Heaven's Reach (11 page)

Oh, the knowledge must be there, all right—crammed in deep recesses of that chilled cube. But the Library wasn't sharing readily, even to Dr. Baskin's feigned persona as a warlord of a noble clan.

“Gr-tuthuph-manikhochesh, zangish torgh mph,”
Gillian demanded, wearing the mask of a Thennanin admiral.
“Manik-hophtupf, mph!”

A button in Sara's ear translated the eccentric dialect.

“We understand that Zang, by nature, dislike surprise,” Dr. Baskin inquired. “Tell me how they typically react when one rude shock is followed by several more.”

This time, the Library was only slightly more forthcoming.

“The term Zang refers to just one subset of hydrogen-breathing forms—the variant encountered most often by oxy-life in open-space situations. The vast majority of hydro breathers seldom leave the comfort of dense circulation storms on their heavy worlds.
 …”

The lecture ran on, relating information Sara would normally find mesmerizing. But time was short. A crucial decision loomed in less than a midura.

Should
Streaker
continue her headlong drive for the resurrected transfer point? After lying dormant for half a million years—ever since Galaxy Four was declared fallow to sapient life—it was probably unripe for safe passage. Still, its uncanny rebirth offered
Streaker
's crew a dour opportunity.

The solution of Samson. To bring the roof down on our enemies, and ourselves.

Only now fate proffered another daring possibility. The presence of collector machines and Zang ships still lacked clear explanation. The harvesting armada seemed weak, scattering in confusion before Izmunuti's unexpected storms. And yet—
Might they somehow help us defeat the Jophur without it costing our lives?

Orders from the Terragens Council made Gillian's top priority clear. This ship carried treasure—relics of great consequence that might destabilize the Five Galaxies, especially if they were seized by a single fanatic clan. Poor little Earth could not afford to be responsible for one zealot alliance gaining advantage over all the others. There was no surer formula for Terran annihilation. Far better that both ship and cargo should be lost than some malign group like the Jophur seize a monopoly. Especially if a prophesied Time of Changes was at hand.

But what if
Streaker
could somehow deliver her burdens to the proper authorities? Ideally, that would force the Great Institutes and “moderate” clans to end their vacillation and take responsibility. So far, relentless pursuit and a general breakdown of law had made that seemingly simple step impossible. Neutral forces proved cowardly or unwilling to help
Streaker
come in out of the cold. Still, if it were done just right, success could win Earthclan a triumph of epic proportions.

Unfortunately, the passing duras weren't equipping Gillian any better for her decision. Listening in growing frustration to the Library's dry oration, she finally interrupted.

“You don't have to tell me again that Zang hate surprise! I want practical advice! Does that mean they'll shoot right away, if we approach? Or will they give us a chance to talk?

“I need contact protocols!”

Still, the Library unit seemed bent on remaining vague, or else inundating Gillian with useless details. Standing where the Thennanin disguise did not block her view, Sara watched Gillian grow craggy with tense worry.

There is another source
, Sara thought.
Someone else aboard who might be able to help with the Zang.

She had been hesitant to mention the possibility before. After all, her “source” was suspect. Fallen beings whose ancestors had turned away from sapiency and lacked any knowledge of spatial dilemmas. But now, as precious duras passed and Gillian's frustration grew, Sara knew she must intervene.

If the Great Library can't help us, maybe we should look to an unlikely legend.

Alvin's Journal

E
VER SINCE WE BRAVE VOLUNTEERS JOINED THE
Earthlings on their forlorn quest, I've compared it to our earlier trip aboard a handmade submarine—a little summer outing that wound up taking four settler kids all the way to the bottom of the sea, and from there to the stars.

Of course our little
Wuphon's Dream
was just a hollowed-out log with a glass nose, hardly big enough for an urs, a hoon, a qheuen, and a g'Kek to squeeze inside, providing we took turns breathing. In contrast,
Streaker
is so roomy you could fit all the khutas of Port Wuphon inside. It has comforts I never imagined, even after a youth spent reading crates of Terran novels about starfaring days.

And yet, the trips have similarities.

In each case we took a willing chance, plunging into a lightless abyss to face unexpected wonders.

On both expeditions, my friends and I had different assigned tasks.

And sure enough, aboard
Streaker
, just like
Wuphon's Dream
, I got the worst job to do.

Keeper of Animals. That's me.

Ur-ronn gets to follow her passion for machinery, helping Suessi's gang down in engineering.

Pincer runs errands for the bridge crew. He's having a grand time dashing amphibiously from dry to watery parts of the ship and back again, with flashing claws and typical qheuen enthusiasm.

Huck spins her wheels happily. She gets to play
spy
, waving all four eyestalks to taunt the Jophur captives in their cell below, enraging them with the sight of a living g'Kek, provoking them into revealing more information than they would by other means. The
nyah-nyah
school of interrogation, I call it.

All three of them get to interact with the dolphin crew, helping in ways that matter. Even if we all get blown to bits soon, at least Huck and the others got to do interesting things.

But me? I'm stuck in the hold, keeping herd on twenty bleating glavers and a pair of cranky noors, with the combined conversational abilities of a qheuen larva.

According to the Niss Machine, one of these noors ought to be quite a conversationalist. It's
not
a noor, you see, but a
tytlal
—from a starfaring race that look like noor, smell like noor, and have the same knavish temperament. Somehow they hid among us on Jijo all these years without ever being recognized. A seventh race of sooners—illegal settlers—who benefited from our Commons, but never bothered to formally join.

That'd take some cleverness, I admit. But Mudfoot acts just like my pet noor, Huphu. Lounging around, eating anything that isn't bolted down, and licking his sleek black pelt all the way to the discolored paws that give him his name. Everyone thinks I'm an expert at coaxing noor, just because hoonish mariners hire some of them to help on our sailing ships, scooting deftly along the spars and rigging, working for umbles and sourballs. But I say that only shows how easy it is to fool a hoon. A thousand years. That's how long we worked with the nimble creatures, and we never caught on.

Now they're counting on me to get Mudfoot to speak once more.

Yeah, right. And this journal of mine is going to be published when we reach Earth, and win a Sheldon Award.

Huphu and Mudfoot still glare at each other, hissing jealously—not unusual for two noor who haven't worked out their mutual status yet. Meanwhile, I try to keep my
other
wards comfortable.

We never saw very many glavers in my hometown, down along the Slope's volcanic coast. They love rooting through garbage piles and rotten logs for tasty bugs, but such things are in short supply aboard
Streaker.

Dr. Baskin worked out an exchange with Uriel the Smith, swapping this little herd for several dozen crew members who stayed behind to form a new dolphin colony on Jijo. It hardly seems an even trade. Watching the glavers mewl and jostle in a corner of the hold, I can scarcely picture their ancestors as mighty starfarers. Those bulging, chameleon eyes—swiveling independently, searching the sterile metal hold for crawling things—hold no trace of sapient light. According to Jijo's Sacred Scrolls, that makes the opal-skinned quadrupeds sacred beings. They've attained the highest goal of any sooner race—reaching simplicity by crossing the Path of Redemption.

Renewed, cleansed of ancestral sin, they face the universe with reborn innocence, ready for a fresh start. Or so the sages say.

Forgive me for being unimpressed. You see, I have to clean up after the smelly things. If some patron race ever takes on the honored task of reuplifting glavers, they had better make housebreaking their first priority.

At first sight, you wouldn't think the filthy things had much in common with fastidious noor. But they both seem to like it when I puff out my throat sac and give a low, booming umble-song. Ever since my adult verte-broids erupted, I've acquired a deep resonance that I'm rather proud of. It helps keep the critters calm whenever
Streaker
makes a sudden maneuver and her gravity fields waver.

I try not to think about where the ship is right now, tearing along at incredible speed, diving through the flames of a giant star.

Fortunately, I can umble while editing and updating
my diary on a little teacher-scribe device that Dr. Baskin provided. By now I'm used to working with letters that float before me, instead of lying fixed on an ink-stained page. It's convenient to be able to reach into my work, shifting and nudging sentences by hand or voice command. Still, I wish the machine would stop trying to fix my grammar and syntax! I may not be human, but I'm one of Jijo's best experts on the Anglic language, and I don't need a smart-aleck computer telling me my dialect's “archaic.” If my journal ever gets published on a civilized world, I'm sure my colonial style will enhance its charm, like the old-time appeal of works by Defoe and Swift.

It grows harder to stave off frustration, knowing my friends are in the thick of things, and me stuck below, staring at blank walls, with just dumb beasts for company. I know, by doing this I freed a member of
Streaker's
understaffed crew to do important work. Still, it sometimes feels like the bulkheads are closing in.

“Who do you think
you're
looking at?” I snapped, when I caught Mudfoot glancing alternately at me and the floating lines of my journal. “You want to read it?”

I swiveled the autoscribe so hovering words swarmed toward the sleek creature.

“If you tytlal are so brainy, maybe you know where I should take the story next. Hrm?”

Mudfoot peered at the glyph symbols. His expression made my spines frickle. I wondered.

Just how much memory do they retain—this secret clan of supernoor? When did the Tymbrimi plant a clandestine colony of their clients on Jijo? It must have been before we boons came. Perhaps they predate even the g'Kek.

I had heard many legends of the clever Tymbrimi, of course—a spacefaring race widely disliked by conservative Galactics for their scamplike natures. The same trait made them befriend Earthlings, when that naive clan first stumbled onto the star lanes. Ignorance can be fatal in this dangerous universe, and Terra might have
quickly suffered the typical Wolflings' Fate, if not for Tymbrimi sponsorship and advice.