Part 26 (1/2)

The blue globe still pulsed, but it stopped sending forth pencil beams of irritation. Fiben walked close to the cairn and looked it over. He paced the perimeter. Halfway around, where the cliff overlooked the sea only twenty meters away, there was a hatch. Fiben blinked when he saw the array of locks, hasps, bolts, combination slots, and keyholes.

Well, he told himself, it is a cache for diplomatic secrets and such.

But all those locks meant that he had no chance of getting in and finding a message from Uthacalthing. Athaclena had given him a few possible code words to try, if he got the chance, but this was another story altogether!

By now the fire brigade had arrived. Through the smoke Fiben could see chims from the city watch stumbling over stick-figure aliens and stretching out hoses. It wouldn't be long before someone imposed order on this chaos. If his mission here really was futile, he ought to be getting out while the getting was still easy. He could probably take the trail along the bluff, where it overlooked the Sea of Cilmar. That would skirt most of the enemy and bring him out near a bus route.

Fiben bent forward and looked at the hatchway again. Pfeh! There were easily two dozen locks on the armored door! A small ribbon of red silk would be as useful in keeping out an invader. Either the conventions were being respected or they weren't! What the h.e.l.l good were all these padlocks and things?

Fiben grunted, realizing. It was another Tymbrimi joke, of course. One the Gubru would fail to get, no matter how intelligent they were. There were times when personality counted for more than intelligence.

Maybe that means . . .

On a hunch, Fiben ran around to the other side of the cairn. His eyes were watering from the smoke, and he wiped his nose on his handkerchief as he searched the wall opposite the hatch.

”Stupid b.l.o.o.d.y guesswork,” he grumbled as he clambered among the smooth stones. ”It'd take a Tymbrimi to think up a stunt like this ... or a stupid, lame-brained, half-evolved chim client like m-”

A loose stone slipped slightly under his right hand. Fiben pried at the facing, wis.h.i.+ng he had a Tymbrimi's slender, supple fingers. He cursed as he tore a fingernail.

At last the stone came free. He blinked.

He had been right, there was a secret hiding place here in back. Only the d.a.m.n hole was empty!

This time, Fiben couldn't help himself. He shrieked in frustration. It was too much. The covering stone went sailing into the brush, and he stood there on the steep, sloping face of the cairn, cursing in the fine, expressive, indignant tones his ancestors had used before Uplift when inveighing against the parentage and personal habits of baboons.

The red rage only lasted a few moments, but when it cleared Fiben felt better. He was hoa.r.s.e and raw, and his palms hurt from slapping the hard stone, but at least some of his frustration had been vented.

Clearly it was time to get out of here. Just beyond a thick wisp of drifting smoke, Fiben saw a large floater set down. A ramp descended and a troop of armored Gubru soldiery hurried onto the singed lawn, each accompanied by a pair of tiny, floating globes. Yep, time to scoot.

Fiben was about to climb down when he glanced one more time into the little niche in the Tymbrimi cairn. At that moment the diffusing smoke dispersed briefly under the stiffening breeze. Sunlight burst onto the cliffside.

A tiny flash of silvery light caught his eye. He reached into the niche and pulled on a slender thread, thin and delicate as gossamer, that had lined a crack at the back of the little crevice.

At that moment there came an amplified squawk. Fiben swiveled and saw a squad of Gubru Talon Soldiers coming his way. An officer fumbled with the vodor at its throat, dialing among the auto-translation options.

”...Cathtoo-psh'v'chim'ph...

”...Kah-koo-kee, k'keee! EeeEeEE! K.... ”...Hisss-s-ss pop crackle!...

”...Puna bliv't mannennering...”

”...what you are doing there! Good clients do not play with what they cannot understand!”

Then the officer caught sight of the opened niche-and Fiben's hand stuffing something into a coverall pocket.

”Stop! Show us what . . .”

Fiben did not wait for the soldier to finish the command. He scrambled up the cairn. The blue globe throbbed as he pa.s.sed, and in his mind terror was briefly pushed aside by a powerful, dry laughter as he dove over the top and slid down the other side. Laser bolts sizzled over his head, chipping fragments from the stone structure as he landed on the ground with a thump d.a.m.n Tymbrimi sense of humor, was his only thought as he scrambled to his feet and dashed in the only possible direction, down the protective shadow of the cairn, straight toward the sheer cliff.

39 Gailet

Max dumped a load of disabled Gubru guard disks onto the rooftop near Gailet Jones. ”We yanked out their receivers,” he reported. ”Still, we'll have to be d.a.m.n careful with'em.”

Nearby, Professor Oakes clicked his stopwatch. The elderly chen grunted in satisfaction. ”Their air cover has been withdrawn, again. Apparently they've decided it was an accident after all.”

Reports kept coming in. Gailet paced nervously, occasionally looking out over the roof parapet at the conflagration and confusion in Sea Bluff Park. We didn't plan anything like this! she thought. It could be great luck. We've learned so much.

Or it could be a disaster. Hard to tell yet.

If only the enemy doesn't trace it to us.

A young chen, no more than twelve years old, put down his binoculars and turned to Gailet. ”Semaph.o.r.e reports all but one of our forward observers has come back in, ma'am. No word from that one, though.”

”Who is it?” Gailet asked.

”Uh, it's that militia officer from th' mountains. Fiben Bolger, ma'am.”

”I might have guessed!” Gailet sighed.

Max looked up from his pile of alien booty, his face a grimace of dismay. ”I saw him. When the fence failed, he jumped over it and went running toward the fire. Um, I suppose I should've gone along, to keep an eye on him.”

”You should have done no such thing, Max. You were exactly right. Of all the foolish stunts!” She sighed. ”I might have known he would do something like this. If he gets captured, and gives us away ...” She stopped. There was no point in worrying the others more than necessary.

Anyway, she thought a little guiltily, the arrogant chen might only have been killed.

She bit her lip, though, and went to the parapet to look out in the direction of the afternoon sun.

40 Fiben Behind Fiben came the familiar zip zip of the blue globe firing again. The Gubru squawked less than he might have expected; these were soldiers, after all. Still, they made quite a racket and their attention was diverted. Whether the cache defender was acting to cover his retreat or merely hara.s.sing the invaders on general principles, Fiben couldn't speculate. In moments he was too busy even to think about it.

One look over the edge was enough to make him gulp. The cliff wasn't a gla.s.sy face, but neither was it the sort of route a picnicker would choose to get down to the s.h.i.+ning sands below.

The Gubru were shooting back at the blue globe now, but that couldn't last long. Fiben contemplated the steep dropoff. All told, he would much rather have lived a long, quiet life as country ecologist, donated his sperm samples when required, maybe joined a real fun group family, taken up scrabble.

”Argh!” he commented in man dialect, and stepped off over the gra.s.sy verge.

It was a four-handed job, for sure. Gripping a k.n.o.b with the tingers and tumb of his left foot, he swung way out to grab a second handhold and managed to lower himself to another ledge. A short stretch came easily, then it seemed he needed the grasping power of every extremity. Thank Goodall Uplift had left his people with this ability. If he'd had feet like a human's, he surely would have fallen by now!

Fiben was sweating, feeling around for a foothold that had to be there, when suddenly the cliff face seemed to lash out, batting away at him. An explosion sent tremors through the rock. Fiben's face ground into the gritty surface as he clutched for dear life, his feet kicking and dangling in midair.

Of all the d.a.m.n . . . He coughed and spat as a plume of dust floated down from the cliff edge. In peripheral vision he glimpsed bright bits of incandescent stone flying out through the sky, spinning down to hissing graves in the sea below.

The root-grubbing, cairn must've blown!

Then something whizzed by his head. He ducked but still caught a flash of blueness and heard, within his head, a chuckling of alien laughter. The hilarity reached a crescendo as something seemed to brush the back of his head, then faded as the blue light zipped off again, dropping to skip away southward, just above the waves.

Fiben wheezed and sought frantically for a foothold. At last he found purchase, and he was able to lower himself to the next fairly safe resting place. He wedged himself into a narrow cleft, out of sight from the clifftop. Only then did he spare the extra energy to curse.

Some day, Uthacalthing. Some day.