Authors: Alan Dean Foster
Drowning World (31 page)
Moving with care, as befitted her advanced age, Cecolou-tiu walked slowly from her suspension chair to the other side of the room. There she embraced a surprised Masurathoo, wrapping her tongue several times around the Deyzara's head. To his credit, Masurathoo accepted the gesture without flinching (much).
“I declare to all who present within sound of my voice,” the senior Hata announced, albeit with obvious reluctance, “that from this day forth the C'Tiu will work only for peace and accommodation between my people and the two-trunks.”
As the demonstrative but wet tongue uncoiled from his head, Masurathoo fought through lingering Sakuntala saliva to respond. “I fear very much that I cannot speak for more than a few of the Deyzara, but I am sure that since it will greatly facilitate the conduct of proper commerce, my people will be of the same mind as the respected Hata Cecolou-tiu. Especially once the words of the most honorable and respected chief administrator have been dispersed to all and fully comprehended by them.”
Matthias nodded approvingly. “Then I pronounce an ending to this gathering. May you all return to your homes and businesses, to your villages and clans, to explain the new way of things. Under these directives, Sakuntala and Deyzara will prosper. All of Fluva will prosper—and the pannula as well.”
Afterward, many came forward to speak with her. Not to congratulate, since neither faction was especially happy with the prospects she had laid out for them, but to curry favor. She listened to them all, to every supplicant, and smiled and chatted politely while promising nothing. She'd meant what she had told them. Deyzara and Sakuntala would have to work things out between themselves, while all the while taking the interests of the pannula into careful account.
Privately, she was relieved at the way things had turned out. The discovery of the pannula had given her the excuse and the authorization to put an end to the interminable conflict that had existed between the planet's two dominant species ever since the first Deyzara worker had arrived on Fluva. Also, she looked forward with anticipation and fascination to the insights intensified contact with the Commonwealth's first known intelligent fungal life-form were likely to produce. It had all turned out rather well.
Except that none of the principals involved, not the Sakuntala or the Deyzara, or the reprehensible Case or the odious Shadrach Hasselemoga, had turned out to be very likable. In the elation of resolving the centuries-old conflict between Deyzara and Sakuntala, she had been forced to compromise a certain measure of personal compassion and kindness. The events of the previous weeks had left her a harder person. She had Case to thank for that. Dealing with him had stiffened her for the confrontation with the senior representatives of both Deyzara and Sakuntala.
Two figures who had been watching the summit from the rear of the chamber now came forward, making their way through the thinning crowd of flamboyantly clad Deyzara and dignified, solemn Sakuntala. Jack had brought Andrea with him. She was dressed sensibly for a change, the administrator noted. Among the Deyzara, Andrea could have been naked and painted bright yellow without standing out.
Then Lauren noticed the streak of color-shifting, luminescent composite hair that had been slack-weaved into Andrea's own natural tresses, and sighed. What would the girl be like at seventeen?
The teenager paused in front of her mother. Then she put both arms around her and hugged hard. “Mom, Dad and I listened to the whole thing, and I just want to tell you that I'm really,
really
impressed.” Releasing the more than slightly stunned administrator, Andrea stepped back. Lauren Matthias saw that her incorrigible daughter had tears in her eyes. Standing close behind her, Jack Matthias was gazing down at his wife with a mixture of pride and affection.
“Oh, hell,” she muttered, “this has taken much too long. I've got to get back to the office. There's so much to be done.”
Stepping forward, her daughter took her by one arm and her husband by the other. “Sorry, Lauren,” Jack told her firmly. “Like it or not, you're taking the rest of the day off.”
For the first time in a long while, the chief of Commonwealth Authority on the full T Class V world known as Fluva found herself overruled.
Seated before the instrument panel of his salvaged and fully refurbished skimmer, Shadrach Hasselemoga contemplated the immensity of southern Viisiiviisii spread out before him. Hard rain ran in serpentine rivulets down the sides of the compact craft, kept clear of the front of the transparent canopy by a strong static charge. One readout was off by a tenth of a total, and he loudly cursed the unknown tech who had been charged with putting it back in proper working order.
Idiots! Morons! Fools and imbeciles, he was surrounded by nothing but. Add to that the need to have to deal with bloated, goggle-eyed two-trunks and smelly, oafish big-ears and it was a wonder he managed to keep a civil tongue in his head. He hated the cursed rain that hardly ever stopped; the turbid, mucky water that receded for only a few weeks out of the year; all the things that crawled and leapt and soared and hopped, that spit and bit and snapped and stung. It was a miserable, wretched dung ball of a world, and it was his misfortune to be stuck on it trying to eke out a living.
Despite his demand, there had been no parade in his honor. Grudgingly, he had been forced to admit that it would be hard to have one in the absence of dry ground. The official declaration had been nice, though, and the limp-lunged folks at the science division had graciously shown him how he and his notable discovery had been entered into the official taxonomic records of the greater Commonwealth. He had accepted the honor and their associated accolades with his usual poor grace. His only lingering regret was that they would not let him into the local lockup and leave him alone for an hour with Sethwyn Case.
Now Hasa hovered above the treetops just outside Taulau Town, his craft on idle, contemplating the vast rain-swept swath of the Viisiiviisii, the Fluvan varzea. In a few minutes, as soon as the skimmer's internals had finished plotting out all the details of his new zigzagging course, he would leave the town and its brew of Deyzara, Sakuntala, and humans behind. It couldn't come soon enough for him. Good riddance to them all! Despite the ferocity of its flora and fauna, Fluva wouldn't be such a bad place, he thought. If only you could get rid of all the people.
A telltale winked to life in front of him and a small beep sounded. He voiced a curt command, making it sound like a curse. The skimmer, bless it, offered no objection. Its mechanical innards found him perfectly personable. Smoothly the restored vehicle began to move forward, accelerating over the treetops and away from civilization.
Discovering a new intelligent species was all very well and good, he mused crossly, but there was never enough money in it.
Drowning World
is a work of fiction. Names, places, and incidents either are a product of the author's imagination or are used fictitiously.
A Del Rey
®
Book
Published by The Ballantine Publishing Group
Copyright © 2003 by Thranx, Inc.
All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. Published in the United States by The Ballantine Publishing Group, a division of Random House, Inc., New York, and simultaneously in Canada by Random House of Canada Limited, Toronto.
Del Rey is a registered trademark and the Del Rey colophon is a trademark of Random House, Inc.
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Foster, Alan Dean, 1946–
Drowning world : a novel of the Commonwealth / Alan Dean Foster.—1st ed.
p. cm.
“A Del Rey book”—T.p. verso.
1. Humanx Commonwealth (Imaginary organization)—Fiction. 2. Life on
other planets—Fiction. I. Title.
PS3556.O756 D76 2003
813'.54—dc21
2002026279
eISBN: 978-0-345-45034-0
v3.0