be right. A home was a comfortable place. He was sure of that. Whatever else he might be, he was decidedly not comfortable. Therefore, home had to lie elsewhere. Home. At least he had finally been able to name something.
Thirst. That was something else he could put a name to. He needed water. As he rose, the flying creature that had been dozing in his lap took to the sky but did not abandon him. Instead, it darted upward, returned, darted, returned again. Having no idea where he was or what to do next, it seemed sensible to follow the one being that projected feelings of affection toward him. Forcing his bruised muscles to manipulate his bones, he began to climb. That activity, at least, did not require struggling with the aching vacancy that filled his mind. He would have taken the easier way and headed down, if any accessible route had presented itself. But a quick investigation revealed only sheer cliff below him. So he was forced to go up, digging and scrabbling at the uncooperative rock.
Once, he came to a place that threatened to defeat him. Only isolated cracks in the stone marred the rock wall that threatened to halt his ascent. Carefully, unsure that he really knew what he was doing, he forced bruised and scraped fingers into shallow crevices, jammed his booted toes into cracks seemingly too slight to support his weight, and continued to work his way up.
Interesting, he mused as he struggled to pull himself up onto the next ledge. I know how to climb. Could it be that I am an interesting person?
He didn’t feel very interesting. He felt as if death was climbing right behind him, just a little slower. Or perhaps patiently. Realizing that in addition to knowing how to climb he apparently also knew death, he decided without additional analysis that he preferred to put off further acquaintance with the latter for as long as he possibly could.
Then, quite unexpectedly, the next ledge he pulled himself up and over was not a ledge at all, but the rim of the canyon. Panting, his ripped and torn clothing soaked with stale sweat and dried blood, he sat there contemplating the chasm that spread out below him. He did not know the names of the bladder-borne creatures that floated in and out of the vast, shadowy depths. Some of them were pretty, in a resplendent, iridescent sort of way. Others made him smile to look at them. Some of the bigger and stronger methodically murdered some of the smaller and weaker—usually in silence, but sometimes noisily. None came near him.
On the lip of the gorge was only himself and the winged flying creature that would not leave him. As it once again coiled up in his lap, he reached down to stroke the back of its head. It extended its exquisite blue-and-pink wings fully, stretched, and seemed to shiver with pleasure.
Now how did I know to do that? he found himself wondering. Clearly, the creature was very attached to him. So, in all likelihood, he was somehow attached to it. Adrift in the midst of an emptiness that was both physical and mental, it was good to have a friend. Even one that was legless, mute, and scaly.
He wondered if it had a name. Straining mentally, he fought to recall. But where information ought to have lain waiting, there was only the same hazy vacuum. Whatever it had once contained, his storehouse of memory was presently empty.
Nor was it the only thing that troubled him. He was still thirsty. Rising, he turned to survey his surroundings. It was getting dark. That, he realized as he struggled to analyze the condition, was a consequence of the absence of light. Something told him he needed to seek shelter. From the cold, if not from—other things. But water first, his body insisted.
There would likely be water in the bottom of the canyon. It was a continuous amazement to him that he knew such things without being able to explain how he knew them. He was grateful nonetheless for the dribbles of wisdom. Where else was water likely to hide? In other low places, but the plateau that was cut by the great canyon was as flat as his spirit. Choosing a direction, he started off away from the chasm. Perhaps water would present itself. He knew he would have to go to it because it manifestly was not going to come to him.
A name, he found himself thinking furiously as he walked. I need a name, an identity. Riding on his shoulders, the flying creature flicked out a single-pointed tongue to caress his cheek. Through hurt and exhaustion, he smiled at it.
“You need a name, too. Until I can remember one, I’ll call you Pip.”
For reasons unknown, this plainly pleased his companion. Why he had settled on that name, he didn’t know. At least it was short. Like his life was going to be if he didn’t find water.
The search for something to drink kept him from dwelling on what had happened to him, on how he had come to find himself, battered and bruised and emptied of remembrance, on a ledge within the canyon. Later, he would contemplate it further. After he’d had something to drink.
It was not cold on the plateau during the day, but night was different. Huddling beneath an overhang of rock, he shivered and wished fervently for warmth. It did not come to him. Morning saw him little rested, his throat now dry, his lips beginning to turn to parchment. Groaning, he heaved himself up from his nonexistent bed and resumed walking eastward.
Was it a strange land he was walking in? It seemed so, but he could not be sure. Every odd growth, every peculiar creature that crawled or hopped or floated, might in truth be as familiar to him as his own name, if only he could remember any of it. He simply did not know. His ignorance of labels was utter and complete.
That curious green mat-creature whose ribbed back was lined with lifting bubbles, for example. What was it called? He watched while it drifted parallel to him for a while, grazing small buttons of crimson and yellow growths, rising and falling as it ate. When he turned toward it, the alarmed creature inflated the dozen or so bubbles on its back to their maximum and, forcefully undulating the edges of its body, fluttered off in the opposite direction. He could easily have chased it down, but to what purpose? He did not even know if it was good to eat.
Eat. That concept he understood. It was of primary importance, right behind drink. One emergency at a time, he told himself.
He passed through a forest of growing things that in the absence of leaves and branches flaunted deep folds and indentations to the sky to maximize their surface area. When the light struck these directly, they swelled until the sunstruck surface was perfectly smooth, minimizing surface area in order to minimize evaporation. They flexed like rubber when he pushed his way through them, springing back in his wake with little irritated humming noises. Other growths were striped or spotted. One was quite mobile, pulling its roots out of the ground at his approach and drifting away beneath a single inflated airsac to settle into fresh earth nearby. Flinx watched as its roots, corkscrewing like drunken worms, buried their way into new soil to re-establish the parent growth.
It was only later that he grew aware he was being followed.
Unlike every other living thing he had encountered over the past several days, he succeeded in putting a name to the creature that was unashamedly trailing him. It might not be the correct name, but in lieu of the right one it would certainly serve. He called it the Teeth.
The Teeth was much bigger than any other meat-eater he had seen. Long and slender, it had a spine that spread out above its entire length like an unfolding bony blossom. This spreading V-shape was no wider than his arm was long. From its attenuated surface rose a single line of ten big airsacs, each a couple of meters in diameter, which kept the animal aloft. Slim and muscular, the Teeth was a good six meters in length, of which a meter or more consisted of jaws. These were equally long and slender and filled with dozens, perhaps hundreds, of fine, needle-like teeth. Jaws and teeth were perfectly designed for sweeping from side to side to pluck small prey out of the air. He decided that they could also, if given the chance, rip him up pretty bad.
The several large, black orbs hanging from the front edge of the spread spine remained fixed on him. They had no pupils and did not move like eyes. Motion detectors, Flinx decided, or perhaps heat sensors, or both. The Teeth advanced with rippling, snake-like contortions of its flattened body. Despite its length, when viewed from head-on it would offer only a very small profile. Another useful characteristic for a large predator.
That it was focused on him, Flinx had no doubt. He lengthened his stride. Inflating its airsacs and increasing the rippling movement of its body slightly, the Teeth kept pace.
He climbed a fairly steep slope. Ignoring the more difficult terrain, the Teeth simply floated upward behind him. A handful of small, single-trunked browsers no bigger than Flinx’s hand detected the approaching carnivore and erupted out of his path, exploding away frantically in all directions like so many spring-loaded buttons. Flinx wended his way though a narrow ravine. The Teeth kept pace by simply rising above it and continuing to track him from overhead. When Flinx tried to ignore it, the silent Teeth moved stealthily closer. When he paused to look back, it halted, hovering patiently while waiting for its increasingly anxious prey to break into a run, attack, or fall down dead.
What could he do? In combination with his own increasing weakness and need for water, the creature’s size and persistence were beginning to unnerve Flinx. In response to his escalating agitation, Pip circled anxiously. She was not stimulated to attack the Teeth because it had yet to make a hostile gesture in her master’s direction. Until it did, the exact source of Flinx’s distress remained a matter of conjecture for her.
The Teeth was not going to leave him, Flinx saw. Somehow, he was going to have to try to defend himself. Emerging from the far end of the ravine, he began searching the surrounding ground for a weapon. There were rocks aplenty, but he was too weak to pick up and throw anything substantial, and the Teeth looked too big and tough to be discouraged by a flurry of flying gravel. Flinx examined the surrounding growths. Whether simple or complex, nothing offered the promise of a strong club. Furthermore, attempting to dismember a living plant might have unpleasant repercussions of its own. Vague half-memories warned him against taking such an action except as a last resort.
When he came upon the dead, desiccated tree-thing, it was as if he had stumbled on a potential arsenal. There were large, solid branches he could swing, smaller ones he could throw, and a plethora of strange, rock-hard protrusions. Already sensing the growing weakness in its intended quarry, the Teeth had moved dangerously close. Needle-lined jaws opened and closed repeatedly in silent expectation. At any moment, Flinx feared, it would test him with a quick bite he might well be unable to avoid.
Bending, he reached down to pick up one of the hard woody nodules lying on the ground. It came up a little ways before snapping right back down. Surprised, he tried to pick it up again. As if attached to an elastic cord, the nodule was yanked out of his hand. Not a cord, he saw, but some kind of long, strong fingers belonging to something hidden in the soil. They did not strike out at him, but they refused to surrender the nodule. It was the same with all the others. Each had been possessed by something whose presence was revealed only by clutching fingers.
He felt something tear at his back.
Flinging himself to one side, he fell and rolled once, twice. The Teeth was on him in an instant, propelling itself forward at unexpected speed by expelling air through a quadruple set of nozzles located just above the tip of its tail. With the previously indistinct threat now having defined itself, Pip was there in an instant, interposing herself between the carnivore and Flinx. She spat at it, once. Normally, she would have aimed for an attacker’s eyes. But the Teeth had no eyes that she recognized, and she did not perceive its ebony motion/heat detectors as such.
The corrosive neurotoxin struck the Teeth just behind its head. Emitting a loud, shrill hiss, the carnivore jerked back, its long jaws snapping at the burnt place. Some of the cartilage of which its spreading back was composed dissolved under the effects of the toxin. Either none of the poison entered its nervous system, or else it was immune. Smoke rising from the burned place, it returned furiously to the attack.
Many of the dead trees’ fallen branches were lined with thorns. Grabbing one, ignoring the pain of several small punctures, Flinx raised and swung the makeshift weapon just in time to block a downward bite. He scrambled to his feet as the infuriated carnivore gathered itself to strike again. Where was a vulnerable spot? Flinx wondered desperately. Nothing visible on the slender, rippling body hinted at the location of a vital organ. There was only the head. But the head was where the teeth were, and he preferred to avoid that end.
Forcing muscle-compressed air from its tail nozzles, the Teeth shot straight at him. It expected him to jump to one side or the other, or perhaps to crouch or duck. That was what prey did, usually to no avail. Instead, Flinx surprised it. And in doing so, surprised himself.
With the gaping, narrow jaws less than a meter away from chomping out a chunk of his belly, Flinx leaped. It was an instinctive reaction. I must have had some kind of combat training, he decided as he found himself soaring over the onrushing Teeth. Pain shot through him as twisting, flexing jaws tore flesh from his right calf. He landed on the Teeth’s back. Heavily. The impact was considerable. Though strong and wiry, the Teeth could not have weighed more than a hundred kilos. It twisted and jerked, trying to buck him off. Wrapping his legs around its serpentine body, Flinx rode the writhing form as it thrashed wildly, sometimes rising a few meters skyward, at other times banging itself hard against the ground. Then he began to swing his club.
Thorns punctured first one, then a second, and then a third lifting sac. Fetid air escaped from the punctured bladders as the Teeth began to sink earthward. When the narrow jaws would twist around to snap at him, Flinx fended them off with the makeshift club. All the while, Pip kept buzzing the carnivore’s head, continually distracting it.
All but bending itself double, the Teeth finally succeeded in throwing him off its back. Grunting as he landed on his left shoulder, Flinx managed to keep a grip on the thorn club. Rolling onto his back, he raised it defensively to ward off the questing jaws he expected to come snapping at his face. He needn’t have worried.
Deprived of several of its lifting bladders, the wounded meat-eater was struggling to gain altitude. But no matter how hard it strained and how much it inflated its remaining airsacs, it could not quite muster sufficient lifting power. Squealing and hissing, it floundered off in the opposite direction from its intended prey. As it did so, several meter-long, worm-like shapes emerged from hiding places in the rocks. Flinx had been completely unaware of their presence. They had individual, sausage-like air bladders that ran the length of their backs, and single eyes set in the center of their fore ends. Beneath the solitary eye, multiple sharp-edged tentacles curled and uncurled expectantly, like barbed beards. Inflating their bladders, the creatures silently rose a couple of meters into the air and began to track the injured Teeth. They were careful to keep a respectful distance from the much larger carnivore. They were in no hurry, and had plenty of time.
It was a coarsely beautiful place in which he found himself, Flinx decided, but with the single exception of his winged traveling companion it was not a benign one. Once again he found himself wondering: from where had he conjured the name Pip? Was it the right one, or just something dredged hastily from the sludge that was his memory? Perhaps one day he would find out.
Following the fight, he discovered that he needed water more than ever. Scanning the rocky eastern horizon, he saw what he thought might be a line of deeper green off to his left. As he started in its direction, he wondered if he would last long enough to reach it.
I’ve been in this kind of situation before, he realized with a sudden start, and obviously he had survived it. So I have endurance.
What he did not have, he feared, was time.
Qyl-Elussab guided the cargo lifter with practiced skill. Though somewhat shorter than the Vsseyan average, the driver’s ability to handle the transport was not affected. The manipulating tentacles presently hard at work were no less active or agile than those of a larger representative of the Vsseyan species. The driver was able to reach the controls easily enough. Of local Vsseyan manufacture, the lifter was one of those clever devices that enabled its designers to get around far more rapidly than by hopping. When several dozen short tentacles functioned in tandem, the driver was able to handle a dozen controls simultaneously. It was a demonstration of digital skill no human or AAnn could have equaled.
The lifter bore Qyl-Elussab and cargo deep into the AAnn complex. Making use of the transporter’s built-in navigation system, the tightly focused driver turned down a corridor to the right. An armed AAnn stood guard at the end. After checking the visitor’s credentials and running through the electronic manifest attached to the lifter, the guard hissed indifferently and passed both driver and cargo through. A stream of alternating large and small bubbles emerged from Qyl-Elussab’s mouth. They would have meant nothing to the AAnn even if it had still been looking in the driver’s direction.
The guard had barely glanced at the cargo. Not that it would likely have mattered if she had. The appended manifest had been clear enough, and the container was only one among dozens that passed daily throughout the checkpoint, virtually indistinguishable from the hundreds that had preceded it.
Arriving at the compound’s food preparation facility, the lifter was halted by a particularly officious AAnn clad in attire appropriate to his position and status. Sparing a quick glance for the shipment and none for the driver, he gestured indifferently with hand and tail.
“Put it over there, with the other recent deliveriess.” Having divested himself of the directive, he turned away and moved off to converse with several other AAnn. His attitude toward the lifter’s driver, a local, was typically dismissive. When working with their Vssey hosts, the AAnn were formally polite, but rarely more than that. Expecting nothing in the way of a salutation, of anything beyond the curt order, Qyl-Elussab was not disappointed.
Working quickly, the lifter’s automatic manipulators deposited the load in the designated place, finding an empty slot among numerous ranks of high, crowded shelves. The unloading completed within a few minutes, Qyl-Elussab backed the lifter out of the warehousing area and headed for the compound’s exit as rapidly as was prudent. Only when safely outside did the Vssey abandon the lifter in the external staging zone. A couple of the other Vssey working there eyed the stranger uncertainly. Neither remembered the newcomer from previous workdays. But they were not sufficiently moved to ask questions. Local staff at the AAnn compound changed all the time.
Qyl-Elussab wanted to confront them anyway. To tell them to stay out of the complex, to take the rest of the morning off from work, to form a circle of contemplating and ponder the wind and the sky for a while. But the departing driver dared not. The organization to which Qyl-Elussab belonged was still quite small, and its opinion very much a minority one. The delivery to the AAnn support compound this morning was intended to make a statement somewhat out of proportion to the organization’s size and numbers. So the driver was forced to withhold both words and bubbles as a steady series of hops brought the heavily monitored exit ever nearer. The guard there did not even check Qyl-Elussab’s work permit as the visitor departed.
The rest of the morning passed peacefully. So did the following day. Within the compound, work went on as always, performed to the usual high AAnn standards of efficiency. On the third day subsequent to Qyl-Elussab’s visit, a food preparatory specialist moved twenty loaves of prepacked protein stretcher from the relevant warehouse section into the main kitchen. There they were placed at the disposal of the waiting preparers. Two of them manipulated loaf after loaf into the mass cooker, where premeasured spices and condiments were added to the imported base material. Each loaf was identical to the one that preceded it into the cooker. Only the eleventh loaf was different. Its differences not being immediately visible, it was opened in its turn by a small mechanical device designed for the purpose of automatically divesting it of its airtight packaging.
It took a moment for oxygen in the room to make contact with the injected material that had been skillfully blended with the protein expander. When catalyst met contents, energy was released. Rather violently. The resulting conflagration made quite a mess of the food preparation facility, the food storage area, and the cafeteria-style eating chamber located nearby. Twenty-two AAnn were killed instantly, and dozens more were injured.
Following the screaming, hissing, stress-filled aftermath, highly efficient specialists combed through the wreckage. They found traces of the explosive that had been concealed in the protein pack. The distinctive chemical signature pointed accusingly to material that was unpretentious in origin but devastating in its consequences. A report was issued. Security was tightened at every AAnn outpost on the planet. There was no general alarm. The AAnn were not given to panic. Both their own administrators and the pertinent local officials were confident that the perpetrators of the outrage would be found, and dealt with. Suitably horrified by the unprovoked carnage, the Vsseyan authorities offered full cooperation.
Certain steps were taken.
Breathing hard, claws curled inward, tail extended fully out behind him for balance, a crouching, unclothed Takuuna pivoted slowly in one place while keeping a wary eye on his opponent. She, too, was respirating heavily, her eyes following his every movement. To the inexperienced, it would appear as if the two of them were engaged in serious, if not mortal, combat. To understand what was really happening, one would have to know that their labored breathing was not entirely due to an excessive expenditure of combative energy.
When she leaped at him, he was ready. Using his slightly longer arms, he ducked instead of dodging sideways and struck out to the left, catching her behind her knees while avoiding the claws on her bare feet. She lost her balance and fell forward. He was on her in an instant, pinning her arms while lying far enough forward on her back to avoid the thrashing tail. Words were exchanged. Her initial fury subsided into muttered, grudging admiration for his agility. An indication of willing concession, her tail slumped to one side as she fully acquiesced.
It was important if not necessary for him to win the precoital fight. The ultimate result would have been the same no matter which of them had won the right to secure the dominant position, but no AAnn worth his or her second eyelid would have simply conceded it merely for the purpose of facilitating a mating. From a social standpoint, it would have been unforgivable. Had he, for example, simply rolled and dropped his tail, she would have, despite her readiness to breed, probably spat on him and stalked out of the chamber. No AAnn got to mate unless they proved themselves worthy, and the proof lay in the customary attempt to try to secure the dominant mating position.
His success left her angry and disappointed, of course, just as he would have been had he lost the contest. That did not prevent them from consummating the confrontation with a flourish. Once defeated, a partner could not attempt to regain dominance either during or after coitus. She would have to wait until next time. Respirating deeply in the aftermath, he decided he would be more than pleased to allow her a rematch.
It had been thus among his kind for as long as any could remember. Judged by the standards of the mating rituals traditionally evoked by other species, it appeared harsh, even brutal at times. Despite the protection afforded by elaborate rules and guidelines, injuries were not uncommon. But it had ensured that only the fittest AAnn propagated. It was also excellent exercise, ultimately relaxing (wounds sustained notwithstanding), and was not, he mused as he rinsed himself in the afterbath, wholly unexciting.
Later, they joined another couple in the sandarium, burrowing into the imported, sterilized, and properly heated sand up to their necks. After the physical exertion of contesting and mating, followed by the tepid washing, the enfolding warmed sand felt indescribably luxurious against his scales. He knew the other pair only casually, having encountered them separately within the administration complex. As his partner for the encounter clearly knew them better, he let her make the opening gestures and carry most of the conversation. She tended to ignore him now, as was only proper for a nye after contesting. After all, they had mated but were not bound.
He was preparing to leave to return to work, pulling and pushing himself as slowly as possible out of the deep sand in order to enjoy the last lingering piquant caress of the particles as they slid off his scales, when the messenger arrived. That in itself was unusual. What was so important that it could not wait for the bathers to dress and access the communicators that were an integral part of every nye’s attire?
The anxious messenger scanned the figures occupying the sand bath. “Adminisstrator Second Takuuna VBXLLW?”
Takuuna identified himself. “There iss a matter of urgency?” He was aware that from within the bath, his still-immersed bathing companions were watching him intently.
The messenger fluttered a hasty gesture of second-degree affirmation. “You are directed to report immediately to the office of the respected Keliichu RGQQ.”
From the storage alcove where he had carefully placed it, Takuuna was removing and slipping back into his work attire. “For what purposse?”
A swift downward hand swipe signifying ignorance. “I wass told to deliver the order. Nothing more.”
Of course there wasn’t. He was only a messenger, Takuuna thought understandingly. Young as he was, he probably still had at least a dozen subjunctives attached to his name. As the messenger left, the administrator saw that his communicator was indeed alight. It could not be too serious an emergency or the device would have interrupted his break with an alarm. That, at least, was encouraging.
It did not make him wonder less, or render him less nervous. What did Skokosas’s primary administrator Keliichu want with him? He had never dealt with Keliichu personally, having encountered the senior official only on a few formal occasions. Keliichu stood several levels above him in the administrative hierarchy. Aware that his bathing companions were still watching him, he turned and nodded knowingly.
“It sseemss that the venerable Keliichu wisshess my advice. I am ssorry that I musst take my leave of you sso ssoon.”
One of the other bathers hissed understandingly. “We have sspent time enough here, I think. Work awaitss all of uss.”
“Truly.” Takuuna’s challenger dragged herself out of the sand, her supple tail whipping lazily back and forth behind her as she emerged. Golden grains spilled in small sandfalls from her back and flanks.
He would have stayed to watch, but the last thing he wanted to do was keep someone as important as Keliichu waiting. Waiting for what? As he strode purposefully through the corridors of the complex, his sandals slapping on the smooth floor, Takuuna’s worries deepened. The pleasures of a few timeparts ago were waning rapidly. Had he done something wrong? Had he done something right? What was so important that it could not be conveyed via communicator and required a tooth-to-tooth meeting?
A sudden thought so alarmed him that his pointed tongue shot out reflexively between his front teeth. Fortunately, there was no one around to witness the lapse. The human! This had something to do with that execrable excuse for a sentient that he had providentially knocked over a cliff, sending it to its doom. As was proper, his report on the incident had been filed immediately. By now he thought it had long since been reviewed and accepted. Had something unforeseen cropped up to compromise his carefully crafted tale of alien deception and desperate self-defense? As he walked, he mentally reviewed what he had scribed. He could find no fault with it. His failure to do so only rendered him that much more uneasy.
Dodging irritably around a couple of slowly hopping, visiting Vssey, he entered an appropriate lift and soon found himself at the entry to Keliichu’s workplace. As befitted someone of such high status, it was located just below ground level, with a narrow horizontal port offering a view of carefully maintained external landscaping. It was as close as one stationed on Jast could get to a homey panorama. Trying not to let his unease show, he flashed his presence.
Keliichu was waiting for him. The primary administrator’s expression, posture, and tail position gave no indication of what the respected sandering was thinking. He appeared preoccupied, barely acknowledging Takuuna’s entrance and elaborate salute as the newcomer sheathed his claws, turned his head to the right, and exposed his jugular. Nor did Keliichu come around the work desk to lightly grab Takuuna’s throat in a polite gesture of greeting. Takuuna did not miss the gesture because it was not expected. This was not a personal encounter. Determined to stay calm, forcing himself to still the rapid side-to-side twitching of his tail, he waited silently.
Keliichu turned to him. Not on him, but to him, Takuuna noted with relief. An AAnn could read more into a body movement or gesture than even the most perceptive human, and there was nothing in the way the primary administrator held his hands or his head, his shoulders or his tail, to suggest enmity.
Keliichu wasted no time. “You have heard about the deathss at Morotuuver?”
Takuuna gestured swift acknowledgement. Who had not? The horrifying incident was the talk of the AAnn community on Jast. “A terrible tragedy. Sso many good nye dead in the accident.”
The senior administrator executed a brutally sharp gesture of disagreement muted by third-degree consideration. “It wass not an accident.”
His visitor was taken aback. This was not the conversation he had expected to have. “But all the reportss indicated that—”
Keliichu did not let him finish. Noted for his patience, the primary administrator was exhibiting all the signs of one for whom time had become shortened. It occurred suddenly to Takuuna that even someone as senior as his host could come under pressure from above. That in turn suggested the involvement of authority beyond the merely local, perhaps stretching all the way back to Pregglin itself.
What had happened? And how, by all the heat of all the sands of home, did it involve him?
“It wass an act of ssabotage,” the administrator informed him moodily.
Takuuna’s head was spinning as he tried to keep up. “Ssabotage? But by whom, and to what purposse?”
The administrator’s head came up and he met his visitor’s eyes squarely. Another time, another place, it might have been interpreted as a personal challenge to combat. But not here, not in this office, not during a prescribed meeting between superior and subordinate.
“You, of all nye, sshould know that, Takuuna.”
His thoughts raced. Why would anyone suppose that he would be familiar with . . . ? He began to smile inwardly. There was a childhood legend about guiding stars that favored certain newly born. He was beginning to believe that his was shining brightly. He could foresee the diminishment of a subjunctive already. Having arrived full of ignorance and worry, he strove to adjust his posture to reflect inner confidence. It was something he was beginning to feel.
“Truly,” he responded ingenuously. “Why wass the event reported as an accident?”
“To keep both AAnn and localss from leaping to unefficaciouss conclussionss. To maintain the public calm. While our possition here on Jasst is ssecure, it iss not everlassting. Whether that will eventually come to pass awaitss further decissions by the Vssey. And as you know, what a nye can decide in a tssing, it takes at leasst three Vssey a month to work out. Sso we remain, and quietly purssue our interessts, and try not to give offensse to our dithering hosstss. But there are evidently ssome Vssey who can reach decissionss more sswiftly than the resst of their ssluggissh brethren. Thesse unknown hosstile elementss have decided to take action againsst uss.” To relieve his restlessness, he reached down with a clawed finger and traced abstract patterns in the disc of colored sand that reposed on his desk for that purpose.
“Forenssicss found tracess of oxygen-ssenssitized explossive in the wreckage of the dining area at Morotuuver. Additional ressearch revealed that a complete identity package for a Vssey worker at the facility had gone missing ssome months earlier. Sso the attack wass well planned.” His expression was grim. “Thiss initial hint of rebellion againsst our pressence here musst be sstamped out immediately! Our friendss among the Vssey have promissed uss full cooperation. Ssuch violence dissgusstss them equally. Or appearss to,” he added, his tone softening.
“What hass thiss revelation to do with me?” Takuuna thought he knew, but needed to hear it from the administrator himself. Keliichu didn’t hesitate.
“It wass you who propossed that the unexpected appearance on Vssey of a sseemingly unconnected, apolitical human wass ssuggesstive of ssomething more that it appeared to be. When you returned from traveling with it to the backcountry and declared that you had been forced to kill it, I musst confess that I wass among thosse dissinclined to take your sstory of deception and sself-defensse sseriously.” With the inner will that had always sustained him, Takuuna kept his expression unchanged.
“Then along comess thiss terrible incident at Morotuuver. It sseemss that I, among otherss, may have been wrong in our initial assumptionss, and that your ssusspicionss of human involvement in esscalating Vsseyan animossity to our pressence on thiss world may in fact have been correct.”
Takuuna reacted with a becoming modesty that positively oozed. “I wass only doing my besst, respected Keliichu, relying on my insstinctss and training to analyze all that I wass obsserving.”
Keliichu hissed softly. He had no time for such unctuousness, but was willing to tolerate it. His personal feelings toward this Takuuna were irrelevant to the situation at hand.
“It hass been decided that a sspecialized invesstigative unit sshould be created, whosse sstaff will be drawn from ssome of the ssharper mindss within the Authority. A unit whosse purposse will be to root out and identify ssourcess of Vsseyan resstlessness that are ssufficiently disscontented to resspond to our pressence on Jasst with violent demonsstrationss. By decission as well as review of record, it hass been decided that you are pressently the mosst qualified nye to command and direct ssuch a unit.”
Takuuna stood stunned. What a wonderment of sandfalls the morning had brought! First the delicious encounter with the dynamic female Geelin. And now this. Anticipating condemnation over the outcome of his encounter with the intruding softskin, perhaps even a formal questioning by an interrogation panel, he instead found himself promoted! Any last vestiges of doubt he felt over terminating the visitor vanished beneath the import of the primary administrator’s words.
“Doess thiss appointment include the formal divesstiture of a perssonal subjunctive?” Had a human in such a situation made the inquiry, it would have sounded pushy. For an AAnn not to do so would have been unnatural.
Hence, Keliichu was expecting it. “No. The appointment doess not carry that kind of hierarchical weight. However,” the senior administrator added in response to Takuuna’s obvious dissapointment, “the ssuccessful ressolution of the ssituation we are facing and that you are being assked to deal with would almosst certainly produce ssuch a ressult.”
Coming as it did from an official as high up in the local chain of command as Keliichu, the response boosted Takuuna’s spirits even more than they had been already.
“Resst assured, venerated primary adminisstrator, that I will undertake to excisse thiss ssocial cancer with the utmosst vigor of which I am capable.”
“I am ssure you will.” Keliichu’s tone was dry and polite. He did not know Takuuna well enough to dislike him. Such things, anyway, were not important. “Your mandate and directionss will be waiting for you in your office. Upon commencing your work, if you find that you require additional ressourcess, do not hessitate to bypass normal channelss to request them. Thiss iss a priority assignment.”
After offering a heartfelt “truly” and taking his leave, Takuuna departed the chief administrator’s sector. He had to force himself to walk and not bound down the corridor of the complex. A special designation! Everyone would be watching him. Naturally, too, everyone would be hoping for him to fail. But this was an exceptional circumstance. He would be operating for the safety and welfare of all nye. The cooperation he could expect from those who would normally be his competitors would be atypical, and could not be refused. He was in a unique and enviable position. In fact, in examining his new circumstances from every possible angle, he could find only one potential complication.
To the best of his knowledge, there were no violently subversive groups operating among the Vssey.
Certainly the human had never vouchsafed any interest in such. That had not stopped Takuuna from killing him. Just as the likely absence of any widespread organized opposition to the AAnn presence on Jast was not going to stop Takuuna from carrying out his newly assigned duties. In the absence of a reason to kill the softskin, Takuuna had managed to do so, anyway, neatly manufacturing a rationale after the fact. With the native authorities having promised to cooperate in any investigation, there was nothing to hold him back. Striding purposefully and proudly down the corridor, he hissed a happy threnody as he contemplated the first spate of anticipated arrests.