“Neuronius has sorely misguided you, Cerebrons.
“Synapo has already shown you the way. I have merely reiterated what he so concisely and clearly pointed out.
“Please do not fail him.”
A silence as keen as that which followed Neuronius's last statement now fell upon the assembly.
Axonius seemed in no hurry to break the silence; instead he seemed to be providing a space for the Cerebrons to ponder Sarco's remarks.
Finally he said, “Are there any others who would like to make a statement?”
But now he waited not at all before he said, “If not, our Honorable Leader is here provided the traditional last words before the Vote on Superior Competence.”
“I have nothing further to add to my colleagues' remarks,” Synapo said and turned his hook until it pointed aft to accept humbly whatever the Cerebron elite might decide.
Axonius took the vote by radio ballot: secret and unanimous.
Chapter 14. Bearer Of Glad Tifings
When he heard Axonius announce the favorable results of the unanimous vote, Synapo immediately took flight, circling up and up into the calm sky, matching that calmness with the cold detachment he had induced in himself as Sarco was speaking.
He was not surprised when Sarco joined him, and he was grateful to Sarco for the power of his oratory, but he wanted to be alone, and he had been on the point of ensuring himself that solitude when he detected Sarco close behind.
With Sarco close at hand, expecting some kind of dialogue, he could not balloon himself into isolation as he had intended; that would show neither tact nor the genuine gratitude he felt.
So he merely climbed to a safe ballooning altitude and then started circling in position, waiting for Sarco to catch up.
“I know you want to be alone,” Sarco said, “and I'll not intrude on your time but for a brief moment, just long enough for a word of warning.”
“You're not intruding, old friend,” Synapo said, “and rushing off as I did may have made me appear ungrateful for the service you rendered at the gathering. But I am truly grateful and might not have won the endorsement of the elite if you hadn't made that impassioned speech. You deserve to be where you are, Sarco, the very antithesis of Petero's Principle.”
“I didn't come up here to be praised, you old jet, but to warn you about Neuronius.”
“You and the elite have taken care of him, Sarco. “
“For the moment, perhaps, but maybe not even for the moment. He's dangerous, Synapo.”
“Neuronius? Dangerous? To himself maybe. He certainly confirmed that today.”
“No, to you, Synapo.”
“I think not. He's devious, and a liar, and not to be trusted, but hardly dangerous otherwise.”
“He was standing in back of you,” Sarco said. “You couldn't see his body language, his undisguisable reaction to that last bit of terse, indirect language Axonius used to describe his competence to guide the caucus.
“But I was watching him intently, Synapo, then and again when I gave my harsh assessment of him. He may even be dangerous to Axonius and to me, but he's going to hold you responsible for his downfall, and you're the target he'll be focusing on.”
“Perhaps, but there's little you or I can do about that,” Synapo said. “His danger to the future of the tribes, at least, has been eliminated by his departure from the elite. That was my primary concern.”
“He's still a danger to the tribes so long as he can get at you and me. And what about Axonius? Where does he stand in the elite now? He helped save your hide.”
“I'm not sure at this point. This has been a rather full day. I'm too exhausted to think clearly now.”
“I was impressed with his handling of the caucus, Synapo.”
“And so was I.”
“I'll leave you now. May Petero guide your deliberations.”
“You agree that the alien proposal for cohabitation should be given a fair trial?”
“I'll not argue that,” Sarco said, “not after what you've been through. Yes, we'll postpone closure of the weather node compensator indefinitely. “
He glided away. Synapo balled and immediately closed and inflated his reflector to its full extent, suitable for high-altitude cerebrations.
Although his storage cells were still critically low, and though his cerebrations in reflection mode would use a modest amount of juice, he could recharge to full capacity as he leisurely beat his way back from wherever the gentle air currents would take him during his silvery ruminations.
His first step in the direction of those ruminations had been taken when he reached stable altitude, and with only his hook, eyes, and primary vent protruding beneath the balloon, he surveyed the vast panorama.
The Ceremyons were far below him at optimum charge altitude, replenishing their juice stores in random flight circles that covered the globe in a loosely dispersed pattern up to the dusk band.
The dusk band was creeping toward him from the east-powered by the natural rotation of his world and his slow easterly drift-delineating day from approaching night that was just barely visible as a thin black crescent sliced from the edge of the globe.
From such high altitude, he appeared to have drifted very little from the point where he had ballooned. The compensator with the pie-cut sector lay only a small way to the west.
He closed his eyes, purging his mind of stress and strain which gradually faded away to a calm serenity.
And he slept.
He awoke to a star-studded frame surrounding the jet black circle of the planet. And his mind went immediately to Axonius, and to the answer to the question posed by Sarco as they parted that afternoon.
He would keep Axonius as his second in command. To discard a competent aide who was now all the more valuable for the lesson he had just learned, and all the more loyal for the gratitude he could not help but feel, would be to exercise a petty vengeance that was not characteristic of the statesman Synapo.
That resolved the tribe's hierarchical question, and the aliens had proposed a course that they felt promised harmonious cohabitation. He had no more problems at that moment, questions perhaps, but no problems, for he did not consider Neuronius a problem apart from the day-to-day governing of the Cerebrons; and the only worthy question that remained-the question of the possible superiority of the aliens-he could do nothing to answer right then.
Their small leader would make a friendly pet but was in no wise a threat, no more so than the servants, the Avery robots. The only question that remained was how did the small leader fit into the alien hierarchy, that part that still lay off-world.
He could do nothing to answer that question now. With a serene mind, he went back to sleep.
He awoke with his back to bright sunlight as he tossed quietly in the gentle turbulence created at the juncture of land and sea. Far to the west he could see the large node compensator with its pie-cut sector visible only as a small departure from perfect sphericity on the right side.
He deflated then, contracting the outer silvery surface of the six gores, and by that contraction, rolling the paper-thin hide into tight black rolls as the gores unsnapped at the continuous tongue-and-groove that kept them locked to one another while inflated.
The fluttering of the hide as he dropped through the thin air of the stratosphere was no competition for the powerful pull of the thin layer of smooth muscle that lay just below the silvery surface. Soon, all that was left of the balloon was a six-segment collar, visible only as a small bump in the black silhouette.
The ocean was still far below when he spread his wings at optimum charge altitude and started flapping with powerful strokes toward the compensator. Despite the night's metabolic cleansing-the destruction and purging of waste products that constitutes rest-he felt stale and overworked. He missed that fresh shot of juice he had become accustomed to during the construction of the compensator, when he dipped his cold-junction into the icy water of the brook upon deflating in the early morning.