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ELEVEN Fangs and Claws

"You, sir, a suspect?"

"Or you. How would either of us stack up to anyone who doesn't know our minds from the inside? What would I say is my primary loyalty? The Aerospace Force? My family? How would they deal with it when I answered that each takes precedence over the other depending on the circumstances? It's illogical, but it's true."

They were startled by a droning overhead. Three meters above them, on two pairs of half-meter transparent wings, hovered a dragonfly straight out of Reille y Sanchez's childhood dinosaur books.

What would I say, he thought, is my view of the little war I'm about to fight? As a career soldier, I'd say I'm used to obeying orders. By the same indications Pulaski manifests, those around me know that I also think that deliberately making enemies of the Elders is about the dumbest order I've ever been given. As long as I do my duty, am I responsible for their inferences? Of course I am, this is the ASSR, isn't it?

Lost in reflection, they walked in silence for a few heartbeats, Gutierrez scrambling for what must surely be firmer ground than his own muddy thoughts. "I guess you look forward to a fight, Major, the same way a dog looks forward to dog food. Then again, I'd probably be safe guessing that with any Marine, from the lowliest boot to the commanding general herself."

Estrellita grinned, yet seemed to remain dedicated to the socialist ideal (one she fell short of only a little less often than he did) of taking orders and keeping her mouth shut.

"Okay, if you don't like that direction, we'll pick someone else. Say, that life-support technician at the fire last night. You do realize that somewhere along the line, we're going to have to compile a sort of criminal dossier on every one of the members of this expedition?"

"Yes, sir." She was obviously relieved at the change of subject. "We need to supplement the, er, uninformative records we have."

He nodded. "There are lots of them I don't know nearly as well as some we've already considered. Right now, to my professional embarrassment, I can't seem to remember anything significant about Lieutenant Marna. I know I must have examined her records."

"Otherwise," Reille y Sanchez agreed, "she wouldn't have been approved for the mission. Lieutenant Marna, sir, Life Support. You can't remember everything. Going by the evidence of last night, she doesn't want to fight, although that could always be a pose. Isn't it peculiar, sir, that an unwillingness to fight for the ASSR constitutes reasonable doubt where murder's concerned? All traitors are innocent. But unless we find reason to place her higher on the list, her real thoughts are likely to remain unknown."

What Reille y Sanchez hadn't said, he reflected grimly, was that this was true of everyone here. Anyone who'd lived all of his life under Marxism. They'd become a civilization of accomplished liars. "That reminds me, Estrellita, your job, as you say: what do you think are the chances the KGB sent us another operative, somebody less conspicuous than Vivian?"

"Triple redundancy, sir?"

"Quadruple," he told her wearily. "You've made me realize the Russians must have someone here, as well."

"Maybe we should rethink this whole thing, sir. After all, there's an excellent likelihood the killer's someone other than a member of our expedition."

"Yes, God help us, I think that's altogether the best likelihood. It also represents a prolonged nightmare to any human investigator. Set aside the political and military complications which are enough, by themselves, to do us all in. The Elders, if Mister Thoggosh is to be believed—"

"I think he should, sir, insofar as it's practical."

"So do I—their culture's very ancient and complex. It's lasted half a billion years, a hundred thousand times longer than the Pyramids. At the gut level, I can't get a handle on a number like that, let alone half a billion. And we haven't even scratched the surface. Between us, we can't agree about their companion-species, whether the lobsters, or Aelbraugh Pritsch, are partners, conscripts, retainers, draft animals, slaves, pets . . ."

"I see what you mean, sir. And there are only three entities we know anything about: Aelbraugh Pritsch, Mister Thoggosh, now this Semlohcolresh."

He nodded. "You've got the picture. And all we know about them is what they've volunteered. If Mister Thoggosh can be believed—"

"Excuse me, sir, I hate to contradict myself, but if there's a chance Mister Thoggosh is the murderer, why should we believe him?"

"A point well taken. His interests lie unabashedly with himself, his investors and employees, and with this mysterious search of his. In general I'd say that wherever what he tells us doesn't buy him anything, we'll grant him credibility. We have to start somewhere."

"Which logically implies," Reille y Sanchez mused, "that he informed you truthfully, that he opposes the whole idea of any destructive—"

"Say, rather, `unprofitable.' "

"Very well, any unprofitable conflict."

"Between you and me," he told her, "I always wondered, and mostly kept it to myself, why capitalists get characterized as warmongers." She turned, her expression curious, fearful. "Back home," he answered her unspoken thoughts, "I'd be treading on thin ice, if this were any ordinary situation. It isn't, and we're not back home. We have to understand the Elders if we're to survive here, let alone find out who killed Pete. Between making money and war, the choice is clear and mutually exclusive. It's more profitable to sell things to people than to kill them, and those occupied with the former are usually too busy to bother with the latter."

"My God, sir, where did you ever hear a thing like that? You've got to be more careful—what if I were Arthur?"

"Oh, I remember reading it somewhere," he grinned, "and instantly agreeing with it. Probably in one of the old comic books I collected as a kid, illegal as hell, but like cockroaches, they were everywhere."

"But think, sir! Capitalism and war go together like—"

"Bicycles and windshield wipers? Oh, doubtless some people make money at the start of every war, selling things to governments on both sides. But there couldn't be any war without governments. And whatever short-term profit you make comes at a risk of seeing your business controlled or seized by one of those governments, and with an even chance of winding up on the wrong side and losing everything."

Now the warm breeze carried a homelier odor than magnolia blossoms in their direction, one he recognized as sage and sunshine, mountain wildflowers and cattle. They emerged from the trees into a yellow meadow, broken at intervals by the huge trunks of the canopy, walking around it to avoid several large, somehow prehistoric-looking mammals grazing there.

"Major, believe me, I'm not engaging in heresy for its own sake, here. It's just that Semlohcolresh contradicted Mister Thoggosh, implying that certain unspecified tenets of enlightened nautiloid self-interest make killing humans morally imperative."

She shook her head, frightened, yet fascinated by his reasoning. "If Semlohcolresh is the murderer—"

"About the best guess anybody's made so far."

"I agree, sir. Then why should we believe anything he tells us?"

"There it is in a nutshell. Both Elders say they value profit and self-interest above all. One claims that this precludes war, while the other claims it demands it. Yet Semlohcolresh has no sensible motive for murder unless he's the one telling the truth! It occurs to me the easiest approach might be to learn more about this nautiloid philosophy. I've never been sure whether a people's character shapes their beliefs, or their beliefs shape their character—"

"Or both."

"Or neither. At the moment, I can think of arguments for either case—that's the trouble with intellectualism—and until now, I haven't really cared. With the limited goal of exposing a murderer, it might not matter: either might provide us the clue we need to unravel this mess. On the other hand—or would it be the other tentacle?—if the Elders are really after something religious here, all bets are off."

"I'm not sure I follow you, sir."

"Estrellita, religious motivation, even that of my own wife, has always been a mystery to me, more unfathomable and profound than anything we've encountered here. The one thing I like about Marxism was its original attitude toward religion."

" `Was,' sir?"

"Just another politician's pose. I've done more serious reading than illicit comics, and Pete was right. Marxism had run its course at the end of the last century. Organized religion, too. Both twitched with death-throes which the West mistook for vitality. An alliance was the only way to prolong their precarious existence, and both pursued it with the ardor of young lovers whose families had been feuding for generations."

Reentering the jungle at the opposite edge of the meadow brought them into territory which Gutierrez thought he was beginning to recognize. They must be nearing the shuttles and the human encampment. It had been a much longer walk than he expected.

"Well, their bastard offspring," he continued, "so-called `liberation theology,' spelled doom for the West. Or, as Pete suggested, maybe for the whole world. So much for Marx and religion. I understand my own culture, but what'll I do with a totally alien set of religious motivations? My official education left a lot to be desired, Estrellita. I'm afraid my only hope lies in even more illegal literature—the murder mysteries I used to read, waiting on alert with my squadron."

"And what do they tell you, sir?"

"Well, sometimes they held that the truth could best be determined by considering the character, not of the murderer, but of the victim. Pete was a charming and urbane gentleman whom everybody liked. Despite his age he was a ladies' man and, in his last hours, our self-appointed peace negotiator. It struck me the first moment I knew that he was dead that he was the last person on this expedition who deserved to die. Still, experience tells me that this is the way with murder. And maybe with death in general."

"You're thinking of your eldest son, sir?"

"But I'm not talking about him. First and foremost, Pete was moved by an innocent and limitless curiosity. I don't think he ever wanted anything more sinister or more demanding of anyone than simply to be permitted to learn everything he could about, well, these new beings we've discovered here, for example. Aside from that, he was something of a cynic in his own cheerful way. I was never sure he had any loyalty to anything, except the old-fashioned concept of individual autonomy, and his notion, at least, of decency. That's why he opposed the idea of conflict on this asteroid so bitterly and was never afraid to say so."

Hearing an odd noise, Gutierrez turned to Reille y Sanchez, placing both his hands on her shoulders. "What is this, Estrellita, tears?"

"It's nothing, sir. I'll be all right in a minute."

He shook his head with sympathy and surprise. "Shed some for me while you're at it. I wish I could afford them, myself."

Embarrassed, the major searched through her pockets, failing to find whatever she was looking for. Gutierrez produced a fold of tissues which she accepted, dabbing at her eyes and finally giving in and blowing her nose. "I'm sorry, sir, I . . . it isn't very—"

"Macho? Look, Estrellita, I loved Pete Kamanov like a brother. I'll miss him more than I ever missed my own brothers. He was the only completely happy individual I ever knew, and a good man to have around, just to remind you that happiness like that is possible. If it's the last thing I do, I'm going to find the son of a bitch who killed him, whatever species or gender it turns out to be, and make him pay for it."

Reille y Sanchez nodded agreement. Gutierrez thought he saw the white flank of a shuttlecraft among the trees. Very near home base now, they were beginning to hear familiar, human-sounding noises—although they were still too far away to make out individual voices—and smell the smoldering ghost of last night's campfire.

"And now it occurs to me," the general told her, "that Pete's character might be the key in a different way. I always talked too much about the wrong things, and felt guilty about my lack of caution. Well, maybe we should forget caution altogether. Maybe we should adopt, at least for the duration, the same unflinching scientific attitude he always displayed toward the bitter truth, whatever it turned out to be. Even if it doesn't prove to be of any practical use, it somehow strikes me as the only fitting monument to him. What do you say?"

The major took a deep breath, straightening her shoulders. "The bitter truth, whatever it turns out to be."

He grinned, restraining himself from kissing her or giving her a manly punch on the shoulder. Either would have served.

"Okay, the only sensible motive for Pete's murder was to provoke trouble between us and the nautiloids."

She stuffed the tissues into a jacket pocket. "The problem with the general's analysis, if you'll pardon me for saying so, sir, is that it fails to narrow the field."

He laughed. "You're right. Probably plenty of fools on both sides would like to start trouble." He paused a moment in thought. "You know, I remember once seeing pictures of a sperm whale covered with battle-scars like those on Pete's throat. It looked like the surface of the Moon. On the whale, the craters had been produced by suction organs, tooth-edged, I think, on the undersides of the tentacles of some very large squid. According to Aelbraugh Pritsch, the equivalent nautiloid organs are vestigial, the way fangs and claws are with us, although, as I noticed during my visit with Mister Thoggosh, they're far from altogether absent."

"Yes, sir?"

"Pete had a good idea about something else." He pulled the revolver from his pocket and gazed at it before continuing. "In nature, animals with plenty of spines and stingers never bother you if you leave them alone. We humans are too evolved for spines and stingers, and much too civilized to carry personal weapons even if the authorities permitted it. Now the same authority wants us to drive the Elders off this asteroid—do or die—and our friend Semlohcolresh thinks he has to wipe us out before we try. I lose my boy when we nuke South Africa to save it, and someone strangles Pete before he can make peace. It's funny, Estrellita, the more atrophied and ineffectual our natural defenses get, and the weaker we become as individuals, the blood thirstier we all seem to be as a collective."

Before the major could reply, they broke through the trees and were only a few meters from the Hatch, Dole, and McCain, sitting in their wire cradles. The camp had spread beyond the triangular circle of the shuttles. Several individuals were cutting and stacking wood, an incongruous task to be performing, the general thought, in their silver-gray ship-suits. A guitar-harmonica duet was being played somewhere out of sight. Sebastiano, Ortiz, and several of their crew members sat on the ground with their legs folded like cinematic Indians. Heavyset and naked to the waist, Corporal Owen, the machinist, seemed to be washing his underwear in a large plastic tub.

Closer to where their commander and the Marine major had emerged from the vegetation, Empleado and his four assorted assistants appeared to be waiting. The general had always privately thought that Delbert Roo was the one to keep a wary eye on. Little and wiry, the half Chinese, half Australian leprechaun seemed to have an almost magical talent for hurting things. Dr. Nguyen and Pulaski had returned to the camp and were standing with another figure, not a member of the expedition, not even human, but nevertheless no stranger to any of them.

"General Gutierrez! Major Reille y Sanchez!" Aelbraugh Pritsch had been waiting for them impatiently. "I'm afraid I've the most distressing information to convey to you!"

The music halted without even a crash. Sebastiano and his group stopped talking and arose, almost as a man. As they approached, Gutierrez noticed that each and every one seemed to have drawn a weapon, probably on the colonel's authorization, from the expedition armory. In addition to his own unauthorized side arm, which he now wore openly in a holster, Sebastiano carried one of the heavy Remington riot guns, as did Ortiz.

The general sighed. "You're just in time, Aelbraugh Pritsch. I've been experiencing such a shortage of distressing information lately. What is it now?"

The avian's feathers rustled, and he fluttered nervous hands. The little reptile he seemed to carry with him all the time was nowhere in sight, which Gutierrez interpreted as a bad sign.

"Well, General, you see, as you might expect, the Elders have developed a reasonably advanced science of criminal forensics."

"That makes sense," offered Reille y Sanchez, "considering that they've had half a billion years to do it."

"What?" Aelbraugh Pritsch blinked, his pupils changing size, a sign of fear, Gutierrez knew, in many birds. "Oh, yes, Major, I see what you mean. In any event, as I gather you humans are able do with fingerprints, we've methods of identifying the specific individual who left . . . well, who made the marks on Dr. Kamanov's body."

The general tensed. "And?"

"And on behalf of Mister Thoggosh, and with considerable trepidation on my own part, I don't mind telling you, I've come to report the results of the postmortem examination to you humans. Dr. Nguyen and Sergeant Pulaski were there as witnesses, and—"

"And the apparent murderer," Sebastiano interrupted impatiently, "was Semlohcolresh, that Elder who, more than any of the others, favored war between our species. Now tell General Gutierrez the rest of it, Aelbraugh Pritsch, and get it over with."

"I, er, that is, as the Proprietor's assistant, as spokesbeing for the Elders and their associated species, I confess shamefacedly and deeply regret that I've also to report, and with even more trepidation, I might add, that our colleague—"

"Semlohcolresh," the lieutenant colonel interrupted again, unconsciously fingering the safety of his semiautomatic shotgun, "seems to be conveniently among the missing!"

 

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