18

In the short time people had spent on Comagrave, much progress had been made in deciphering the elegant, elaborately ideographic Sauun script, though much remained to be done before complex thoughts could be translated in detail. The discovery of the gigantic mausoleum offered up thousands of new inscriptions for study. Meanwhile, researchers utilizing the camp’s two smallest aircars undertook to carry out a preliminary census of the silent sleepers. Preparing a simple mathematical model based on dimensions and density observed within one sizable portion of the crypt, they came up with an initial figure of between two and five billions. If not the entire planetary population at the time of final suspension, it was certainly a substantial portion of the total. And over every new discovery, over each new revelation, hung one single foreboding, dominating question.

Why?

Though he had been nominated to lead the expedition and oversee the excavation because of his organizational and leadership skills, Cullen Karasi was also a formidable analyst. Poring over raw data, dissecting and repositioning with the aid of several exoarcheoanalytical programs he had helped develop himself, he felt the key to the mystery of the mass Sauun deepsleep was not nearly as problematic as initially believed. Given sufficient time in which to work, he was confident he would have solved it already. But the need to supervise everyone else’s labor slowed his own efforts significantly. He felt like a sprinter forced to muddle along in the middle of the pack during an especially dull marathon.

Even so, he was close to the answer. He knew it.

So when Riimadu volunteered the unpaid assistance of a professional, well-trained crew of excavators, Cullen jumped at the offer. Though some of his own people expressed hesitation at allowing the AAnn an intimate look at the work in progress, Riimadu assured them that the crew would operate entirely under human supervision and would strictly follow camp regulations. Furthermore, they would do no work on their own or without first obtaining human authorization. Besides which, there were only four of them. Eager to make as much progress as possible as quickly as possible, the humans’ initial uncertainty quickly vanished when they had the chance to observe the AAnn team in operation.

As for Pilwondepat’s vociferous objections to the presence of still more AAnn at the site, these were dismissed as without foundation. “I’d be just as happy to have four, or forty, trained thranx assisting here, if they were made available and were willing to work under the same guidelines,” Cullen told him. Needless to say, the thranx exoarcheologist was less than delighted with this response, but there was nothing more he could do.

With the aid of the skilled AAnn, exploration proceeded apace. Results were passed along on a regular schedule to planetary administrative headquarters. There they were compiled for forwarding to the specific Terran institutions that were supporting the dig. Everything was going so smoothly that when Cullen’s people began to fall sick around him, coughing and breaking out in red blotches on their faces and upper bodies, he was particularly anguished. The more everyone else’s work suffered, the more it slowed his own.

Bhasiram, the camp physician, diagnosed the rapidly spreading contagion as an upper respiratory disease caused by exceedingly fine spores arising from the excavation. Dust masks were of no use. Nothing in her arsenal of antibiotics had any effect on the condition, which one camp wag christened “Sauunusitus.” While not fatal, it was exceedingly debilitating and beyond the frustrated Bhasiram’s ability to cure. Hospitalization was required to restore the strength of the afflicted. Pilwondepat and the AAnn were not affected.

It was clear that work at the dig could not go on until a cure, or at least a suitable prophylactic, was found for the spores. Working in sealed masks and breathing canned air was a possibility, but the necessary equipment was not available on Comagrave and would have to be imported. Neither solution was satisfactory. It was therefore proposed that the AAnn, who were by now familiar with the site, would remain to maintain it without in any way advancing the work until their human supervisors could safely return. Though they expressed sorrow at the need for the humans to temporarily leave the dig, the AAnn agreed to care for it in their transitory absence. Riimadu CRRYNN would stay behind to oversee. In the absence of any immediate availability of human vehicles, the AAnn also thoughtfully offered to bring in several of their largest cargo carriers to ferry the afflicted and their as-yet-uninfected companions on the long journey back to Comabraeth.

As soon as he got wind of the proposal, Pilwondepat stormed into Cullen’s quarters. It required a considerable effort on the thranx’s part not to stridulate wildly as he entered. Even so, with antennae waving and mandibles clacking, he still presented a highly agitated figure. An insectophobe would have been intimidated. The head of the excavation team was not.

“Something I can do for you, Pilwondepat?” Cullen inquired pleasantly. Though he had not yet succumbed to the insidious spores, the noticeable splotch of scarlet that marred his left cheek was not a blush.

“Do for me? Do for me!Crllhht! ” The need to speak in Terranglo forced the insectoid exoarcheologist to keep his thoughts as well as his words under control. “I can’t believe you are going to turn this unprecedented scientific discovery over to the AAnn!”

“We are not turning over anything to the AAnn.” Having previously experienced the thranx’s ire, Cullen was not disturbed by Pilwondepat’s latest outburst. The supervisor knew it was merely the latest in a long series of attempts to freeze Riimadu out of the ongoing research. “Since arriving to assist us, they have conducted themselves in an exemplary manner. They’ve done exactly as they were told, and no more. Would that I had another dozen humans on staff who took instructions as well.”

“That is precisely my point.” Antennae whipped forward. “Don’t you remember any of our discussions? Have you forgotten all that I’ve told you about AAnn methodology and technique? They rely foremost on cunning, and deception.” Both antennae straightened. “It’s patent they have certainly deceived you.”

Cullen’s civility gave way to annoyance. “Until and unless they act in a nonprofessional manner, neither I nor any of my people have any quarrel with them.” He continued packing away his personal effects. These would remain behind until he returned from Comabraeth, properly equipped to work among the drifting spores. “Other than academically, I’m not interested in the personal animosities that endure between your people and Riimadu’s. You’re both of you here thanks to the magnanimity of the local government.” Setting aside a container of clothing, he added pointedly, “That permission can be withdrawn at any time.”

Pilwondepat brushed off the quiet threat. “Would you say that infecting you and every member of your team with imported bacteria designed to drive you away from the site constituted acting in a nonprofessional manner?”

Cullen gaped. “You’re joking, aren’t you?”

“Do I sound like I am jesting? Do I look like I am jesting?”

“I wouldn’t know, not being versed in the more subtle overtones of thranx enunciation and gesture. You can’t be serious, Pilwondepat.”

The thranx exoarcheologist raised all four of his vestigial wing cases. Another thranx would have recognized the action as expressive of the absolute utmost seriousness. To Cullen, it was unfortunately only interesting from a morphological point of view.

“Do you really think I would joke about such a thing? What has happened here, to this expedition, fits with all that I have been telling you for many time-parts. The AAnn want your kind off this world. To accomplish that they are willing to do anything and everything to obstruct, inhibit, and damage your efforts here. Even, should it prove necessary, to kill. These incidents are disguised, with typical AAnn cunning and thoroughness, as accidents. When they occur, the AAnn are always right there ready to assist in any way they can.” He paused, clicking all four mandibles for effect.

“Consider, Cullen: You make a great discovery here. Word of what you have found begins to leak out. Following the breakthrough and initial follow-up, your crew begins to come down with a previously undetected ailment. Only nonhumans are resistant. How convenient for the AAnn.”

“We’re not abandoning the site,” the human reminded his visitor. “Our departure is only temporary, until suitable protection can be secured against the vector of infection.” He continued with his packing, wishing the thranx would leave but unwilling to order him out. Let him rant, the exoarcheologist mused. Soon enough he’ll run down and depart of his own accord.

“ ‘Temporary,’z!!lnn ! While you are absent from this place, the AAnn will go through it with an intensity they have so far barely managed to hold in check. Anything of significance that they find, they will keep to themselves. Most likely they have prepared other surprises, to keep you away from specific areas below or even from the surface itself, until they have accomplished all that they wish. Leave now, and your absence from the site will be as ‘temporary’ as the AAnn desire.”

Unable to stand it any longer, Cullen put his packing aside and turned to confront the agitated thranx. “Look, you’ve been bugging me”—the choice of verb was inadvertent on the exoarcheologist’s part—“with your AAnn conspiracy theories for weeks now. I said I would convey your concerns and your ‘findings’ to the proper authorities for further study, and that I’ll do. But as for myself, I’m sick and tired of it, understand? From now on, you keep your suspicions and your racial enmity to yourself.” He grunted testily. “As if I didn’t have enough to worry about.”

“They’ll drive you off the planet.” Pilwondepat gestured desperately with all four hands. “This is only one more in a long succession of incidents cleverly designed by them with that end in mind. You must resist! And you must not give them free and unsupervised access to this site. It is simply too significant.”

“And you are simply too paranoid.” Fed up, Cullen turned his back on the distraught alien. Among the thranx, he knew, the gesture was even more final a form of dismissal than it was among humans.

Remarkably, Pilwondepat persisted. “Then you will not order an end to the evacuation, or at least assign a few of your healthiest people to remain until the rest can return?”

“Absolutely not.” Resuming his packing, Cullen did not look back at the thranx. “I won’t trifle with the health of my staff, and I have confidence in Riimadu. You forget that I’ve worked with him even longer than I have worked with you.”

“Very well. I understand your position. I will trouble you about this matter no more.”

When he finally looked around, Cullen saw that the thranx had left. It was sad, he reflected, that two such admirable species as the thranx and the AAnn could not settle such long-standing differences. That could not be allowed to affect either human-thranx or human-AAnn relations, he knew. “ ‘Drive humans off the planet.’ “ The exoarcheologist might not be politically sophisticated, but he could recognize blatant propaganda when he heard it. He also knew what the insectoid’s most recent visit was really all about.

Pilwondepat was afraid to remain behind in the company of five AAnn. That fear, at least, was one that Cullen could accept. The thranx was welcome to join the humans in their evacuation to Comabraeth. It would give the insectoid exoarcheologist time to collate his own research.

 

All the rest of that day and into the night, Pilwondepat agonized over how to proceed. The AAnn and their transports would arrive tomorrow morning. What, after all, could he do to affect things in the limited time that remained? He was but one of the family Won set down among many humans and AAnn. If the leader of the humans would not listen to him, it did not matter if anyone else did. He could envision Riimadu, grinning contentedly, his sharp carnivore’s teeth glinting in the bright light of his quarters as he finalized strategy with his quartet of “well-trained” colleagues. Who among them had brought along and introduced the carefully cultivated spores into the excavation, there to fester and multiply and spread until the unsuspecting mammals were infected? What vital, important secrets had Riimadu inventoried that were to be accrued to the AAnn alone as soon as the overseeing humans had been evacuated? Isolated in his quarters, Pilwondepat sensed threat and smelled danger.

Very well—he was alone. Like a solitary male of ancient days, soaring high on his single glorious but brief mating flight, he would have to act. If he did not, others would, and his flight would be wasted. In response to a muted mandibular click, a chronometer appeared briefly before him in the hot, humid air of the room. He considered his options.

There was still time.

Along with everyone else in the camp except the seriously ailing, he was up early the following morning. Despite a lack of sleep due to undertaking the task he had set himself, he was alert and observant. He would sleep later, he knew. Sleep soundly.

Activity was picking up throughout the site as the evacuation gathered steam. Those too ill to walk were being assembled beneath a temporary field canopy that had been erected to protect them from the wind and the sun. Nonmedical personnel not assisting with the infirm were stacking individual baggage next to the landing area’s service shed. These were minimal, since everyone fully expected to return to work as soon as an appropriate treatment for the mysterious ailment was devised. No one would bother personal effects left in the camp. Not out in the middle of a place that ranked as nowhere even for a world as sparsely populated as Comagrave.

Pilwondepat took in all the activity, occasionally pausing to converse briefly with members of the staff he knew. He tried not to envision the dig where he and everyone else had worked so hard to make the great discovery overrun with gimlet-eyed AAnn.

He found Cullen Karasi in his quarters, packing a small travel bag with the trivialities that humans seemed to deem necessary for even short-term travel. Idly, he wasted a couple of moments attempting to identify the unfamiliar. The function of many of the devices was known to him by now. His time spent among the mammals had expanded his education.

“I came to ask you one last time to change your mind,cirraat .”

The supervisor glanced back and down at the hovering thranx. “Listen, I’m sorry about the tone I used with you yesterday, Pilwondepat. I was tired, and frustrated, and yes, angry. But not at you. At having to leave this place just when I feel I’m on the verge of answering the biggest question of them all.”

“Why the Sauun sealed themselves away the way they did.”

Cullen nodded. “I’ll lay out my hypothesis for you when we’re back in Comabraeth. I think you’ll find it interesting.” His thoughts wandered to distant visions of academic glory and professional acclaim. “I promise that everyone will find it interesting. But there’s no time now. According to Riimadu, the AAnn transports will be here any minute.”

“ ‘According to Riimadu.’ I’m not going back to Comabraeth, Cullen.”

Curious, the senior exoarcheologist frowned at his visitor. “You’re not? I know that, to all intents and purposes and everything the medical people have been able to determine, your kind is immune to this infection. And I can understand your not wanting to leave your work if you don’t have to. But I don’t see you being very comfortable staying here among Riimadu and the rest of the AAnn conservation staff.”

“You’re correct. I would not be comfortable. But neither am I going to the settlement.” Without hurry, he reached back into the pouch slung against his abdomen. “Nor are you.”

Cullen Karasi was not a man easily startled. He had spent too much time on other worlds, working and surviving in alien environments, to be surprised by much of anything. The gun that had appeared in the thranx exoarcheologist’s right truhand surprised him. No, he corrected himself. It astonished him.

He was too dumbfounded to be frightened. “So that is what happens when a thranx loses its mind. Very interesting. My first observation is that your people go about slipping into the pool of insanity more peacefully than do mine.”

“I am not psychotic. I was awake all last night, and though tired, I assure you I am in complete command of my mental and physical faculties. Would,sevvakk, that it were otherwise.”

Placing his hands on his hips and tilting his head slightly to one side, the unruffled scientist regarded his weapon-wielding caller. “What do you intend to do with that firearm? It is a firearm, I presume, and not an ingredient in some eccentric thranx ritual of which I am unaware?”

A steady thrumming noise was now audible off to the east. It grew steadily louder, heralding its approach with a deep, mechanical hum. Gazing past his deranged visitant, Cullen tried to see out the partially open doorway to the distant landing site.

“That’s our transportation arriving. Go or stay, I don’t care, but make up your mind. And put down that silly gun. I know everyone carries something when they travel outside camp boundaries to protect themselves in the unlikely but possible event of attack by one of the local inimical life-forms, but it hardly becomes your academic standing.”

“I’m staying.” Mandibles closed, and a soft whistle emerged from between flinty insectoid jaws. “So are you. Everyone is staying.”

Cullen inhaled deeply. “You realize that after this, there’s no way I can in good conscience recommend extending your permit to work here?”

“Of course I understand. If our situations were reversed, I should act in exactly the same fashion.” The thrum of heavy transports now permeated the walls and floor of the prefabricated structure. “The point is, as you humans are fond of saying, moot.” He repeated the word, savoring it. “Moot.” With a smallc!k on the end, it could almost be a word in Low Thranx. “It is moot because of the pending AAnn attack on your camp here.”

Cullen’s pitying aloofness quickly gave ground to sudden anxiety. “What kind of nonsense are you talking? What AAnn attack? The AAnn are here to help us travel to Comabraeth. Why on Earth or any other world of your choosing would they want to attack an inoffensive, nonstrategic scientific site?”

Pilwondepat waved the gun with disarming indifference as to his surroundings. “Why indeed? I am certain that very question is going to puzzle many who will try to rationalize what is going to happen here. It would be interesting to be able to examine some of the explanations. Unfortunately, that will in all likelihood not be possible.”

The senior exoarcheologist’s gaze narrowed sharply. “What do you mean, ‘whatis going to happen here’? What do you know?” Dawning realization began to transform his expression. Color drained from his face. “Good God, Pilwondepat—what have you done?

The thranx gestured a first-degree expression of regret. It was heartfelt, and very lissomely executed. “I believe too strongly in the importance of this discovery to allow it to be turned over to the AAnn. I am convinced, without having to hear your nascent theory, that something on this world holds the key to matters of very great consequence. Too consequential to leave to the discretion of the scaled ones. Casting about for a means with which to ensure the continuation of the human presence on Comagrave and the possible expulsion of the AAnn, I find myself caught in a noteworthy irony: To secure both, I must make use of the techniques of the latter.”

The explosion that punctuated the thranx scientist’s somewhat cryptic explanation caused the shelter to shudder on its foundation. Cullen had to catch himself on a nearby cabinet to keep from stumbling as the earth heaved beneath him. Standing firm and foursquare on his quartet of trulegs, Pilwondepat experienced no such unsteadiness.

“That was satisfyingly loud,” he murmured softly. “More substantial than I had hoped.”

“What? What are you jabbering about?”

“The first AAnn cargo carrier attempting to set down at the camp’s landing site has been fired upon by the site’s occupants. A shocking and unprovoked attack. The AAnn will react instinctively. Among the AAnn, this takes the form not of query or discussion, but of returning fire immediately. Having been attacked in turn, your people will struggle as best they can to defend themselves. They will fail, of course.” He spoke so casually, so diffidently, that he might have been relating a minor point of relic dating taken from a recent learned journal.

“The AAnn are used to and expect conflict. Your staff here is drawn from scholars and students, not soldiers. They will all be killed. The only chance the AAnn will have to explain away the frightful misadventure depends on there being no human survivors to contradict whatever feeble story they will strive to contrive.” He gestured again with the gun, making Cullen flinch. “It doesn’t matter. Whatever fiction they fabricate will not be believed by your people.”

“How . . . ?” Cullen was struggling desperately to understand what was happening around him. The first explosion had been followed by a second of lesser magnitude, then a third. Shouts and screams in abundance could be heard echoing throughout the camp. “How can you be so sure of that? If we all die . . .”

“I programmed my own communications unit to transmit an alert via the camp’s automatic relay. It contains a full explanation of the treacherous assault by the AAnn, which they have carried out under cover of evacuating innocent personnel to Comabraeth.”

“What if they intercept it?” By now Cullen was too dazed to question anything but the abject reality he was experiencing.

“They can’t intercept. The alert was programmed to send as soon as the AAnn transports were detected approaching. It has already gone out.”

“Those explosions—can they really be firing on us?” Once more, the exoarcheologist tried to see out the door. Cries of confusion and despair filled the air outside with a general disharmony of desperation.

Pilwondepat’s sensitive antennae had twisted about to focus directly behind him. “Not at first. They are now. I told you I did not sleep last night. The last two detonations you heard were simple excavation charges, creatively positioned and designed to go off subsequent to the first. That one required a good deal more effort to get right. Shaped disinterring charges are not intended to be retrofitted with proximity programming. It took several time-parts to modify the instrumentation to where I was reasonably certain it would operate properly.

“The first vehicle attempting to set down at the landing site activated the sensor attached to the charge. Though not as suitable as military munitions, I suspect that the ensuing blast destroyed or damaged the alighting AAnn cargo carrier and killed or seriously injured many if not all of its occupants.Triillc, I certainly hope so.”

Wide-eyed now, but no longer with disbelief, Cullen started to push past his former colleague. “Youare insane. You’d have everyone murdered, people you’ve come to know, people who have learned to trust and even like you, just because you want the AAnn off this world!”

“And humans to remain on it. Yes, that’s the intention. There are matters of significance at stake here, Cullen.”

“Well, it won’t work.” The furious supervisor was almost to the doorway. “There’s still time to put a stop to this madness. I’m going to find Riimadu. Together, we’ll get on the camp communicator and issue a statement on all frequencies explaining what has happened. With Riimadu translating, I’m sure we can make the rest of the AAnn understand.”

“No, you won’t.” The muzzle of the gun in Pilwondepat’s truhand shifted slightly to the right.

Cullen glared pityingly back at the ludicrous insectoid. “What are you going to do, Pilwondepat? Shoot me in the back?” He turned to exit the shelter.

“I could not do that. It goes against everything my hive stands for,” the sorrowful scientist confessed. “But an AAnn would.”

The very tiny shell made a very loud noise and a very large hole in the middle of the stunned supervisor’s dorsal side, blowing a majority of his internal organs out through his flaring ribs. Pilwondepat did not have the opportunity to appraise the exoarcheologist’s final expression because the biped toppled forward onto his front, facedown on the packed earth. No doubt his countenance was as fully convulsed as the wonderfully expressive human face could manage.

“Primitive things, explosives.” Pilwondepat ambled past the wide splotch of spreading redness as he exited the shelter. “They have the useful virtue of being entirely non–species specific. As long as no identifying residue is left behind, it is credible that any idiot intelligence can assume responsibility for them going boom.” In Low Thranx, this concluding sentiment emerged as a long, drawn-out whistle marked by a single intermediary sharp click.

“The AAnn are not the only sentients capable of cunning, Cullen. I did like you. Very much. You forgot that for my kind, the safety and security of the hive comes first. Even if it is not our hive, but one that is of potential importance to us. Say for example,sr!iik, the human hive.” Dolefully, he ululated a final, forlorn whistle of farewell. “You might be willing to relinquish Comagrave to the care of the AAnn. We will not, I will not, the Great Hive will not let you. Not even at the cost of all our lives.” Clutching the tiny but lethal firearm in both truhands, he inclined forward to place his foothands on the ground. Supported now by all six lower limbs, he exited the edifice and surveyed the rising panic outside. He did not look back at the body lying on the ground behind him. Unfortunately, the proper expiration formalities could not be observed on behalf of his late colleague. There was simply no time for lengthy lamentations. He regretted that, but knew he had no choice.

Not when there was an efficacious chaos in need of stoking.

For once, he was hardly noticed. Flames and smoke rose from the direction of the landing site. In crashing, the AAnn cargo carrier had evidently sparked fires among the assembled baggage and modest temporary buildings. Intended to advance the cause of science, the explosives he had spent the night modifying and setting into position had apparently performed better than expected in the service of conspiracy.

Nearby, the crashed and burning transport’s two sister craft hovered ten meters off the ground. A few desultory bursts of gunfire issued from one, while the other was quiet. That would not do. Firing his weapon, he raced through the encampment yelling at the top of his voice. It was weak compared to the deeper intonations of humans. Clicks and whistles and stridulating would have reached much farther, but were incomprehensible to the bewildered mammals stumbling all around him.

“Defend yourselves! Shoot back—don’t let them kill you all!” All the long hours practicing the difficult vowel sounds, the endless evenings spent listening to human conversation, now paid off in what ironically was likely to prove to be an elaborate and unrecognized epitaph. He could even manage the correct inflections, as was shown by the alacrity with which the humans he encountered responded to his shouts of alarm.

A number of those emerging from the camp’s shelters were doing as he hoped without having to be prompted. As more and more small arms were brought into play, their combined firepower began to inflict real damage on the nearer of the two AAnn transports. Fired upon for what must have seemed to them to be no reason, the AAnn finally responded in traditional fashion. One after another, every camp structure was obliterated, though without the usual reptilian efficiency. They were still confused.

Then someone aboard one of the surviving transports, probably a senior military advisor, realized that the abrupt and unanticipated confrontation had passed a political point of no return. Humans had been slain, in numbers too large to explain away as the result of an accident. Having plunged too deeply into slaughter, the visitors now had no choice, as Pilwondepat had surmised, but to eliminate any possibility of contradiction in the hopes that a suitable postmortem explanation could be concocted by their military psych specialists.

The much-vaunted AAnn martial methodology was applied to the scientific camp. Moving off in different directions both to make a more difficult target for the humans below and to enhance their operative efficiency, the two transports positioned themselves to flank the camp and trap the remaining humans between their combined fire. Pilwondepat agonized as he watched one dazed but defiant human after another go down beneath the heavier firepower of the two cargo carriers. It was doubly hard for him to look on knowing that those who were sacrificing themselves for a greater cause had no inkling that they were doing so.

He continued to take cover where possible and fire his own weapon. The handgun could not bring down a vehicle as substantial as a cargo carrier, but with luck he might penetrate its lateral edge and kill an AAnn or two. Sprinting on all six legs from a large rounded boulder toward the still-standing communal eating building, he found himself suddenly face-to-face with one figure that was neither trying to flee nor fighting back. He slowed.

Slitted eyes flicked sideways in his direction, and the silky voice that had been hissing harshly into a handheld communicator turned on him. “You.Fssst! You have ssomething to do with thiss, thiss outrageouss happening. Thiss iss no accident, inssect!”

“We are all of us accidents in the sight of the cosmos, scaled one,” Pilwondepat declared humbly as he raised his gun and shot the surprised AAnn exoarcheologist square between his glaring, accusing eyes. Peaceable soul that he was, the action gave Pilwondepat more satisfaction than anything else he had done that day. He did not wait for the body to hit the ground, but instead rushed toward the still-standing structure to further incite those inside.

 

Battles that begin in confusion often end the same way. So it was with the massacre at the camp. Without knowing exactly what had happened, the AAnn found themselves presiding over a scene of complete devastation. One of their own craft had been destroyed, and many of its crew killed or seriously injured. A second transport was severely damaged but still capable of flight, albeit at a greatly reduced speed. The deceitful humans had perished to the last, males and females alike. So had the Empire’s sole representative in the camp, who had he survived might have been able to shed some light on what was becoming an increasingly disturbing and impenetrable conundrum. There was also one dead bug, to whom the AAnn paid no attention.

Precisely why this had all taken place, in the space of less than an hour, no one on the surviving AAnn craft could say. Hasty tight-beam communications were exchanged with the AAnn consulate in Comabraeth. A frantic exchange of appalled questions and choleric recriminations followed. Presented with a horrific fait accompli, the ranking AAnn determined to contrive an elaborate explanation for the tragedy that had devastated the human scientific outpost. This involved the rapidly spreading disease to which many of the humans had previously succumbed, consequent nervous disorders, a few cases of isolated madness and paranoia, followed by something akin to mass hysteria.

Intruding with the best of intentions onto this psychochaos, the neighborly AAnn had found many humans already dead at the hands of their fellows. Coming under relentless and inexplicable attack, they had been forced to defend themselves with no more than a minimal amount of firepower. Meanwhile, the crazed humans had continued to go on about killing one another, much to the anguish of the observing AAnn, who were powerless to stop the disease-induced madness.

An improbable story, it was the best the AAnn tacticians could devise while operating under the press of time. It was not, however, inconceivable. Lending support to the elaborate fabrication was the self-evident fact that there was no reason, no reason whatsoever, for the AAnn to attack and annihilate a peaceful, harmless scientific campsite. In the absence of motive, it was hard to see how the humans could accuse the AAnn of anything more than a serious but not malevolent lapse in judgment.

Therefore, Vaarbayel CCVT, senior consul for the Empire on Comagrave, was feeling hopeful if not completely confident as she was admitted to the office of Malor Narzaltan. The old human was disgustingly wrinkled and shamelessly exhibited an unrepentant mane of white keratin that spilled down the back of his head and neck. His eyes were small, sharp, blue, and seemed to take in tiny bits of airborne debris the way a magnet attracts iron filings. Vaarbayel tried to look at him without staring. Her tail switched lazily back and forth behind her, a sign of patience.

“You requessted that I appear before you. I assume thiss iss not an informal vissit.”

“It never is with your kind, is it?” Narzaltan was standing, not sitting, behind his desk. It was a simple artifact, as were the remainder of the complementary furnishings that filled the office. As an outpost world, Comagrave made do with the hand-me-downs and leftovers of government.

She chose to ignore the query, which insofar as she could judge carried with it some small suspicion of sarcasm. “Then everything will be recorded by mysself as well, sso that there can be in the future no missundersstandings as to what wass ssaid or disscussed.”

“No,” the human administrator agreed quietly, “we certainly wouldn’t want there to be any misunderstandings. Not like the one that led to yesterday’s tragedy near the Mountain of the Mourners.” Aged though they were, those tiny blue eyes seemed lit from within. “I was hoping you could shed some light on the matter.”

“Having recently been given the opportunity to fully perusse the official report on the distressing and tragic incident, I assure you I can do precissely that.” She proceeded to give the AAnn version of the “grim misadventure,” concluding that the eventual devastation was the result of terrible conditions on the ground and consequent grave miscommunication between the humans at the site and the AAnn who had been sent to ferry them back to the capital. This was followed by a formal apology—even though, given the circumstances, one was technically not required—and a conjoined offer to pay reparations. Within reason, of course.

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.”