“Now,” the vodor barked, perhaps with a note of relief. “State name and purposes.”
“Uh, I’m F-Fiben… uh, s-s-ser.” His hands fluttered in front of him. It was a bit of theater, but the Gubru might know that neo-chimpanzees under stress still spoke using parts of the brain originally devoted to hand control.
It certainly looked as if the Talon Soldier was frustrated. Its feathers ruffled, and it hopped a little dance. “. . . purpose… purpose… state your purpose in approaching the urban area!”
Fiben bowed again, quickly.
“Uh… th’ hover won’t work no more. Th’ humans are all gone… nobody to tell us what to do at th’ farm …”
He scratched his head. “I figured, well, they must need food in town… and maybe some- somebody can fix th’ cart in trade for grain… ?” His voice rose hopefully.
The second Gubru returned and chirped briefly to the one in charge. Fiben could follow its GalThree well enough to get the gist.
The hover was a real farm tool. It would not take a genius to tell that the rotors just needed to be unfrozen for it to run again. Only a helpless drudge would haul an antigravity truck all the way to town behind a beast of burden, unable to make such a simple repair on his own.
The first guard kept one taloned, splay-fingered hand over the vodor, but Fiben gathered their opinion of chims had started low and was rapidly dropping. The invaders hadn’t even bothered to issue identity cards to the neo-chimpanzee population.
For centuries Earthlings — humans, dolphins, and chims — : had known the galaxies were a dangerous place where it was often better to have more cleverness than one was credited for. Even before the invasion, word had gone out among the chim population of Garth that it might be necessary to put on the old “Yes, massa!” routine.
Yeah, Fiben reminded himself. But nobody ever counted on all the humans being taken away! Fiben felt a knot in his stomach when he imagined the humans — mels, ferns, and children — huddled behind barbed wire in crowded camps.
Oh yeah. The invaders would pay.
The Talon Soldiers consulted a map. The first Gubru uncovered its vodor and twittered again at Fiben.
“You may go,” the vodor barked. “Proceed to the Eastside Garage Complex… You may go … Eastside Garage… Do you know the Eastside Garage?”
Fiben nodded hurriedly. “Y-yessir.”
“Good… good creature… take your grain to the town storage area, then proceed to the garage … to the garage… good creature… Do you understand?”
“Y-yes!”
Fiben bowed as he backed away and then scuttled with an exaggeratedly bowlegged gait over to the post where Tycho’s reins were tied. He averted his gaze as he led the animal back onto the dirt embankment beside the road. The soldiers idly watched him pass, chirping contemptuous remarks they were certain he could not understand.
Stupid damned birds, he thought, while his disguised belt camera panned the fortification, the soldiers, a hover-tank that whined by a few minutes later, its crew sprawled upon its flat upper deck, taking in the late afternoon sun.
Fiben waved as they swept by, staring back at him.
I’ll bet you’d taste just fine in a nice orange glaze, he thought after the feathered creatures.
Fiben tugged the horse’s reins. “C’mon, Tycho,” he urged. “We gotta make Port Helenia by nightfall.”
Farms were still operating in the Valley of the Sind.
Traditionally, whenever a starfaring race was licensed to colonize a new world, the continents were left as much as possible in their natural state. On Garth as well, the major Earthling settlements had been established on an archipelago in the shallow Western Sea. Only those islands had been converted completely to suit Earth-type animals and vegetation.
But Garth was a special case. The BururalH had left a mess, and something had to be done quickly to help stabilize the planet’s rocky ecosystem. New forms had to be introduced from the outside to prevent a complete biosphere collapse. That meant tampering with the continents.
A narrow watershed had been converted in the shadow of the Mountains of Mulun. Terran plants and animals that thrived here were allowed to diffuse into the foothills under careful observation, slowly filling some of the ecological niches left empty by the Bururalli Holocaust. It was a delicate experiment in practical planetary ecology, but one considered worthwhile. On Garth and on other catastrophe worlds the three races of the Terragens were building reputations as biosphere wizards. Even Mankind’s worst critics would have to approve of work such as this.
And ye,t, something was jarringly wrong here. Fiben had passed three abandoned ecological management stations on his way, sampling traps and tracer bots stacked in disarray.
It was a sign of how bad the crisis must be. Holding the humans hostage was one thing — a marginally acceptable tactic by modern rules of war. But for the Gubru to be willing to disturb the resurrection of Garth, the uproar in the galaxy must be profound.
It didn’t bode well for the rebellion. What if the War Codes really had broken down? Would the Gubru be willing to use planet busters?
That’s the General’s problem, Fiben decided. I’m just a spy. She’s the Eatee expert.
At least the farms were working, after a fashion. Fiben passed one field cultivated with zygowheat and another with carrots. The robo-tillers went their rounds, weeding and irrigating. Here and there he saw a dispirited chim riding a spiderlike controller unit, supervising the machinery.
Sometimes they waved to him. More often they did not.
Once, he passed a pair of armed Gubru standing in a furrowed field beside their landed flitter. As he came closer, Fiben saw they were scolding a chim farmworker. The avians fluttered and hopped as they gestured at the drooping crop. The foreman nodded unhappily, wiping her palms on her faded dungarees. She glanced at Fiben as he passed by along the road, but the aliens went on with their rebuke, oblivious.
Apparently the Gubru were anxious for the crops to come in. Fiben hoped it meant they wanted it for their hostages. But maybe they had arrived with thin supplies and needed the food for themselves.
He was making good time when he drew Tycho off the road into a small grove of fruit trees. The animal rested, browsing on the Earth-stock grass while Fiben sauntered over behind a tree to relieve himself.
The orchard had not been sprayed or pest-balanced in some time, he observed. A type of stingless wasp was still swarming over the ping-oranges, although the secondary flowering had finished weeks before and they were no longer needed for pollination.
The air was filled with a fruity, almost-ripe pungency. The wasps climbed over the thin rinds, seeking access to the sweetness within.
Abruptly, without thinking, Fiben reached out and snatched a few of the insects. It was easy. He hesitated, then popped them into his mouth.
They were juicy and crunchy, a lot like termites. “Just doing my part to keep the pest population down,” he rationalized, and his brown hands darted out to grab more. The taste of the crunching wasps reminded him of how long it had been since he had last eaten.
“I’ll need sustenance if I’m to do good work in town tonight,” he thought half aloud. Fiben looked around. The horse grazed peacefully, and no one else was in sight.
He dropped his tool belt and took a step back. Then, favoring his still tender left ankle, he leaped onto the trunk and shimmied up to one of the fruit-heavy limbs. Ah, he thought as he plucked an almost ripe reddish globe. He ate it like an apple, skin and all. The taste was tart and astringent, unlike the bland human-style food so many chims claimed to like these days.
He grabbed two more oranges and popped a few leaves into his mouth for good measure. Then he stretched back and closed his eyes.