“We were delighted when your kind joined the war effort. Prior to that we had to work hard to insure that the Amplitur did not actually win. You have subsequently helped to rid the plenum of a great many swarming beings.
“The problem now is that as your own species multiplies, it is the Weave that is in danger of becoming ascendant. We are having trouble impeding you, but we will think of something. As the war continues it will eventually enfeeble both sides. Your overpopulated so-called civilizations will falter and collapse. It is with fondness that we anticipate your mutual annihilation. We seek not dominance but the demise of those who would dominate. Only then will the Turlog once more know true privacy. Only then can we once again be peacefully alone.”
“I think you’re pretty alone right now,” Straat-ien told him. “You’re more isolated than you can imagine.”
“I sense sarcasm in place of empathy.” The Turlog displaced its bulk slightly. “It is time for this conversation to come to an end.”
Nevan flexed his fingers. “You’re bulky and slow. I have no weapon, but I can still take you apart.”
“Beneath my plastron is a switch which I can activate simply by slumping. I will point out that we are presently within a sealed environment. You may be aware of the fact that because of our very slow metabolism Turlog can survive, albeit only for a short time, at a reduced atmospheric pressure which would be fatal to most other higher forms of oxygen-breathing creatures. I do not regard the implementation of such a condition in the same light as I would wielding an article designed expressly to cause physical harm to another creature, such as a gun or knife.
“If you gesture in my direction, I will relax. This will activate the control I mentioned, simultaneously sealing the door through which you entered and exhausting the air to a degree which will be uncomfortable for me but fatal to you.”
“But you’re not going to do that.” Straat-ien stared at the bulbous optics.
“I am not?” The heavy-shelled body drooped a little and Lalelelang inhaled sharply. “Why not?”
Nevan’s gaze was unblinking, his tone even and cold. “Because I’m telling you that you can’t.”
The Turlog quivered ever so slightly. Its translator rasped. “I … am … going to.”
“No you are not.” As Nevan took a step forward Lalelelang looked on with wide eyes. “What you are going to do is raise yourself very carefully off the object you are straddling and move to your left, so that you’re standing next to the viewport. Then you’re going to stay there until I tell you otherwise.”
“I am … not.” Eyestalks weaving in obvious agitation, the Turlog rose and ponderously scuttled over to the ceiling-high port as reluctantly as a sumo wrestler banished from the ring by a referee’s decision. Ripples of diffuse sunlight slanting down through the water mottled its dorsal plates.
Lalelelang’s crest was fully erect, the iridescent feathers flashing in the sickly light. “It did exactly as you ordered, Nevan. Why?”
“Not now,” he replied absently as he started toward the Turlog. It awaited him by the window, unable to move away. “Are all Turlog party to this duplicity? Answer me!”
The rumbling reply was hesitant. The Turlog was speaking against its will. “No. Those who choose to participate try to operate in concert. Others opt for traditional isolation, preferring to have as little contact as possible with either side.”
Straat-ien emitted a grunt of satisfaction. “So the entire species isn’t indictable. That’s something, anyway.” He redoubled his concentration.
“Stop … that,” the Turlog murmured.
“I have to.” Nevan stared, utterly focused on their host.
“It is like … the Amplitur.”
“Shut up.” Having had all his suspicions and fears confirmed, Nevan was in no mood to be gentle. He knew Lalelelang was gawking at him in astonishment but he couldn’t spare her even a glance. What he was doing was delicate and required his complete attention.
Memories and knowledge helped to focus his efforts. Houcilat, his great-grandparents, the lost relations he would never know, would never know of. Much of that anguish the fault of duplicitous Turlog. But if there had been no Houcilat there would have been no Restorees, no estimable Ranji-aar, no exposition of the great dormant Human talent that was the equal of the Amplitur’s. Perhaps it would have been better that way. He would never know. No one would. The talent was revealed, was real, had been passed on down through the generations and had to be dealt with by those who now possessed it. Benign or inimical, neither it nor the conditions it created could be ignored.
He decided to start with the eyestalks and work his way down to the vital organs. There would be questions, of course. A lot of questions. The Turlog were highly regarded. But he would find a way out, invent plausible excuses.
A flexible wingtip clutched at him, able to jog his conscience if not his arm. “You can’t. This is a Turlog, a civilized being.”
“A traitor to you, me, and the entire Weave. No better than a Crigolit or Mazvec,” he responded tightly. She saw the killing look in his eyes and backed away. “It has to die.”
“There will be questions.”
“I’ll deal with them if and when they arise. This must be dealt with. There’s no other way.”
He leaned forward. The paralyzed Turlog quivered but did not try to escape. It could not. The compulsion Straat-ien had placed in its mind was too compelling. “Unless …”
He could spare her the violence, he realized. He straightened and addressed his helpless quarry forcefully. “It’s been a very interesting meeting. We value your views and I’m sure you value ours. Don’t you agree.”
The Turlog did not hesitate. “Yes. Most … interesting.”
“It’s useful sometimes for representatives of different species to exchange opinions, even on the most inconsequential matters. Isn’t it?”
“Inconsequential matters.” The Turlog swayed slightly. “This is manifest.”
“We’re going to leave now.” Straat-ien turned and headed toward the entrance. Dumbfounded but alert, Lalelelang trailed alongside. “After we have departed, you will find that this existence no longer has any meaning for you, and you will take appropriate correctional measures. Thank you for your time.”
“You are welcome.”
The Turlog moved back to the hump in the floor. Lalelelang tensed as it shifted a heavy limb toward unseen controls, but it was only to open the door.
It closed behind them with equal efficiency. They were back in the access corridor.
She waited until the lift was within sight. “How can you be sure?”
“Sure of what?” He strode along next to her; eyes front, expression grim, thoughts elsewhere. The Core would have to be notified of the invidious duplicity of certain Turlog. Those particular antisocial aliens would have to be dealt with, as he had just dealt with their representative on Chemadii. People would have to be moved or transferred into position. The operation would be tricky and would take time, but it was less risky than trying to take out the traitors all at the same time. Physical violence on such a scale would draw to the Core far too much awkward attention.
Besides, it wasn’t necessary. Those Turlog operating with Weave forces could be individually approached and queried. Then, if necessary, they could be dealt with. Merely adjusting by means of mental suggestion the attitudes of those singled out would be worse than inadequate: it would be dangerous to allow an Amplitur to make contact with a former ally who had been so treated. The entire ancient conspiracy had to be eliminated without its existence ever being revealed to the Weave at large.
All that was necessary was for a few Core members to make the right suggestions.
Lalelelang was looking back down the corridor. “How can you be sure now that we have left that it will not revert to its original thoughts and continue as before?”
“Because I know from previous experience. It will comply with my directions.”
“It won’t remember what you did to it and take counter-measures?”
He shook his head curtly, knowing that she was familiar with and would recognize the gesture. “If it tries to recall our visit it will sense vague and unspecified thoughts of nothing in particular. Eventually it will stop trying to remember altogether.” His tone was grim. “Then it will comply with the last of my instructions.”
The lift doors parted to admit them. “You forced its mind.”
He nudged the control for the level they wanted. The doors closed and the car began to rise. “No. I simply made a suggestion, which was accepted.”
She was acutely aware of their isolation in the rising car. Yet he’d made no move toward her. “Just as you ‘suggested’ that it move away from the atmosphere switch it was threatening us with and stand motionless by the viewport? It was much more than a suggestion. It could not resist you. It was helpless.”
“I can be very persuasive,” he told her, aware that nothing he could say would destroy what she’d seen with her own eyes.
“More than facile words were involved. The Turlog had just enough sense left to recognize that. It commented that you were having the same effect on its mind that an Amplitur would have had. You persuaded it as effectively as an Amplitur would have.” Considering her situation, she was keeping herself remarkably under control. He could only admire her for it.
“Colonel Nevan, what are you?”
He sighed. “It’s a talent very few of us possess. All who do are descendants of the Cossuutian Restorees. You remember the gist of the Amplitur experiment: to modify captured Human children to fight for them by convincing them through genetic alteration of their minds and bodies to believe they were Ashregan.
“When the great Ranji-aar, the first Ashregan-Human the Weave captured, had his Humanity surgically restored, a change neither they nor the restoring Hivistahm surgeons could have foreseen took place. The Amplitur had inserted an artificially engineered organic neural nexus into the brain of each Ashregan-reared Human child. This was designed to block the ability of the Human nervous system to defend itself against Amplitur mind probing. The Hivistahm surgeons surgically severed the connections between these introduced nexuses and the rest of the brain. They thought their work was permanent, but they underestimated the built-in resilience of Amplitur organic engineering.
“Unbeknownst to the surgeons or to anyone else, the neural connections spontaneously regenerated. But rather than following the original neuronic paths laid down by the Amplitur, the regenerated neurons instead penetrated and linked with a portion of the Human brain that is normally not in use. In so doing a previously unsuspected Human talent was activated. This turned out to be the same kind of ability to ‘suggest’ other intelligent beings that the Amplitur have always possessed. In our case, their careful genetic manipulation has backfired on them.
“As with the Amplitur, we cannot suggest our own kind. Nor can we communicate telepathically as they do. But as near as we can tell, our ability to withstand their probing has been fully restored. In that sense we are more complete, and therefore more dangerous, than they are. But only to them and their allies.
“We’re very selective when and where we use the talent. Very selective. You witnessed an example of it that day during the battle to retake the delta from Crigolit control when you saw Sergeant Conner persuade that squad of Massood to return to the fighting.”
“Ah. That explains your subsequent questioning of me.”
Straat-ien nodded. “I told him you suspected nothing, which was true. At the time.” He eyed her speculatively. “I didn’t expect the Turlog to threaten two of us in a manner that would prevent me from dealing with it physically. When it did so I had no choice but to suggest. There was no time to try anything else.”
Calmly, he nudged the stop control. The lift halted between levels. She watched him turn to face her fully. “Unfortunately, you saw more than enough to realize what was happening, even if the Turlog hadn’t clued you to the truth. Now that you’ve had it all explained so that you understand everything, what do you think I should do with you?” His fingers contracted, his muscles tensing expectantly. There was nothing she could do now.
She was silent but her mind was racing. Her response was not what he expected. But then, having traveled in her company and observed her for so long, he ought to have anticipated something out of the ordinary.
She did not plead for her life, nor did she try to rationalize her position. She did not attempt to argue with him.
What she said was “Let me study you!”
“Pardon?”
“Study you. Your people, these modified Humans, they need a historian. Someone they can trust implicitly to watch them and record their activities, but not another Human who might clumsily expose them to the rest of the Weave, not to mention their own unmodified kind. An outsider with special training who can analyze and observe and make suggestions … albeit of a less forceful kind.”
“We can study ourselves,” he murmured.
“Not in the manner of a non-Human. I can bring a perspective to your condition you cannot otherwise obtain. For another thing, I would be willing to wager that you have not a single trained sociohistorian among you.”
“I’m not aware of any,” he sputtered, “but that doesn’t mean—”
“Of course it does,” she said quickly. “You have all trained to be soldiers, to fight. That is what all Humans train for initially. And that is as it should be. You do not have the expertise or the time to monitor yourselves properly. Don’t you see? There is much to be learned here.”
“And I suppose you’re the one to do it.”
“Who else is better trained? Who among non-Humans has spent more time studying you than I?” Abruptly he realized that her agitation was caused by excitement rather than fear. “I see this simply as an extension of work already begun. A fascinating adjunct.”
“A lethal adjunct.”
“Think how valuable this could be to your people,” she argued fervently. “I can be there; watching, recording, analyzing. It would give you a completely different purview on your development.”
He leaned against the side of the lift car. “And when you decide you’ve accumulated enough data you disappear one day and reveal your findings to the Weave, thus initiating a pogrom against us.”
“No!” The violence of her response startled him. It also startled her, but she neither apologized nor backed down. This was one instance, she mused, where it was useful to be able to assume some of the Human characteristics she’d inventoried. “This is something I do for me as well as for you. I will place everything, all records, under your direct control.
“Besides,” she added inexorably, “so long as I am working in your company, you can kill me at any time. I think that I am the one taking on the greater risk here; not you.”
For a long moment he could only stare at her, so profound was his admiration.
“Records are easy to copy,” he finally managed to comment.
“I will give all the originals into your keeping the instant they are made.”
“You bargain to save your life.”
“I argue on behalf of a unique scientific opportunity,” she countered. Try as he might he could not convince himself that she was speaking anything other than the truth. “If the former, why would I offer to remain at all times in close proximity to you?” Her crest finally relaxed. “This would be the grandest achievement of my professional career. Something eminently useful to leave behind. In your keeping, of course.”
“I don’t …”
Seeing that he was wavering, she ventured what she hoped would be a conclusive argument. “Remember that at any time you can suggest I forget all about what happened here today. You can suggest I forget everything I have learned. You can even suggest that I kill myself, as you did with the Turlog.” Her languorous, trilling voice grew soft. “For all that I know you may have planted such a suggestion in my mind already.
Yet I still stand here offering you my help and my trust.”
She was anticipating everything, from possible objections to viable alternatives. He was having a hard time keeping up with her. For the first time he realized what a truly extraordinary mind lay behind the pale blue alien eyes, the birdlike head, the deceptively decorative feathers.
“You could kill me,” he muttered, “and be safe, together with what you’ve learned.”
She emitted a whistling laugh. “I am Wais. Can you honestly see me, even with what I have experienced, planning and carrying out the murder of a Human? Even if I were insane enough to attempt it, do you really think you could not stop me?”
“Sorry. There’s a lot at stake here and I have to consider every possibility.”
“I know.” She was openly sympathetic, which only made it harder. “Let me tell you how you are presently feeling. You perceive isolation, both from normal Humans and from your own special kind. You are unique. So, in my own fashion, am I. We are both isolated, Colonel Nevan. You by an accident of genetics, I by professional choice. Each being able to appreciate the other’s situation allows us to work together to mutual benefit.”
“You’re crazy, you know that?” he mumbled.
“No. I am simply one who is completely dedicated to her vocation and who sees before her the opportunity to record and study one of the most important interspecies developments of the past thousand years. I do not think that qualifies me for the tiara of madness.
“It may even be that your kind represent the heretofore undetected fulcrum on which my pessimistic hypothesis may be tipped.”
He blinked. “How is that possible? I told you that we can’t influence other Humans.”
“Who is to say what you can or cannot do, how your people could or could not influence the course of galactic evolution? At the moment your presence on the social stage of the Weave is meager and restricted. Who is to say how and when and where that might change? You represent an entirely new component of social development. No one can say what direction your influence might take in the future, much less when the war ends.