Part 7 (1/2)

Rashalleila Nuaman switched off the spy-screen and smiled kittenishly to herself. Her niece's generosity and concern was ... well, appalling. So she had finally dug up enough courage to actually plan the thing!

About time, yes. But to trust that 'side of beet” van Cleef with such knowledge! Tsk. Poor judgement, poor. How anyone could actually fall in love with an automaton, an utter nonent.i.ty, like that! Oh sure, he was great between the sheets. But beyond that he was a nothing, a void, a null factor. Well-meaning and'

affectionate, to be sure. Like a large puppy-dog. Ah, well. Let them enjoy their private games. It would be good practice for Teleen. Buoy her self-confidence, and all that. Eventually, though, the poor thing would have to be jolted back to her senses. She giggled at the small witticism. Such folderol was fine, but not on company time. Which reminds. Must have the ground keeper get rid of all those nice froggies.

Temporarily, at least. No use wasting. Dinner tomorrow, perhaps.

She had turned off the spy-screen a-few moments too early. Downstairs, her niece's stimulated mind had come up with another thought.

'We also ought to keep the old b.i.t.c.h off balance, Rory. While we're trying to hammer this thing out.

She's not a complete idiot, you know,'

'I suppose that's a good idea,' said van Cleef, flexing his quadriceps. 'You'll think of something,' Her face was alight. 'I have. Oh, have I!' She turned away and walked over to the china desk. A hidden switch revealed a comm-screen she knew wasn't being tapped by any of her dear auntie's automatic spy monitors. It was the one machine on the estate whose circuitry she'd checked over herself. She tapped out a rapid, high-speed series of numbers that sped her call over a very special and very secret relay system to a little-contacted section of s.p.a.ce.

Eventually the screen cleared and a face began to take shape.

'Well, good light to you, Amuven DE, and may your house always be filled with dust.'

The face of the AAnn businessman crinkled in a toothy smile. 'As always, as always. So good to hear from you again, Mistress Rude!'

Chapter Nine.

Flinx had been staring silently out through the main viewport of the salon for some time, well aware that there was someone behind him. But to have turned immediately would have engendered unnecessary awkwardness. Now lie turned to see the two scientists and became aware that be needn't have been concerned. Neither was paying the slightest attention to him. They bad drawn over lounges and were staring out at the magnificent chaos of the drive distorted heavens. Taking no notice of their scrutiny, the prismatic panoply flowed on unchanged.

'Don't mind us, Fhinx. We're here for the same thing. To enjoy the view,' The philosoph returned his attention to the great port and the doppler-distorted suns which glowed far more sharply than they ever could in their natural state.

But Flinx's concentration and mood had been broken. He continued facing the two scientists.

'Sirs, doesn't it strike you as odd that in a time when so many folk have so much trouble getting along with one another, you two, of two utterly different races, manage to get along so well?'

'Your questions, T fear, will never carry the burden of subtlety, lad.' Tse-Mallory turned to the thranx.

'At times in the past my friend and I existed in a rather close one could say intimate - a.s.sociation. Or work necessitated it. And we are not so very different as you might think.'

'I remember your calling each other s.h.i.+p-brother several times.'

'Yes? I suppose we did. We've never gotten used to the idea that other people might find it unusual. It's so very natural to us.

'You were a gunnery team?'

'No,' said Truzenzuzex. 'We flew a stings.h.i.+p. Small, fast, a single medium SCCAM projector.'

'As to our relations.h.i.+p irrespective of s.h.i.+p life, Flinx, I'm not sure Tru and I could give you an objective answer. Our personalities just seem to compliment one another. Always have. The attraction between human and thranx is something, that psychologists of both races have sweated over for years, without ever coming up with a. satisfactory explanation. There are even some pairs and groupings that become physically ill if one is separated long from its alien counter-part. And it seems to work on both sides. A kind of mental symbiosis. Subjectively, we just feel supremely comfortable with each other.

'You know the events leading up to the Amalgamation, the Pitar-humanx war, and such'?'

'Only bits and pieces. I'm afraid. Regular schooling is something that eluded me early.'

'Umm. Or vice versa, I suspect. Tru?'

'You tell the lad. I'm certain he'd find the human version of the story more palatable.'

'All right.'

'Human and thranx have known each other for a comparatively short period of time. Hard to believe today, but true. A little over two t-centuries ago, scouts.h.i.+ps of both races first encountered each other's civilizations. By that time, mankind had been in s.p.a.ce for several previous t-centuries. In that time, while engaged in exploration and colonization, he had encountered many other alien life-forms. Intelligent and otherwise. This was also true of the thranx who had been in s.p.a.ce even longer than humanity.

'There was an indefinable attraction between the two races from the very outset. The favourable reactions on both sides far outweighed the expected prejudice and aversions.'

'Such existed on the thranx planets as well,' put in Truzenzuzex.

'I thought I was going to tell this?'

'Apologies, oh omnipotent one!'

Tse-Mallory grinned, and continued. 'The thranx were as alien as any race man had yet encountered. A hundred-per cent insectoid, hard-sh.e.l.led, open circulatory system, compound eyes, rigid, inflexible joints ... and eight limbs. And they were egg-layers. As a news commentator of the time put it, ”they were completely and delightfully weird.” '

If I recall aright, your people laid a few eggs at that time too,' piped the pililosoph. Tse-Mallory shut him up with an exasperated glance.

'From past experiences one would have expected the human reaction to the discovery of a race of giant sentient insects to be hostile or at least mildly paranoid. That had proved the pattern in too many previous contacts. And man had been lighting small and much more primitive cousins of the thranx for thousands of years on the home planet. In fact, if you can believe it, the term ”bug” originally had a derogatory connotation.

'But by now mankind bad learned it was going to have to live in peace and harmony with beings whose appearance might be personally repulsive. It didn't help things to know that many of those same beings considered man at least as repulsive-looking as he considered them.' He glanced expectantly at Truzenzuzex, but that worthy was at least temporarily subdued. 'So the actual reaction between human and thranx was doubly unexpected. The two races took to each other like a pair of long-separated twins.

The thranx traits of calmness, cool decision-making ability, politeness, and wry humour were admired tremendously by humans who'd sought such qualities in themselves. By the same token there was a recklessness combined with brains, an impossible self-confidence, and a sensitivity to surroundings that thranx found appealing in man.

'Once it had been voted on by both races and approved by considerable margins despite the expected opposition from moneyed chauvinists. Amalgamation proved to be even less trouble than the optimists had antic.i.p.ated. Thranx click-speech, with its attendant whistling, actually had a reasonable phonetic counterpart among the thousands of Terran languages and diaiects.'

'African sub-divisions,' mused Tnizenzuzex, Xhosa.'

'Yes. For their part thranx could, with difficulty, manage the major human language system ol' Terrangio.

The eventual outgrowth of much work by phoneticists, semanticists and linguists on both sides was a language that hopefully combined the better aspects of both. The clicks and whistles and some of the rough rasps of Hive-speech major were kept in, intact, along with most of the smoother sounds and vowels of Terrangio. The result was probably the closest thing to a universal language, barring telepathy, we'll ever have' symbospeech. Fortunately for business purposes, most other races with vocal apparatus can also manhandle at least enough of it to get by with. Even the AAnn, who turned out to be better at it than most.

'The mutual admiration society was off and winging. Pretty soon it had extended itself to other aspects of the new human life-system. Our politicians, judges, and law-makers couldn't help but admire the beauty and simplicity with which thranx law and government had been put together. It was practically an art-form, built up as it had been from the old Hive structure itself. Not that it was that different from the oldest human munic.i.p.alities and nation-states. Just much more sensible. Thranx lawyers and magistrates soon cleared away a lot of the backlog that had been clogging human courts. Besides their superlative natural sense of jurisprudence, they could not possibly be accused by anyone of partiality.

Terran-derived sports, on the other hand, completely revolutionized the thranx's biggest problem - that of leisure. They simply hadn't realized that there were so many organized ways of having fun. When they discovered chess and judo, it was all over with flip-the-rock and that ilk.'

'Third-degree black belt,' noted Truzenzuzex proudly. 'Although I'm getting a bit creaky for such activity.'

'So I've noticed, I could go on and on, lad. Human planets were deluged with exquisite examples of thranx workmans.h.i.+p. Machinery, handicrafts, personal gadgetry, delicate electrical products, and so on.

Even the body colouring of each was pleasing to the other, although thranx odour had a decided advantage over the human.'

'No argument there,' puffed the philosoph. That earned him another sharp glance.