"It's an archaic term. Pre-Contact human slang for one who offers cheap, illicit s.e.x for cash."

Fiben snapped. "Of all the d.a.m.n fool, Ifni-cursed, loony ideas!"

Gailet Jones answered back hotly. "All right, smartie, what should I have done? The militia was falling to pieces. n.o.body had even considered what to do if every human on the planet was suddenly removed from the chain of command! I had this wild notion of helping to start a resistance movement from scratch. So I tried to arrange a meeting-"

"Uh huh, posing as someone advertising illicit favors, right outside a place where the Gubru were inciting a s.e.xual frenzy."

"How was 7 to know what they were going to do, or that they'd choose that sleepy little club as the place to do it in? I conjectured that social restraints would relax enough to let me pull the pose and so be able to approach strangers. It never occurred to me they'd relax that much! My guess was that anyone I came up to by mistake would be so surprised he'd act as you did and I could pull a fade."

"But it didn't work out that way."

"No it did not! Before you appeared, several solitary chens showed up dressed likely enough to make me put on my act. Poor Max had to stun half a dozen of them, and the alley was starting to get full! But it was already too late to change the rendezvous, or the pa.s.sword-"

"Which n.o.body understood! Hooker? You should have realized something like that would get garbled!"

"I knew Dr. Taka would understand. We used to watch and discuss old movies together. We'd study the archaic words they used. I can't understand why she ..." Her voice trailed off when she saw the expression on Fiben's face. "What? Why are you looking at me like that?"

"I'm sorry. I just realized that you couldn't know." He shook his head. "You see, Dr. Taka died just about the time they got your message, of an allergic reaction to the coercion gas."

Her breath caught. Gailet seemed to sink into herself. "I ... I feared as much when she didn't show up in town for internment. It's ... a great loss." She closed her eyes and turned away, obviously feeling more than her words told.

At least she had been spared witnessing the flaming end of the Howletts Center as the soot-covered ambulances came and went, and the glazed, dying face of her mentor as the ecdemic gas took its cruel, statistical toll. Fiben had seen recordings of that fear-palled evening. The images lay in dark layers still, at the back of his mind.

Gailet gathered herself, visibly putting off her mourning for later. She dabbed her eyes and faced Fiben, jaw outthrust defiantly. "I had to come up with something a chim would understand but the Eatees' language computers wouldn't. It won't be the last time we have to improvise. Anyway, what matters is that you are here. Our two groups are in contact now."

"I was almost killed," he pointed out, though this time he felt a bit churlish for mentioning it.

"But you weren't killed. In fact, there may be ways to turn your little misadventure into an advantage. Out on the streets they're still talking about what you did that night, you know."

Was that a faint, tentative note of respect in her voice? A peace offering, perhaps?

Suddenly, it was all too much. Much too much for him. Fiben knew it was exactly the wrong thing to do, at exactly the wrong time, but he just couldn't help himself. He broke up- "A hook . . . ?" He giggled, though every shake seemed to rattle his brain in his skull. "A hooker?" He threw back his head and hooted, pounding on the arms of the chair. Fiben slumped. He guffawed, kicking his feet in the air. "Oh, Goodall. That was all I needed to be looking for!"

Gailet Jones glared at him as he gasped for breath. He didn't even care, right now, if she called in that big chim, Max, to use the stunner on him again.

It was all just too much.

If the look in her eyes right then counted for anything, Fiben knew this alliance was already off to a rocky start

31 Galactics

The Suzerain of Beam and Talon stepped aboard its personal barge and accepted the salutes of its Talon Soldier escort. They were carefully chosen troops, feathers perfectly preened, crests neatly dyed with colors noting rank and unit. The admiral's Kwackoo aide hurried forth and took its ceremonial robe. When all had settled onto their perches the pilot took off on gravities, heading toward the defense works under construction in the low hills east of Port Helenia. The Suzerain of Beam and Talon watched in silence as the new city fence fell behind them and the farms of this small Earthling settlement rushed by underneath.

The seniormost stoop-colonel, military second in command, saluted with a sharp beak-clap. "The conclave went well? Suitably? Satisfactorily?" the stoop-colonel asked.

The Suzerain of Beam and Talon chose to overlook the impudence of the question. It was more useful to have a second who could think than one whose plumage was always perfectly preened. Surrounding itself with a few such creatures was one of the things that had won the Suzerain its candidacy. The admiral gave its inferior a haughty eyeblink of a.s.sent. "Our consensus is presently adequate, sufficient, it will do."

The stoop-colonel bowed and returned to its station. Of course it would know that consensus was never perfect at this early stage in a Molt. Anyone could tell that from the Suzerain's ruffled down and haggard eyes.

This most recent Command Conclave had been particularly indecisive, and several aspects had irritated the admiral deeply.

For one thing, the Suzerain of Cost and Caution was pressing to release much of their support fleet to go a.s.sist other Gubru operations, far from here. And as if that weren't enough, the third leader, the Suzerain of Propriety, still insisted on being carried everywhere on its perch, refusing to set foot on the soil of Garth until all punctilio had been satisfied. The priest was all fluffed and agitated over a number of issues -- excessive human deaths from coercion gas, the threatened breakdown of the Garth Reclamation Project, the pitiful size of the Planetary Branch Library, the Uplift status of the benighted, pre-sentient neo-chimpanzees.

On every issue, it seemed, there must be still another realignment, another tense negotiation. Another struggle for consensus.

And yet, there were deeper issues than these ephemera. The Three had also begun to argue over fundamentals, and there the process was actually starting to become enjoyable, somehow. The pleasurable aspects of Triumviracy were emerging, especially when they danced and crooned and argued over deeper matters.

Until now it had seemed that the flight to queenhood would be straight and easy for the admiral, for it had been in command from the start. Now it had begun to dawn on the Suzerain of Beam and Talon that all would not be easy. This was not going to be any trivial Molt after all.

Of course the best ones never were. Very diverse factions had been involved in choosing the three leaders of the Expeditionary Force, for the Roost Masters of home had hopes for a new unified policy to emerge from this particular Threesome. In order for that to happen, all of them had to be very good minds, and very different from each other.

Just how good and how different was beginning to become clear. A few of the ideas the others had presented recently were clever, and quite unnerving.

They are right about one thing, the admiral had to admit. We must not simply conquer, defeat, overrun the wolflings. We must discredit them!

The Suzerain of Beam and Talon had been concentrating so hard on military matters that it had got in the habit of seeing its mates as impediments, little more.

That was wrong, impertinent, disloyal of me, the admiral thought.

In fact, it was devoutly to be hoped that the bureaucrat and the priest were as bright in their own areas as the admiral was in soldiery. If Propriety and Accountancy handled their ends as brilliantly as the invasion had been, then they would be a trio to be remembered!

Some things were foreordained, the Suzerain of Beam and Talon knew. They had been set since the days of the Progenitors, long, long ago. Long before there were heretics and unworthy clans polluting the starlances-horrible, wretched wolflings, and Tymbrimi, and Thennanin, and Soro. ... It was vital that the clan of Gooksyu-Gubru prevail in this era's troubles! The clan must achieve greatness!

The admiral contemplated the way the eggs of the Earth-lings' defeat had been laid so many years before. How the Gubru force had been able to detect and counteract their every move. And how the coercion gas had left all their plans in complete disarray. These had been the Suzerain's own ideas-along with members of its personal staff, of course. They had been years coming to fruition.

The Suzerain of Beam and Talon stretched its arms, feeling tension in the flexors that had, ages before its species' own uplifting, carried his ancestors aloft in warm, dry currents on the Gubru homeworld.

fes! Let my peers' ideas also be bold, imaginative, brilliant. . . .

Let them be almost, nearly, close to-but not quite-as brilliant as my own.

The Suzerain began preening its feathers as the cruiser leveled off and headed east under a cloud-decked sky.

32 Athaclena

"I am going crazy down here. I feel like I'm being kept prisoner!"

Robert paced, accompanied by twin shadows cast by the cave's only two glow bulbs. Their stark light glistened in the sheets of moisture that seeped slowly down the walls of the underground chamber.

Robert's left arm clenched, tendons standing out from fist to elbow to well-muscled shoulder. He punched a nearby cabinet, sending banging echoes down the subterranean pa.s.sageways. "I warn you, Clennie, I'm not going to be able to wait much longer. When are you going to let me out of here?"

Athaclena winced as Robert slammed the cabinet again, giving vent to his frustration. At least twice he had seemed about to use his still-splinted right arm instead of the undamaged left. "Robert," she urged. "You have been making wonderful progress. Soon your cast can come off. Please do not jeopardize that by injuring yourself-"

"You're evading the issue!" he interrupted. "Even wearing a cast I could be out there, helping train the troops and scouting Gubru positions. But you have me trapped down here in these caves, programming minicomps and sticking pins in maps! It's driving me nuts!"

Robert positively radiated his frustration. Athaclena had asked him before to try to damp it down. To keep a lid on it, as the metaphor went. For some reason she seemed particularly susceptible to his emotional tides-as stormy and wild as any Tymbrimi adolescent's.

"Robert, you know why we cannot risk sending you out to the surface. The Gubru gasbots have already swept over our surface encampments several times, unleashing their deadly vapors. Had you been above on any of those occasions you would even now be on your way to Cilmar Island, lost to us. And that is at best! I shudder to think of the worst."

Athaclena's ruff bristled at the thought; the silvery tendrils of her corona waved in agitation.

It was mere luck that Robert had been rescued from the Mendoza Freehold just before the persistent Gubru searcher robots swooped down upon the tiny mountain homestead. Camouflage and removal of all electronic items had apparently riot been enough to hide the cabin.

Meline Mendoza and the children immediately left for Port Helenia and presumably arrived in time for treatment. Juan Mendoza had been less fortunate. Remaining behind to close down several ecological survey traps, he had been stricken with a delayed allergic reaction to the coercion gas and died within five convulsive minutes, foaming and jerking ^nder the horrified gaze of his helpless chim partners.

"You were not there to see Juan die, Robert, but surely you must have heard reports. Do you want to risk such a death? Are you aware of how close we already came to losing you?"

Their eyes met, brown encountering gold-flecked gray. She could sense Robert's determination, and also his effort to control his stubborn anger. Slowly, Robert's left arm unclenched. He breathed a deep sigh and sank into a canvas-backed chair.

"I'm aware, Clennie. I know how you feel. But you've got to understand, I'm part of all this." He leaned forward, his expression no longer wrathful, but still intense. "I agreed to my mother's request, to guide you into the bush instead of joining my militia unit, because Megan said it was important. But now you're no longer my guest in the forest. You're organizing an army! And I feel like a fifth wheel."

Athaclena sighed. "We both know that it will not be much of an army ... a gesture at best. Something to give the chims hope. Anyway, as a Terragens officer you have the right to take over from me any time you wish."

Robert shook his head. "That's not what I mean. I'm not conceited enough to think I could have done any better. I'm no leader type, and I know it. Most of the chims worship you, and believe in your Tymbrimi mystique.

"Still, I probably am the only human with any military training left in these mountains ... an a.s.set you have to use if we're to have any chance to-"

Robert stopped abruptly, lifting his eyes to look over Athaclena's shoulder. Athaclena turned as a small chimmie in shorts and bandoleer entered the underground room and saluted.

"Excuse me, general, Captain Oneagle, but Lieutenant Benjamin has just gotten in. Um, he reports that things aren't any better over in Spring Valley. There aren't any humans there anymore. But outposts all up and down every canyon are still being buzzed by the d.a.m.n gasbots at least once a day. There doesn't seem to be any sign of it lettin' up anywhere where our runners have been able to get to."

"How about the chims in Spring Valley?" Athaclena asked. "Is the gas making them sick?" She recalled Dr. Schultz and the effect the coercion gas had had on some of the chims back at the Center.

The courier shook her head. "No, ma'am. Not anymore. It seems to be the same story all over. All the sus-susceptible chims have already been flushed out and gone to Port Helenia. Every person left in the mountains must be immune by now."

Athaclena glanced at Robert and they must have shared the same thought.

Every person but one.

"d.a.m.n them!" he cursed. "Won't they ever let up? They have ninety-nine point nine percent of the humans captive. Do they need to keep ga.s.sing every hut and hovel, just in order to get every last one?"

"Apparently they are afraid of h.o.m.o sapiens, Robert." Athaclena smiled. "After all, you are allies of the Tymbrimi. And we do not choose harmless species as partners."

Robert shook his head, glowering. But Athaclena reached out with her aura to touch him, nudging his personality, forcing him to look up and see the humor in her eyes. Against his will, a slow smile spread. At last Robert laughed. "Oh, I guess the d.a.m.ned birds aren't so dumb after all. Better safe than sorry, hmm?"

Athaclena shook her head, her corona forming a glyph of appreciation, a simple one which he might kenn. "No, Robert. They aren't so dumb. But they have missed at least onehuman, so their worries aren't over yet."

The little neo-chimp messenger glanced from Tymbrimi to human and sighed. It all sounded scary to her, not funny. She didn't understand why they smiled.

Probably, it was something subtle and convoluted. Patron-cla.s.s humor . . . dry and intellectual. Some chims batted in that league, strange ones who differed from other neo-chimpanzees not so much in intelligence as in something else, something much less definable.

She did not envy those chims. Responsibility was an awesome thing, more daunting than the prospect of fighting a powerful enemy, or even dying.

It was the possibility of being left alone that terrified her. She might not understand it, when these two laughed. But it felt good just to hear it.

The messenger stood a little straighter as Athaclena turned back to speak to her.

"I will want to hear Lieutenant Benjamin's report personally. Would you please also give my compliments to Dr. Soo and ask her to join us in the operations chamber?"

"Yesser!" The chimmie saluted and took off at a run.

"Robert?" Athaclena asked. "Your opinion will be welcome."

He looked up, a distant expression on his face. "In a minute, Clennie. I'll check in at operations. There's just something I want to think through first."

"All right." Athaclena nodded. "I'll see you soon." She turned away and followed the messenger down a water-carved corridor lit at long intervals by dim glow bulbs and wet reflections on the dripping stalact.i.tes.

Robert watched her until she was out of sight. He thought in the near-total quiet.

Why are the Gubru persisting in ga.s.sing the mountains, after nearly every human has already been driven out? It must be a terrific expense, even if their gasbots only swoop down on places where they detect an Earthling presence.

And how are they able to detect buildings, vehicles, even isolated chims, no matter how well hidden?

Right now it doesn't matter that they've been dosing our Surface encampments. The gasbots are simple machines and don't know we're training an army in this valley. They just sense "Earthlings!"-then dive in to do their work and leave again.

But what happens when we start operations and attract attention from the Gubru themselves? We can't afford to be detectable then.

There was another very basic reason to find an answer to these questions.

As long as this is going on, I'm trapped down here!

Robert listened to the faint plink of water droplets seeping from the nearest wall. He thought about the enemy.

The trouble. on Garth was clearly little more than a skirmish among the greater battles tearing up the Five Galaxies. The Gubru couldn't just gas the entire planet. That would cost far too much for this backwater theater of operations.

So a swarm of cheap, stupid, but efficient seeker robots had been unleashed to home in on anything not natural to Garth . . . anything that had the scent of Earth about it. By now nearly every attack dosed only irritated, resentful chims -- immune to the coercion gas-and empty buildings all over the planet.

It was a nuisance, and it was effective. A way had to be found to stop it.

Robert pulled a sheet of paper from a folder at the end of the table. He wrote down the princ.i.p.al ways the gasbots might be using to detect Earthlings on an alien planet.

OPTICAL IMAGING.

BODY HEAT INFRARED.

SCAN RESONANCE.

PSI.

REALITY TWIST.