Part 15 (2/2)

Fiben bowed as he backed away and then scuttled with an exaggeratedly bowlegged gait over to the post where Tycho's reins were tied. He averted his gaze as he led the animal back onto the dirt embankment beside the road. The soldiers idly watched him pa.s.s, chirping contemptuous remarks they were certain he could not understand.

Stupid d.a.m.ned birds, he thought, while his disguised belt camera panned the fortification, the soldiers, a hover-tank that whined by a few minutes later, its crew sprawled upon its flat upper deck, taking in the late afternoon sun.

Fiben waved as they swept by, staring back at him.

I'll bet you'd taste just fine in a nice orange glaze, he thought after the feathered creatures.

Fiben tugged the horse's reins. ”C'mon, Tycho,” he urged. ”We gotta make Port Helenia by nightfall.”

Farms were still operating in the Valley of the Sind.

Traditionally, whenever a starfaring race was licensed to colonize a new world, the continents were left as much as possible in their natural state. On Garth as well, the major Earthling settlements had been established on an archipelago in the shallow Western Sea. Only those islands had been converted completely to suit Earth-type animals and vegetation.

But Garth was a special case. The BururalH had left a mess, and something had to be done quickly to help stabilize the planet's rocky ecosystem. New forms had to be introduced from the outside to prevent a complete biosphere collapse. That meant tampering with the continents.

A narrow watershed had been converted in the shadow of the Mountains of Mulun. Terran plants and animals that thrived here were allowed to diffuse into the foothills under careful observation, slowly filling some of the ecological niches left empty by the Bururalli Holocaust. It was a delicate experiment in practical planetary ecology, but one considered worthwhile. On Garth and on other catastrophe worlds the three races of the Terragens were building reputations as biosphere wizards. Even Mankind's worst critics would have to approve of work such as this.

And ye,t, something was jarringly wrong here. Fiben had pa.s.sed three abandoned ecological management stations on his way, sampling traps and tracer 'bots stacked in disarray.

It was a sign of how bad the crisis must be. Holding the humans hostage was one thing-a marginally acceptable tactic by modern rules of war. But for the Gubru to be willing to disturb the resurrection of Garth, the uproar in the galaxy must be profound.

It didn't bode well for the rebellion. What if the War Codes really had broken down? Would the Gubru be willing to use planet busters?

That's the General's problem, Fiben decided. I'm just a spy. She's the Eatee expert.

At least the farms were working, after a fas.h.i.+on. Fiben pa.s.sed one field cultivated with zygowheat and another with carrots. The robo-tillers went their rounds, weeding and irrigating. Here and there he saw a dispirited chim riding a spiderlike controller unit, supervising the machinery.

Sometimes they waved to him. More often they did not.

Once, he pa.s.sed a pair of armed Gubru standing in a furrowed field beside their landed flitter. As he came closer, Fiben saw they were scolding a chim farmworker. The avians fluttered and hopped as they gestured at the drooping crop. The foreman nodded unhappily, wiping her palms on her faded dungarees. She glanced at Fiben as he pa.s.sed by along the road, but the aliens went on with their rebuke, oblivious.

Apparently the Gubru were anxious for the crops to come in. Fiben hoped it meant they wanted it for their hostages. But maybe they had arrived with thin supplies and needed the food for themselves.

He was making good time when he drew Tycho off the road into a small grove of fruit trees. The animal rested, browsing on the Earth-stock gra.s.s while Fiben sauntered over behind a tree to relieve himself.

The orchard had not been sprayed or pest-balanced in some time, he observed. A type of stingless wasp was still swarming over the ping-oranges, although the secondary flowering had finished weeks before and they were no longer needed for pollination.

The air was filled with a fruity, almost-ripe pungency. The wasps climbed over the thin rinds, seeking access to the sweetness within.

Abruptly, without thinking, Fiben reached out and s.n.a.t.c.hed a few of the insects. It was easy. He hesitated, then popped them into his mouth.

They were juicy and crunchy, a lot like termites. ”Just doing my part to keep the pest population down,” he rationalized, and his brown hands darted out to grab more. The taste of the crunching wasps reminded him of how long it had been since he had last eaten.

”I'll need sustenance if I'm to do good work in town tonight,” he thought half aloud. Fiben looked around. The horse grazed peacefully, and no one else was in sight.

He dropped his tool belt and took a step back. Then, favoring his still tender left ankle, he leaped onto the trunk and s.h.i.+mmied up to one of the fruit-heavy limbs. Ah, he thought as he plucked an almost ripe reddish globe. He ate it like an apple, skin and all. The taste was tart and astringent, unlike the bland human-style food so many chims claimed to like these days.

He grabbed two more oranges and popped a few leaves into his mouth for good measure. Then he stretched back and closed his eyes.

Up here, with only the buzz of the wasps for company, Fiben could almost pretend he didn't have a care, in this world or any other. He could put out of his mind wars and all the other silly preoccupations of sapient beings.

Fiben pouted, his expressive lips drooping low. He scratched himself under his arm.

”Ook, ook.”

He snorted-almost silent laughter-and imagined he was back in an Africa even his great-grandfathers had never seen, in forested hills never touched by his people's too-smooth, big-nosed cousins.

What would the universe have been like without men? Without Eatees? Without anyone at all but chimps?

Sooner or later we would've invented stars.h.i.+ps, and the universe might have been ours.

The clouds rolled by and Fiben lay back on the branch with narrowed eyes, enjoying his fantasy. The wasps buzzed in futile indignation over his presence. He forgave them their insolence as he plucked a few from the air as added morsels.

Try as he might, though, .he could not maintain the illusion of solitude. For there arrived another sound, an added drone from high above. And try as he might, he couldn't pretend he did not hear alien transports cruising uninvited across the sky.

A glistening fence more than three meters high undulated over the rolling ground surrounding Port Helenia. It was an imposing barrier, put up quickly by special robot machines right after the invasion. There were several gates, through which the city's chim population seemed to come and go without much notice or impediment. But they could not help being intimidated by the sudden new wall. Perhaps that was its basic purpose.

Fiben wondered how the Gubru would have managed the trick if the capital had been a real city and not just a small town on a rustic colony world.

He wondered where the humans were being kept.

It was dusk as he pa.s.sed a wide belt of knee-high tree stumps, a hundred meters before the alien fence. The area had been planned as a park, but now only splintered fragments lay on the ground all the way to the dark watchtower and open gate.

Fiben steeled himself to go through the same scrutiny as earlier at the checkpoint, but to his surprise no one challenged him. A narrow pool of light spilled onto the highway from a pair of pillar spots. Beyond, he saw dark, angular buildings, the dimly lit streets apparently deserted.

The silence was spooky. Fiben's shoulders hunched as he spoke softly. ”Come on, Tycho. Quietly.” The horse blew and pulled the floating wagon slowly past the steel-gray bunker.

Fiben chanced a quick glance inside the structure as he pa.s.sed. A pair of guards stood within, each perched on one knotted, stick-thin leg, its sharp, avian bill buried in the soft down under its left arm. Two saber-rifles lay on the counter beside them, near a stack of standard Galactic faxboards.

The two Talon Soldiers appeared to be fast asleep!

Fiben sniffed, his flat nose wrinkling once more at the over-sweet alien aroma. This was not the first time he had seen signs of weaknesses in the reputedly invincible grip of the Gubru fanatics. They had had it easy until now-too easy. With the humans nearly all gathered and neutralized, the invaders apparently thought the only possible threat was from s.p.a.ce. That, undoubtedly, was why all the fortifications he had seen had faced upward, with little or no provision against attack from the ground.

Fiben stroked his sheathed belt knife. He was tempted to creep into the guard post, slipping under the obvious alarm beams, and teach the Gubru a lesson for their complacency.

The urge pa.s.sed and he shook his head. Later, he thought. When it will hurt them more.

Patting Tycho's neck, he led the horse through the lighted area by the guard post and beyond the gate into the industrial part of town. The streets between the warehouses and factories were quiet-a few chims here and there hurrying about on errands beneath the scrutiny of the occasional pa.s.sing Gubru patrol skimmer.

Taking pains not to be observed, Fiben slipped into a side alley and found a windowless storage building not far from the colony's sole iron foundry. Under his whispered urging, Tycho pulled the floating hover over to the shadows by the back door of the warehouse. A layer of dust showed that the padlock had not been touched in weeks. He examined it closely. ”Hmmm.”

Fiben took a rag from his belt ap.r.o.n and wrapped it around the hasp. Taking it firmly in both hands, he closed his eyes and counted to three before yanking down hard.

The lock was strong, but, as he'd suspected, the ring bolt in the dpor was corroded. It snapped with a m.u.f.fled ”crack!” Quickly, Fiben slipped the sheaf and pushed the door along its tracks. Tycho placidly followed him into the gloomy interior, the truck trailing behind. Fiben looked around to memorize the layout of hulking presses and metalworking machinery before hurrying back to close the- door again.

”You'll be all right,” he said softly as he unhitched the animal. He hauled a sack of oats out of the hover and split it open on the ground. Then he filled a tub with water from a nearby tap. ”I'll be back if I can,” he added. ”If not, you just enjoy the oats for a couple of days, then whinny. I'm sure someone will be by.”

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