“The language barrier was very difficult, he says. It still creates many problems. The aliens need him and others like him, because they don’t understand the machines, but he’s very uneasy about the fact that they can’t tell him what they expect. He says that the invaders have not really managed to figure out who does what, and what kinds of work are essential to the running of the city. He says that they’re stupid, and don’t understand Tetron technology at all—the Tetrax apparently won’t co-operate with them, and they’re having great difficulty in keeping things going. He says that their own technology is very primitive.”
That seemed puzzling. I’d been assuming that although they looked like Neanderthalers, these Asgardians must be at least as sophisticated as the Tetrax. If the Ksylian was right, it was sheer weight of numbers that had allowed the invaders to overwhelm the city, and now that they had it they didn’t know how to run it.
“He thinks that the loss of life was greater than necessary,” Scarion went on. “He has heard that thousands of people were shot, though he does not know how much rumour to trust. He says that many citizens, especially Tetrax, have been taken down into the lower levels—no one knows where. This exodus is continuing, although it would take years to transport the whole population of Skychain City. He thinks that the invaders would like to take over the city entirely, but that the galactics are indispensable because they know how things work. He says it doesn’t much matter to him whether he works for the Tetrax or the invaders, but he’s scared of the invaders.”
“What sorts of equipment are they bringing up?” I asked, addressing my question directly to the Ksylian. His parole was oddly accented, but we had no difficulty understanding one another.
“Armoured vehicles, many guns. They are working hard, trying to understand our machinery. They have many men learning parole, and are using many citizens as language teachers.”
“Do they all look like me, or are there different races?”
“All those I have seen are your kind. I have heard, though, that they have other peoples working for them as slaves.”
“Humanoid?”
“Yes, but I do not know which of the galactic races they resemble most. I have not seen any of these slaves—not knowingly.”
“How easy is it to move about on the surface? Could we get up into the streets under the dome without being apprehended?”
“It is very difficult. They try to keep people off the streets. They issue passes, in their own writing—because no one understands their language, such passes are hard to forge.”
“Would it be safe for us to use the telephones, or would they be able to monitor our calls?”
“I do not know. They are not clever with the Tetron communications systems, but they do have telephones of their own.”
We had already figured that the phones were a bad risk.
“Is it safe for us to move around down here?”
The Ksylian shook his head, but I wasn’t sure what the gesture meant in his terms. “Perhaps,” he said, noncommittally. “They allow the workers to do their jobs— they are desperate to maintain and improve food production. They have found out which food is best for them, and they are trying to produce more, but they do not know how. The Tetrax will not help them.”
Most of the food produced in the factory-fields consisted of different varieties of “manna”—compounds precisely matched to the nutritional requirements of particular groups of galactic humanoids. There were enough different kinds of humanoid in Skychain City to necessitate production of eight or ten brands. If appearances were anything to go by, the invaders would need my old brand, which had been produced in much less quantity than the brands preferred by the Tetrax—or, for that matter, the brands marketed for specialist carnivores like the vormyr or the brands designed for specialist vegetarians like sleaths.
“There’s one way we might get a close look at the streets on the surface,” said Serne.
“What’s that?” I asked him.
“Stop an armoured car, zap the guys inside, and steal their uniforms. Then we could drive around to our heart’s content.”
“It’s a bit too melodramatic,” I told him. “Maybe later.”
“Please go now,” said the Ksylian, obviously thinking that if we’d reached the stage when we could talk among ourselves, we could take off and stop making him nervous.
“Can you get a message to a Tetron on the surface?” I asked him. “Preferably a high-number man.”
The Ksylian thought about it. I think he wanted to say no. But his first loyalty was still to the Tetrax, and he probably figured that there was an even chance that the Tetrax would one day be back in charge. When that time came, it would be a lot healthier to be the guy that had helped out than the guy who had refused.
“Perhaps,” he said, shaking his head again.
74-Scarion produced the written text that we already had prepared. It was written in a Tetron language, so the Ksylian couldn’t read it any more than the invaders would be able to. We figured that it was safe—the Ksylian could probably think up a dozen excuses for having an incomprehensible bit of paper in his possession, if he was asked. He had nothing to lose by trying to deliver it.
I couldn’t read the paper either, but Tulyar had told us that it was an invitation to a rendezvous and a request for detailed information about the situation in the city. We were assuming that the Tetrax in Skychain City had continued to gather intelligence even though their ways of beaming information out had been blocked.
The Ksylian pocketed the paper, knowing that it was the price of being left alone.
We didn’t want to put all our eggs in one basket, so we went on to make a couple of further contacts in much the same fashion. We didn’t find out much more, save for a few items of hearsay that were blatantly untrustworthy, but we did get corroboration of the Ksylian’s impressions. Everyone we spoke to was agreed that the invaders seemed to be technologically primitive, and that they were having one hell of a time trying to figure out how to take over the machinery the Tetrax had used to run the city. We were told that the invaders were not pleased with the Tetrax, because of their unwillingness to help.
This information worried me. The Tetrax who’d briefed us must have suspected this, but hadn’t mentioned it. I’d assumed that they were frightened of the invaders because of their probable technological supremacy, but now it looked as if they might be worried because their people were in the hands of reckless barbarians. I’d also assumed that the invasion was a response to my penetration of the lower levels, but there seemed to be no evidence of any connection between these invaders and the biotech-minded supermen who’d taken Myrlin in. Maybe the invaders were just the pawns—but if so, why hadn’t the players come forth to help them with their technical difficulties?
We had too much work to do, though, to allow me to spend time pondering such questions. We handed out a couple more invitations for delivery to Tetrax in the city— one to a Zabaran, one to a Turkanian. We didn’t see any Tetrax, nor did we get close enough to any invaders to be seen by them.
By the time we set off for home we figured that we could count the day a modest success. We’d spent about six hours in the paddy-fields—during which time we failed to find anything much that Serne, Vasari, and I cared to eat, though 74-Scarion picked up a couple of snacks.