“That was a warship, wasn’t it?” Benjamin asked her. “These other chims here haven’t ever been to space, but I went up to see the old Vesarius when it visited, a couple years back, and even she wasn’t as big as that thing!”
Athaclena sighed. “It was, indeed, a warship. Of Soro design, I think. The Gubru are using that fashion now.” She looked down at the Earthling. “I would say that Garth is no longer simply interdicted, Chim Benjamin. An invasion has begun.”
Benjamin’s hands came together. He pulled nervously at one opposable thumb, then the other. “They’re hovering over the valley. I can hear ’em! What are they up to?”
“I don’t know,” she said. “Why don’t we go look?”
Benjamin hesitated, then nodded. He led the group back to a point where the spine-stones opened up and they could gaze out over the valley.
The warship hovered about four kilometers east of their position and a few hundred meters above the ground, draping its immense shadow over a small cluster of off-white buildings on the valley floor. Athaclena shaded her eyes against the bright sunshine reflected from its gunmetal gray flanks.
The deep-throated groan of the giant cruiser was ominous. “It’s just hoverin’ there! What are they doing?” one of the chims asked nervously.
Athaclena shook her head in Anglic. “I do not know.” She sensed fear from humans and neo-chimps in the settlement below. And there were other sources of emotion as well.
The invaders, she realized. Their psi shields were down, an arrogant dismissal of any possibility of defense. She caught a gestalt of thin-boned, feathered creatures, descendants of some flightless, pseudo-avian species. A rare real-view came to her briefly, vividly, as seen through the eyes of one of the cruiser’s officers. Though contact only lasted milliseconds, her corona reeled back in revulsion.
Gubru, she realized numbly. Suddenly, it was made all too real.
Benjamin gasped. “Look!”
Brown fog spilled forth from vents in the ship’s broad underbelly. Slowly, almost languidly, the dark, heavy vapor began to fall toward the valley floor.
The fear below shifted over to panic. Athaclena quailed back against one of the spine-stones and wrapped her arms over her head, trying to shut out the almost palpable aura of dread.
Too much! Athaclena tried to form a glyph of peace in the space before her, to hold back the pain and horror. But every pattern was blown away like spun snow before the hot wind of a flame.
“They’re killing th’ humans and “rillas!” one of the chims on the hillside cried, running forward. Benjamin shouted after him. “Petrie! Come back here! Where do you think you’re going?”
“I’m goin’ to help!” the younger chim yelled back. “And you would too, if you cared! You can hear ’em screamin’ down there!” Ignoring the winding path, he started scrambling down the scree slope itself — the most direct route toward the roiling fog and the dim sounds of despair.
The other two chims looked at Benjamin rebelliously, obviously sharing the same thought. “I’m goin’ too,” one said.
Athaclena’s fear-narrowed eyes throbbed. What were these silly creatures doing now?
“I’m with you,” the last one agreed. In spite of Benjamin’s shouted curses, both of them started down the steep slope.
“Stop thi», right now!”
They turned and stared at Athaclena. Even Petrie halted suddenly, hanging one-handed from a boulder, blinking up at her. She had used the Tone of Peremptory Command, for only the third time in her life.
“Stop this foolishness and come back here immediately!” she snapped. Athaclena’s corona billowed out over her ears. Her carefully cultured human accent was gone. She enunciated Anglic in the Tymbrimi lilt the neo-chimpanzees must have heard on video countless times. She might look rather human, but no human voice could make exactly the same sounds.
The Terran clients blinked, open-mouthed.
“Return at once,” she hissed.
The chims scrambled back up the slope to stand before her. One by one, glancing nervously at Benjamin and following his example, they bowed with arms crossed in front of them.
Athaclena fought down her own shaking in order to appear outwardly calm. “Do not make me raise my voice again,” she said lowly. “We must work together, think coolly, and make appropriate plans.”
Small wonder the chims shivered and looked up at her, wide-eyed. Humans seldom spoke to chims so peremptorily. The species might be indentured to man, but by Earth’s own law neo-chimps were nearly equal citizens.
We Tymbrimi, though, are another matter. Duty, simple duty had drawn Athaclena out of her totanoo — her fear-induced withdrawal. Somebody had to take responsibility to save these creatures’ lives.
The ugly brown fog had stopped spilling from the Gubru vessel. The vapor spread across the narrow valley like a dark, foamy lake, barely covering the buildings at the bottom.
Vents closed. The ship began to rise.
“Take cover,” she told them, and led the chims around the nearest of the rock monoliths. The low hum of the Gubru ship climbed more than an octave. Soon they saw it rise over the spine-stones.
“Protect yourselves.”
The chims huddled close, pressing their hands against their ears.
One moment the giant invader was there, a thousand meters over the valley floor. Then, quicker than the eye could follow, it was gone. Displaced air clapped inward like a giant’s hand and thunder batted them again, returning in rolling waves that brought up dust and leaves from the forest below.
The stunned neo-chimps stared at each other for long moments as the echoes finally ebbed. Finally the eldest chim, Benjamin, shook himself. He dusted his hands and grabbed the young chen named Petrie by the back of his neck, marching the startled chim over to face Athaclena.
Petrie looked down shamefaced. “I … I’m sorry, ma’am,” he muttered gruffly. “It’s just that there are humans down there and… and my mates. …”
Athaclena nodded. One should try not to be too hard on a well-intended client. “Your motives were admirable. Now that we are calm though, and can plan, we’ll go about helping your patrons and friends more effectively.”
She offered her hand. It was a less patronizing gesture than the pat on the head he seemed to have expected from a Galactic. They shook, and he grinned shyly.
When they hurried around the stones to look out over the valley again, several of the Terrans gasped. The brown cloud had spread over the lowlands like a thick, filthy sea that flowed almost to the forest slopes at their feet. The heavy vapor seemed to have a sharply defined upper boundary barely licking at the roots of nearby trees.
They had no way of knowing what was going on below, or even if anybody still lived down there.
“We will split into two groups,” Athaclena told them. “Robert Oneagle still requires attention. Someone must go to him.”
The thought of Robert lying semi-conscious back there where she had left him was an unrelenting anxiety in her mind. She had to know he was being cared for. Anyway, she suspected most of these chims would be better off going to Robert’s aid than hanging around this deadly valley. The creatures were too shaken and volatile up here in full view of the disaster. “Benjamin, can your companions find Robert by themselves, using the directions I have given?”
“You mean without leading them there yourself?” Benjamin frowned and shook his head. “Uh, I dunno, ma’am. I … I really think you ought to go along.”
Athaclena had left Robert under a clear landmark, a giant quail-nut tree close to the main trail. Any party sent from here should have no trouble finding the injured human.
She could read the chim’s emotions. Part of Benjamin anxiously wished to have one of the renowned Tymbrimi here to help, if possible, the people in the valley. And yet he had chosen to try to send her away!