Although he had never considered himself very religious, Orne said a silent prayer: “Mahmud, help me save these… people.”
An inner calmness washed all through him, a sensation of strength and confidence. He thought: I’m calling the moves!
A cool gloom swept over the jungle, bringing a sudden stillness to the wild sounds. A chittering commotion came from the Gienahns in the trees and around the sled.
Tanub shifted, grunted.
The Gienahn who had been standing atop the load jumped down to the left. “We go now,” Tanub said. “Slowly. Stay behind my… scouts.”
“Right.” Orne eased the sled forward around an obstructing root, watched the headlights pick up the swinging, scampering figures of his escort.
Silence invaded the cab while they crawled forward.
“Turn a little to your right,” Tanub said, indicating an aisle between the trees.
Orne obeyed. Around him shapes flung themselves from vine to vine.
“I admired your city from the air,” Orne said. “It is very beautiful.”
“Yes,” Tanub said. “Your kind finds it so. Why did you bring your ship down so far from our city?”
“We didn’t want to land where we might destroy anything.”
“There is nothing to destroy in the jungle, Orne.”
“Why do you have just the one big city?” Orne asked.
Silence.
“I said, why do you…”
“Orne, you are ignorant of our ways,” Tanub growled. “Therefore, I forgive you. The city is for our race, for the foreverness. Our young must be born in sunlight. Once, long ago, we used crude platforms on the tops of the trees. Now… only the wild ones do this.”
Stetson’s voice hissed in Orne’s ears: “Easy on the sex and breeding line. That’s always touchy. These creatures are oviparous. Sex glands apparently are hidden in that long fur behind where their chins ought to be.”
Who decides where chins ought to be? Orne wondered.
“The ones who control the birthing sites control our world,” Tanub said. “Once there was another city. We destroyed it, shattered its towers and sent it crashing into the dirty mud where the jungle can reclaim it.”
“Are there many… wild ones?” Orne asked.
“Fewer each season," Tanub said. His voice sounded boastful, confident.
“There’s how they get their slaves,” Stetson said.
“Soon, there will be no wild ones left,” Tanub said.
“You speak excellent Galactese,” Orne said.
“The High Path Chief commands the best teacher,” Tanub said. “Do you, too, know many things, Orne?”
“That’s why I was sent here,” Orne said.
“Are there many planets to teach?” Tanub asked.
“Very many,” Orne said. “Your city—I saw very tall buildings. Of what do you build them?”
“In your tongue, glass,” Tanub said. “The engineers of the Delphinus said it was impossible. As you saw, they are wrong.”
Stetson’s voice came hissing on the carrier wave: “A glass-blowing culture! That’d explain a lot of things.”
The disguised air sled crept down the jungle aisle as Orne reviewed what he had heard and what he had observed. Glass-blowers. High Path Chief. Eyes with vertical slit pupils. An arboreal species. Hunters. Warlike. Slave culture. The young must be born in sunlight. Culture? Or physical necessity? They learned quickly. They had the Delphinus and her crew only eighteen standard months.
A scout swooped down into the headlights, waved.
Orne stopped the sled on Tanub’s order. They waited almost ten minutes before proceeding.
“Wild ones?” Orne asked.
“Perhaps. But we are too strong a force for them to attack. And they do not have good weapons. Do not be afraid, Orne.”
A glowing of many lights grew visible through the giant tree trunks. It brightened as the sled crept through the jungle’s edge and emerged in cleared land looking across about two kilometers of open space at the city.
Orne stared upward in awe. The Gienahn city fluted and spiraled into the moonlit sky, taller than the tallest trees. It appeared a fragile lacery of bridges, glowing columns and winking dots of light. The bridges wove back and forth from column to column until the entire visible network seemed one gigantic dew-glittering web.
“All that with glass,” Orne murmured.
“What’s happening?” Stetson demanded.
Orne touched his throat: “We’re just out of the jungle and proceeding toward the nearest buildings of the city. They are magnificent!”
“Too bad if we have to blast the place.”
Orne thought of a Chargonian curse: May you grow like a wild root with your head in the ground!
Tanub said: “This is far enough, Orne. Stop your vehicle.”
Orne brought the sled to a jolting stop. He could see armed Gienahns all around in the moonlight—Mark XXs, hand blasters. The glass-buttressed pedestal of a columnar building lifted into the moonlight directly ahead. It appeared taller than had the scout cruiser in the jungle landing circle.
Tanub leaned over Orne’s shoulder. “We have not deceived you, Orne, have we?”
Orne felt his stomach contract. “What do you mean?” The furry odor of the Gienahn was oppressive in the cab.
“You have recognized that we cannot be mutated members of your race,” Tanub said.
Orne tried to swallow in a dry throat. Stetson’s voice came into his ears: “Better admit it.”
“That’s true,” Orne said.
“I like you, Orne,” Tanub said. “You shall be one of my slaves. I will give you fine females from the Delphinus and you will teach me many things.”
“How did you capture the Delphinus?” Orne asked.
“How do you know of this?” Tanub drew back and Orne saw the rifle muzzle come up.
“You have one of their rifles,” Orne said. “We don’t pass around weapons. Our aim is to reduce the numbers of weapons throughout the…”
“Weak ground crawlers!” Tanub said. “You are no match for us, Orne. We take the high path. Our prowess is great. We surpass all other creatures in cunning. We shall subjugate you.”
“How’d you take the Delphinus?” Orne asked.
“Ha! They brought their ship into our reach because it had inferior tubes. We told them truthfully that we could improve their tubes. Very inferior ceramics your kind makes.”
Orne studied Tanub in the dim glow of the cab light. “Tanub, have you heard of the I-A?”
“I-A! They investigate and adjust when others make mistakes. Their existence is an admission of your inferiority. You make mistakes!”
“Many people make mistakes,” Orne said.
A wary tenseness came over the Gienahn. His mouth opened to reveal the long canines.
“You took the Delphinus by treachery?” Orne asked.
Stetson’s voice came hissing on the carrier wave into Orne’s hearing: “Don’t goad him!”
Tanub said: “They were simple fools on the Delphinus. We are smaller than your kind; they thought us weaker.” The Mark XX’s muzzle came around to center on Orne’s stomach. “You will answer a question. Why do you speak of this I-A?”
“I am of the I-A,” Orne said. “I came here to find out where you’d hidden the Delphinus.”
“You came to die,” Tanub said. “We have hidden your ship in the place that suits us best. In all of our history there has never been a better place for us to crouch and await the moment of attack.”