It was an ideal pot for stirring up human/Tampy conflicts in, and the results were all Ferrol could have hoped for. With their carefully cultivated image as “Lord Protectors Of Nature” on the line, the Tampies were forced to continually protest the disturbing of such fragile ecological structures. There were sharp words from both sides, and frustration all around, and by the end of the first week there were no longer any Tampies heading down to the surface with Sanderson’s landing parties.
Oddly enough, the boycott didn’t seem to make any lasting dent in the scientists’
own pro or anti attitudes. All the comments Ferrol overheard in his role as liaison indicated a generally tolerant understanding—even sympathy—for the aliens’ point of view. In retrospect, he realized he should probably have expected that kind of reaction—even on Prometheus he’d noticed that the colonists who’d worked most closely with the Tampies were sometimes the most easily taken in by the aliens’
big nobility act.
But if that kind of emotional infection had been what the pro-Tampies in the Senate had been banking on, they were in for a disappointment… because even as the scientists began mouthing Tampy philosophies and worrying aloud about bruising the grass they walked on, relationships between the Tampies and the rest of Amity’s crew began a quiet but steady slide downhill.
The signs were there even before the Jump from Alpha system. There had been a fair amount of traffic between the two halves of the ship the first week—some of it simple curiosity, the rest probably an attempt by the pro-Tampies among the crew to stimulate friendly contact. But as curiosity was satisfied, and as Rrin-saa and the other Tampies continued to press Sanderson’s people with holier-than-thou warnings against disturbing nature, the number of crewers playing tourist or goodwill ambassador dropped off nearly to zero. The Tampy boycott of the Beta landing parties did nothing to improve that, and by the time Pegasus pulled Amity out of orbit a spate of anti-Tampy jokes were beginning to make surreptitious rounds in areas of the ship not frequented by the scientists or senior officers.
By the time Amity left orbit around the third planet, Gamma, the connecting doors were being used solely for occasional ship’s business, and the jokes were being told openly around the crewer mess tables.
And by the time the last samples from Delta were aboard, it was clear that the hopes of Amity’s pro-Tampy supporters had come to exactly nothing.
“Hhom-jee reports Pegasus is ready to Jump,” Ensign Connie MacKaig reported over her shoulder from the helm.
Ferrol nodded. “Tell him to go ahead whenever he’s ready,” he instructed her.
“Yes, sir.”
She turned to her intercom, and Ferrol took a deep breath. It was over. Over.
Roman could sit down there in his office all day sifting through the final crewer questionnaires if he wanted to, but there was no way in hell that the results could add up to anything other than total failure. He knew it, Roman knew it, and anyone who’d been paying any attention at all to the ship’s atmosphere these past few weeks knew it.
Ahead, the bridge displays flickered in unison as Delta system’s orange sun vanished and was replaced by the yellow dwarf of Solomon system. “Jump completed,” MacKaig announced. “Range to Solomon… 3.5 million kilometers.”
Ferrol did a quick calculation. About eleven hours round trip at the 0.9 gee the Tampies seemed to prefer. “Inform Solomon that we’ve arrived, Ensign,” he told her, “and have the Handler take us in. The usual 0.9 gee ace/dec profile will do.”
“Aye, sir.”
And with this little side trip finally over, it would be time to get back to the Scapa Flow and pick up where he’d left off. Assuming, of course, the Starforce patrols in the Tampies’ yishyar system had faded away… and assuming the Senator let him go back.
Ferrol grimaced at the memory. The Senator had made no secret of the fact that he hadn’t liked the way Ferrol had handled his ship’s near-capture by Roman and the Dryden, and had gone so far as to suggest that Ferrol was getting too reckless. The discussion had been tabled by the whole Amity thing, but now that that was over it was bound to be rekindled. And if he couldn’t convince the Senator that he was still trustworthy—
“Commander?” MacKaig spoke up, her voice suddenly tight. “Solomon reports a tachyon message waiting for us—Level One Urgent.”
War. The word came unbidden to Ferrol’s thoughts, and for a split second his blood seemed to freeze. The war had come, and he was trapped on a Tampycrewed ship… “Sound yellow alert,” he ordered, fighting down the tremor in his voice. “I’ll get the captain.”
And as the alert warble sounded, and he fumbled with his intercom, the word again ran through his mind.
War.
Chapter 8
“… Although I feel the experience was worthwhile, I don’t think I would enjoy working with the Tampies again. There are just too many differences, too many ways for us to irritate each other.”
The words flowing across the display ceased, and Roman braced himself. That was the last of them. Now came the moment he’d been dreading: the computer’s scorecard. Tapping the appropriate key, he watched as the results appeared. Twentyeight favorable, ninety-seven unfavorable, as compared to an original pre-flight score of sixty to sixty-five. Nearly twenty-six percent of Amity’s crew had switched from pro- to anti-Tampy.
Damn.
He leaned back in his chair, gazing out at the shadowy bulk of Pegasus just visible at the edge of the viewport. So it had failed, this grand experiment in familiarity breeding respect—failed beyond the ability of even the most grimly optimistic to argue. Virtually all of the originally pro-Tampy crewers had had their enthusiasm toward the aliens dampened, to one degree or another, while at the same time every single one of the anti-Tampies had had their prejudices strengthened.
I should have taken firmer control, he told himself; but deep down he knew it wouldn’t have made any difference. There was no way he could have forced friendship between the races on his ship, and it would have been useless to even try. Rrin-saa’s words about Amity’s importance echoed in his mind, and for a moment he felt a brief stirring of anger toward the Tampies. Certainly some of the blame rested with them—they hadn’t made the slightest effort to tone down their opposition to the way human beings interacted with the rest of the universe. In fact, they’d more than once gone borderline hysterical about it.
He was still staring blackly at the final data when the office was abruptly filled with the soft but pervasive warbling of ship’s alert.
For a pair of heartbeats he just sat there, mind wrenching away from interstellar politics and back to his immediate responsibilities. He reached for his intercom; but it came on even before his hand got there. “Captain here,” he said.
“Bridge, sir,” Ferrol said, his face and voice tight. “We’ve got a tachyon message coming in from Solomon—Urgent One level.”
A chill ran up Roman’s back. There was only one reason he could think of why anyone would need to shoot Amity a message of such priority… “Acknowledged,”
he said, keying the proper acceptance code into his terminal. “Bring it in,” he instructed Ferrol. “Pipe it back here to me and to the bridge crew—nowhere else.”
For an instant his eyes and Ferrol’s met, and there was a brief spark of mutual understanding. If the simmering fires on the human-Tampy frontier had indeed exploded into full conflict, both men wanted some time to think before breaking the news to Amity’s Tampies. “Yes, sir,” Ferrol said, dropping his gaze to his keys.