"I'd like to know where the power to sustain all this comes from." Away from the rows of closely ranked tiers, Dik had time for musings of his own. The open corridors between banks of pods were far more expansive than the narrow walkways that linked them would have suggested. Support vehicles larger than their aircar would have required access to every row, to each individual pod. "Sure as hell there's more than one central support facility. Wouldn't make sense to concentrate everything in one place. Me, I'd disperse backup capacity throughout the project."
Cullen was in agreement. "There are some clues in the abandoned Sauun cities on the surface. That's one of the reasons why nobody thus far has been able to explain their failure to achieve space travel. They appeared to have all the necessary technological capability. They simply chose not to develop it."
"Maybe Pilwondepat's right." Holoness glanced over at the awestruck thranx. "Maybe they didn't have a choice."
"What would impel an entire species to burrow underground and place themselves in deepsleep, at the mercy of machines, to awaken at some far future time to unfamiliar surroundings and an unpredictable fate?" Pilwondepat gestured with both antennae. "With time to examine and reflect, we may find the answer." He looked back at her, his mandibles working. "Perhaps we may even be able to do so without having to wake the Sauun." Walking on only his four trulegs, he ambled over to stand alongside Dik. The vacant seat next to the pilot was useless to him. "We spoke earlier of defenses. Now I think there may be none."
"Why not?" Unlike some humans, the pilot did not shy away from proximity to the thranx.
"Any danger sufficiently profound to force the Sauun to resort to racial deepsleep as a means of avoiding it would likely not be discouraged or deflected by what weapons their technology suggests they were capable of constructing."
"Certainly wouldn't be of any use against plague or famine." Cullen refused to surrender so quickly his initial theses. "Take us back up, Dik. Everett, Bajji, and the others will be in an agony of impatience wondering what's happened to us. Besides - " He smiled. " - I think we've accomplished quite enough for one afternoon."
Obediently, the pilot pirouetted the craft and began to retrace their course. Endless rows of shimmering purple pods sped past on either side, rising to imposing heights above and majestic depths below. Millions upon millions of sentient beings, suspended in silence, each of them heir to a great and tantalizing secret, silently tracked their progress. And across the great valley, the statues of the Mourners stood gazing eternally in this direction, the reason for their melancholy expressions now perfectly clear.
Did the Sauun raise this immense mausoleum first and then surround it with masquerading stone, Pilwondepat wondered, or did they burrow into an already existing plateau? If the former, it would explain why the edge of the escarpment was so near to the entrance they had found. He tried to envision an entire race striving mightily to prepare a vault of almost incalculable proportions, to receive every one of them before something happened. Instead of choosing to fight whatever it was that threatened them, they had elected to go into hiding. Whatever that something might be, the Sauun had decided they could neither confront it, nor negotiate with it, nor appease it. They had fled into deepsleep, hoping to awaken to find that the threat, whatever it was, had gone, had passed them by.
Plague, Cullen had suggested. Famine. To Pilwondepat such explanations seemed wholly inadequate to the Sauun's response. Even his own hypothesis, that some as-yet-undocumented interstellar conflict had threatened them, was already beginning to sound incommensurate. Whatever had driven an accomplished, intelligent species to hide itself away like an estivatin ghrulg grub surely was of greater consequence than that.
While his human associates chattered around him, he tilted back his head to gaze up and out through the skimmer's transparent roof. Two hundred levels surpassed, two hundred more to go. He found himself suddenly longing to be out of that boundless, brooding place, away from those millions and millions of living corpses. Checking the ascending craft's chronometer, he saw that less time had passed since they'd left the surface than he thought. They would emerge into daylight. That meant he would not have to look up at the grim immensity of the night sky and wonder at what might lie in hiding behind the stars.
16
When she awoke the next morning, Fanielle saw that she had overslept. The last thing she wanted, after the menacing encounter of the night before, was to be late for the rendezvous with Haflunormet and their mutual friend. As she dressed, she found herself looking sharply in directions and at places that would never have previously engaged her attention. With each mercifully unrequited glance, she relaxed a little more. The Baron Preed NNXV was, as he might have put it, truly gone. From her lodgings, if not from her thoughts.
She waited for Haflunormet at an eating establishment he favored, resting her bifurcated behind on a padded bench designed for thranx to straddle. As the only human in the underground insectoid bistro, her presence drew stares and remarks. The looks were less direct than the comments, given the thranx mastery of peripheral vision. Other patrons were quite capable of staringat her without actually turning in her direction. After a while, the novelty of her silent presence wore off, and they returned to their own conversations. The air around her was filled with a harmonious cacophony of clicks, whistles, and words.
She was sucking on a domestic fruit juice blend that was more than palatable to her digestive system when Haflunormet arrived. A prearranged glance and gesture told her all she needed to know for the moment. "He's here." One of the few humans on Hivehom with access to local methods of reimbursement, she paid for her half-finished drink and followed the diplomat out into the bustling corridor.
Roof over a New New York street to a height of ten meters or so and you would have a good analog for the principal burrows of Daret. Still, it was not a place for the claustrophobic, or for those who were uncomfortable in crowds.
From the burrow, they took public transport to an outer suburb. Yet again, Fanielle was grateful for her petite frame. It allowed her to ride thranx transportation without having to bend uncomfortably at the waist. Twenty minutes later they exited the transport system and took a lift to the surface, where Haflunormet had a private vehicle waiting. Following a preprogrammed course, the small aircar rose and headed westward, flying above untouched savanna and low-lying jungle. Several hours later it slowed as it approached a clearing at the base of rolling, verdure-covered hills. Not far from this easily visible landing site, enormous bulk carriers wound in procession past triple loaders, grinding their ponderous way along the base of the nearest hill with cargoes of recently extracted ore.
"Sat!wi!t rare metals." Haflunormet took manual control of the aircar and directed it toward a covered parking area. "The mine's owners are sympathetic to our cause." Multiple-lensed eyes looked over at her. "A more difficult place to eavesdrop on a conversation I could not find. I was determined to arrange one where after the unfortunate encounter in your room you would feel comfortable about speaking freely."
She gestured understanding and thanks, her two hands having to do the work of four. That they would be rendezvousing in a mine did not trouble her. Its interior could be no more confining than the side streets of Daret.
After securing the aircar, Haflunormet led the way past busy workers and administrators. Fanielle drew more direct stares here than she had in the cosmopolitan capital. Not all of them bespoke affection. She might well, she reflected as she ignored some of the less-friendly gestures, be the first human to visit this place, the first one many of the miners had ever seen in the flesh.
At the entrance Haflunormet made contact with Security. Conversations were exchanged via communicator, subsequent to which the two visitors were allowed to enter. From time to time Haflunormet would pause to check directions on his recorder. Unlike in the city, internal transportation here operated on an irregular schedule. Twice, they had to wait for an automated conveyance to arrive. A tall human, Fan
ielle reflected as they zoomed along one subterranean track deep within the mountain, might easily have lost his head in such a place. Within the tunnels and shafts there was very little overhead clearance.
From time to time they passed a bore or passageway where active mining was in progress. Here was another justification for closer commercial, if not political, contact, Fanielle saw. No human miner could compete with an equally well-trained thranx, who was not only more comfortable beneath the surface than above it, but enjoyed a greater tolerance for the heat that often turned mine tunnels into sweltering saunas. A crew of these highly trained workers could find top-salaried gainful employment at any tunneling mine on Earth or any of its colonies.
The transport they were riding began to slow. As it did so, the narrow corridor opened up to reveal a spacious underground rest area. Here miners could relax in comfort, waiting for assignment to the far-flung reaches of the diggings. There was illumination, and refreshment, and vit-style entertainment.
Haflunormet led her to a distant corner, where a single middle-aged thranx was engrossed in the concealed readout of a personal recorder. Antennae rose in their direction as they approached. As Haflunormet made the introduction, the other thranx slid off the bench he had been straddling and dipped both antennae forward. Fanielle brushed the feathery extremities with her fingertips, a gesture that in the past couple of years had become more familiar to her than the shaking of hands.
"I am Lyrkenparmew. Before we begin, I would like to wish you painless deposition of your egg."
Taking a seat on an empty bench, Fanielle glanced wryly in Haflunormet's direction. "Does everyone on this planet know that I'm pregnant?"
Where a human might have responded with something like "Good news travels fast," her fellow diplomat did not comment verbally. In place of words, Haflunormet gestured ambiguousness leavened with gentle humor.
"Thank you," she replied dryly. "However, I still feel compelled to point out that we are not here to discuss my maternal condition." By now used to thranx benches that were devoid of back support, she found herself leaning forward automatically as she addressed the new arrival. "Haflunormet has apprised you of my recent difficulties here, and in Azerick?"
Lyrkenparmew gestured acknowledgment. "I've been briefed. I am sorry for the many inconveniences you have suffered. I myself lost a close clan member three years ago to the gentle ministrations of the AAnn." He added a series of rapid clicks that were shocking in their manifest obscenity. Fanielle decided she liked him right away.
"What results can you report from your recent informal sojourn on Earth?" Haflunormet's antennae were aquiver with eagerness. "Deliberation still burrows faithfully?"
"More than faithfully. Beneath the surface turmoil there is a newly dug tunnel that runs straight to the light, with walls that have been burnished to an unfolding glow by truth." He paused to check his own recorder, which at present was set not to record but to scan for others who might be recording. Assured that their conversation was being monitored neither in person nor electronically, he continued.
"It has been proposed, and preparations are being made to announce, a formal union between our two governments. The resulting Grand Hive is to be known as the Humanx Commonwealth. There is to be full integration of all administrative functions, first on the interstellar level, later on the local. This is not an alliance; it burrows far deeper." Having delivered himself of this extraordinary pronouncement, he took a sip of the sugary liquid that half filled the translucent green container standing by his side. "Nothing else like it exists in this part of the Arm. Once integration is complete, other species will be invited to join. An official Commission of Interest to the Quillp has already been drafted, though it is considered unlikely the ornithorps will wish to confederate. Nevertheless, it will be extended out of courtesy."
Haflunormet and Fanielle hardly knew how to react. Desiring to hear that relations between their respective species were on the upswing, Lyrkenparmew had unloaded on them the culmination of hopes that heretofore both diplomats had only dared to dream about. Until now, neither of them had ever heard of a proposed "Humanx Commonwealth." Haflunormet said as much.
Lyrkenparmew gestured apologies. "As you know, the friends of the committee have had to function on multiple levels in order to escape potentially injurious scrutiny on all those worlds where we are active. I assure you, this is not some wild rambling on the part of our mutual friends. It's quite real. The details have been carefully worked out, debated, refined, and prepared for general dissemination on all thranx- and human-occupied worlds. A small band of especially adept agents have been working on the minutiae ever since we entered the Pitarian War on the human side."
"I hardly know what to say." Haflunormet's antennae were waving about as if in a dream. "This is more than I, than any of us here on Hivehom, dared to hope for."
Fanielle scrutinized their surroundings. A few miners were staring in their direction. In her direction, she corrected herself. But they appeared to be no more than what they were, and after a while they departed aboard a battered transport. She was determined not to let paranoia get the best of her. Not now, after receiving news of such import.
"How is this proposal going to be presented to the public?" she finally managed to ask their guest.
Lyrkenparmew employed all four hands for emphasis. "If the proponents did not do it themselves, it would never be brought up for consideration by our respective dominions. The intention is to spring it on both governments simultaneously, and bring it to a vote in yours and to a mass closing in ours as quickly as possible, thereby catching our xenophobic opponents by surprise. Continued secrecy is obviously therefore of utmost importance."
Haflunormet whistled for attention. "Presentation before council is one thing; adoption something else entirely. Does this astounding concept have any real chance of being affirmed?"
Now it was the otherwise academically inclined Lyrkenparmew's turn to manifest excitement. "In all seriousness, three cycles ago I would have laughed at such a notion. Two cycles and I would have responded to you with an unequivocal no. This last cycle past I might not have replied at all, foundering deep in contemplation of the previously unthinkable. Tomorrow . . ." He finished with an unexpectedly emphatic gesture and a particularly piercing click of his two vertical mandibles.
"There has been a recent and unexpected upsurge of support on both sides from a number of previously disinterested clans. Coupled with those important individuals who have already previously espoused these sentiments - influential politicians of Earth and tri-eints and others here on Hivehom - it is believed that there may exist on both capital worlds sufficient votes to just barely pass the proposal. I am also assured that we can count in council on the voting bloc that dislikes humans but desperately wishes for such an alliance."
Fanielle frowned. "Isn't that a contradiction?"
Lyrkenparmew gestured ironic amusement. "Indeed - a very useful one. Among the military, there are those who will agree to anything if it will secure the promise of human intervention against the AAnn. These high-ranking eints have a positive affection for humans as - what is your colorful term? - cannon fodder. They seek allies who can be placed between the hive worlds and the Empire. If humans desire to occupy such a position voluntarily, why, there are many semixenophobes among my kind who are ready to welcome them."
"Strange," Haflunormet mused aloud. "To think that those who may support this proposed Commonwealth the most enthusiastically may also intensely dislike the people to whom they are about to surrender a portion of their sovereignty."
"It's not important." Fanielle was confident in her reply. "All that matters is the final, irrevocable cementing of relations and melding of our two societies. In the service of that end, we'll take what help we can get."
"So we shall," Lyrkenparmew agreed readily. "Once it becomes clear that ratification is not only possible but probable, I have been assured that others who would like to declare for a Common
wealth but who for reasons of provincial politics or hive affiliation have not yet been able to do so will announce their support." He gesticulated urgency. "But the proposal must pass on the first inclusive stridulating. After that, our opponents will be able to muster their objections and quite likely defeat any reconsideration."
"This is grand news." Haflunormet was struggling to find something to do with all his hands. "When you return to Earth, you may inform our mutual acquaintances that their friends here in the capital will be ready to move the instant their support is required."
"I can't vouch for what will happen in the Terran Congress," Fanielle added, "but as you know, I am not alone in my sympathies at Azerick Outpost. We'll be ready to offer what help we can from here."
"As will your counterparts on your homeworld, in the Reserva Amazonia, and elsewhere." Having delivered himself of the most critical news, the envoy finally began to relax. His trulegs were no longer clasped tensely against the padded flanks of the bench he was straddling, and his antennae inclined forward in a more natural resting position instead of being held vertically by the muscles in his forehead.
"Everything - hopes, dreams, and much effort - is building to a peak. The timing has been very carefully worked out. The sometimes bumpy relations between our species are about to crest at a high point. There are at present no major disagreements in dispute. The controversy over exploration rights on Comagrave has been settled in return for reciprocal rights on Drax Four. Ongoing commercial disputes of note have at last found a home in the binary-staffed commission that has been designated to review and settle such matters. The intercultural fair on the human colony world of Dawn is, by all accounts, performing to large crowds and great acclaim among those of both our peoples who have attended. Unless some unforeseen catastrophe of major proportions occurs within the next several weeks, the relevant edicts should be presented and the appropriate votes called for." He took a long, throaty swig of his remaining drink.