He saw that the trawlers had dragged the crippled Gubru patrol boat nearly to the dock. A number of other chim-crewed vessels cruised farther out, but none of them crossed a line of buoys that could be seen stretching all the way across the bay.
Barnaby looked left and right, then spoke in a low voice. “Uh, Fiben, there are quite a few chims in town who… well, who’ve been reorganizing. I had to give parole when I got my brassard back, but I can get word to Professor Oakes that you’re in town. I’m sure he’d want to get together a meetin’ tonight. …”
Fiben shook his head. “No time. I’ve got to get over there.” He motioned to where the bright aircraft were alighting on the far headlands.
Barnaby’s lips drew back. “I dunno, Fiben. Those watch buoys. They’ve kept everybody back.”
“Have they actually burned anybody?”
“Well, no. Not that I’ve seen. But—”
Barnaby stopped as Fiben shook the reins and nudged with his heels. “Thanks, Barnaby. That’s all I needed to know,” he said.
The proctors stood aside as Tycho stepped along the wharf. Farther out the little rescue flotilla had just come to dock and were even now tying up the prim white Gubru warcraft. The chim sailors did a lot of bowing and moved in uncomfortable crouched postures under the glare of the irritated Talon Soldiers and their fearsome battle drones.
In contrast, Fiben steered his steed just outside of the range that would have required him to acknowledge the aliens. His posture was erect, and he ignored them completely as he rode past the patrol boat to the far end of the pier, where the smallest of the fishing boats had just come to rest.
He swung his feet over the saddle and hopped down. “Are you good to animals?” he asked the startled sailor, who looked up from securing his craft. When he nodded, Fiben handed the dumbfounded chim Tycho’s reins. “Then we’ll swap.”
He leaped aboard the little craft and stepped behind the cockpit. “Send a bill for the difference to the Suzerain for Propriety. You got that? The Gubru Suzerain of Propriety.”
The wide-eyed chen seemed to notice that his jaw was hanging open. He closed it with an audible clack.
Fiben switched the ignition on and felt satisfied with the engine’s throaty roar. “Cast off,” he said. Then he smiled. “And thanks. Take good care of Tycho!”
The sailor blinked. He seemed about to decide to get angry when some of the chims who had followed Fiben caught up. One whispered in the boatman’s ear. The fisherman then grinned. He hurried to untie the boat’s tether and threw the rope back onto the foredeck. When Fiben awkwardly hit the pier backing up, the chim only winced slightly. “G-good luck,’ he managed to say.
“Yeah. Luck, Fiben,” Barnaby shouted.
Fiben waved and shifted the impellers into forward. He swung about in a wide arc, passing almost under the duraplast sides of the Gubru patrol craft. Up close it did not look quite so glistening white. In fact, the armored hull looked pitted and corroded. High, indignant chirps from the other side of the vessel indicated the frustration of the Talon Soldier crew.
Fiben spared them not a thought as he turned about and got his borrowed boat headed southward, toward the line of buoys that split the bay and kept the chims of Port Helenia away from the high, patron-level doings on the opposite shore.
Foamed and choppy from the wind, the water was cinerescent with the usual garbage the easterlies always brought in, this time of year — everything from leaves to almost transparent plate ivy parachutes to the feathers of molting birds. Fiben had to slow to avoid clots of debris as well as battered boats of all description crowded with chim sightseers.
He approached the barrier line at low speed and felt thousands of eyes watching him as he passed the last shipload, containing the most daring and curious of the Port Helenians.
Goodall, do I really know what I’m doing? he wondered. He had been acting almost on automatic so far. But now it came to him that he really was out of his depth here. What did he hope to accomplish by charging off this way? What was he going to do? Crash the ceremony? He looked at the towering starships across the bay, glistening in power and splendor.
As if he had any business sticking his half-uplifted nose into the affairs of beings from great and ancient clans! All he’d accomplish would be to embarrass himself, and probably his whole race for that matter.
“Gotta think about this,” he muttered. Fiben brought the boat’s engine down to idle as the line of buoys neared. He thought about how many people were watching him right now.
My people, he recalled. I … I was supposed to represent them.
Yes, but I ducked out, obviously the Suzerain realized its mistake and made other arrangements. Or the other Suzerain’s won, and I’d simply be dead meat if I showed up!
He wondered what they would think if they knew that, only days ago, he had manhandled and helped kidnap one of his own patrons, and his legal commander at that. Some race-representative!
Gailet doesn’t need the likes of me. She’s better off without me.
Fiben twisted the wheel, causing the boat to come about just short of one of the white buoys. He watched it go by as he turned.
It, too, looked less than new on close examination — somewhat corroded, in fact. But then, from his own lowly state, who was he to judge?
Fiben blinked at that thought. Now that was laying it on too thick!
He stared at the buoy, and slowly his lips curled back. Why… why you devious sons of bitches…
Fiben cut the impellers and let the engine drop back to idle. He closed his eyes and pressed his hands against his temples, trying to concentrate.
I was girding myself against another fear barrier…like the one at the city fence, that night. But this one is more subtle! It plays on my sense of my own unworthiness. It trades on my humility.
He opened his eyes and looked back at the buoy. Finally, he grinned.
“What humility?” Fiben asked aloud. He laughed and turned the wheel as he set the craft in motion again. This time when he headed for the barrier he did not hesitate, or listen to the doubts that the machines tried to cram into his head.
“After all,” he muttered, “what can they do to shake the confidence of a fellow who’s got delusions of adequacy?” The enemy had made a serious mistake here, Fiben knew as he left the buoys behind him and, with them, their artificially induced doubts. The resolution that flowed back into him now was fortified by its very contrast to the earlier depths. He approached the opposite headland wearing a fierce scowl of determination.
Something flapped against his knee. Fiben glanced down and saw the silvery ceremonial robe — the one he had found in the closet back at the old prison. He had crammed it under his belt, apparently, just before leaping atop Tycho and riding, pell-mell, for the harbor. No wonder people had been staring at him, back at the docks!
Fiben laughed. Holding onto the wheel with one hand, he wriggled into the silky garment as he headed toward a silent stretch of beach. The bluffs cut off any view of what was going on over on the sea side of the narrow peninsula. But the drone of still-descending aircraft was — he hoped — a sign that he might not be too late.
He ran the boat aground on a shelf of sparkling white sand, now made unattractive under a tidal wash of flotsam. Fiben was about to leap into the knee-high surf when he glanced back and noticed that something seemed to be going on back in Port Helenia. Faint cries of excitement carried over the water. The churning mass of brown forms at the dockside was now surging to the right.
He plucked up the pair of binoculars that hung by the capstan and focused them on the wharf area.
Chims ran about, many of them pointing excitedly eastward, toward the main entrance to town. Some were still running in that direction. But now more and more seemed to be heading the other way… apparently not so much in fear as in confusion. Some of the more excitable chims capered about. A few even fell into the water and had to be rescued by the more level-headed.