She concluded by adding her personal, as opposed to official, condolences, taking care to remind the furrow-faced old human with both word and gesture that more than a few of her own kind had perished in the course of the incident. Despite this, the AAnn took no offense. Such calamities were bound to occur in the course of exploring unknown alien worlds. But among those who understood such things, who were mature explorers of a threatening and oftentimes bewildering firmament, they need not impair relations.
She felt she had done as best she could given the material the psychticians had prepared for her. Now she stood in silence, only her tail moving metronomically from side to side, waiting for the shriveled mammal to respond. After a long pause he finally did, in language that was somewhat less than tastefully diplomatic.
"You're a liar."
She blanched as much as an AAnn could. Anger rose in her throat. "You are inssulting."
"The truth is never insulting. You're a big-mouthed, carrion-eating, earless, bloodthirsty liar who probably shits where she eats. I'm starting to think that's true of all your kind. Like the rest of my people, I've been inclined to usually give you the benefit of the doubt here on Comagrave, even if you persist in your communications in referring to it as Vussussica. A recently viewed vit changed my mind. It's changed a lot of minds here. I expect that after it receives wider dissemination, its mind-altering potential will expand exponentially. Would you care to see it?"
Stunned beyond outrage, the AAnn representative could barely choke out a terse affirmative. "I sshould like to ssee what hass prompted thiss unprecedented outbursst of sslander, truly."
Without replying, Narzaltan waved a hand over a proximity control. A holo image appeared above his plain, unadorned desk. Vaarbayel recognized the restraining boundaries of a satellite scan. Without input from the human, the view plunged surfaceward until the slightly flickering but otherwise quite viewable image froze at a high magnification.
She had only read the hastily compiled formal report and seen the follow-up. Looked down on from above, the carnage took on a detached yet oddly individualistic horror. There were the two surviving AAnn transports, systematically sweeping the blazing encampment, the AAnn aboard utilizing their aerial platforms to methodically shoot down every last remaining human. Afterward, landing parties examined the camp, going through those structures that were still standing - making sure of possible survivors. There were too many details of the sweeping vit, too many peculiarly bloody episodes, that could not be faked. She could not question what she was seeing.
The image evaporated like a bad dream in a sandstorm. "I do not know how to properly resspond other than as I already have," she finally hissed. "I wass not there. I can only reference what I wass told, and explicate from thosse materialss that I have been given."
Narzaltan was nodding, a typically unsophisticated human gesture she readily recognized. "I understand that. In retrospect, if not now, maybe you will understand my bitterness. Not that I really care if you do. We're both vessels, you and I. Vessels and vassals, administrators and diplomats. We're supposed to transmit and forward, not think or feel. Right now I'm afraid I and everyone on my staff is failing that mandate.
"You're probably wondering how we came by that satellite imagery. Turns out the local thranx consulate here in Comabraeth received a request to run a high-magnification check on the campsite just as your people arrived. Standard procedure. Our technicians complied. When they saw what was happening in real time, they locked the satellite's orbit to keep the high-def scanners on location." He gestured at the empty air above his desk. "You just saw the result. If that particular request hadn't arrived when it did, I might, just might, have been willing to withhold judgment on your official story." He smiled, and although a human could not begin to match an AAnn for expanse of exposed teeth, it was threatening enough. "Now you've gone and contradicted that stinking small slice of reality. There will be consequences."
The thranx! Vaarbayel thought ferociously. Whenever something untoward happened, thegssrsst bugs seemed always to be found at the bottom of the contaminated dune. "I am ssure that upon further reflection, the incidentss ssurrounding thiss regrettable missundersstanding can be explained."
Once more the human administrator responded with little more than that terse and by now infuriating nod. "Until further notice, all AAnn on Comagrave are to consider themselves under detention. No vehicles or other craft are to travel beyond Comabraeth without permission from this office. Stellar proximity to the Empire notwithstanding, this is an officially recognized colony of Earth. Your people remain on this world on sufferance of my government and its colonies."
"This is outrageouss. I musst regisster an official protesst."
"You do that. You relay everything to Blassussar. I've already been in contact with Earth via the space-minus bore. My actions have been cleared, and I've been granted authority to augment however I see fit - short of shooting people. Further communications between your government and mine are in the process of being formulated." He crossed his slim but wiry arms in front of his unimpressive chest. As a gesture of dismissal and finality, it was oddly convincing.
"One last thing. If I were you, I'd start packing."
19
Like everyone else in the vast underground burrow that contained the diplomatic division serving the Great Hive, Haflunormet encountered the report from the human outpost world of Comagrave in advance of the general populace. That he was not the only one to respond with an involuntary stridulation of shock was shown by the number of abrasive chirrups that echoed in close succession through the various individual workstations. Staff rose from their positions to engage in intense informal discussions of the report's potential impact.
Haflunormet did not join them. While he was as stunned by the details as the rest of his colleagues, they did not sit quite right in either of his guts. Perhaps it was due to the increasing amount of contact he had been having with humans themselves, and with one individual in particular. Whatever the reason, he found himself impelled to dig deeper into the body of general information contained in the horrific account.
These personal preoccupations in no way mitigated his sympathy for the doomed humans of Comagrave or his outrage at the manner of their death. One could expect no less from the deceitful AAnn. Here at last was proof of their persistent perfidy so overwhelming that even those humans most favorably disposed toward them could not ignore it. That the incident would give at least a temporary, and perhaps a permanent, boost to the furthering of thranx-human relations could not be denied. In the Pitarian War the collected hives had shown themselves to be reliable allies. Now the AAnn had revealed the true nature of their innate treachery. Among those members of the diplomatic staff who had labored long and hard, suffering criticism and cynicism in tandem for their efforts to bring the two species closer together, there was quiet jubilation. The cautious and the outright dissenters were reduced to skritching their mandibles in quiet frustration.
And yet - and yet . . . certain facts, assuming they had been correctly recorded, continued to nag at him like the aggravating sqik parasites that could infect an ungroomed adult's exfoliating integuments.
The deeper he probed, the more convinced he became that he was on the track of uncomfortable truths. His colleagues in the section appeared to accept the report and its attendant conclusions without question. A perfectly normal reaction - but not for one who had spent time among humans. A little of their tendency to question everything seemed to have rubbed off on him. Of course, they also tended to suspect the obvious and the self-evident. This led to a widespread wasting of time the thranx could not stomach. Somewhere in between the two extremes, Haflunormet suspected, might lie the eventual path to a new way of looking at the universe.
His present interests, however, were not half so exalted. Details, details - so much of diplomacy was often in the details. When he finally stumbled over the one he was looking for, self-congratulation escaped him. He was t
oo shocked.
It was plain enough for anyone who knew the ways of the hive to see - if one had the desire and determination to look for it. The contradictions lay in the timing. How had this scientist managed to send a warning that the human exoarcheological site was under attack several time-parts before the surveying satellite provided the first confirmation that an attack was actually under way? Haflunormet checked and rechecked the relevant chronologs. There was no mistake.
The warning had arrived before the attack.
Then there were the many protests, all ignored, that had been raised by the AAnn. That they had journeyed to the site with the declared intent of rescuing, not exterminating, its occupants. That upon preparing to touch down, one of their transports had been fired upon without warning and for no apparent reason. That its destruction had been followed by an outbreak of small-arms fire from the encampment, whereupon they had then, and only then, responded in kind. This last assertion had been met with the contempt it deserved. By no method of accounting could a defensive reaction "in kind" justify the complete annihilation of all the camp's inhabitants.
Delving ever deeper, Haflunormet noted that the initial blast that had crippled the AAnn transport could not be explained in light of the encampment's professed lack of heavy weapons. If the humans on Comagrave were lying and the occupants of the scientific camp had possessed such devices, why did they not use them on the other two AAnn transports? Someone in the report had hypothesized about the possibility of unstable explosives used for purposes of excavation having been stored at the landing site. This conjecture was quickly dismissed. Scientific teams did not make use of the risky or unstable. And why would humans fire on supposedly friendly AAnn if they did not feel directly threatened?
Haflunormet focused every one of his lenses on the series of high-res satellite images. Easy enough to see the AAnn transport crashing at the landing pad, vomiting flames. Then the flare-up of small-arms fire. How ultimately detailed was the imagery? He enhanced, zoomed, and enhanced again. At the maximum augmented magnification possible, a single figure could be observed firing at the incoming AAnn craft. A number of humans could be seen running, a couple cowering together behind a temporary shelter, but none of them shooting at the AAnn. Not yet. Haflunormet's wing cases quivered.
There had been exactly one thranx working on the site at the time of the tragedy. It was a thranx who had transmitted the very possibly premature report of the AAnn attack. Now, in imagery freshly augmented, it was a thranx who could be seen firing on the AAnn in advance of anyone else. Taken together, the evidence seemed to point to more than mere reaction, more than just coincidence.
It was entirely possible, a stunned Haflunormet realized, that the respected thranx exoarcheologist in question, a certain Pilwondepat, had not been reacting to an AAnn attack, but had been working to provoke one.
The potential ramifications were explosive. Throughout the human sphere of influence, outrage against the AAnn over the atrocity that had occurred on Comagrave was spreading like an unstoppable contagion. If it was disclosed that on this one exceptional occasion the AAnn were actually innocent, and that the massacre had in fact been initiated by a thranx, the shift in human public opinion could be devastating. What had possessed a respected scientist of the hive to do such a thing Haflunormet could not begin to imagine. Certainly the initial consequences were salutary, but the risk . . . !
He lay unmoving at his position, sprawled on his bench, until a neighboring coworker thought to inquire after his health. Responding positively, and as calmly as he could, Haflunormet realized that his long moments of contemplation had led him to a decision. Whatever justification might have been claimed by the perpetrator for provoking such a heinous incident had already been subsumed in matters of far greater import. Though every particle of his being screamed at Haflunormet to reveal the truth, he knew that he could not. To do so would be to set thranx-human relations back to a point where even formal diplomatic relations might be placed in jeopardy. As for any thought of forging stronger, deeper bonds between the two species, they would evaporate like dripping water on a hot rock.
But he could not keep the secret to himself. Others needed to know, deserved to know, so that in the event someone besides himself happened to chance upon the same conclusions, beings of like mind could be ready and prepared to deal with the potentially damaging revelation.
First, he erased every trace of his activity. What he could not erase because it had already been entered into general storage he buried as deeply and innocuously as he could. Satisfied at last that someone would have to be either very determined or very lucky to retrace his work, or to find the paths of inquiry he had taken, he steeled himself to confide his findings in the one other person he felt he could trust with so virulent a discovery.
But first he would have to find out where the human Fanielle Anjou was spending the remainder of her actual vacation.
The thranx liked mountains, but only from the inside. Mountains tended to be cold, or at least cool, dry places. Neither characteristic appealed to the heat- and humidity-loving insectoids. So the resting place where Fanielle had chosen to spend the remainder of her time away from Azerick lay at the upper limit of the thranx comfort zone.
Overlooking the undulating jungle-carpeted plains, beneath which lay the outermost suburbs of the city, the exclusive Retreat of Xer!kex featured individual burrows with spectacular vistas. The contradiction inherent in spending most of one's leisure time ignoring the view outside in favor of activities occurring deep within the mountainside was not lost on Fanielle. On the contrary, she was delighted by this wholly thranxish choice. It left her free to dawdle in the peculiar low-lying thranx version of a hammock, swinging outside above an exposed slope, sipping chilled fruit juice while gazing sleepily at the vast green panorama spread out before her.
Cool enough in its hillside location so that she felt comfortable in long pants and long-sleeved shirt, her communal refuge received occasional visits from other occupants of the retreat. They would click and whistle and chatter, pointing out this or that distant landmark, before retiring to their assigned burrows and away from the, to them, mountainside chill.
In the distance, the sporadic howl of a shuttle climbing heavenward rolled across the plains. Not even the distant Xer!kex could entirely escape the industrial-strength rumble and roar of the capital's major shuttleports. Relaxed and at ease, Fanielle viewed these isolated auditory interruptions with tolerant indifference. So content was she with the amenities of the retreat that neither shuttle yowls nor choruses of curious clicking could trouble her.
Among all the auditory distractions, the last thing she expected to hear was a familiar voice.
"Found you at last, shleeck ! With only a handful of humans authorized to be in Daret, one would think it would not have taken so long."
Startled, she started to sit up, forgot where she was, and nearly ended as tightly wrapped up in the exotic hammock as a fly in a spider's shroud. Clearly ill at ease so close to an exposed cliff face, Haflunormet was nonetheless unabashedly pleased to see her.
"What are you doing here?" Carefully extracting herself from the hammocklike contrivance lest it try to ambush her dignity again, Fanielle sat on the edge of the low retaining wall that separated the scenic overlook from the jungle directly below. "I thought we had concluded all the necessary business between ourselves and our mutual friend."
Twisting an antenna around to make sure no one was standing behind him and listening, Haflunormet explained. "I came across a recent incident that in the course of further investigation has given birth to some disquieting conclusions." He indicated their surroundings. "You've been out of touch, and I presume you do not watch the local equivalent of your tridee broadcasts."
"No," she confessed. "I came up here looking for peace and quiet."
"I am sorry to intrude, but this matter cannot wait. I must tell someone I can trust, or I feel I will break into a premature molt. You've heard o
f Comagrave?"
She frowned, then brightened slightly. "Distant outpost world. Class X, I think. I remember reading something about a long-extinct but quite advanced native race. It's close, in galactic terms, to the AAnn Empire. What about it?"
Haflunormet proceeded to enlighten her as to the recent tragic developments on that world. When he had finished, she sat very still, digesting the scope of the disaster - and its diplomatic import.
"This will make the AAnn look bad. Very bad. A terrible thing to have happen - but perversely, it serves our ends."
Haflunormet gestured second-degree concurrence displaced by distress. "All true - except for my disquieting conclusions. They involve a respected exoarcheologist of the hive Pat, clan De. In the course of my investigation I researched this individual's background thoroughly. There is nothing in it to suggest a tendency to madness."
"I don't follow you, Haflunormet."
"This Pilwondepat filed a thick report detailing a list of incidents on Comagrave that he felt pointed to a methodical attempt on the part of the AAnn to drive your people off the planet, despite the official recognition of your suzerainty by the Empire. This report was filed the night before the event I have alluded to previously." He stridulated softly to emphasize his words. "That shocking incident would seem to provide final proof of his thesis, except for certain ambiguities that I have subsequently discovered." He proceeded to detail them for his friend.
She waited quietly until he was finished. "That's monstrous!" She hardly knew what to say to the quiet, expectant diplomat standing before her. "You're telling me that in order to back up his claims, this scientist provoked the AAnn into attacking and slaughtering everyone at the archeological site where he had been working?"
"Not sparing himself," Haflunormet reminded her solemnly.