Part 42 (1/2)

A small stand of brushy trees stood atop a hillock, not far away. This time Kault led, swinging his homemade staff to clear a path through the tall, gra.s.sy growth.

By now they were well practiced at the routine. Kault did the heavy work of delving a comfortable niche, down to where the soil was cool. Uthacalthing's nimble hands tied the Thennanin's cape into place as a sunshade. They rested against their packs and waited out the hot middle part of the day.

While Uthacalthing dozed, Kault spent the time entering data in his lap datawell. He picked up twigs, berries, bits of dirt, rubbed them between his large, powerful fingers, and held the dust up to his scent-slits before examining it with his small collection of instruments salvaged from the crashed yacht.

The Thennanin's diligence was all the more frustrating to Uthacalthing, since Kault's serious investigations of the local ecosystem had somehow missed every single clue Uthacalthing had thrown his way. Perhaps it is because they were thrown at him. Uthacalthing pondered. The Thennanin were a systematic folk. Possibly, Kault's worldview prevented him from seeing that which did not fit into the pattern that his careful studies revealed.

An interesting thought. Uthacalthing's corona fas.h.i.+oned a glyph of appreciated surprise as, all at once, he saw that the Thennanin approach might not be as c.u.mbersome as he had thought. He had a.s.sumed that it was stupidity that made Kault impervious to his fabricated clues, but . . .

But after all, the clues really are lies. My confederate out in the bush lays out hints for me to ”find” ana ”hide.” When Kault ignores them, could it be because his obstinate worldview is actually superior? In reality, he has proven almost impossible to fool!

True or not, it was an interesting idea. Syrtunu riffled and tried to lift off, but Uthacalthing's corona lay limp, too lazy to abet the glyph.

Instead, his thoughts drifted to Athaclena.

He knew his daughter still lived. To try to learn more would invite detection by the enemy's psi devices. Still, there was something in those traces-trembling undertones down in the nahakieri levels of feeling-which told Uthacalthing that he would have much new to learn about Athaclena, should they ever meet again in this world.

”In the end, there is a limit to the guidance of parents,” a soft voice seemed to say to him as he drifted in half-slumber. ”Beyond that, a child's destiny is her own.”

And what of the strangers who enter her life? Uthacalthing asked the glimmering figure of his long-dead wife, whose shape seemed to hover before him, beyond his closed eyelids.

”Husband, what of them? They, too, will shape her. And she them. But our own time ebbs.”

Her face was so clear. . . . This was a dream such as humans were known to have, but which was rarer among Tymbrimi. It was visual, and meaning was conveyed in words rather than glyphs. A flux of emotion made his fingertips tremble.

Mathicluanna's eyes separated, and her smile reminded him of that day in the capital when their coronae had first touched . . . stopping him, stunned and still in the middle of a crowded street. Half-blinded by a glyph without any name, he had hunted the trace of her down alleyways, across bridges, and past dark cafes, seeking with growing desperation until, at last, he found her waiting for him on a bench not twelve sistaars from where he had first sensed her.

”You see?” she asked in the dream voice of that long ago girl. ”We are shaped. We change. But what we once were, that, too, remains always.”

Uthacalthing stirred. His wife's image rippled, then vanished in wavelets of rolling light. Syullf-tha was the glyph that hovered in the s.p.a.ce where she had been . . . standing for the joy of a puzzle not yet solved.

He sighed and sat up, rubbing his eyes.

For some reason Uthacalthing thought that the bright daylight might disperse the glyph. But syullf-tha was more than a mere dream by now. Without any volition on his part, it rose and moved slowly away from Uthacalthing toward his companion, the big Thennanin.

Kault sat with his back to Uthacalthing, still absorbed in his studies, completely unaware as syullf-tha transformed, changed subtly into syulff-kuonn. It settled slowly over Kault's ridge crest, descended, settled in, and disappeared. Uthacalthing stared, amazed, as Kault grunted and looked up. The Thennanin's breath-slits wheezed as he put down his instruments and turned to face Uthacalthing.

”There is something very strange here, colleague. Something I am at a loss to explain.”

Uthacalthing moistened his lips before answering. ”Do tell me what concerns you, esteemed amba.s.sador.”

Kault's voice was a low rumble. ”There appears to be a creature . . . one that has been foraging in these berry patches not long ago. I have seen traces of its eating for some days now, Uthacalthing. It is large . . . very large for a creature of Garth.”

Uthacalthing was still getting used to the idea that syulff-kuonn had penetrated where so many subtler and more powerful glyphs had failed. ”Indeed? Is this of significance?”

Kault paused, as if uncertain whether to say more. The Thennanin finally sighed. ”My friend, it is most odd. But I must tell you that there should be no animal, since the Bururalli Holocaust, able to reach so high into these bushes. And its manner of foraging is quite extraordinary.”

”Extraordinary in what way?”

Kault's crest inflated in short puffs, indicating confusion. ”I ask that you do not laugh at me, colleague.”

”Laugh at you? Never!” Uthacalthing lied.

”Then I shall tell you. By now I am convinced that this creature has hands, Uthacalthing. I am sure of it.”

”Hm,” Uthacalthing commented noncommittally.

The Thennanin's voice dropped even lower. ”There is a mystery here, colleague. There is something very odd going on here on Garth.”

Uthacalthing suppressed his corona. He extinguished all facial expression. Now he understood why it had been syulff-kuonn-the glyph of antic.i.p.ation of a practical joke fulfilled -- that penetrated where none had succeeded before.

The joke was on me!

Uthacalthing looked beyond the fringe of their sunshade, where the bright afternoon had begun to color from an overcast spilling over the mountains.

Out there in the bush his confederate had been laying ”clues” for weeks, ever since the Tymbrimi yacht came down where Uthacalthing had intended it to, at the edge of the marshlands far southeast of the mountains. Little Jo-Jo-the throwback chim who could not even speak except with his hands-moved just ahead of Uthacalthing, naked as an animal, laying tantalizing footprints, chipping stone tools to leave in their path, maintaining tenuous contact with Uthacalthing through the blue Warder Globe.

It had all been part of a convoluted plan to lead the Thennanin inexorably to the conclusion that pre-sentient life existed on Garth, but Kault had seen none of the clues! None of the specially contrived hints!

No, what Kault had finally noticed was Jo-Jo himself. . . the traces the little chim left as he foraged and lived off the land!

Uthacalthing realized that syulff-kuonn was exactly right. The joke on himself was rich, indeed.

He thought he could almost hear Mathicluanna's voice once again. ”You never know . . .” she seemed to say.

”Amazing,” he told the Thennanin. ”That is simply amazing.”

61 Athaclena Every now and then she worried that she was getting too used to the changes. The rearranged nerve endings, the redistributed fatty tissues, the funny protrusion of her now-so-humanoid nose-these were things now so accustomed that she sometimes wondered if she would ever be able to return to standard Tymbrimi morphology.

The thought frightened Athaclena.

Until now there had been good reasons for maintaining these humaniform alterations. While she was leading an army of half-uplifted wolfling clients, looking more like a human female had been more than good politics. It had been a sort of bond between her and the chims and gorillas.

And with Robert, she remembered.

Athaclena wondered. Would the two of them ever again experiment, as they once had, with the half-forbidden sweetness of interspecies dalliance? Right now it seemed so very unlikely. Their consorts.h.i.+p was reduced to a pair of signatures on a piece of tree bark, a useful bit of politics. Nothing else was the same as before.

She looked down. In the murky water before her, Athaclena saw her own reflection. ”Neither fish nor fowl,” she whispered in Anglic, not remembering where she had read or heard the phrase, but knowing its metaphorical meaning. Any young Tymbrimi male who saw her in her present form would surely break down laughing. And as for Robert, well, less than a month ago she had felt very close to him. His growing attraction toward her-the raw, wolfling hunger of it-had flattered and pleased her in a daring sort of way.

Now, though, he is among his own kind again. And I am alone.

Athaclena shook her head and resolved to drive out such thoughts. She picked up a flask and scattered her reflection by pouring a quarter liter of pale liquid into the pool. Plumes of mud stirred near the bank, obscuring the fine web of tendrils that laced through the pond from overhanging vines.

This was the last of a chain of small basins, a few kilometers from the caves. As Athaclena worked she concentrated and kept careful notes, for she knew she was no trained scientist and would have to make up for that with meticulous-ness. Still, her simple experiments had already begun to bear promising results. If her a.s.sistants returned from the next valley in time with the data she had sent for, she might have something of importance to show Major Prathachulthorn.

I may look like a freak, but I am still Tymbrimi! I shall prove my usefulness, even if the Earthmen do not think of me as a warrior.

So intense was her concentration, so quiet the still forest, that sudden words were like thunderclaps.

”So this is where you are, Clennie! I've been looking all over for you.”