As for the other races, they had little reason to interact with these new fighters. Nor did Humans evince any particular affection for the Hivistahm, or the O’o’yan, or any of the other Weave species they came in contact with. They joked and chatted with the S’van, but the S’van got along with everyone. They had to. For their part the S’van were careful to keep their distance. It would not do for other members of the Weave to perceive an intimate relationship between the S’van and these rabid Humans, especially when none such existed.
Such suspicions and fears only emphasized what a miracle it was that the Weave had survived for as long as it had, Caldaq mused as he turned down a corridor.
Will was trying to teach Third-of-Study how to swim, a task more difficult than he’d imagined. For one thing, the Hivistahm’s lungs were small in proportion to its physique, resulting in poor buoyancy and a concurrent tendency to sink rapidly as he exhaled. This made the Hivistahm’s dislike of the water immediately understandable.
Third-of-Study was game to try, however, confident that the more he knew about Humankind the better the arguments he could make for leaving the species alone. Will Dulac he did not fear, having already decided that Humans acted like utterly different creatures when alone than when assembled in groups. The actual equation was simple enough: 5h(u) = v?, wherein five or more Humans acting in concert in the presence of uncertainty resulted in violence of unpredictable dimensions, the degree of violence being a function of the number of Humans.
Third-of-Study had to work much harder than a Human in order to stay afloat. Since the delicate front arms and fingers provided little in the way of motive power he had to kick constantly to keep his narrow skull above water. He was doing his best close inshore when a slick, bulbous face appeared nearby.
The Lepar expressed its concern via the omnipresent translator. Third-of-Study explained that he was in the water by choice and that everything was well under control. Bulging eyes regarded Human and Hivistahm solemnly for a moment before the Lepar disappeared with a quick twist of its torso and a flick of its tail. Will watched it go, then lay down in the shallows, resting his back against the warm wet sand.
“Tell me about the Lepar,” he said.
“Truly I suspect there is little you do not know.” Third-of-Study joined him, delighting in the sunshine and glad of the chance to relax. His legs ached badly. “You have among us a great deal of time spent.”
“That’s so, but you hardly ever see a Lepar,” he said into his translator. He had acquired a knowledge of Massood, and some select phrases in S’van, but Hivistahm with its whistles and clicks utterly defeated him. It did not make him feel incompetent. The only other aliens he saw speaking Hivistahm were the Wais, who seemed able to master any tongue. Someone had said something about dual sets of vocal cords.
“They prefer to themselves to keep, to out of the way of others stay.” Third-of-Study’s eyeshades darkened to maximum to shield the sensitive organs from the tropical sun. “Not only are they the only truly amphibious sentients, they are also among the least intelligent. That is not a criticism, merely part of my answer to your query. Certain things extremely well they do.”
“That one was Vatoloi, wasn’t it?”
The Hivistahm looked at him. “You can recognize individuals?”
“He was the first Lepar I ever saw, years ago. The one who intercepted me in the water when I was trying to swim away from Caldaq and his escort.”
“Vatoloi a ranking Lepar is, if truly it were he,” said Third-of-Study. “We do not much contemplate the Lepar. There is little to learn from them. They do not try to beyond their abilities extend themselves and attempt nothing unless they are confident of accomplishing what they set out to do.”
“I never learned how many are working here at the base.”
“I cannot a number give you.” Third-of-Study was irritated at what he perceived to be a waste of valuable time. It wasn’t often he was able to isolate the Human for moments of personal study.
“Truly I apologize for my feeble attempts at swimming. We Hivistahm are for the activity ill constructed. There is also the problem of buoyancy. Your bones are very light for their strength, more like those of the Wais than myself or a Massood.”
“Shoo, I think you’re doing pretty good.”
“Thanks be to you.”
“Why’d you want to learn to swim, anyway?”
Third-of-Study shifted onto his haunches. “To better understand your kind.”
“The enemy?”
The Hivistahm clicked teeth. “I regard you as dangerous, not as an enemy. ‘Enemy’ implies directed hostility. I prefer to think of your kind as clumsy rather than inimical.”
“Think of us any way you want. Just help me convince Caldaq and his superiors that it will be best for everyone if we’re left alone.”
“Such our common goal is, Will Dulac.”
They contemplated the lagoon, the palms and bushes. Will’s cat rode at anchor nearby, motionless atop the silver sea. Sergeant majors fluttered in the shallows, and Will thought he glimpsed the flash of a trio of squid, hunting chromatic prey. Beneath the sand on which they lay, the steadily expanding Weave base pulsed with activity.
“Are we really so full of contradictions?” Will asked quietly.
“Consider the manner in which you react to the combat you insist your people truly abhor. Massood advance or retreat but do not long the consequences of individual battles bemoan. Humans seem incapable of putting a past over which they no longer have any control behind them. They will about those they have slain become emotional, generating water from eyeducts and clashing sounds making. Then they will rise the next day to kill again. Only one other species reacts thus to the death of enemy: the Amplitur.”
“What’s that?” A surprised Will turned away from the lagoon.
“They do not become emotional in the fashion of Humans, or for that matter, Massood. At least, not insofar as we can detect. But the passing of their enemies they likewise lament because it signifies a reduction in the number of individuals available for incorporation into their Purpose.” Sunlight glinted off emerald green scales.
“Perhaps you may somewhat the source of my personal concern understand, which I thus far have failed to my colleagues convey. We speak of Human contradictions. They are vaster than I think you yourself can imagine. The Weave a conservative organization is. It is uncomfortable with that which it does not understand. You say that your unpredictability ultimately renders you useless to the resistance. I say that dangerous it makes you. Truly it is much the same thing. On that I found my hopes.
“There are many in the study group who think you mad. That still in dispute is. What the honored Commander’s superiors continue to debate is whether your madness is more useful than dangerous.”
“So you think we’re crazy?” Will picked up a small piece of bleached coral and chucked it into the water, heard the soft bloop as it sank to merge with thousands of dead cousins that littered the floor of the lagoon.
“Perhaps not in a conventional sense. Evaluating new definitions tailored specifically to the Human condition an ongoing team activity is. Too simple to call you mad, your society mad, your world itself mad.
“Take the matter of your multiplicity of languages. You must know that the development of a common language is considered a prerequisite for the maturation of any advanced civilization. Yet you advanced technology have achieved in spite of your linguistic fragmentation. To us this is astonishing and unprecedented. The evolution of your civilization has in every particular from the norm differed. It is what makes you so valuable to the military. It is also what makes some among them nervous.”
“Nervous? Why should they be nervous if Human soldiers are winning battles for them?”
“Because a soldier always uncomfortable is when dealing with a weapon whose workings he does not fully understand.”
“I see.” Will rolled onto his side. “What about me?” He tried to peer t
hrough the dark eyeshades. “You’ve said that you’re not afraid of me. Do I make you nervous?” He was hurt but not really surprised when the Hivistahm hesitated.
“You personally? No. You made us of your own position aware from the very beginning, and I have seen nothing to suggest deviation.”
Will knew he’d been the subject of study from day one, but to hear it stated so bluntly was still disconcerting. A S’van, he thought, would have put it more tactfully.
“Truly you are what you claim to be,” Third-of-Study continued. “Nor are you an isolated example. Others of your kind have for a variety of reasons recruitment refused. Among them are some who have stated that they find war repugnant. More contradictions. The Massood abhor conflict yet all are willing to fight because they see the necessity. It is with the Chirinaldo the same. An individual Human can be as civilized as a Wais or primitive as a Vasarih. This unsettling dichotomy is present in you individually as well as racially.
“Psychologically you drift free. You have no mental anchors. An individual who refuses recruitment will later another of our people encounter and ask to join. Another who eagerly volunteered will its mind change and demand to be demobilized.” Sharp teeth scraped against one another. “The latter will noisily proclaim its pacificism, utterly ignorant of its contradictory behavior.” Third-of-Study leaned forward so suddenly that Will was startled. He’d discovered that the Hivistahm preferred to keep as far away from Humans as possible.
“Truly, Will Dulac, your kind does not know itself. You do not know what you want, what you are about, who you are. Your destiny an enigma shrouded in pain and confusion is.”
Will stared at the tinted eyeshields. “That’s my worry.”
“No longer. It is ours as well. There is so much about you we do not understand. This obsession with gold as a medium of exchange, for example. Clearly it is to the inequitable distribution of resources among your kind related and is by your regressive tribal society exacerbated. People in one sector go hungry while food rots elsewhere. A few large, powerful tribes the consumption of energy dominate while others cannot light their cities.
“One of the basic hallmarks of true civilization is the reasoned distribution of elementary planetary resources. Individual wealth is among Weave species existing, but only after everyone has been minimally provided for. Like everything else we feel this aberration is to your proclivity for combat somehow related. It is not flattering to you.
“You must realize that many of my colleagues do not consider your kind civilized.”
“I know that. I’m not blind.”
“It is this constant preoccupation with conflict which concerns me and which simultaneously makes your kind in the fight against the Amplitur so valuable. Truly it every aspect of your society permeates, irrespective of tribe. It is present even in ordinary, daily conversation, in your mating rituals, in the way you apportion food and your offspring raise. It should have out of your species long ago evolved.
“Despite this you have a high level of technology achieved. Terms are to describe you being invented.”
“I think you’re overreacting, you and all your associates,” Will replied. “If you took the weapons away from us we’d stop fighting.”
“Are you so certain? I think not. I have some of your weapons seen. The small ones have what you call ‘safeties’ into them built, to from discharging accidentally prevent them. My colleagues anxiously for the safety inside the Human system search. They feel one exists. Less sure am I.”
“You talk a lot about your fellow researchers. How does Caldaq feel about us?”
One eye swiveled to regard the lagoon while the other remained fixed on the Human. “Caldaq an honored commander is, captain of ship and expedition, and unusually thoughtful for a Massood. Very much a remarkable example of his kind. I believe he on the question ambivalent remains. As a Massood relieved he is when it is only required that he follow orders.
“That is not to say averse he is to venturing suggestions, which are highly valued. But he is not a philosopher. You must understand that unusual it is for a Massood a nonmilitary command to be given. Normally an expedition such as ours by a Hivistahm, Yula, S’van, or Wais is directed.”
Will nodded at the lagoon. “How long do they think things can go on like this? Admittedly we’re isolated here, but operations have to shut down when the occasional fishing boat or diving groups shows up. One of these days someone’s going to give you away.”
“Our ships effectively masked are and our transmissions here still unnoticed. Those who are recruited and their minds change respond appropriately to treatment and to their lives return forgetful of what they have seen and heard here.”
“Sooner or later,” Will argued, “some of those people are going to get together and compare notes.”
“By that time I am certain will have been made a decision on whether to abandon Weave efforts here or to reveal ourselves formally to your people. Myself, I truly for the former pray.”
“I’m glad we’re working for the same end, even if it’s for different reasons,” Will told him. “When you leave, I’m going to miss some of you.”
“I will miss some of you also,” the Hivistahm replied, lying like a skilled S’van.
XVIII
Will had made friends with an O’o’yan willing to whistle traditional melodies for him. He was memorializing them on his pocket recorder when Caldaq and Jaruselka interrupted the session. Though mated, it was unusual to encounter them together outside their quarters, since their specialities required their presence in different parts of the base.
He shut off the recorder while the O’o’yan saluted in the manner of its kind and scampered nimbly out into the corridor.
“Something wrong?” he inquired curiously.
Caldaq took the seat next to the Human, his knees reaching toward his chin. Both ears twitched in unison.
“Three weapons are astray.”
Will put his recorder aside. “What do you mean ‘astray’?”
“Periodic inventory is made of all military equipment,” Jaruselka told him. Not for the first time Will mused on the peculiar physiology of the Massood larynx. It was impossible to tell male from female by listening to them.
“Each unit is electronically coded so that it may be counted remotely. When a unit’s power source weakens, it notifies inventory so that immediate replacement may be made. When the Lepar assigned to the task went to do so, she found the weapons missing.
“Follow-up revealed that the units read weak not because they are powered down but because of distance. They are on the mainland.”
Will considered. “What of the S’van and Hivistahm who are conducting nocturnal field studies ashore?”
“None carry weapons. The power packs in communications devices are differently coded. No Massood would take a weapon off the ship and anyway, all Weave personnel have been accounted for.”
Caldaq’s tone was solemn. “That leaves your people.”
“I suppose it does.” Will put his recorder aside. “Am I supposed to be surprised?”
“I do not understand what you are inferring,” Caldaq replied. “I know only that these weapons must be recovered. Humans have been trained in the use of Weave technology so that they may fight the Amplitur. This knowledge was not imparted for other purposes.” Gray eyes came close.
“You will come with us to help resolve the anomaly.”
“Go with you?” Will glanced at the silent Jaruselka, back to Caldaq. “You’re not going ashore? Remember, we already decided that the only ones who can remotely pass for Human, even at night, are the S’van.”
“When there are weapons involved, the Massood must be involved. None of my people are as experienced in dealing with Humans as I, so it falls to me to go. If it were possible I would take a Chirinaldo with me.”
“Easier to camouflage an elephant,” Will muttered.
“I would be grateful for any suggestions.”
The mu
sician considered. Viewed from behind on a dark night a single Massood might temporarily pass for a tall Human, but a cluster of them would be as conspicuous as a professional basketball team in Bangkok. Unlike the S’van, their furry, shrewlike faces could not be disguised. They would have to keep under cover as much as possible. Certainly they needed his help.
Besides which Caldaq had not offered him the option of refusing.
He was surprised when the fully masked shuttle came onshore south of Belize City and instead of setting down, continued inland. The missing weaponry had been traced to a point near the country’s capital of Belmopan. It did not take long to get there, the entire country being small enough to cross by car in a single day.
Homing in on the weapons’ power units, they tried to set down as close as possible to their location without revealing themselves to the citizenry. A vast auto-wrecking yard on the city’s industrial outskirts offered a good landing site. The shuttle was able to touch down unobserved among the saurian skeletons of demolished buses and exterminated taxis.
As soon as it neared the ground, half a dozen towering Massood soldiers leaped from the interior to take up defensive positions behind a burned-out truck. Will followed more cautiously. Had they landed in the States there would have been dogs or watchmen to deal with. In Belize barbed wire was sufficient to deter would-be thieves.
He found a place where the branch of a tree had pushed down the single strand of barbs atop the chicken-wire enclosure. After checking as best he knew how to ensure it wasn’t electrified he scrambled to the top and straddled the limb.
The Massood had followed. Now they milled about beneath him, murmuring among themselves. Anxiously Will scanned the yard.
“C’mon. What’s the holdup?”
“We cannot do that,” Jaruselka hissed up at him.
“Can’t do what?”
“Climb as you have.”
Will gaped down at her. The fence was maybe ten feet high, stout and easy to get a grip on.