It was not difficult to do. Outside the fairgrounds, their pairing would have made them conspicuous. Strolling along the shore of the great lake would have seen them stand out against the flat, unsparing surface. But lost among the bustling crowds that had begun to swarm the exhibition in ever-increasing numbers, they were able to blend in without being noticed. Acolytes of the Church received training in how to be inconspicuous as well as obvious.
Though they spent some time wandering among the exhibits and made a show of feigning interest in several, it was evident to the pair of trailing Church representatives that neither the slim woman nor her excitable male companion were much interested in the components of the fair. They spent a lot of time looking around while expending a considerable effort not to be seen looking around. Once, they disappeared into a public rest room and did not reemerge for nearly thirty minutes, a visitation that suggested they were responding to a call that came from someone other than Nature. Not once did they pause to eat, drink, shop for souvenirs, ask questions, try out hands-on displays, participate in a virtual, or otherwise indicate that they were somewhere besides an ordinary city street.
"I can't figure them out." His face blocked by a large cerise blob of calorie-free sugared air puff, Briann watched the peculiar pair pause in front of an exhibit on the undersea life of Cachalot. They managed to look bored and apprehensive at the same time. "If these are your standard-issue xenophobes, then why are they spending any time at all in the thranx-built zones of the fair? We've followed them through three already. Are they just eccentric, or is there something to them we're not seeing?"
Twikanrozex idly groomed an antenna, bending it forward and down with a foothand until he could slide the plumed prominence between his mandibles. Unlike Briann, he did not try to conceal his presence from the couple they were following. There was no need. Except at the diplomatic and governmental level, contact between humans and thranx was sufficiently infrequent that the majority of humans were convinced that all thranx looked alike.
"I feel that I have spent enough time in the company of humans to know that the behavior of this pair is most unusual, crr!ll . Their actions do not strike me as those of a mated couple, yet that is the appearance they clearly are striving to convey. We have already observed several instances of interaction suggesting they do not especially even like one another."
Briann inhaled a portion of his air puff. "Among humans, that does not necessarily signify the absence of ceremonial union. But in this case, I happen to agree with you. None of their actions seem normal. Still, while interesting from an anthropological point of view, it's not grounds for alerting the authorities." He glanced surreptitiously in the couple's direction. They were arguing again.
"Let's give this another ten minutes or so. Then I suppose we should get back to the tower and check its condition."
Twikanrozex gestured agreement. Five minutes into Briann's proposed ten, something so extraordinary happened that all thoughts of abandoning the unobtrusive stalk were forgotten.
Both padres saw the approaching thranx. One was especially large, with prominent wing cases and a deep blue sheen to his exoskeleton. Except for a possible passing glance of disgust from the humans, there was no reason to suppose the two pairs would even acknowledge each other's presence. Absolutely the last thing Briann expected was for them to swerve toward one another. No, that was not quite right, he corrected himself. That was the second last thing. The first last thing occurred when they met in the middle of the busy pavilion walkway, pointedly inspected their immediate surroundings, and then fell into what could only be described even at a distance as casual conversation.
Not only was the rabid antithranx human male palavering with representatives of the species he had a little while earlier professed to loathe, he was doing so without any sign of distaste. His taller female companion likewise participated in the conversation enthusiastically.
"These are not strangers talking." Twikanrozex was as spellbound by the unexpected tableau as was his soft-skinned friend. "They know one another."
"Or of one another." Shielding his face as best he could, Briann watched the four-way conversation. "I am of the feeling that more than the preposterous domesticity of our couple is on view here. But what, I can't begin to imagine."
"Nor I." Twikanrozex inclined his antennae forward, but the voices of the nattering quartet were drowned out by the shifting, swirling babble of the crowd. "What can they possibly be talking about?"
"Whatever it is, they've finished." Briann pointed. "The party is breaking up."
As they looked on, the humans and thranx parted company. As if to cap the unreality of the encounter, they exchanged formal farewells before heading off in opposite directions. Twikanrozex started forward immediately.
"You want to keep following them?" Briann trailed his friend for a moment.
"Not them. It may be that we have, kuiit, learned all we can from the odd human pairing. I think we should follow these new thranx that they met for a while." He glanced over at his brother-in-the-Church. "For reasons too convoluted to explain in a short time, and because of regrettable omissions in your cultural education, I must tell you that the two representatives of my kind are acting in a manner as strange as the humans'. This bespeaks eccentricities that go beyond individual iconoclastics. I should very much like to be enlightened."
Of like mind even though he could not be sure of his colleague's analysis of the encounter they had just witnessed, Briann nodded and followed.
Since any meeting between a group of apprehensive humans and an equally large clutch of edgy thranx was bound to attract the attention of curious fair-goers, Skettle arranged to have only Martine accompany him to the final pre-Armageddon rendezvous. Having been guided to the place chosen for the final meeting by Skettle's followers Nevisrighne and Pierrot, Beskodnebwyl met them attended by, as agreed upon, one other single representative of his kind. On this, the fifth day of the fair, the two humans and two thranx drew hardly a glance as they convened in the farthest reaches of the joint human-thranx forestry pavilion.
Giant tceri!xx from Willow-Wane grew side by side with tall kauri from Earth. Twisted kokerbooms shared the magnified heat of the day with lushgotulba from Hivehom. There were sequoias and serypta, volmats and ginkgo, diterocarps and the famous flowering eryouou from Long Tunnel that grew only in perfect circles from a common root.
In nature, none of these formidable growths grew together in the same ecozone, and many of them came from different planets. As representative examples of their kind, they had been selected for individual elegance and overall appearance. Only through the application of advanced hydroponics could they share the same ground. Each had been carefully sterilized prior to transport to ensure that no unwanted fellow travelers accompanied them on their mission of education. Each had been rendered incapable of reproduction to make certain no seed or cone, no spore or shoot could take root in the untainted alien soil of Dawn.
Into this impossible artificial forest, Beskodnebwyl and his companion wandered. Near the back, in the farthest reaches of the soaring pavilion with its transparent divisions, they found Elkannah Skettle sharing a hot drink with his collaborator Martine. Thranx and humans greeted one another formally. While the two leaders conversed, Martine and her thranx counterpart took up positions between them and the pathway. Deep in apparent discourse, they were paying as little attention to each other as possible while keeping their eyes on the pavilion's transient visitors. Though expecting neither trouble nor interruption, they were fully prepared to deal with either.
"Interesting, isn't it?" Skettle ventured conversationally. "That in this time of instantaneous local and rapid interstellar communication we still find the best way to assure a private conversation is to meet in person?"
Beskodnebwyl gestured agreement mixed with contempt, confident his human counterpart was incompetent to detect the latter. It amused him to so denigrate the unwitting biped. "Electronics are too easily inter
cepted, and voices imitated. Better to meet face-to-face."
"Even if you don't have one." Skettle smiled thinly. He was wonderfully content, secure in the knowledge that by this same time tomorrow chaos would have paid its long-planned visit to the fair, leaving death, destruction, and ravening hatred for the thranx in its wake. No doubt this odoriferous pest with whom he had agreed to temporarily cooperate felt similarly.
"At least I know my face." Antennae and truhands waved in Skettle's direction. "It was thus when I was young, it will be the same tomorrow, and except for a darkening of color will be unchanged when I am old. Whereas yours will shrink and crumple like a fruit left too long in the sun, until it threatens to disintegrate from its own rotting loathsomeness."
Skettle's smile slipped away. "I'm certain this happy little tryst is as disagreeable to you as it is to me. Therefore let us do our business so we can both be spared any unnecessary additional contact." Glancing back the way he had come, he proceeded only when Martine acknowledged his wordless inquiry with a slight wave of one hand.
Clicking a button on his handheld, he projected into the air between himself and a nearby tree a perfect miniature replication of the fairgrounds. There was no one else around to see, the nearest tourists being some distance away from the two alert scouts. As Skettle manipulated the elementary controls on the handheld, portions of the projection lit up accordingly.
"My people will set to work where you see the red highlights." As his fingers moved, so did the responsive lights. "We'll be starting fires in the most vulnerable places. Each of my people has undergone extensive training and is dedicated to the cause. In the event of unforeseen interruption or capture, they are prepared to operate independently of one another. Their assignments are overlapping, so that if one or more are intercepted or otherwise detained, any other can strike their missed targets for them." Using the controls, he rotated the projection and expanded individual sections, finally settling on one bordering the lake.
"I myself will be seeing to the interfair communications facilities, and then sabotaging the relevant backup installation so that my original work will not be detected." His voice had taken on a biblical tone that was lost on the thranx.
"Deprived of a central command, the fair security personnel will be unable to properly coordinate any reaction with one another. Separated and assailed on all sides by both my people and yours, they will either flee in confusion or be cut down should they attempt to interfere with us. Long before reinforcements can be brought from Aurora, we will have completed our cycle of destruction." He offered the handheld to Beskodnebwyl, who took it in a truhand. Having paid careful attention to the human's hand movements, the thranx had no difficulty operating the straightforward device.
"My followers will spread out from this central point." Another bright light appeared in the air before the conversants. "Each will be carrying a small arsenal of compact high explosives as well as hand weapons with which to ward off the curious security personnel to whom you have already referred. As you have pointed out, by the time adequately armed forces can arrive from the city, my people will also have finished their work. Weapons and any other incriminating evidence will have been abandoned at preselected points, and my clan mates will have rejoined the pitiful surviving remnants of the panicked crowd. Any visiting thranx who happen to observe us at work will be killed. I am not worried about surviving humans identifying us, since it is well known the casual mammalian observer cannot tell individual thranx apart. In any event, the turmoil and disorder should be enough to blind even the most heedful of your kind."
Skettle was nodding appreciatively. "Once their work is done, my people will embark on a similar course of action, whereupon among the resulting turmoil and confusion we can all go our separate ways, having accomplished far more together than we ever could have hoped to working separately." Except, he added to himself, I'm going to try and kill you myself while Martine and Botha and Pierrot and the others dismember the rest of your revolting entourage. And if you and your disgusting fellows are entertaining similar thoughts in regard to us, you'll see why we humans didn't really need your help at Pitar.
"Then all is in readiness." Glistening compound eyes stared up at the tall human. "This time tomorrow will see us putting a glorious end to any thoughts of closer human-thranx contact while consigning them forever to the wholly conventional level where they belong."
Skettle voiced his agreement. He did not offer to shake hands with his many-limbed fellow terrorist, and Beskodnebwyl was careful to keep his delicate antennae as far from the foul-smelling human as possible. As soon as they had rejoined their respective lookouts, the four parted company, striding purposefully out of the pavilion.
Behind, they left only silent, imported trees to bear witness to the appalling plan of mass murder they had agreed upon. Trees, and as unlikely a pair of bystanders as were to be found promenading the fairgrounds.
As Briann helped his companion climb down out of the baobab, the padres considered what they had just seen. Not even Twikanrozex, with his sensitive antennae, could overhear conversation at such a distance. But he had been able to follow the complementing hand gestures of his fellow thranx, while Briann was an accomplished lip reader. Intervening vegetation and the need to avoid the attentions of the two lookouts had conspired to interfere with their observations, but they had seen and read enough to realize that something monstrous had been planned for the following day.
"It is so sad." Twikanrozex's antennae were weaving alternately back and forth. "To see humans and thranx working in concert together, only to discover that they are doing so for all the wrong reasons."
Briann let out a despondent sigh of resignation. "And to think I was worried that the humans we followed for a while might go so far as to insult someone else, or that the two thranx might be involved in creating an incident."
"And so they are." Truhands wove patterns in the air as the two padres exited the pavilion. "An incident that beggars the imagination."
"I wish we had been able to learn all the details of their plan."
A truhand reached up to touch his shoulder. "We did well enough, Brother, and a good thing we did, too, else thousands might have died."
"Some might yet." Briann raised his gaze. Around him music and gaiety, laughter and contented clicking filled the bright blue of afternoon like birdwing butterflies dancing above a tropical pool. "We don't know where they're staying, or what the rest of them look like."
"Steps can be taken. There may be some small disruption."
Briann lengthened his stride, trying not to look at the children or the young unmolted thranx among whom he and his friend were walking. "There will have to be. The authorities can't shut down the fair. If they do that, it will only help to frighten these people offworld, human and thranx alike. Based on our descriptions they might stop the four we saw at the shuttleport. Regardless, their associates will be alerted and take care to slip quietly offworld. The next time they strike, society might not be so fortunate. We have to catch them all, every one of them, here and now."
Twikanrozex whistled affirmation. "You're right, Brother. To accomplish everything, some risk will have to be taken. Some innocents may be hurt."
His friend nodded. "Fortunately, the Church understands the necessity of proportional sacrifice to achieve a greater goal. I hope the local authorities will see it that way."
"If not," Twikanrozex observed as they turned a corner, heading for the tasteful, sweeping structure that housed Fair Administration, "then we will have to convince them."
"It must be done the right way," Briann concurred, "though it will not be easy. The Church does not yet command immediate respect from secular authorities. It will fall upon you and me as individuals rather than as Church representatives to make the case for an immediate and discriminating response to this threat. We will have to be direct and convincing. In this the Maxims are not likely to be of much help to us. When it comes to matters of philosophical dis
course, police are notoriously indifferent."
15
Due to the thickness and strength of the ceramic strata, it took several days to enlarge the opening through which the unfortunate digger had almost fallen to where it was wide enough to admit a small aircar. In that time, a laser rangefinder had been lowered into the fissure to measure the distance from the opening to the first surfaces below. The distances were not as great as first supposed. Still, had anyone fallen through the gap, they would have suffered a fatal plunge of several hundred feet into the lightless depths.
The laser and other scanning devices revealed the presence of nothing but empty space. The brown ceramic appeared to form a roof above an artificial void. No one in the camp accepted this conclusion. It would be a truly eccentric species indeed that would go to so much trouble and expense to seal such a vast volume of apparent nothingness away from the world. There had to be something more. Given the extent of the disclosed subterranean space, an aircar equipped with powerful lights and calibrating lasers would be the simplest, safest, and quickest means of exploring the mysterious alien emptiness. Hand weapons were also issued all around. On closer inspection, seemingly secure large underground spaces often were not as hermetically sealed as initially supposed. Local fauna might well have made use of so much protected, enclosed living space and needed to be guarded against accordingly.
Cullen and Pilwondepat were accompanied by Holoness and an aircar operator named Dik. To Pilwondepat's barely concealed delight and in spite of energetic protestations, Cullen insisted that Riimadu remain behind on the surface. The thranx made an effort not to gloat over this decision.
Their vehicle was the smallest available to the exploration team, one intended to be used for quick jaunts to outlying sites of interest. As Dik maneuvered it over the edge of the much enlarged and thoroughly shored excavation, a crowd of students and workers gathered to see the voyagers off. Pilwondepat forced himself not to search among the gathering for the scaled face of the frustrated AAnn representative.