“S’ah brannitsun, tutsunucann!”
The brush of her own waving tendrils felt like the webs and feet of tiny spiders. Gheer flux sent tiny gnomes wriggling under her skin, busy fashioning unwilled changes.
Athaclena moaned as the glyph of terrible expectant laughter hovered nearer and regarded her, bent over her, reached down -
“General? Mizz Athaclena. Excuse me, ma’am, are you awake? I’m sorry to disturb you, ser, but—”
The chim stopped. He had pulled aside the tent flap to enter, but now he rocked back in dismay as Athaclena sat up suddenly, eyes wide apart, catlike irises dilated, her lips curled back in a rictus of somnolent fear.
She did not appear to be aware of him. He blinked, staring at the pulsations that coursed slowly, like soliton waves, down her throat and shoulders. Above her agitated tendrils he briefly glimpsed something terrible.
He almost fled right then. It took a powerful effort of courage to swallow instead, to bear down, and to choke forth words.
“M-Ma’am, p-please. It’s me… S-Sammy …”
Slowly, as if drawn back by the sheerest force of will, the light of awareness returned to those gold-flecked eyes. They closed, reopened. With a tremulous sigh, Athaclena shuddered. Then she collapsed forward.
Sammy stood there, holding her while she sobbed. At that moment, stunned and frightened and astonished, all he could think of was how light and frail she felt in his arms.
“… That was when Gailet became convinced that any trick, if th’ Ceremony was a trick at all, had to be a subtle one.
“You see, the Suzerain of Propriety seems to have done a complete about-face regarding chim Uplift. It had started out convinced it would find evidence of mismanagement, and perhaps even cause to take neo-chimps away from humans. But now the Suzerain seemed to be earnest in searchin’ out … in searchin out appropriate race representatives…”
The voice of Fiben Bolger came from a small playback unit resting on the rough-hewn logs of Athaclena’s table. She listened to the recording Robert had sent. The chim’s report back at the caves had had its amusing moments. Fiben’s irrepressible good nature and dry wit had helped lift Athaclena’s limp spirits. Now, though, while relating Dr. Gailet Jones’s ideas about Gubru intentions, his voice had dropped, and he sounded reticent, almost embarrassed.
Athaclena could feel Fiben’s discomfort through the vibrations in the air. Sometimes one did not need another’s presence in order to sense their essence.
She smiled at the irony. He is starting to know who and what he is, and it frightens him. Athaclena sympathized. A sane being wished for peace and serenity, not to be the mortar in which the ingredients of destiny are finely ground.
In her hand she held the locket containing her mother’s legacy thread, and her father’s. For the moment, at least, tutsunucann was held at bay. But Athaclena knew somehow that the glyph had returned for good. There would be no sleep now, no rest until tutsunucann changed into something else. Such a glyph was one of the largest known manifestations of quantum mechanics — a probability amplitude that hummed and throbbed in a cloud of uncertainty, pregnant with a thousand million possibilities. Once the wave function collapsed, all that remained would be fate.
“… delicate political maneuverings on so many levels — among the local leaders of th’ invasion force, among factions back on the Gubru homeworld, between the Gubru and their enemies and possible allies, between the Gubru and Earth, and among th’ various Galactic Institutes…
She stroked the locket. Sometimes one does -not need another’s presence in order to sense their essence.
There was too much complexity here. What did Robert think he would accomplish by sending her this taping? Was she supposed to delve into some vast storehouse of sage Galactic wisdom — or perform some incantation — and somehow come up with a policy to guide them through this? Through this?
She sighed. Oh father, how I must be a disappointment to you.
The locket seemed to vibrate under her trembling fingers. For some time it seemed that another trance was settling in, drawing her downward into despair.
“. . .By Darwin, Goodall, and Greenpeace!”
It was the voice of Major Prathachulthorn that jarred her out of it. She listened for a while longer.
“. . . a target! …”
Athaclena shuddered. So. Things were, indeed, quite dire. All was explained now. Particularly the sudden, gravid insistence of an impatient glyph. Wheivthe pellet ran out she turned to her aides, Elayne Soo, Sammy, and Dr. de Shriver. The chims watched her patiently.
“I will seek altitude now,” she told them.
“But — but the storm, ma’am. We aren’t sure it’s passed. And then there’s the volcano. We’ve been talking about an evacuation.”
Athaclena stood up. “I do not expect to be long. Please send nobody along to guard or look out for me, they will only disturb me and make more difficult what I must do.”
She stopped at the flap of the tent then, feeling the wind push at the fabric as if searching for some gap at which to pry. Be patient. I am coming. When she spoke to the chims again, it was in a low voice. “Please have horses ready for when I return.”
The flap dropped after her. The chims looked at each other, then silently went about preparing for the day.
Mount Fossey steamed in places where the vapor could not be entirely attributed to rising dew.»Moist droplets still fell from leaves that shivered in the wind — now waning but still returning now and then in sudden, violent gusts.
Athaclena climbed doggedly up a narrow game trail. She could tett that her wishes were being respected. The chims remained behind, leaving her undisturbed.
The day was beginning with low clouds cutting through the peaks like the vanguards of some aerial invasion. Between them she could see patches of dark blue sky. A human’s eyesight might even have picked out a few stubborn stars.
Athaclena climbed for height, but even more for solitude. In the upper reaches the animal life of the forest was even sparser. She sought emptiness.
At one point the trail was clogged with debris from the storm, sheets of some clothlike material that she soon recognized. Plate ivy parachutes.
They reminded her. Down in the camp the chim techs had been striving to meet a strict timetable, developing variations on gorilla gut bacteria in time to meet nature’s deadline. Now, though, it looked as if Major Prathachulthorn’s schedule would not allow Robert’s plan to be used.
Such foolishness, Athaclena thought. How did humans last even this long, I wonder?
Perhaps they had to be lucky. She had read of their twentieth century, when it seemed more than Ifni’s chance that helped them squeeze past near certain doom… doom not only for themselves but for all future sapient races that might be born of their rich, fecund world. The tale of that narrow escape was perhaps one reason why so many races feared or hated the k’chu’non, the wolflings. It was uncanny, and unexplained to this day.
The Earthlings had a saying, “There, but for the love of God, go I.” The sick, raped paucity of Garth was mild compared to what they might easily have done to Terra.
How many of us would have done better under such circumstances? That was the question that underlay all the smug, superior posturings, and all of the contempt pouring from the great clans. For they had never been tested by the ages of ignorance Mankind suffered. What might it have felt like, to have no patrons, no Library, no ancient wisdom, only the bright flame of mind, unchanneled and undirected, free to challenge the Universe or to consume the world? The question was one few clans dared ask themselves.
She brushed aside the little parachutes. Athaclena edged past the snagged cluster of early spore carriers and continued her ascent, pondering the vagaries of destiny.