Manta's Gift (15 page)

"As you yourself said, there is still much you don't know," Latranesto reminded him. "Protector Virtamco will teach you."

"And protect me, too, I suppose?"

"You object to being protected?"

"I don't want any special treatment," Raimey said firmly.

"You don't have a choice," Latranesto said, just as firmly. "By your very nature you're a special person, with a special reason for your life among us. Everything about you must necessarily be special." He flipped his tails with finality. "You will have a Protector. The Counselors and the Leaders and the Wise have decided."

And with that, Raimey realized sourly, the discussion was over. "I obey the Counselors and the Leaders and the Wise," he said with as much grace as he could muster.

"Go, then," Latranesto said. He hesitated—"And may you swim in peace and contentment all the days of your life," he added.

"May you also," Raimey said, suddenly seeing the Counselor's heavy swimming in a new light. Level Four, he knew, was typically as high as a Counselor could reach without assistance. But from the way Latranesto was struggling to stay afloat, the big Qanska must be getting close to Leader age by now, not to mention sheer Leader size. At the same time, though, Level Four was typically as deep as even a full-grown Breeder could reach.

Which meant that this could be the last meeting the two of them would ever have.

With an effort, Raimey shook off that oddly depressing thought. There would be other opportunities, he told himself firmly, certainly once he himself was large and heavy enough to make his way down to Level Five.

Assuming, of course, he and Latranesto both survived that long.

"Farewell, Breeder Manta," Latranesto said; and in his voice, Raimey could hear the same note of finality that he himself was feeling. Perhaps Latranesto knew this was their last meeting, too.

Slowing his fins, the big Qanska began to sink downward. The rest of his Protector escort followed, keeping their formation around him.

"Farewell, Counselor Latranesto," Raimey murmured as he watched the other depart. A moment later, the group had faded from sight into the mists.

Leaving Raimey and Virtamco alone.

Raimey eyed Virtamco. The Protector eyed him back. "Fine," Raimey said with a sigh. "Now what?"

"We return to your herd," Virtamco said.

No
hellos
or
how-are-yous
or
it's-an-honor-to-be-of-service-to-yous.
Just a simple, straightforward instruction.

Or an order.

"Why?" Raimey asked, more as a test than anything else. Certainly he had no desire to hang around down here. Not after what had happened to Tigrallo.

"As Counselor Latranesto said, you've got a lot to learn about being a Qanska," Virtamco said. "You'll say good-bye to the Protectors and Nurturers of your herd, and pay the respect that's due them. Then you'll leave Level One and not return."

Raimey frowned. "Wait a minute. What do you mean, I won't return?"

"Is there something complicated about the words?" Virtamco asked sarcastically. "Young unmated adults aren't permitted in the breeding and birth grounds."

"Fine. Whatever," Raimey said, stretching out his buoyancy sacs and increasing his speed upward. Jupiter was a big place, and if he didn't get back before Drusni said her own good-byes and left, he might never find her again. "So let's go."

"And as we travel," Virtamco added, flapping his fins to rise alongside Raimey, "you can decide how you're going to change your name."

Raimey had just about had it with comments and complaints and misunderstandings about his name. "What about my name needs to be changed?" he demanded.

"You're a Breeder now," Virtamco said with an air of strained patience. "Breeders may add an extra syllable to their names."

Raimey snorted under his breath. "Thanks, but 'Manta' will do just fine."

Virtamco turned sideways to look at him. "It's not an option," he said. "You
will
add a syllable to your name."

"No, I
will
not," Raimey told him firmly. "Apparently, you weren't listening to Counselor Latranesto closely enough. Everything about me is special, remember? I don't have to follow rules like that if I don't want to."

"You wish to always be thought of as a child?" Virtamco countered. "Because that's what will happen."

"Oh, really?" Raimey said. "All the Qanska I meet from now on are going to mistake a six-size Breeder for a one-size Baby? I guess I'll have to reevaluate my assessment of your species' eyesight. Or maybe their intelligence."

For a moment Virtamco just glowered at him. Then, with a contemptuous flip of his fins, he rolled over and headed for the surface. "Have it your way," he called over his back. "Come back to your herd.
Manta."

As it turned out, this particular set of worries had been for nothing. Drusni and Pranlo were still there, waiting for him just beneath the herd as he arrived at Level One. "What happened?" Pranlo asked anxiously. "We heard you'd been hauled down to Level Four for a tail-whipping from a Counselor."

"It's okay," Raimey assured them. "Counselor Latranesto just wanted to know what happened with Tigrallo."

"Two Protectors came and talked to me about that, too," Drusni put in. "They kept asking why we almost missed the Song of Change."

Raimey frowned. So they
had
talked to her, and apparently at some length. And assuming she'd been honest, Latranesto must have known that Raimey had never really changed his mind about the ceremony.

So why had he let him off the hook?

"But it's all okay now?" Pranlo asked.

"It's all okay," Raimey said, wondering if it really was. "I was just heading up to pay my respects to the Protectors and Nurturers."

"We've already done that," Pranlo said. "They told us we had to leave Level One, but we've been stalling down here. We wanted to make sure we didn't disappear before you came back."

"Thanks," Raimey said. "I didn't want to lose you, either. So where do we go next?"

Pranlo flipped his tails in a shrug. "We wander around Levels Two or Three, I suppose. Eating and getting bigger and eventually—" He broke off. "Well, you know. All they said was that we had to stay off Level One."

"You'll come with us, won't you?" Drusni asked. "At least for now. That way, we can figure out this whole adult thing together."

"I'd like that," Raimey said. "Did they say anything to you about changing your names?"

"Oh, yes, that was the other thing," Pranlo said. "We're all supposed to add a syllable. I'm changing mine to Prantrulo."

"I'm going to be Druskani," Drusni said. "They said we get to add another one when we become Counselors."

"Prantrulo and Druskani." Raimey flipped his tails. "Sorry, but that's going to take some getting used to."

"Actually, you don't have to," Drusni said with a smile. "They said family and close friends are allowed to use the old names."

She flipped her tails. "And the three of us are both family
and
friends, right?"

"I've always thought so," Raimey said, feeling warm all over. Sweet, radiant Drusni...

"What's
your
new name going to be?" Pranlo asked.

"I'm keeping it just plain Manta," Raimey told him.

"They'll let you do that?" Drusni asked, frowning.

"Of course," Raimey said loftily. "I'm a special case."

"I guess so," Drusni said. "Well, I'm hungry. You wouldn't happen to have noticed any
kachtis
on your way to and from your big meeting, would you?"

"As a matter of fact, I spotted a few runs down on Level Three," Raimey said. "Come on, I'll take you there."

"Great," Pranlo said with a grin. "The Three Musketta, together again."

"Forever," Drusni added.

"Yes," Raimey said, strange feelings seeping through him as he gazed at her. "Forever."

"Raimey!" Faraday called yet again. "Raimey! Can you hear me?"

"No use, Colonel," Beach said, shaking his head as he peered at his board. "We're just not getting through."

"That's impossible," Hesse objected angrily. "I can hear the sounds of the wind. If we can hear him, why can't he hear us?"

"Because we've got computers up here to scrub out the static," Milligan told him. "He doesn't. Even with the relay probe, the signal getting to him is pretty weak."

"He'd probably be able to hear us if he was awake," McCollum added helpfully. "But your voice is just too buried in static for him to notice while he's sleeping."

Faraday nodded, his mind flashing back to that barely controlled fall so many years ago. He'd learned firsthand how hungrily the ionization in Jupiter's atmosphere could swallow radio signals. "We'll just have to wait for him to wake up, then," he said.

"No," Hesse said.

Faraday frowned. "No?"

"I told you before, I don't want to have this conversation with other Qanska wandering around," Hesse said, glaring at the displays. "What if he were higher up? Could we get his attention then?"

Beach threw a sideways look at Faraday. "Probably," he said cautiously. "Are you suggesting...?"

"What else is it there for?" Hesse countered. "Bring him up."

Beach looked again at Faraday. "Colonel?"

"I gave you an order, Mr. Beach," Hesse said before Faraday could respond.

"Go ahead, Mr. Beach," Faraday confirmed.

Beach took a deep breath and turned to the panel between him and McCollum. The one they'd never used before... "Yes, sir."

"I hope this is a good idea," Faraday warned Hesse quietly. "The McCarthy setup was only supposed to be used in emergencies. We don't even know if the thing will work."

"I have full confidence in the Five Hundred's techs," Hesse said. "Mr. Beach, you'd better bring him all the way up to Level One."

"He's not supposed to be that high," Sprenkle put in.

"Just keep him away from the herds and there shouldn't be a problem," Hesse said.

"I'm not so sure," Sprenkle persisted. "The Qanska have shown a strong propensity for strict letter-of-the-law thinking."

"Raimey's a special case, remember?" Hesse countered. "It'll be all right."

He looked back at Faraday. "It has to be done," he insisted. "You said yourself he's started thinking of himself as a Qanska. We need to realign any loyalties that might have drifted off-beam."

"And what if we can't?" Faraday asked. "What are you going to do, fire him?"

"I'm prepared to do whatever it takes," Hesse said, his voice grim. "But I don't anticipate any serious trouble. After all, he got into this in order to carve himself a big fat historical legacy. This is made to order."

"He's moving," Beach announced, his voice oddly strained. "Heading upward."

"Good," Hesse said. "I am curious, though, Colonel. Why did you name this thing after an old United States senator?"

"What are you talking about?" Faraday asked, frowning.

"The McCarthy setup," Hesse said. "It
is
named after Senator Joe McCarthy of the 1950s communist witch hunts, isn't it?"

"No," Faraday said, shaking his head. "It's named after Charlie McCarthy."

Hesse frowned. "Who was he?"

"An associate of Edgar Bergen's," Faraday said. "A wooden-head."

Hesse frowned even harder. "A
what?"

Faraday looked at the displays, thinking back to the Golden Age vids he'd loved as a child. When life had been so much simpler.

And you never had to worry about whether you were betraying someone who had trusted you. "He was a ventriloquist's dummy," he told Hesse. "In other words... a puppet."

"Mr. Raimey?"

Raimey awoke with a start. Had someone actually called him by his old Earth name? Or had he just dreamed it?

"Mr. Raimey?"

He flicked his tails in annoyance. It was real, all right. It was
them.
"I'm here," he growled. "What do you want?"

There was a short pause, no doubt as their computers worked busily to decipher the tonals. Shaking the sleep out of his eyes, wondering why no one up there had bothered to learn the language, he looked around him.

And with a jolt came fully awake. This wasn't Level Three, where he'd gone to sleep. This was Level One.

Level
One?

"Mr. Raimey, this is Hesse," Hesse's voice spoke up in the back of his brain. "Sorry to have wakened you, but we needed to talk to you privately."

"You could have called when I was already awake," Raimey growled, still trying to figure this out. Had he been sleepwalking or something? He'd never done it before, not as a Qanska or even back when he was a human.

Unless the adults or the Protectors of his herd had always just nudged him back to the rest of the group before.

"We didn't want anyone else to even know we'd been in contact," Hesse said. "Do you remember when Colonel Faraday first recruited you for this job? He told you you'd go down in history as the first man to live in and study an alien culture."

"Of course I remember," Raimey said tartly. If this was one of Dr. Sprenkle's stupid memory tests, he was going to have some choice words to say to all of them.

"Good," Hesse said. "As it turns out, the truth is even more exciting than that. The Qanska—"

"Wait a ninepulse," Raimey cut him off. "What do you mean, 'the truth'? What was the rest of it, a lie?"

"No, no, not at all," Hesse said hastily. "It's just that there's
more
truth than we first told you."

"Oh, good—bonus truth," Raimey said sarcastically. "How nice. Why haven't I heard about this before?"

"It was a decision made at the highest levels," Hesse said. He was starting to sound a little rattled now. "I promise you, there was no intent to—what I mean—"

"It was decided we couldn't afford the risk of it leaking out to the Qanska," Colonel Faraday's calmer voice put in. "I'm sorry for the deception. You'll understand when you hear."

"I'm listening," Raimey said, keeping his voice neutral. Off to his left he could hear the distant squeaking of hungry babies beginning to awaken, along with the much deeper rumblings of Protectors telling them to be patient. There must be a herd that direction.