Forge of the Elders, page 25
Eichra Oren raised a hand before Empleado could speak. "I was just going anyway. That's my old friend Scutigera outside." To Gutierrez, Sebastiano, and Ortiz: "General, Colonel, Major. Coming, Sam?"
"Gladly." The dog bared its teeth at Empleado. "Some of the company around here stinks!"
TWENTY-NINE Insider Trading
Stooping out through the oval portside crew-hatch at the middeck of the Dole, Eichra Oren clambered over the upturned edge of the plastic-coated wire mesh basket in which the shuttle and its fleetmates had been lowered to the surface. As his feet touched the ground, he discovered that his friend Scutigera was the center of considerable—if ambivalent—attention.
Most of the humans huddled beneath the stubby wings of their spacecraft, all eyes turned toward Scutigera. Nor was it difficult for him to dominate the scene, even without moving a limb. Nine meters from his rounded, intelligent-looking head with its pair of huge, glittering compound eyes, to the final segment of his tapered body, he took up even more space than that implied, since his graceful antennae and many of his fifteen pairs of slender legs were longer yet.
Eichra Oren had always thought Scutigera a handsome being. His legs and antennae were banded in contrasting shades of brown, his body patterned with what the newcomers would have termed "racing stripes." Beneath his head he bore three pairs of jaws, the rearmost vestigial (his remote ancestors had wielded poisoned fangs), the others specialized for manipulation. His people were the largest land sapients Eichra Oren knew of (and his knowledge was extensive), but they were subtle and accomplished technologists, producing, long before their first contact with the Elders, everything from nuclear steam turbines to watches with moving parts invisible to the naked human eye.
"Well, old crustacean," Sam spoke first, an attention—getter in itself for the dazed humans clustered under the spacecraft. Some, in a setting which afforded one shock after another, hadn't yet heard about his artificially enhanced intelligence. "You still know how to make an entrance!"
Adroit for a creature his size, Scutigera slewed his first few segments around and let his antenna-tips patter greetings along Sam's muzzle and then Eichra Oren's cheeks. Several beneath the shuttle wings groaned and turned away. From within the giant sapient came a low, cultivated voice, speaking the language of ancient, lost Antarctica. "Oasam, my furry and infuriating friend, as I have told you on many previous occasions, I am an arthropod, not a crustacean. How would you enjoy being called a reptile?"
"Some of my best friends—" Sam used the trilling tongue of a world in which warmblooded dinosaurs had survived global catastrophe to become Earth's sapient race "—are reptiles." If he sounded pleased with himself, it was because they were no more reptilian than Scutigera was crustacean.
"Hopeless," the centipede complained, still in the language of the Lost Continent. "Well, my warmest greetings, Eichra Oren. Kindly inform me of the health and happiness of your esteemed mother, Eneri Relda. And why haven't you sent this beast to obedience school?"
"He wouldn't go." Eichra Oren grinned up at the inhuman face hovering above his own. "My mother is well, happy, and busy, as usual. This is a surprise, old friend; I wasn't even aware you were in this universe until I received your signal just now." He tapped the side of his head where, as with all sapients associated with the Elders, sophisticated electronics had been implanted on his cortex, similar to the device which raised Sam's intelligence from that of an unusually bright dog to that of a human being.
"I am a partner in the enterprise." Scutigera waved meters of antenna in a shrug. "How could I deprive myself of one of Mister Thoggosh's adventures? They're inevitably diverting—at my age a greater consideration than you might imagine—and almost always indecently profitable. Speaking of our mutual molluscoid associate, he would appreciate your presence in his chambers at your earliest convenience. I came, supposing that you might prefer riding with me to risking life and limb in one of his flying bagels."
In fact he preferred the electrostatic aerocraft Scutigera mentioned, but visiting with his old comrade was a pleasant prospect. They'd shared many an adventure, but it was long since they'd seen each other. "American culture," he chuckled, "is getting to be a—what's the word, Sam, for an enthusiasm pursued en masse?"
" `Fad.' " The dog rolled his eyes in appeal to Scutigera. "Too lazy to access his own implant—and if it's all the same to you, I'll walk."
"There's a stop I want to make," the man declared, "about halfway between here and Mister Thoggosh's residence."
Scutigera bent several legs, lowering his front quarters to assist as Eichra Oren clambered astride the first segment behind the arthropod's head. Smoothly polished, toast-colored chitin made a precarious perch. Resting his sword across his thighs, the man waved to his fellow humans as the arthropod's first stride, rippling through the ranks of his many legs like a kick through a chorus line, whisked them out of the camp and plunged them into the jungle surrounding it. Sam trotted along beside them, not quite forced to break into a lope. In addition to being the largest land sapients Eichra Oren knew of, Scutigera's people were among the swiftest, their present breathtaking pace representing no more than a stately crawl to the giant.
"I observe," Scutigera commented once they found themselves deep within the lush, dripping forest, "that you do not permit the prospect of a prolonged stay on this asteroid to disturb you. But then you are a multitalented being, well capable of filling any number of productive roles, and I could not help noticing the presence here of many attractive females of your species . . ."
The joke was old between them. Scutigera's mating season was limited, requiring drastic physiological changes before it became even mechanically possible. Like all sapients he had excellent memory, however, especially for pleasure. Despite his usually high tolerance for differing customs, he envied those capable of recreational mating. It was a measure of his fundamentally good nature that, rather than resenting what he saw as an immutable fact of life, he teased his friends among the more fortunate species about it.
A flock of pink, long-legged birds of a kind Eichra Oren had never seen before flew over, making an absurd racket. Gripping the weapon which was his honor and burden, he shook his head, knowing the gesture would be visible within his friend's 360 degrees of peripheral vision. The topic of females was a bit tender at the moment and might remain so for some time, so he pushed it out of his mind. If the ride atop the giant arthropod was slippery, it was smooth, taking place as it did on so many points of suspension. From the timbre of his voice, he might have been speaking from an armchair.
"Life serves its purpose simply by being lived," he replied, "and to me, it doesn't much matter where. As you probably know, Mister Thoggosh required my services here as an assessor. . . ."
"One could hardly miss an event that generated such heated debate," the giant centipede replied. No Elder, nor any among the many species associated with them, could abide an unpaid moral debt, especially one owed by himself. It was customary to resolve personal and business disputes, and to examine one's own conscience periodically, with the aid of professional assessors wise in the half-billion-year-old philosophy of p'Na and capable of prescribing measures to restore the balance. This didn't often require literal use of the assessor's sword, but it was there if need arose. "I collected over a year's income in gold and platinum, wagering on your decision with unfortunates less well-informed concerning your habits of mind. Although considering how it ended, perhaps I oughtn't to admit to such crassness."
Eichra Oren laughed. Whatever they'd accomplished on their own before discovery by the Elders, Scutigera's folk, like many primitive societies, had never reconciled what they imagined to be moral perfection—altruistic self-sacrifice—with personal material gain. This contradiction had resulted in the downfall of countless otherwise admirable civilizations, and was taken seriously by the Elders as a symptom of potentially fatal social disorder. Adopting p'Nan ethics had solved the problem at a conscious level for the centipede people, yet Eichra Oren knew that with cultures as well as individuals, it is the oldest, most self-destructive habits that die the most lingering deaths.
"Even the Americans have a proverb about an `ill wind,' " he said. "Or was it `insider trading'? In any case, the task is done, thanks to p'Na. I'm glad someone benefitted by it. Now I've set out to accomplish what may prove far more difficult: understanding my fellow humans and the bizarre, twisted culture they've created."
Antennae waved in agreement. "They are a strange people, Eichra Oren."
"You said a mandible-full!" Sam volunteered, sounding out of breath. The man knew that he regretted not accepting a ride, although how he'd have stayed atop their friend's slippery carapace defied speculation.
"Stranger than you can possibly imagine," Eichra Oren told the arthropod. "You know that their leaders"—the alien concept had to be rendered in English—"somehow obliged the expedition's members, in such a manner that many of them felt they must comply even if it meant dying, to drive us off this asteroid by force, despite Mister Thoggosh's unquestioned prior claim and our obviously overwhelming numerical and technical superiority."
"So I gather," Scutigera answered. "I was warned when they first arrived that a collective willingness to condone outright thievery, and an individual capacity to ignore the facts of objective reality, are considered indispensable civic virtues in American culture. Or perhaps it was religious virtues—it seemed so absurd at the time that I don't remember clearly now. How could such a people have survived the rigors of natural selection?"
"Civil and religious. They've acquired a reflexive aversion to the plain, inconvenient truth; they're ready to vote away anybody's life, liberty, or property—even their own—if that'll help them pretend the truth doesn't exist. In any case, through this mysterious power to impose ridiculous obligations, these leaders caused a murder. Apparently it was intended as a provocation to general violence, although why they thought it would serve that purpose, I still don't fully understand. It makes no sense to blame a whole people for the actions of a single individual. But now, as the Americans say, it's academic—"
"Telling us much," Sam offered, "about their educational system."
"Since even their new leader has abandoned them," Eichra Oren finished.
Scutigera chuckled. "I reiterate my question about natural selection."
"Now for the really confusing part," the man mused. "Horatio Gutierrez, another of these leaders—although in some way he reminds me of Mister Thoggosh—seems almost relieved to be abandoned. More, I think, than can be accounted for by any last-minute cancellation of the hostilities I don't believe he ever planned to commence. He even makes jokes about it. Comprehending that alone ought to fully occupy my time here . . ."
Scutigera slowed the pace. "And?"
"And there's no deceiving you, is there, old friend?" He shook his head. "All right, I find I'm not overly eager to go home. There remain aspects of this recent assessment I must think through. For one—although I haven't a doubt that I executed my office correctly—I find that I don't look forward to telling my mother about what happened. I'm uncertain why. So for the time being, I'm content—"
"Ask if I'm content!" interrupted Sam, tired of keeping up. "How many females of my species have you seen hanging around this free-floating dungball?"
Again Scutigera chuckled. "It was always my impression, Otusam, that you prefer females of the human species."
"—and confident," the man ignored the byplay, "that we'll get home eventually, when and if the Elders ever stumble across whatever it is they're looking for here. By the way, old friend, you wouldn't happen to know what it is, would you?" Here, Eichra Oren thought, trying not to be seen holding his breath, was the most fascinating and annoying mystery of all. The challenge of solving it, despite his employer's determination to keep him in the dark, was a primary reason he didn't mind staying on 5023 Eris.
"You weren't informed?" The arthropod's tone was ironic. "It pains me to say that if I did know—and I don't say either way, old friend—I couldn't say. Conditions of the strictest secrecy were agreed upon in the first clause of the contract I signed with Mister Thoggosh."
Eichra Oren was silent. Proprietary secrets were certainly no novelty in the Elders' free-trade society. Nor was it impermissible, within bounds of p'Na, for others to ferret them out and make what use of them they might. Still, this was an enormous undertaking even for them to keep under wraps, involving (he hadn't needed the numbers before this, now they scrolled past his mind's eye via his implant) thousands of beings on this one asteroid alone, plus how many more—that many?—in support roles back in the home universe.
How often had he heard Mister Thoggosh say that two can keep a secret as long as one of them is dead and the other frozen in liquid nitrogen? Shrugging, he blinked away the display.
"Slow down, old friend, this is where I want to stop."
THIRTY The Scene of the Crime
He'd dreaded this moment for what seemed like weeks.
In fact, it had only been a couple of days, yet Eichra Oren knew that the exercise, which was how he thought of it, however difficult or painful it proved, was necessary to his peace of mind; a matter of tying up loose ends. Not long ago he'd remarked that life consists of little besides loose ends and that often they were the only thing that gave survivors a reason for going on. The way things had turned out, he'd said it to someone who hadn't survived.
A great distance overhead, he spotted a tiny black dot against the yellow canopy, one of Scutigera's "flying bagels," coming from the direction of the human camp toward the Elders' settlement. Wondering idly who it was, he slid, sword in hand, from Scutigera's back, landing lightly on his feet (given his training and condition, he'd have landed lightly anyway) in the low gravity.
Neither noticing nor caring whether his friends followed—a heroic feat of shutting out the world considering that one of them was a talking dog and the other nine meters from antenna-tip to toe-claw—he pushed a curtain of leafy branches out of the way, each motion of his body stirring memories burned into his brain by later events, to cross a little creek he recognized, and began working his way upstream along its low bank. The air felt cool and moist, laden with the oddly mixed perfumes of fresh growth and decaying forest debris. For a few heartbeats, an iridescent blue-green dragonfly hovered over his shoulder like a singing jewel before darting off on some predatory errand. In the end, he came to a miniature waterfall that broke the stream's course at the sprawling foot of an enormous canopy tree.
Not more than forty-eight hours ago (although he realized all over again that it seemed much longer), he'd stood on this exact spot with a peculiar object in the palm of his hand, knowing it would resemble an undersized golf ball to the person he was showing it to, complete to color and texture.
"My office and personal quarters," he'd told her, "at least it will be in a few days. It's a seed with engineered genes. Be careful not to drop it or it'll try to take root. When it matures," he remembered saying with a glibness that made him feel a bit ashamed now, "it'll cantilever out over the stream and I can fall asleep listening to the waterfall."
Drawing sustenance from the tree (equally engineered to tolerate the process), the new growth jutted out now like a shelf mushroom, still many days away from its intended size and shape. All nautiloid construction on the asteroid had been accomplished this way, by living things designed at a molecular level to grow to a certain shape and size and die, leaving skeletons of titanium or plastic as coral leaves a skeleton of calcium—preconceived, rather than prefabricated. On the way here with Sam and Scutigera, he'd persuaded himself that he wanted to check the progress of the seed he'd planted. He was weary of his impersonal temporary quarters in the Elders' complex, wearier still of the forced companionship they necessitated, at meals for example. A need for solitude throbbed within him like a toothache. But at this particular moment he couldn't imagine dwelling on this spot. He had more compelling reasons for being here.
He and his guest had found a mossy place to sit at the base of the tree. Listening to the waterfall—in the clearer, deeper water a meter away, a handful of silver minnows darted and gleamed—he'd explained that the site he'd chosen was exactly halfway between the human and the nautiloid camps. This seemed appropriate, since it more or less described his own position. Had circumstances been different he'd have gone on to say that, as a human brought up with the outlook and values of the Elders, he'd felt a bit lost since coming to 5023 Eris and at the same time caught in the middle.
Had circumstances been different, he'd have asked her . . .
Instead, he'd accused her of a series of terrible crimes, tricked her into confessing, and dealt with her in the customary manner of a moral debt assessor, assisting her to pay the token price (it could be no more than that) for three lives she'd taken with far less concern than he was showing her. And now the thought of living and working here—but that was pointless. Suppose somebody lived as long as Mister Thoggosh—or his own mother—indulging in the kind of fetishism which made him avoid every place where something painful had occurred: eventually there wouldn't be anyplace he could go, anything he could do, that wouldn't carry with it some unbearable association.
"So the criminal does return to the scene of the crime!"
He turned, startled not so much by the presence of another person as by the fact that he hadn't noticed her until now. The first thing that impressed him about Doctor Rosalind Nguyen, here in the deep, kilometer-tall forest, was how tiny she looked. She wasn't the least bit frail; at the moment she seemed the most solid thing here. Her eyes were huge and dark, her skin the color of antique gold. Only as an afterthought did he open his mouth to protest the injustice of her words. Stepping toward him around the canopy tree, hands in her trouser pockets, she cut him off simply by raising her eyebrows.
