“No, they’re smarter than that.” Maybe. “They’re so intelligent that Tycoon has conceived the test we do today.”
“Yes, his secret plan. I don’t care what it is, as long as this is the last try.…” Chitiratifor was silent for a moment, presumably watching the trade basket descend the last few feet to the muddy ground. Others were watching. Intently. At the edges of the open space, where the unending mobs swirled and eddied, there were heads turning, thousands of eyes watching the Sea Breeze and the little package that was descending from it. It had taken tendays of dangerous balloon flights—and some truly expensive jewels—to establish this small open space and the erratically obeyed rules for these exchanges.
“Okay, tell me!” Chitiratifor’s curiosity had won out. “What in heaven’s name are you doing with these fish?”
“My boss’s brilliant plan?” Remasritlfeer kept all doubt and sarcasm out of his voice. “Tell me, Chitiratifor, do you realize where we are?”
Chitiratifor emitted a hiss. “We’re stuck just above the heart of the packs-be-damned largest Choir in the world!”
“Precisely. No explorer has ever come so close. Tycoon’s fleet is anchored two thousand feet offshore. That is the closest of all explorations. Over the ages, who knows how many explorers have attempted to reach the heart of the Tropics from the North, either on foot or sailing the River Fell. There’s pestilence and strange beasties on that approach—but those are survivable. I’ve survived them. And yet the explorers who go further south all disappear, or return in pieces, near mindless but for the stories that have made the Tropics legend. And now, you and I are here, just a thousand feet from the center of it all.”
“Your point being?” Chitiratifor tried to make the question sound lofty and impatient, but there was a quaver in his words. Maybe the guy had finally gotten a good view of the creatures below, the unceasing roil of the mob around the clearing. Given the heat, it was no surprise that the creatures wore only random trinkets and splotches of paint. But clothing aside, most of them could never be mistaken for Northern Tines. Tropicals’ pelts were thin. Many had puffs of fur near their paws but were almost hairless on their sides and bellies. There were so many Tines that even up here you could hear some mindsound. That vast chorus was truly the most unnerving thing about this place, and probably what had put Chitiratifor into his near-panic.
Now most of Remasritlfeer’s gaze was on the trade basket below. By protocol, the three Tines should not touch it until the rope went slack, but he was taking things slow and easy. He interrupted their descent and took a very careful look with two of his heads gazing down from opposite sides of the gondola. It looked like the basket was twenty feet up. It was time for touchdown. And then … Remasritlfeer had no idea what would happen then.
“My point?… Um, can you imagine what it would be like to be down on the ground here?”
“Madness,” said Chitiratifor, and it was hard to tell if that was his answer, or his reaction to the question. Then: “A coherent pack down there, surrounded by the unending millions of the Choir? The mind would disintegrate in seconds. It would be like a lump of coal tossed into a vat of molten iron.”
“Yes, that’s what it would be like if you or I were dropped into the Choir, but look: The result of our previous trading is that we have a clear space down below. There are just three Tines in that space, the rope handlers. The nearest parts of the mob are almost thirty feet away. The situation would be uncomfortable and you’d have to keep an absolute grip on your mind, but a pack could survive down there.”
Chitiratifor emitted a dismissive tone that warbled into the sound of fear. “I can hear the pressure all around. That open space is a tiny bubble of sanity in the middle of hell. The Choir doesn’t tolerate foreign elements. If you were on the ground, that precious open space would disappear in an instant.”
“But no one really knows, right? If Tycoon can get packs safely on the ground, this tedious trading process might be speeded up.”
“Oh. But that’s a theory you could easily test. Just drop a pack”—Chitiratifor hesitated, choosing his words with care—“just find a condemned criminal, give it the offer of freedom if only it will descend to this clearing and have a chat with the delightful Tines we see below.”
“Unfortunately, we don’t have any condemned prisoners to help us out. Tycoon thinks that these talking cuttlefish might be the next best thing.…” The reasoning sounded very thin even to Remasritlfeer. That was Tycoon for you: he had lots of ideas, but most of them were absurd. The only people the Tycoon had convinced in this case were the cuttlefish themselves, who seemed endlessly eager to talk to new strangers. You had to wonder how creatures like that survived in the world; tasting bad was surely not a sufficient defense.
Chitiratifor forced a chuckle. “This is the brilliant solution Tycoon has been hinting at? And you’ll honestly report what happens?”
Remasritlfeer ignored the patronizing tone. “Of course,” he said.
“Well then, let’s land these fish!” Chitiratifor honked laughter.
Okay, little friends. I wish you well. From a thousand feet up, the last few feet were always tricky, but Remasritlfeer had had plenty of practice. The little guys would come to no harm from the Choir’s mindsound; the cuttlefish minds were as silent as the dead. The real question was how the Choir would react to the presence of non-Choir talkers. The parts of him that were watching the edge of the open space could see a strange kind of tension spreading out through the mob. Remasritlfeer had seen this sort of thing before. The Choir was not a coherent mind, and yet small parts of it clearly thought to one another, and those mindsounds percolated for hundreds of feet, creating patterns of attention that were wider than he had ever seen except in sentry lines.
“The Choir’s mindsound,” came Chitiratifor’s voice, filled with overtones of awe. “It’s getting louder!” Chitiratifor was shifting around on the passenger platform, beside himself with fear. He was causing the entire gondola to bounce and sway.
Remasritlfeer hissed, “Get ahold of yourselves, fellow!” But in fact, the mindsound of the Choir did seem louder, a mix of lust and rage and pleasure and intense interest, a rising madness. If all those Tines below could think together … well then maybe they could focus this high. And destroy them even aboard the Sea Breeze. Then he realized that although the mindsounds were louder and more unified, something else had changed. Almost all low-frequency sounds had ceased. Gone were the moaning and fragments of Interpack language that had been a ceaseless churn from the mob. It was so quiet in the low sounds that he could hear the sigh of the River Fell as it swept past the mudbanks and grass trees of the delta.
Even the cuttlefish—both here in the kettle and down below in the trade basket—had ceased their tinkling chatter. It was as if the entire world had taken a moment to watch and see what would happen.
Remasritlfeer’s wide-spaced eyes told him that the trade basket must be on the ground. At the same time, the cord he’d been paying out went slack in his jaws. Yes, touchdown!
Now as clear as tiny bells, he could hear the cuttlefish chattering at the three Tines who stood by the landing spot. They were saying exactly the sales pitch that Tycoon had worked out for them, exactly what Remasritlfeer himself would have said if he had the courage to land in the middle of this hell (though Remasritlfeer would have spoken with a single voice rather than the dozen spouting from the little cuttlefish).
The three Tines by the basket didn’t immediately react. The eerie, low-sound silence continued a moment more. Then there came a spike of mindsound that near froze Remasritlfeer’s hearts, anger so loud it seemed to come from his own mind. From all directions, the myriad Tines broke the fragile protocol Remasritlfeer had worked so long to construct, rushing inwards upon the trade basket.