Diuturnity's Dawn (17 page)

“You can’t know everything, Jorge. You know how these things come up. I’m not happy about it myself.” She returned her attention to the AAnn diplomat. “I regret that I will not be able to talk with you further, noble Preed.”

He gestured his disappointment. “We musst each of uss follow our directivess. My own sschedule iss ssimilarly inflexible. I wissh you a ssafe journey. I undersstand there wass a ssorrowfully fatal accident recently in your local transsport ssytem that affected you perssonally.”

She stiffened slightly. “Yes, it did.”

He tilted his head to one side as he gestured balletically with his left hand. “I would disslike hearing that a ssimilar fate had befallen one sso charming and knowledgeable as yoursself.”

“I’ll be careful,” she assured him evenly. “As for you, have a care with your room’s climate control. It can sometimes get quite chilly up here at night. And chilly for us could mean forced enervation for you.” Somewhat against her better judgment, she allowed herself a small smile. “I would dislike hearing that your stiffened form had to be shipped back to Blassussar in a crate because you forgot to check your room’s temperature settings.”

Again the AAnn’s head and hands danced in concert. This time she could not tell what, if anything, he was gesturing. “I will remember your cautioning with thankss.”

Turning, she exited purposefully from the tanning chamber. Sertoa watched her for longer than he intended before resuming his interrupted dialogue with the AAnn.

“I fear that where human-thranx versus human-AAnn relations are concerned, my colleague is of a different mind than you or I. She has developed not only a working relationship with the bugs, but something suspiciously like affection. I’m afraid she’s allowed her admiration for the local culture to cloud her professional judgment.” He resumed his seat on the wooden bench. “She and I often find ourselves on opposite sides of discussions. It’s all very polite and professional, of course, but each of us knows where the other stands.”

Swinging his long tail around, Preed used the tip to scratch under his left leg. “It iss of no import. My government undersstands that opinion among your kind iss sstrongly divided over how to proceed with human-thranx relationss. It iss my tassk, and that of my compeerss operating on other worldss, to enssure that human-AAnn relationss are not overlooked in thiss headlong russh that iss being advocated by ssome of your people to erect an unnecessarily intimate association with the bugss. In the coursse of normal negotationss it would be unreassonable to expect that everyone in your diplomatic sservice would believe as ssenssibly as yoursself. But that iss all right; that iss acceptable. We musst ssimply work harder to convince Ms. Anjou of the right way of thinking.”

Sertoa let out a derisive laugh. “You’ve only just met Fanielle. You might as well try to move the local star to another system as change her mind.”

Preed gestured, expanding to soak up the wonderful parching heat of the chamber. “My people were engaged in the bussiness of intersstellar diplomacy long before your kind took itss firsst tentative sstepss into deep sspace. We have made it, if not a sscience, at leasst a very well honed tool. With great experience and patience, many thingss originally thought impossible have come to pass. Perhapss thesse achievementss might even extend to recruiting your redoubtable Ms. Anjou to our way of thinking.” Lowering his spread arms and upraised tail, he settled himself as best he could on the bench opposite the human.

“Now let uss sspeak of comely thingss, of what pleasses you and what pleasses me, and for a while at leasst, talk no more of diplomacy and matterss portentouss.”

But while Sertoa nattered on, a portion of the noble’s thoughts were devoted to the female human who had so recently departed. She was bright, that one, and determined. An unhealthy combination. Despite what he had told Sertoa about the experience and expertise of the AAnn diplomatic service, and the skill of its operatives, she would be difficult to convince of the right way of seeing things. Procedures lined up in his mind like spikes in an advanced game of
jyss-ul-nacch
.

If she could not be convinced, she would have to be persuaded.

11

As the most populous of the thranx colonies and the first to be settled from Hivehom, the prideful inhabitants of Willow-Wane had worked to conceive and erect an exceptionally interesting pavilion for the fair on Dawn. Situated in the northern section of the grounds, on a slight rise, it offered much to interest both human and thranx visitors alike. Incidental to its design, its builders had created a place where members of both species could relax in one another’s company in ways only the most dedicated adherents of closer ties could have envisioned years earlier.

The pavilion’s purpose was entirely nonpolitical. Its exhibits were intended to entertain, amuse, and delight, not proselytize. That they had unintended effects on their audiences, both mammalian and insectoid, might have been predicted but was not considered. Certainly those families, groups, and individuals who found themselves wandering among the displays were not conscious of being bombarded with preconceived propaganda. Nevertheless, a number of innocuous messages managed to manifest themselves amid the more immediate.

We can enjoy one another’s company,
the several eating and drinking facilities declared wordlessly.
We can appreciate each other’s art,
multiple slash sculptures and background music insisted.
We can band together to accomplish that which we cannot do by ourselves,
the build-and-climb exhibit demonstrated.

That there were differences could not be denied. For example, the pavilion contained no playground for children, because thranx larvae existed in a state of limbless attention. Their amusements were wholly nonphysical. As a result, there were dozens of visual and aural displays entirely controlled by voice. Larvae could speak, but were otherwise completely dependent on the resources of the modern nursery.

This realization and the accompanying demonstrations had an unintended effect: They generated immediate sympathy on the part of visiting human children for their temporal thranx counterparts. Those larvae who had been chosen to participate in the exhibition found themselves the recipients of sympathetic attention from sad-eyed young bipeds who were already fully capable of movement. Many of the subsequent discourses between the young of both species were recorded for later study and proved highly revealing in the understanding of future developments.

As for the incipient as well as the fully mature adults of both species, they were enthralled by the excellence of the elaborate displays. One of the more popular involved demonstrations of human martial arts and their thranx equivalents. Both species had evolved from warlike ancestors. Humans who were embarrassed by a past now seen to be irrational if inevitable were startled and often overcome by the history display that showed entire hives of ancestral thranx engaging in endless primitive warfare.

As for the martial artists, humans were larger and heavier, and faster over a short distance. But thranx had more endurance and eight limbs to utilize in fighting instead of four, although the delicate truhands were not of much use in hand-to-hand combat and were usually kept folded close to the body and out of the way. Still, clever and well-trained thranx could often hold their own against combative humans. Built closer to the ground, they were harder to get off their feet. A judo leg sweep was not of much use against an opponent who could stand on six legs, and the bodies of the chitinous insectoids offered few soft spots to attack.

Such demonstrations were carefully choreographed and all in good fun. At other exhibits, the individual inclinations of humans contrasted sharply with the thranx tendency to perform tasks through cooperation. Human gymnasts tended to flip and fly by themselves, while their thranx counterparts built astonishingly stable pyramids consisting of dozens of individuals interlocking their hands and feet. These latter edifices were judged not only by their size and by the number of thranx involved in each structure, but by the aesthetics of the completed design.

But it was at the food stations where inhibitions really dropped away, as thranx discovered numerous human foods they could consume and humans luxuriated in the literally hundreds of new juices and soups concocted by thranx food preparators. Great scientific discoveries interest people, as do entertaining new works of art or exceptional demonstrations of physical skill, or ways to improve an individual lifestyle. But nothing enthralls quite so homogeneously as a new flavor.

Briann and Twikanrozex wandered through the pavilion, drawing fewer and briefer stares than they had elsewhere. Everyone was too intent on the exhibits, or on trying new foods and drinks, or on laughing at the wandering thranx sniggle poets, to pay special attention to one roving human-thranx pair. As for the two padres, they did not comment on the obvious lack of attention being paid them. They were too used to each other’s company.

But they did observe, with pleasure, the unconscious ease with which their respective species had begun to relax in one another’s presence. Seduced by the exotic surroundings of the pavilion, by its engaging food and drink, marvelous exhibits, unusual demonstrations, and the multitude of singular diversions set before them, few visitors had any time left in which to remark unfavorably on the mere physical differences between them.

“Observe,” Twikanrozex remarked, “how the essence of shapeism vanishes when everyone involved is having a good time.”

Briann nodded. “It’s hard to hate when one is laughing too hard. Barring a very few isolated incidents, everything I’ve seen so far at this fair bodes well for better relations between our species. Amid such good feelings, the Church should prosper.”

Twikanrozex indicated second-degree concurrence. “
Criill,
we need to nurture these good feelings, and to be available to succor and assist those whose inner emotions are conflicted. There is still an enormous amount of work to be done.”

They rounded a slowly rotating disc on which thranx body-poets were arranging themselves in ever-more-complex patterns. Ancient traditions that had once been employed in the service of constructing impressive underground chambers had been transformed into a wondrously intricate kind of performance art human acrobats could only hope to emulate, but never duplicate.

“Myself,” Briann declared, “I’ll know we’ve achieved our goals when I see a human outside the Church consent to be ministered to by a thranx.”

With delicate movements of head and antennae as well as hands, Twikanrozex insinuated a fusion of understanding and general bemusement. “It is a puzzle to me how sentient beings can feel more relaxed in the presence of a hostile but similar shape than in the company of a sympathetic but differently constructed intelligence.”

Using their rigid exoskeletons like pieces of sculpture, the body-poets had erected a complex geometric structure that reached almost to the polarized roof of the pavilion. A mixed audience of complimentary thranx and perspiring humans stridulated and cheered in unison. As always, the reaction of the human children was particularly heartening. To them—to those children whose minds had not yet been poisoned by prejudiced or chary parents, Briann reminded himself—the thranx were a beautiful mystery, aromatic and alien, like oversized toys that could talk back. As Twikanrozex had pointed out, there was much work to be done.

The Church intended to be in the forefront of such work. There was no place in its self-deprecating structure or formal hierarchy for shapeism or any other kind of species bigotry—only for souls. And as far as anyone had yet been able to determine, scientifically or theologically, all souls had the same shape. Exactly what the “soul” consisted of was a question both humans and thranx had been dealing with for thousands of years. Despite enormous advances in the technology of quantification, it remained an abstract, something that still could not yet be measured or weighed. The taxonomy of metaphysics was still in its infancy. In that sense it was akin to the never-ending search for the ultimate building blocks of matter, which every fifty years or so seemed to shrink a little farther in the direction of infinite smallness.

Briann did not worry overmuch about such matters. Or nonmatters, depending on one’s point of view. He had joined the Church to help people, no matter their shape. Thus far he had encountered nothing to make him second-guess his decision. His family remained puzzled, but supportive. Interestingly, Twikanrozex had encountered even more difficulty with his choice. Thranx society was not as fluid as that of the humans. Radical changes in lifestyle and direction were not as freely countenanced. Twikanrozex had been compelled to hoe a harder row than his human companion.

Still, even though both considered themselves more sophisticated in matters of interspecies relations and had prepared themselves for this occasion with much serious study and preparation, the fair had already shown itself capable of delivering an endless round of surprises. Presently, they were passing a lively display devoted to illustrating the history of agriculture on Willow-Wane. Virtual thranx drove virtual machines to the accompaniment of narration in both Low Thranx and Terranglo. Appropriate odors suffused the area immediately around the exhibition. Generating the story via tridee transducers allowed the thranx producers to incorporate huge mechanicals and hundreds of workers without overwhelming the individual display.

Passing by, a larger than usual human family paused briefly to gaze at the roof-high exhibit, whereupon the smallest child in the group raised a hand and pointed, yelling gleefully.

“Look, look—an ant farm!”

Briann felt his face flush slightly as he and Twikanrozex ambled on past the thoroughly enchanted family. His reaction was not in response to the child’s comment, but because Twikanrozex, overhearing, requested an explanation of the term. When a slightly flustered Briann had finished elucidating, as diplomatically as he was able, the thranx gestured reassurance.

“There’s no need to be embarrassed, my friend. Your native arthropods are not my ancestors. Actually, I find the concept rather endearing.” Swiveling his head to look directly back over his shoulder at the gawking family, he gestured with both truhands. “Certainly it has proven useful, as the larvae in question show no fear of my kind. Perhaps a general distribution of the educational toys to which the youngest referred might be considered by the Church.”

“There are other concerns,” Briann endeavored to explain. “Although I have never owned such a bio-apparatus myself, I believe that the resourceful little arthropods in question have a tendency to escape their controlled environment, to the annoyance of any resident adults. I think the Church is better to stick with those visual aids that can provide instruction without the possibility of accompanying infestation.”

Twikanrozex’s antennae drew together, showing that he was deep in thought. Finally he responded. “Perhaps,
sellicc,
you are right. I don’t think self-contained habitats holding miniature humans would be welcome in the private chambers of many hives, either.” He glanced at his friend. “Assuming such a contrivance could be constructed.”

“A people farm?” Briann pondered the notion. “I don’t think so. Although if you offer humans enough monetary compensation, they’ll do just about anything. In that respect, the thranx are more virtuous than my kind.”

“Not at all,” Twikanrozex demurred. “It is only that we are most of the time too busy to be corrupted. When time exists for contemplation of possibilities, we too can be persuaded to make fools of ourselves.”

“Another vinculum between our peoples.” Reassured by his friend’s reiteration of the existence of mutual foolishness, Briann led the way out of the pavilion. All the walking, not to mention all the talking, was making him hungry.

He shared the state of his stomach with his companion, who allowed as how he, too, could stand some sustenance.

“What would you like?” Briann inquired. “We can go back inside, where the climate is more to your liking, or continue wandering until we come across something that appeals to both of us.”

“Let us wander.” Twikanrozex was enjoying himself hugely. “The air is a little dry today, but not entirely intolerable.”

Briann hitched his sweat-dampened shirt higher on his shoulders and chose a pedestrian walkway at random. There was no need to consult a fair directory. The Church would guide them.

It did indeed, as they soon found themselves resting comfortably in an outdoor venue that was raised slightly above ground level, giving the patrons a pleasant view of the busy fairgrounds that stretched to the lake and the green-clad hills beyond. Not for the first time, Briann reflected on what an excellent choice Dawn had been for such an enterprise. The semitropical nature of the climate was bearable to the thranx while not unduly uncomfortable for humans. Locating the fair next to a large lake had the effect of injecting additional humidity into the local atmosphere, thus pleasing the insectoids even further.

At the moment, one of those aliens was finding exceptional pleasure in a mango-starfruit-guanabana crush, the terrestrial fruit juice drink being not only acceptable to his system, but avidly welcomed. The only difference between that and a similar beverage being enjoyed by Briann was that the thranx had ordered it made with tepid water instead of pulverized ice, a request that had left the perspiring human attendant shaking his head in silent disbelief. To the thranx, the notion of a “cold drink” was an oxymoron.

Twikanrozex admired the flexibility of his friend’s prehensile lips as Briann sipped easily at his own libation. With four opposing mandibles, the thranx could make quicker work of solid food than any human, but liquids gave them problems. Fluids had to be poured directly into the open mouth, or inhaled via often elaborately swirled and decorated, narrow-spouted drinking utensils. Only by inserting the tip of such a siphon partway down the insectoid throat could a thranx generate enough esophageal vacuum to draw liquid from a container. In contrast, the malleability of human flesh allowed someone like Briann to form an airtight seal around the edge of an open container and pull fluids up and in. There were advantages to having a ductile epidermis.