Drowning World (4 page)

Locating two rain capes, he immediately slipped one over his head. Though his tropical suit was ostensibly fully water-repellent, a person couldn't have too many layers of rain protection on Fluva. The rest of the gear he crammed into a backpack that he hung on a sturdy branch on one of the trees located safely outside the downed craft. If the skimmer's unseen suspect wooden supports suddenly gave way, sinking it to the ground twenty meters below, he would still have his limited store of salvaged supplies. This essential survival task completed, he crawled carefully down the branch he had used to reach the other tree and back into the skimmer.

Why he decided to check on the emergency beacon he didn't know. Even though the rest of the skimmer had lost all power, including backup, whatever had caused the trouble should not, could not, affect a unitary-sealed emergency beacon. That device would be secured firmly in the center of the skimmer's hull, in the region of greatest protection, sending out its powerful locating signal together with details of the accident that had caused its activation. If outside the regional pickup range of Taulau or any other town, the signal would then be picked up by one of the satellites orbiting the planet and relayed to the nearest appropriate outpost. But having secured his emergency supplies, he now had nothing left to do. So for the hell of it, he decided to check the beacon.

What he found made less sense than anything he had encountered since he'd hit the water.

Removing the appropriate panel in the center of the deck, he made sure it was fastened to a sticktight on one wall so it wouldn't go sliding down into the water that filled the lower half of the skimmer. He'd already spent enough time fumbling around under the surface while scavenging his emergency supplies. By now the water inside the immobilized craft had grown still, and there was no telling what sorts of parasites or other indigenous nasties might have infiltrated the partially submerged hull.

Beneath the panel, a transparent vacuum seal shone dully. Though it lay under a still intact portion of the skimmer's canopy, rainwater running down the inclined deck threatened to enter the protected space. Rolling up the second rain cape, he used it to rig a temporary barrier to divert the steady trickle around the opening. Turning back to the cavity, he fingered the necessary visible touch pads in proper sequence. The panel slid aside.

His brows drew together. In the diffuse light that filtered down between the trees from a cloud-filled sky it should have been easy to pick out the glow of multiple indicators on the outside of the beacon box. That it was dark and devoid of light didn't necessarily mean the device wasn't working—but it was not a good sign. Not a good sign at all.

It meant making one more plunge into the water that filled the aft section. Nothing darted from the water to assault him, and he held his breath religiously to avoid ingesting any of the untreated fluid. Emerging with toolbox in hand, he returned to the opening and cracked the beacon's seal.

Passing the tester over the device produced nothing: not so much as a chirp from the auditory indicator or a squiggle on the small screen. It should have lit up with half a dozen different readouts. Instead, it was as flat and dull as a politician in the absence of media. Of course, the crash landing could have damaged the tester as well, but like most tools, it was almost too simple and straightforward to hurt. And it was too much to expect that both the supposedly invulnerable emergency beacon as well as the much smaller tester had suffered similar critical damage during touchdown. A smashup serious enough to cause them both to fail would have done much worse to his far more fragile human frame, sofoam cocoon notwithstanding.

Pondering the unreasonable unlikeliness of it all, he happened to glance at the right side of the beacon. It should have looked exactly the same as the left side, the top, the front, and the back. But it did not. Even in the poor light he could make out the thin but distinct line running the length of the box, about midway up the side. Frowning, he traded the tester for another tool and traced the latter along the line. The beacon popped open: something it should not do outside an authorized inspection-and-repair facility. Wary of the rain, he used his body to shield the box as best he could as he leaned over and in for a closer look.

As with any similar device, the beacon's internal components were solid: drawn, painted, flashed, or strobed in place. None of which explained the hole in the middle of the lower right quarter. The fissure had not been made with a drawer, painter, flasher, or strober. Something large and heavy had been used to smash a hole in the surface of the unit. Even in this day and age there were uses for low-tech. The hole might have been made with something as simple as an old-fashioned hammer. It might have been made by a rock. The means was unimportant.

Circuitry had been shattered. To fix it would require the resources of a fully equipped shop and a skilled flasher. He had neither. The dimensions as well as the nature of the destruction led to an unavoidable conclusion.

Someone had entered, opened, and deliberately damaged the beacon. Considered thoughtfully, this implied that whoever had done so had presumed that the beacon might soon be put to use and that the perpetrator preferred it not be available at such time to perform its designated functions.

Eyes widening, he removed a portable work light from the toolbox and stuck it to his forehead. Further examination revealed everything he now suspected and far more than he wanted to know.

The skimmer's power monitor had been adjusted to show a full charge when in reality he had departed Taulau on less than a tenth of that. Guidance systems had also been tampered with. In fact, once he got deeper into the craft's instrumentation he had a hard time finding something that had not been tampered with. It implied more than casual destruction. In as professional and methodical a way possible, someone had gone to considerable trouble to ensure that no matter how skilled its pilot, this particular skimmer would never be able to return its passenger to his point of origin.

Sabotage.

But why him? Sure, he had enemies, both personal and professional. He knew most of them by name and took perverse pride in the extent of the list he had accumulated. But though he went down that list from beginning to end and back again, he could not settle on the identity of a single person willing to go to the extreme of killing him. Priding itself on the maturity of its citizens, the government of the Commonwealth frowned on individuals who used murder to settle personal disputes. That did not mean killings were a thing of the past. After all, many of the Commonwealth's citizens were human. But such killings were not frequent. They were even less common on outpost worlds like Fluva, where residents often had to rely on one another to survive, much less prosper.

Besides, most of his enemies were not unlike himself: straightforward and to the point in their dealings. Though they displayed many qualities, deviousness was not often among them. Anyone wanting him dead would like as not have confronted him face-to-face or at least tried to jump him on a town walkway or in his rented apartment at night. He stared at the several instrument panels whose interiors he had exposed to the light. This was too complex. It hinted at motives beyond a simple desire to see a certain Shadrach Hasselemoga dead.

Whoever they were, they had been very thorough. It wasn't enough to ensure that his craft would crash well beyond any outpost of civilization. They had gone to the trouble of disabling the emergency beacon as well. No emergency beacon meant that even if anyone thought to come looking for him, they were going to have a hell of a time finding him in the tangled mass of vegetation and waterways that comprised the Viisiiviisii.

Looking up, he saw that the sloping angle of his touchdown had smashed a narrow pathway through the trees. That, at least, should be visible from the air—depending on how heavy the overcast and intense the rainfall whenever someone came skimming by. And with each passing day, the fecund varzea would send out more and more shoots and leaping vines and fast-growing spores in an attempt not to close the gap but to make use of the bounty of sunlight it presently provided. Given the astonishing rate of local growth, within a week or so the edges of the gap would be filled with a ragged assortment of fresh, opportunistic vegetation. At least until then, he had no choice but to stay close to the skimmer. Ultimately, it might be all that would remain even slightly visible from above.

Sitting there beneath the cracked and broken canopy, the rain spattering monotonously around him, he listened to the resurgent cries of the Viisiiviisii and pondered a thought that rode roughshod even over the legendary Hasa anger.

I could die here, he realized with sudden clarity.

Though he had never considered himself immortal and knew better than most that the universe would continue on quite comfortably without him, he had always believed himself more durable than his fellow humans. Given the inherent dangers of his chosen profession, he had from the beginning anticipated a possible early demise. Indeed, he had been through a number of difficult scrapes, only to have survived them all with both body and bank account intact. But such incidents had all been natural consequences of his work. Never before had anyone set out to kill him with such detailed malice aforethought.

The more he contemplated his situation, what had happened to him, and how it had happened, the angrier he became. It grew and seethed and boiled within him until it seemed that any alien raindrops that struck his forehead would surely be turned to steam from the mere contact. Anger matured into fury, and fury into a determination to learn who had done this to him and why. And once he had learned that to his satisfaction, once he had established it to a certainty and without a shadow of a doubt, then the residents of Taulau Town would do well to conceal themselves inside their homes and places of business and lockseal their doors and wait out his wrath much as they would one of the occasional monster storms that came thundering down off the steep slopes of the western mountains. Such a storm would be as a gentle breeze compared to the kind of weather a livid Shadrach Hasselemoga was going to bring to unsuspecting Taulau.

Assuming he could get out of his present situation alive, of course.

3

N
aneci-tok acknowledged the deferential salutations of her fellow villagers as she made her way toward the High House. She walked with the special short stride that signified a person of rank. In the Days of Distant Memory, villagers would have lined up to link their long, strong arms together to form living chains for her to use in crossing open spaces between the trees. Like many traditions, this had been abandoned with the arrival of Commonwealth culture. With spun-strilk pathways linking homes, ceremonial buildings, shops, and stores, the Sakuntala no longer had to leap between trees or weave lianas or make bridges of their living bodies. Roaming might not be as much fun, but it was undeniably safer.

Off to her right, a Sakuntala spinner crew was busy putting the finishing touches on a wide porch surrounding a new food-and-services outlet. It was one of the few in the community that was owned by a Sakuntala family, as opposed to by the Deyzara. Or by Deyzara fronting for a Commonwealth enterprise or for other Sakuntala. Sadly she shifted the coils of her tongue from one cheek pouch to the other. The world was changing so fast, it was impossible to know what new marvel was going to manifest itself next. Or what to do about it.

As a Hata, or High Chief, she was the recipient of reverential salutations and hand signs from the inhabitants of Chanorii Town. A few tongues shot out and lingered respectfully before recoiling. If some seemed more indifferent than was usual, that was to be expected. On this day Chanorii was full of Hatas and Hata-nius, or mid-level chiefs. Not to mention the war chiefs known as Hata-yuiquerus.

They were there to discuss making a new kind of war on the Deyzara. That, she knew, was going to be the most difficult thing to decide next. She did not look forward to the coming debate. There was going to be much passionate disagreement. Voices were going to be raised. Tongues would be rudely extruded. These things always happened when the Sakuntala conferenced. But this conclave promised to be far more raucous than any she could remember having attended.

In addition to the respected Hatas who had been carefully considering the question for some time now, every Yuiqueru, or war chief, within a thousand keleqs had come to Chanorii. What was surprising was how many seemed to lean toward a maintaining of the status quo and the peace it engendered. This was not because the war chiefs possessed any special love for the Deyzara. On balance, they probably disliked the two-trunks even more than did the average Sakuntala. The problem was, and the reason an open expulsion of Deyzara was simply not decreed by the Council of Hatas, that it was not merely a question of Sakuntala versus introduced Deyzara. A third party was involved.

This strange, foreign, difficult-to-comprehend mass organization of alien beings who collectively called themselves the Commonwealth.

Fluva had not yet attained full Class V Commonwealth status—but it was on the verge. Many wonderful things had been promised when that moment arrived. Having seen what Commonwealth technology had already wrought on her home world, Naneci-tok could well believe it. The trouble was that in order for Fluva to be accorded the status of a full Class V world, certain social as well as technical accomplishments had to be realized. One of these was the absence of internecine warfare.

The Sakuntala had always fought among themselves. It was an old and well-established tradition. The Commonwealth authorities had no problem with that. Such intervillage or interclan combat was permitted under the laws that governed internal social compacts. But warring against other sentients for the sake of eliminating a different intelligent species fell under a different set of regulations altogether. It was uncivilized. It was anti-Commonwealth. It was not allowed.

Knowing this should weigh heavily on the Council's final decision. Going after the Deyzara on an organized basis might mean the end of Commonwealth assistance to Fluva. Over the past two hundred cycles, the Sakuntala had grown more than a little fond of the benefits of Commonwealth aid and technology. There were the wonderful tools, the varied and new forms of entertainment, introductions to new cultures, the promise of the opportunity to visit other worlds. New foods, new methods of processing them, new art, new music, all manner of small devices and inventions that made life easier and safer and healthier. Since the coming of the Commonwealth, the Sakuntala for the first time in their history had experienced significant reductions in a previously high rate of infant mortality. Respected elders now lived truly impressive life spans. As a Hata, she could look forward herself to the opportunity to actually enjoy her old age, instead of dying of heart rot or dermal asimatosis or sacral calcification as her ancestors had.

But in return for all these wonderful things, the Sakuntala were forced to put up with the Deyzara.

Not all Deyzara were bad, she knew. On an individual basis, many were actually somewhat agreeable to be around—except when they were eating, of course. Unfortunately, they continued to adhere to the customs not of Fluva but of their ancestral world of Tharce IV.

It would be a simple matter to blame the troubles on the humans of the Commonwealth. If they had not brought the first Deyzara to Fluva, there would be no Deyzaran problem. But it was not nearly so simple, she knew. Busy fighting among themselves, her own ancestors had welcomed both the Commonwealth and the goods and services it brought with it and the Deyzara. If the Sakuntala had stopped fighting among themselves and gone to work enthusiastically for the humans and their friends, it would not have been necessary to bring the Deyzara to work the gathering and plantations in the Viisiiviisii and the small shops and businesses in the towns. But the Sakuntala were more interested in fighting one another as each clan sought supremacy over its historical enemies. So the dilemma that existed today had multiple sponsors, Commonwealth and Sakuntala alike.

She knew that the possibility of solving the problem by repatriating the Deyzara to Tharce IV had been debated in secretive discussions among the humans and their allies. It had been dropped for several reasons. For one thing, it would be very expensive. More critically, the Deyzara in Taulau Town and Chanorii and elsewhere considered themselves Fluvans. Their great-grandparents had been born on Fluva. They knew nothing of Tharce IV. Furthermore, or so she had heard, though the inhabitants of that distant world made the right mouth noises about accepting refugees, they really did not want hundreds of thousands of strange immigrants dumped in their comfortable planetary lap. So it looked like the Deyzara were on Fluva to stay. Unless certain of the Hatas and Yuiquerus had their way.

Her tongue rambled aimlessly between cheek pouches. It was a bad business, this. Though the Sakuntala were accustomed to warfare, war always brought suffering. As for her personal feelings toward the Deyzara, she was ambivalent. She neither liked nor hated them, as so many of her fellows did.

If only the Deyzara had made a greater effort to blend in with the Sakuntala! To gain knowledge of the ways of
mula,
to participate in the various complex but learnable katola ceremonies. To mute their own gaudy tastes and incessant activity. True, it had made them successful in ways only a few Sakuntala were now starting to match. From the beginning, the Deyzara had grasped the intricacies of Commonwealth commerce, passed on to the first immigrants to Fluva by their Tharcian progenitors. These the Sakuntala were forced to learn from scratch. Many of her kind were making great progress in mastering such matters. The estimable Jemunu-jah, for example. But it took time—and the Deyzara had arrived already familiar with many of the intricacies.

It had to be admitted that a few of the Deyzara had made the transition. Without entirely abandoning their own ways, they had learned well those of the Sakuntala and willingly deferred to them as the original inhabitants of Fluva. But all too many Deyzara still remained isolated from their neighbors, keeping strictly to their own customs and dealing with those of the Sakuntala only when necessary. These Deyzara had no
mula,
none. One way or another, she knew, this would have to change.

When consulted about the situation, humans invariably reiterated that such adaptations took time, citing from their own history of mutual convergence with the very different beings called the thranx. Naneci-tok had only seen thranx one time. There had been several of them, leaving the Visitor Greeting Center in Lokoriki Town. They had kept close together and avoided all but the main walkways. This was because, she later learned, while they loved the rain and the humidity, they were terrified of open water. Not only could they not swim, but they also had a distinct tendency to sink like stones. Since, like every other community in the Viisiiviisii, Lokoriki was built above the water, this rendered their visits to Fluva infrequent and unpalatable except in the brief time of the Dry, when the land lay exposed and naked to the air. Strange creatures, the thranx, though the humans seemed very fond of them. But then, though humans were closer in shape and appearance to the Sakuntala than the Deyzara, it had to be admitted that they also had some very peculiar tastes.

Chanorii was an ancient place. Compared to many other towns and villages that had adapted modern ways, designs, and materials, a large proportion of the buildings were still of traditional wood-and-vine construction. Not the High House she was walking toward, however. Of far more recent vintage, it had been built with advanced Commonwealth technology. The spun strilk that supported it (instead of the traditional woven lianas) was linked not only to surrounding trees but also to pylons of tough composites that had been sunk deep into the earth itself, far below the waterline. The best of such material did not rot in the perpetually rainy climate of Fluva and was impervious to the numerous fungi and small crawling things that would have eaten their way through comparable wooden posts in a matter of weeks. But even composites had to be checked from time to time and were subject to regular maintenance. For one thing, the active yananuca vines loved the support these strange new “trees” provided and would pull smaller or incompetently footed pylons down.

The structure itself was similar to those the humans erected for their own use, but entirely in keeping with ancient Sakuntala customs. Constructed of spun and sheet composite in the traditional form of a square, it had no openings on the shielded and armored lower level. In ancient times, this was designed to keep out predatory branch walkers like the nironve and slitherers like the bai-mou. For its part, the Viisiiviisii made no distinction between materials and methods. Maintenance teams were kept perpetually busy cutting away opportunistic lianas and leapers, aerial roots that reached down to the water, and spirocyte fungi that tried to penetrate buildings from below.

Hatas and their advisers and attendants entered through the single circular, easily defended opening in the roof, using ample built-in handholds to swing themselves over to the eskachi, or drying area. In the old days, a series of elaborate shaking gestures would be employed to politely shed the moisture one had accumulated on one's fur. Nowadays, a portable sensing evaporator imported from the thranx world of Evoria did the job faster and more efficiently.
But not,
she reflected as she walked toward her assigned place, occasionally entwining tongues with friends and acquaintances,
half as gracefully.

The line of chairs suspended from the ceiling formed a circle around the central shaft. These days such seats hung from spun composite, not vines cut from the heart of the Viisiiviisii. The composite strands were stronger and lighter. What they lacked in warmth and weave they made up for by being impervious to decay. It was a trade-off that was hard to argue with.

Rain pouring through the entrance in the roof fell through the open center of the High House to spill out through a slightly larger hole in the floor. When the occasional rare shaft of sunshine pierced the clouds, the raindrops were illuminated from above, giving this central core of falling water the appearance of dripping diamonds. Traditionally at such moments, those not speaking would murmur a soft “Hauea!,” an old entreaty to the gods to make sure the rain did not stop. Because if the rain stopped, as it did seasonally for one small part of the year, it meant that, among other things, predators could walk freely along dry ground from tree to tree, seeking prey. That was not so important anymore, in these days of imported advanced weaponry, alarms, and protective barriers, but old fears died slowly, and hard.

She slipped regally into her seat and began the slow, steady rocking back and forth motion that indicated she was ready to participate in the forthcoming discussion. All around her, other Hatas were moving back and forth or side to side to their own personal, unheard rhythms. Skillfully synced, a mobile seat (swings, the humans called them straightforwardly, but without reverence) could convey almost as many meanings as words. Direction was as important as velocity. Her own uncomplicated motion indicated that she was ready to listen but not to speak. Not yet.