Manta's Gift (39 page)

Strong enough to handle the terrible experience he'd inflicted on her. Confident enough to know she could repair any damage that experience might do to her relationships with those she loved.

And honest enough, he realized suddenly, not to lie to him merely out of fear for his feelings. If she said she could handle what had happened, he could trust that she could.

He took a deep breath, feeling the weight of guilt and fear beginning to drain from his heart. Yes, he would always carry a measure of pain over what had happened. But never again would it be the kind of debilitating horror that would hover like a line of Vuuka between them. Whatever needed to be worked through, they would work through it together.

The way friends should.

"Pranlo tells me you're doing better, too," he said. "What can I do to help?"

She smiled, some of that younger, grinning Youth peeking through. "You could try to stay out of trouble for a while," she suggested. "It seems like you're always going down to Level Four for long conversations with some Counselor or another. It's getting to be a really bad habit."

"Actually, so far it's always been Counselor Latranesto," Manta said, striving to match her tone. "I think maybe he's been assigned to me permanently."

"Wow," Pranlo said solemnly. "First your own private Protector, now your own private Counselor. We're mixing with greatness here, Drusni."

"Absolutely," she agreed, laughing. A mature laugh, but again with some of the youthful giggling beneath the surface.

"And don't either of you forget it," Manta said, mock-severely. "So let's have a little respect—"

He broke off. Directly ahead, swimming into view around the far end of the
kachtis
run, were three Protectors.

Moving slowly in their direction.

"Take it easy," Pranlo said quietly, drifting up beside Manta where he would block the Protectors' view of his markings. "It's not like we're on Level One or something. We're allowed to be here."

"But they're coming toward us," Manta pointed out tensely.

"Relax," Pranlo insisted. "Come on—they can't possibly be looking for you yet. They're probably just checking out the
kachtis
run for some nearby herd."

"But we should still leave," Drusni said, nudging up beside Manta. "Nice and easy..."

Casually, trying not to make it look too obvious, they began to swim away, sinking slowly down toward Level Three as they went. Pranlo and Drusni stayed between Manta and the Protectors, taking a bite out of the edge and underside of the run every so often to make it look as if the three of them had just finished a meal.

They had cleared the end of the
kachtis,
and Manta was starting to breathe again, when four more Protectors suddenly dropped in on top of them from inside the run.

The Protectors escorted them down to Level Four, a route Manta had grown painfully familiar with. At the end of the journey, to his complete lack of surprise, Latranesto was waiting.

What
was
surprising was the fact that the Counselor was all alone.

They settled in front of him, and for a ninepulse Latranesto eyed them in silence. Then, with a flip of his tails, he gestured to the four Protectors. "Leave us," he ordered.

Silently, they obeyed. Latranesto watched until they were out of sight. Then, he turned his full stare onto Manta. "Well, Manta," he rumbled. "What exactly are we going to do with you?"

"What happened with the human machine wasn't his fault." Drusni spoke up defiantly before Manta could find an answer. "If the Counselors and the Leaders and the Wise had listened to all the testimony—"

"Peace, Breeder Druskani," Latranesto cut her off, his eyes flashing briefly in her direction. "The Counselors and the Leaders and the Wise
have
listened to all the testimony of that incident.
And
we have considered many facts and thoughts and concerns that you are unfamiliar with. You will therefore remain silent, and you will listen."

Drusni flicked her tails, but obediently closed her mouth. "There's no reason for them to be here, Counselor Latranesto," Manta said, putting all the quiet persuasion into his voice that he could manage. "I'm the one who's been condemned. They're not guilty of any crime."

"Aren't they?" Latranesto countered pointedly. "Interfering in a legal judgment? Helping a Qanska escape proper punishment? Attacking a Protector and a Nurturer of the Qanska—?"

"Wait a pulse," Pranlo cut in, sounding thoroughly puzzled. "How could you know about that? They couldn't have swum
that
much faster than we did."

"There was no need," Latranesto told him. "There is a way of speaking that is available only to the Wise who swim through Level Eight. They can thump their bellies with their fins, making sounds that travel a great distance. Those who reach that age and size are taught a code through which they can send any message they wish, to anyone else on Level Eight."

"But Protectors and Nurturers can't reach Level Eight," Pranlo said, sounding even more puzzled.

"They don't have to," Manta told him. So the Qanska had their own version of a jungle-drum telegraph system. One more handy little tidbit the humans didn't know about. "They can reach a Counselor on Level Four, who can reach a Leader on Five, who can reach one of the Wise on Six or Seven. He then drops to Level Eight and sends the message, which is relayed as many times as necessary and then sent back up the levels to Counselor Latranesto."

"You understand such things," Latranesto commented approvingly. "And you understand them quickly. That is most gratifying."

"I understand some things, anyway," Manta said. "What I don't see, though, is what's so special about Level Eight. And why haven't I ever heard this thumping before? Surely the sound doesn't travel
only
on Level Eight."

"But it does," Latranesto said. "Only those of the Wise who are on Level Eight at the time will hear it."

Manta flipped his tails, conceding the point. It was something esoteric about the physics of that level, no doubt. Possibly something having to do with the radiation or magnetic fields down there. With his business major background, he probably wouldn't be able to figure it out even if Latranesto laid all the facts out for him.

Even if Latranesto
knew
all the facts, which he probably didn't. "I'll take your word for it," he said. "We'll have a longer conversation about it someday."

"Yes," Latranesto murmured. "And not only do you understand many things, but you question and gnaw at those you do not. Such curiosity is one of the chief traits of you and your human brothers."

Manta set his jaw. "The humans aren't my brothers," he declared firmly. "Not anymore. Whatever claims they might have had on my loyalty and service were lost forever when they launched that unprovoked attack on Qanskan children."

He straightened himself out to his full length. "I'm a Qanska, Counselor Latranesto. Now, and forever."

The defiant words faded into the silence of the whistling wind. "Perhaps," Latranesto said at last. If he was impressed by Manta's ringing declaration, it didn't show in his voice or expression. "Many of the Counselors and the Leaders and the Wise agree. Many others do not."

"Then they're wrong," Drusni said. "I know, better than anyone."

Latranesto's tails twitched. "Perhaps," he said. "Or perhaps your eyes are dimmed by friendship and hope."

"Eyes are never dimmed by friendship, Counselor Latranesto," Manta said quietly. "Friendship, love, and loyalty are what enable the eyes and heart to see better."

"Many others do not agree," Latranesto said again. "That was the reason this grand idea was abandoned and you were condemned to exile. Some believe you will always be human in heart and mind, and will forever serve as their agent."

"And I've told you that I won't," Manta repeated. "I wish I knew a way I could prove it to you."

"Do you?" Latranesto countered. "Do you really?"

Manta felt his breath catch in his throats. There had been something in the way the Counselor had said that.... "Yes," he said. "Tell me how."

For another ninepulse Latranesto hesitated. Then, his eyes drifted off into the distance. "Allow me to remember in your presence," he said. "Do you know what first attracted the Qanska to your people, Manta?"

Manta grimaced. "I thought it was you running into Chippawa and Faraday's tether line."

"No," Latranesto said, his tails undulating slowly in deep memory. "It was afterwards, after the Leaders and the Wise had examined them and sent them back to Level One. Our plan was for one of the Protectors to break the skin of the Counselor who carried them, drawing some of her blood. The Vuuka who responded would, we hoped, tear away the rest of the skin that covered their machine and permit them to escape."

Manta thought back over the history of that voyage. "It worked, too," he said.

"Yes," Latranesto said. "And if that had been all that happened, we might never have opened a conversation with your people.

"But it wasn't all. What caught our attention was that the humans inside had already created a plan of their own. It was a method that used a power we had never seen before."

"Fire," Manta murmured.

"That was the word," Latranesto confirmed. "The machine had already shown your people were a race who had methods and abilities far beyond ours."

His eyes suddenly focused on Manta again. "What the plan and the fire showed was that you were a race of problem-solvers."

Manta felt something prickling across his skin.
Problem-solvers?
"Are you telling me," he asked carefully, "that you have a problem?"

"A very serious problem, Breeder Manta," Latranesto said solemnly. "One which the Counselors and the Leaders and the Wise have decided must not be revealed to you."

"I see," Manta murmured. "But you're going to tell me anyway?"

Latranesto twitched his tails. "I am placing my own life between your teeth," he said, his voice heavy with reluctance. "You see, you swim between two opposing winds, Breeder Manta. There are those of the Counselors and the Leaders and the Wise who believe you have become truly Qanskan, and have lost all your human abilities. They believe you can't help us. In the other wind are those who believe that you are still human, and that you therefore remain a threat to the Qanska. They believe you
won't
help us. Both sides thus agree that you must never know the true reason you were asked to come into our world."

"And what about you?" Manta asked. "What do
you
believe?"

"I believe that you are a unique creature," Latranesto said. "That your loyalties have become Qanskan, but at the same time your mind and abilities remain human."

He lashed his tails again. "And I am prepared to risk my own life on that belief. For if it is revealed that I told you, your same punishment will also fall upon me. Or perhaps something worse."

"I understand," Manta said, a bad feeling beginning to wrap itself around his throats. What in the world could be happening here that would be this serious? "I'll do everything I can to help."

"What's the problem?" Pranlo asked.

Latranesto sent him a startled look, as if his swim through the past had made him forget that he and Manta weren't alone. For a pulse Manta thought he might order the other two away; but with a twitch of his tail, he merely turned back to Manta. Perhaps he realized he'd already said too much. "It's our world, Breeder Manta," he said, waving his fins to encompass the air around them. "Our entire world."

"What's wrong with it?" Manta asked.

Latranesto seemed to sigh. "It's dying."

TWENTY-FOUR

Drusni gave a little gasp. "Dying?" Pranlo demanded. "What do you mean?"

"I mean that the ancient pattern has returned," Latranesto said solemnly. "The pattern that has followed us to every new world we've ever found."

Manta's heartpulse sped up with reflexive excitement.
Every new world...
"Then it
is
true," he said. "You
did
come from somewhere else, as the humans believe. How long have you been here?"

"Not very long," Latranesto said. "Perhaps twenty-two Qanskan lifetimes. One hundred and seventy suncycles, as the world counts the passage of time."

"A hundred and seventy suncycles," Manta murmured, savoring the irony of it. A hundred and seventy Jovian years. Two thousand years, in Earth measurement.

Yet Faraday's argument for a Qanskan stardrive had been based on the fact that none of Earth's probes had ever spotted a Qanska until his own fateful
Skydiver
expedition. The humans had reached the correct conclusion, but for a completely wrong reason. "That's a pretty good stretch," he said.

"Perhaps as the humans count time," Latranesto said. "Within the span of Qanskan history, it's not much more than a nineday."

Manta thought back to the long and sometimes boring story circle sessions, where the history of the Qanska had been passed on to the new children in the herd. If their life here was just a nineday, the storytellers had clearly hit only the high points. "Tell me about this ancient pattern," he said. "How does it work?"

"It begins when the Wise arrive at their new world," Latranesto said. "They begin to populate, as do all who have come alongside them. And for perhaps the first twenty lifetimes all goes as it should."

He lashed his tails restlessly. "But then the life pattern begins to change. Food plants disappear from the Centerline, as do some of the smaller animals. Small predators, cousins of the Sivra, die or go away. One day, the Brolka vanish from the birth pattern."

Manta flicked his own tails, remembering the differences in flora and fauna he'd observed in the northern and southern regions. "And it always starts in Centerline? In every world you've come to?"

Latranesto hesitated. "I don't know how it's been on other worlds," he admitted. "But in this place, and at this time, it has certainly happened that way."