Crouching Kwackoo servitors hurriedly plucked up the message pellet it had dropped, duplicated the capsule, and brought copies to the other two Gubru lords. When the Suzerain of Propriety viewed the data, it could scarcely believe what it saw.

It was a solitary neo-chimpanzee, climbing the lower slopes of the towering Ceremonial Mound, pa.s.sing rapidly through the automatic first-stage screens and gradually beginning to close the wide gap separating it from the official party, higher on the hillside.

The neo-chimp moved with an erect determination, a clearness of purpose that could be read in its very posture. Those of its con-specifics who had already failed-and who were spiraling slowly down the long trail again-first stared, then grinned and reached out to touch the newcomer's robe as he pa.s.sed. They offered words of encouragement.

"This was not, cannot have been rehea.r.s.ed!" the Suzerain of Beam and Talon hissed. The military commander cried out, "It is an interloper, and I shall have it burned down!"

"You should not, must not, shall not!" the Suzerain of Propriety squawked back in anger. "There has not yet been a coalescence! No complete molting! You do not yet have a queen's wisdom!

"Ceremonies are run, governed, ruled by traditions of honor! All members of a client race may approach and be tried, tested, evaluated!"

The third Gubru lord snapped its beak open and shut in agitation. Finally, the Suzerain of Cost and Caution fluffed its ragged feathers and agreed. "We would be charged reparations. The Inst.i.tute officials might leave, depart, lay sanctions. . . . The cost ..." It turned away in a downy huff. "Let it proceed, then. For now. Alone, solitary, in isolation it can do no harm."

But the Suzerain of Propriety was not so sure. Once, it had set great store in this particular client. When it seemed to have been stolen, the Suzerain of Propriety suffered a serious setback.

Now, however^ it realized the truth. The neo-chimp male had not been stolen and eliminated by its rivals, the other Suzerains. Instead, the chimp had actually escaped!

And now it was back, alone. How? And what did it hope to accomplish? Without guidance, without the aid of a group, how far did it think it could go?

At first, on seeing the creature, the Suzerain of Propriety had felt joyful amazement-an unusual sensation for a Gubru. Now its emotion was something even more uncomfortable ... a worry that this was only the beginning of surprise.

87 Fiben So far so good. He made it around the first circuit in what had to be record speed.

Oh, a few times they asked him some questions. What was his earliest memory? Did he enjoy his profession? Was he satisfied with the physical form of this generation of neo-chimpanzee, or might it be improved somehow? Would a prehensile tail be a convenient aid in tool use, for instance?

Gailet would have been proud of the way he remained polite, even then. Or at least he hoped she'd be proud of him.

Of course the Galactic officials had his entire record -- genetic, scholastic, military-and were able to access it the moment he pa.s.sed a group of startled Talon Soldiers on the bayside bluffs and strode through the outer barriers to meet his first test.

When a tall, treelike Kanten asked him about the note he had left, that night when he "escaped" from imprisonment, it was clear that the Inst.i.tute was capable of subpoenaing the invaders' records as well. He answered truthfully that Gailet had worded the doc.u.ment but that he had understood its purpose and concurred.

The Kanten's foliage tinkled in the chiming of tiny, silvery bells. The semi-vegetable Galactic sounded pleased and amused as it shuffled aside to let him pa.s.s.

The intermittent wind helped keep Fiben cool as long as he was on the eastward slopes, but the westward side faced the afternoon sun and was sheltered from the breeze. The effort of maintaining his rapid pace made him feel as if he were wearing a thick coat, even though a chim's spa.r.s.e covering of body hair was technically not fur at all.

The parklike hill was neatly landscaped, and the trail paved with a soft, resilient surface. Nevertheless, through his toes he sensed a faint trembling, as if the entire artificial mountain were throbbing in harmonies far, far below the level of hearing. Fiben, who had seen the ma.s.sive power plants before they were buried, knew that it was not his imagination.

At the next station a Pring technician with huge, glowing eyes and bulging lips looked him up and down and noted something in a datawell before allowing him to proceed. Now some of the dignitaries dotting the slopes seemed to have begun to notice him. A few drifted nearer and accessed his test results in curiosity. Fiben bowed courteously to those nearby So far it had been a piece of cake. Fiben wondered what all the fuss was about.

He had feared they would ask him to solve calculus problems in his head-or recite like Demosthenes, with marbles in his mouth. But at first there had only been a series of force-screen barriers that peeled back for him automatically. And after that there were only more of those funny-looking instruments he had seen the Gubru techs use weeks, months ago-now wielded by even funnier-looking aliens.

So far so good. He made it around the first circuit in what had to be record speed.

Oh, a few times they asked him some questions. What was his earliest memory? Did he enjoy his profession? Was he satisfied with the physical form of this generation of neo-chimpanzee, or might it be improved somehow? Would a prehensile tail be a convenient aid in tool use, for instance?

Gailet would have been proud of the way he remained polite, even then. Or at least he hoped she'd be proud of him.

Of course the Galactic officials had his entire record -- genetic, scholastic, military-and were able to access it the moment he pa.s.sed a group of startled Talon Soldiers on the bayside bluffs and strode through the outer barriers to meet his first test.

When a tall, treelike Kanten asked him about the note he had left, that night when he "escaped" from imprisonment, it was clear that the Inst.i.tute was capable of subpoenaing the invaders' records as well. He answered truthfully that Gailet had worded the doc.u.ment but that he had understood its purpose and concurred.

The Kanten's foliage tinkled in the chiming of tiny, silvery bells. The semi-vegetable Galactic sounded pleased and amused as it shuffled aside to let him pa.s.s.

The intermittent wind helped keep Fiben cool as long as he was on the eastward slopes, but the westward side faced the afternoon sun and was sheltered from the breeze. The effort of maintaining his rapid pace made him feel as if he were wearing a thick coat, even though a chim's spa.r.s.e covering of body hair was technically not fur at all.

The parklike hill was neatly landscaped, and the trail paved with a soft, resilient surface. Nevertheless, through his toes he sensed a faint trembling, as if the entire artificial mountain were throbbing in harmonies far, far below the level of hearing. Fiben, who had seen the ma.s.sive power plants before they were buried, knew that it was not his imagination.

At the next station a Pring technician with huge, glowing eyes and bulging lips looked him up and down and noted something in a datawell before allowing him to proceed. Now some of the dignitaries dotting the slopes seemed to have begun to notice him. A few drifted nearer and accessed his test results in curiosity. Fiben bowed courteously to those nearby and tried not to think about all the different kinds of eyes that were watching him like some sort of specimen.

Once their ancestors had to go through something like this, he consoled himself.

Twice Fiben pa.s.sed a few spirals below the party of official candidates, a gradually dwindling band of brownish creatures in short, silvery robes. The first time he hurried by, none of the chims noticed him. On the second occasion, though, he had to stand under the scrutiny of instruments held by a being whose species he could not even identify. That time he was able to make out a few figures among those up above. And some of the chims noticed him as well. One nudged a companion and pointed. But then they all disappeared around the corner again.

He had not seen Gailet, but then, she would likely be at the head of the party, wouldn't she? "Come on," Fiben muttered impatiently, concerned over the time this creature was taking. Then he considered that the machines focused on him might read either his words or his mood, and he concentrated on preserving discipline. He smiled sweetly and bowed as the alien technician indicated a pa.s.sing score with a few terse, computer-mediated words.

Fiben hurried on. He grew more and more irritated with the long distances between the stations and wondered if there wasn't any dignified way he could run, in order to cut down on the gap even faster.

Instead though, things only started going slower as the tests grew more serious, calling for deeper learning and more complex thought. Soon he met more chims on their way back down. Apparently these were now forbidden to talk to him, but a few rolled their eyes meaningfully, and their bodies were damp with perspiration.

He recognized several of these dropouts. Two were professors at the college in Port Helenia. Others were scientists with the Garth Ecological Recovery Program. Fiben began to grow worried. All of these chims were blue-card types-among the brightest! If they were failing, something had to be very wrong here. Certainly this ceremony wasn't perfunctory, as that celebration for the Tytlal, which Athaclena had told him about.

Perhaps the rules were stacked against Earthlings!

That was when he approached a station manned by a tall Gubru. It did not help that the avian wore the colors of the Uplift Inst.i.tute and was supposedly sworn to impartiality. Fiben had seen too many of that clan wearing Inst.i.tute livery today to satisfy him.

The birdlike creature used a vodor and asked him a simple question of protocol, then let him proceed.

A thought suddenly occurred to Fiben as he quickly left that test site. What if the Suzerain of Propriety had been completely defeated by its peers? Whatever its real agenda, that Suzerain had, at least, been sincere about wanting to run a real ceremony. A promise made had to be kept. But what of the others? The admiral and the bureaucrat? Certainly they would have different priorities.

Could the whole thing be rigged so that neo-chimps could not win, no matter how ready they were for advancement? Was that possible?

Could such a result be of real benefit to the Gubru in some way?

Filled with such troubling thoughts, Fiben barely pa.s.sed a test that involved juggling several complex motor functions while having to solve an intricate three-dimensional puzzle. As he left that station, with the waters of Aspinal Bay falling under late afternoon shadows to his left, he almost failed to notice a new commotion far below. At the last moment he turned to see where a growing sound was coming from.

"What in Ifni's incontinence?" He blinked and stared.

He was not alone in that. By now half of the Galactic dignitaries seemed to be drifting down that way, attracted by a brown tide that was just then spilling up to the foot of the Ceremonial Mound.

Fiben tried to see what was happening, but patches of sunlight, reflected by still-bright water, made it hard to make out anything in the shadows just below. What he could tell was that the bay appeared to be covered with boats, and many were now emptying their pa.s.sengers onto the isolated beach where he had landed, hours before.

So, more of the city chims had come out to get a better look after all. He hoped none of them misbehaved, but he doubted any harm would be done. The Galactics surely knew that monkey curiosity was a basic chimp trait, and this was only acting true to form. Probably the chims'd be given a lower portion of the slope from which to watch, as was their right by Galactic Law.

He couldn't afford to waste any more time dawdling, though. Fiben turned to hurry onward. And although he pa.s.sed the next test on Galactic History, he also knew that his score had not helped his c.u.mulative total much.

Now he was glad when he arrived on the westward slope. As the sun sank lower, this was the side on which the wind did not bite quite as fiercely. Fiben shivered as he plodded on, slowly gaining on the diminishing crowd above him.

"Slow down, Gailet," he muttered. "Can't you drag your feet or somethin'? You don't haveta answer every d.a.m.n question the very second it's asked. Can't you tell I'm comin'?"

A dismal part of him wondered if she already knew, and maybe didn't care.

88 Gailet She found it increasingly hard to feel that it mattered. And the cause of her depression was more than just the fatigue of a long, hard day, or the burden of all these bewildered chims relying upon her to lead them ever onward and upward through a maze of ever more demanding trials.

Nor was it the constant presence of the tall chen named Irongrip. It certainly was frustrating to see him breeze through tests that other, better chims failed. And as the other Sponsors' -Choice, he was usually right behind her, wearing an infuriating, smug grin. Still, Gailet could grit her teeth and ignore him most of the time.

Nor, even, did the examinations themselves bother her much. h.e.l.l, they were the-best part of the day! Who was the ancient human sage who had said that the purest pleasure, and the greatest force in the ascent of Mankind, had been the skilled worker's joy in her craft? While Gailet was concentrating she could block out nearly everything, the world, the Five Galaxies, all but the challenge to show her skill. Underneath all the crises and murky questions of honor and duty, there was always a clean sense of satisfaction whenever she finished a task and knew she had done well even before the Inst.i.tute examiners told her so.

No, the tests weren't what disturbed her. What bothered Gailet most was the growing suspicion that she had made the wrong choice after all.

I should have refused to partic.i.p.ate, she thought. I should have simply said no.

Oh, the logic was the same as before. By protocol and all of the rules, the Gubru had put her in a position where she simply had no choice, for her own good and the good of her race and clan.

And yet, she also knew she was being used. It made her feel defiled.

During that last week of study at the Library she had found herself repeatedly dozing off under the screens, bright with arcane data. Her dreams were always disturbed, featuring birds holding threatening instruments. Images of Max and Fiben and so many others lingered, thickening her thoughts every time she jerked awake again.

Then the Day arrived. She had donned her robe almost with a sense of relief that now, at least, it was all finally approaching an end. But what end?

A slight chimmie emerged from the most recent test booth, mopped her forehead with the sleeve of her silvery tunic, and walked tiredly over to join Gailet. Michaela Nod-dings was only an elementary school teacher, and a green card, but she had proven more adaptable and enduring than quite a few blues, who were now walking the lonely spiral back down again. Gailet felt deep relief on seeing her new friend still among the candidates. She reached out to take the other chimmie's hand.

"I almost flunked that one, Gailet," Michaela said. Her fingers trembled in Gailet's grasp.

"Now, don't you dare flake out on me, Michaela," Gailet said soothingly. She brushed her companion's sweaty locks. "You're my strength. I couldn't go on if you weren't here."

In Michaela's brown eyes was a soft grat.i.tude, mixed with irony. "You're a liar, Gailet. That's sweet of you to say, but you don't need any of us, let alone little me. Whatever I can pa.s.s, you take at a breeze."

Of course that wasn't strictly true. Gailet had figured out that the examinations offered by the Uplift Inst.i.tute were scaled somehow, in order to measure not only how intelligent the subject was but also how hard he or she was trying. Sure, Gailet had advantages over most of the other chims, in training and perhaps in IQV but at each stage her own trials got harder, too.

Another chim-a Probationer known as Weasel-emerged from the booth and sauntered over to where Irongrip waited with a third member of their band. Weasel did not seem to be much put out. In fact, all three of the surviving Probationers looked relaxed, confident. Irongrip noticed Gailet's glance and winked at her. She turned away quickly.

One last chim came out then and shook his head. "That's it," he said.

"Then Professor Simmins . . . ?"

When he shrugged, Gailet sighed. This just did not make sense. Something was wrong when fine, erudite chims were failing, and yet the tests did not cull out Irongrip's bunch from the very start.

Of course, the Uplift Inst.i.tute might judge "advancement" differently than the human-led Earthclan did. Irongrip and Weasel and Steelbar were intelligent, after all. The Ga-lactics might not view the Probationers' various character flaws as all that terrible, loathsome as they were to Terrans.

But no, that wasn't the reason at all, Gailet realized, as she and Michaela stepped past the remaining twenty or so to lead the way upward again. Gailet knew that something else had to be behind this. The Probies were just too c.o.c.ky. Somehow they knew that a fix was in.

It was shocking. The Galactic Inst.i.tutes were supposed to be above reproach. But there it was. She wondered what, if anything, could be done about it.

As they approached the next station-this one manned by a plump, leathery Soro inspector and six robots-Gailet looked around and noticed something for the first time, that nearly all of the brightly dressed Galactic observers-the aliens unaffiliated with the Inst.i.tute who had come to watch and engage in informal diplomacy-nearly all of them had drifted away. A few could still be seen, moving swiftly downslope and to the east, as if drawn by something interesting happening off that way.

Of course they won't bother telling us what's going on, she thought bitterly.

"Okay, Gailet," Michaela sighed. "Yo'ti first again. Show 'em we can talk real good."

So, even a prim schoolteacher will use grunt dialect as an affectation, a bond. Gailet sighed. "Yeah. Me go do that thing."

Irongrip grinned at her, but Gailet ignored him as she stepped up to bow to the Soro and submit to the attentions of the robots.

89 Galactics The Suzerain of Beam and Talon strutted back and forth under the flapping fabric of the Uplift Inst.i.tute pavilion. The Gubru admiral's voice throbbed with a vibrato of outrage.

"Intolerable! Unbelievable! Impermissible! This invasion must be stopped, held back, put into abeyance!"

The smooth routine of a normal Uplift Ceremony had been shattered. Officials and examiners of the Inst.i.tute -- Galactics of many shapes and sizes-now rushed about under the great canopy, hurriedly consulting portable Libraries, seeking precedents for an event none of them had ever witnessed or imagined before. An unexpected disturbance had triggered chaos everywhere, and especially in the corner where the Suzerain danced its outrage before a spiderlike being.

The Grand Examiner, an arachnoid Serentini, stood relaxed in a circle of datatanks, listening attentively to the Gubru officer's complaint.

"Let it be ruled a violation, an infraction, a capital of-fense! My soldiers shall enforce propriety severely!" The Suzerain fluffed its down to display the pinkish tint already visible under the outer feathers-as if the Serentini would be impressed to see that the admiral was nearly female, almost a queen.

But the sight failed to impress the Grand Examiner. Serentini were all female, after all. So what was the big deal?

The Grand Examiner kept her amus.e.m.e.nt hidden, however. "The new arrivals fit all of the criteria for being allowed to partic.i.p.ate in this ceremony," she replied patiently in Galactic Three. "They have caused consternation, of course, and will be much discussed long after this day is done. Still, they are only one of many features of this ceremony which are, well, unconventional."

The Gubru's beak opened, then shut. "What do you mean by that?"

"I mean that this is the most irregular Uplift Ceremony in megayears. I have several times considered canceling it altogether."

"You dare not! We should appeal, seek redress, seek compensation ..."

"Oh, you would love that, wouldn't you?" The Grand Examiner sighed. "Everyone knows the Gubru are overextended now. But a judgment against one of the Inst.i.tutes could cover some of your costs, no?"

This time, the Gubru was silent. The Grand Examiner used two feelers to scratch a crease in her carapace. "Several of my a.s.sociates believe that that was your plan all along. There are so many irregularities in this ceremony you've arranged. But on close examination each one seems to stop just short of illegality. You have been clever at finding precedents and loopholes.

"For instance, there is the matter of human approval of a ceremony for their own clients. It is unclear these hostage officials of yours understood what they were agreeing to when they signed the doc.u.ments you showed me."

"They were-had been-offered Library access."

"A skill for which wolflings are not renowned. There is suspicion of coercion."

"We have a message of acceptance from Earth! From their homeworld! From their nest-mothers!"

"Aye," the Serentini agreed. "They accepted your offer of peace and a free ceremony. What poor wolfling race in their dire circ.u.mstances could turn down such a proposal? But semantic a.n.a.lysis shows that they thought they were only agreeing to discuss the matter further! They obviously did not understand that you had purchased liberation of their old applications, some made more than fifty paktaars ago! This allowed the waiting period to be waived."

"Their misunderstandings are not pur concern," clipped the Suzerain of Beam and Talon.

"Indeed. And does the Suzerain of Propriety hold with this view?"

This time there was only silence. Finally, the Grand Examiner lifted both forelegs and crossed them in a formal bow. "Your protest is acknowledged. The ceremony shall continue, under the ancient rules set down by the Progenitors."

The Gubru commander had no choice. It bowed in return. Then it swiveled and flounced outside, angrily pushing aside a crowd of its guards and aides, leaving them cackling, disturbed, in its wake.

The Examiner turned to a robot a.s.sistant. "What were we discussing before the Suzerain arrived?"

"An approaching craft whose occupants claim diplomatic protection and observer status," the thing replied in Galactic One.