Parallelities (25 page)

Authors: Alan Dean Foster

BOOK: Parallelities

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A small mirror hung over the sink and he turned to it, noting with confidence that he, too, looked exactly as he should, from tousled hair to contented smile. Through grease splatters and water stains his reflection smiled back. Then it frowned uncertainly.

The only trouble was, he was still smiling.

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Dozens of invited guests were arrayed in the traditional circle in the garden where Wuuzelansem was to be recycled. The ceremony had already gone on too long. Much longer than the humble dead poet would have liked. Had he been able to, Des reflected amusedly, the master would long since have excused himself from his own sepulture.

Wandering through the crowd as the sonorous liturgy wound down, Des was surprised to espy Broudwelunced and Niowinhomek, two former colleagues. Both had gone on to successful careers, Broud in government and Nio with the military, which was always in need of energetic, invigorating poets. Des wavered, his habitual penchant for privacy finally giving way to the inherent thranx proclivity for the company of others. Wandering over, he was privately pleased to find that they both recognized him immediately.

“Des!” Niowinhomek bent forward and practically wrapped her antennae around his. The shock of familiarity was more soothing than Des would have cared to admit.

“A shame, this.” Broud gestured with a foothand in the direction of the dais. “He will be missed.”

“‘Rolling toward land, the wave ponds on the beach and contemplates its fate. Evaporation become destruction.’” Nio was quoting from the master’s fourth collection, Des knew. His friends might have been surprised to know that the brooding, apparently indifferent Desvendapur could recite by rote everything Wuuzelansem had ever composed, including the extensive, famously uncompleted Jorkk fragments. But he was not in the mood.

“But what of you, Des?” As he spoke, Broud’s truhands bobbed in a manner designed to indicate friendliness that bordered on affection. Why this should be so Des could not imagine. While attending class he had been no more considerate of his fellow students’ feelings than anyone else’s. It puzzled and even unnerved him a little.

“Not mated, are you?” Nio observed. “I have plans to be, within the six-month.”

“No,” Desvendapur replied. “I am not mated.” Who would want to mate with me? he mused. An unremarkable poet languishing in an undistinguished job leading a life of untrammeled conventionality.

“I don’t think it’s such a shame,” he went on. “He had a notable career, he left behind a few stanzas that may well outlast him, and now he no longer is faced with the daily agony of having always to be original. It was good to see you both again.” Dropping his foothands to the ground to return to a six-legged stance, he started to turn to go. The initial delight he had felt at once again encountering old friends was already wearing off.

“Wait!” Niowinhomek restrained him with a dip and weave of both antennae—though why she should want to he could not imagine. Most females found his presence irksome. Even his pheromones were deficient, he was convinced. Searching for a source of conversation that might hold him, she remembered one recently discussed at work. “What do you think about the rumors?”

Turning back, he gestured to indicate a lack of comprehension. Suddenly he wanted only to get away, to flee, from memories as much as from former friends. “What rumors?”

“The stories from the Geswixt,” she persisted. “The hearsay.”

“Chrrk, that!” Broud chimed in with an exclamatory stridulation. “You’re talking about the new Project, aren’t you?”

“New Project?” Only indifferently interested, Des’s irritation nevertheless deepened. “What new Project?”

“You haven’t heard.” Nio’s antennae whipped and weaved, suggesting restrained excitement. “No, living this far from Geswixt I see that it’s possible you wouldn’t.” Stepping closer, she lowered her voice. Des almost backed away. What sort of nonsense was this?

“You can’t get near the place,” she whispered, her four mouth-parts moving supplely against one another. “The whole area is fenced off.”

“That’s right.” With a truhand and opposing foothand Broud confirmed her avowal. “With as little fanfare and announcement as possible, an entire district has been closed to casual travel. It’s said that there are even regular aerial patrols to shut off the airspace. Right out to orbital.”

Mildly intrigued, Des was moved to comment. “Sounds to me like somebody wants to hide something.”

Using four hands and all sixteen digits, Nio insinuated agreement. “A new biochemical facility doing radical research. That’s the official explanation. But some of us have been hearing other stories. Stories that, in the fourteen years they’ve been propagated, have become harder and harder to dismiss.”

“I take it they don’t have anything to do with biochemical research.” Des desperately wanted to go, to flee surroundings become suddenly oppressive.

Broud implied concord but left it to his companion to continue with the explanation. “Maybe a little, but if so and if the stories are true then such research is peripheral to the central purpose of the Geswixt facility.”

“Which is to do what?” Des inquired impatiently.

She glanced briefly at Broudwelunced before replying. “To watch over the aliens and nurture a growing relationship with them.”

“Aliens?” Des was taken aback. This was not what he had expected. “What sort of aliens? The Quillp?” That race of tall, elegant, but enigmatic creatures who refused to ally themselves with either thranx or AAnn had long been known to the thranx. And there were others. But they were well and widely known to the general populace. Why should they be part of some mysterious, secretive “Project”?

“Not the Quillp,” Nio was telling him. “Something even stranger.” She edged closer, so that their antennae threatened to touch. “The intelligent mammals.”

This time, Des had to pause before replying.

“You mean the humans? That’s an absurd notion. That project was shifted in its entirety years ago to Hivehom, where the government could monitor it more closely. There are no humans left on Willow-Wane. No wonder it’s the basis for rumor and speculation only.”

Nio was clearly pleased at having taken the notoriously unflappable Desvendapur aback. “Bipedal, bisexual, tailless, alien mammals,” she added for good measure. “Humans. The rumor has it that not only are they still around, they’re being allowed to set up a colony. Right here on Willow-Wane. That’s why the Council is keeping it quiet. That’s why they were moved from the original Project site near Paszex to the isolated country around Geswixt.”

He responded with a low whistle of incredulity. Mammals were small, furry creatures that flourished in deep rainforest. They were soft, fleshy, sometimes slimy things that wore their skeletons on the inside of their bodies. The idea that some might have developed intelligence was hardly to be credited. And bipedal? A biped without a tail to balance itself would be inherently unstable, a biomechanical impossibility. One might as well expect the delicate hizhoz to fly in space. But the humans were real enough. Reports on them appeared periodically. Formal contact was proceeding at a measured, studied pace, allowing each species ample time to get used to the notion of the fundamentally different other.

All such contact was still ceremonial and restricted, officially limited to one Project facility on Hivehom and a humanoid counterpart on Centaurus Five. The idea that a race as bizarre as the humans might be granted permission to establish permanent habitation on a thranx world was outlandish. Des said as much to his friends.

Nio refused to be dissuaded. “Nevertheless, that is what the rumors say.”

“Which is why they are rumors, and why stories imaginative travelers tell so often differ from the truth.” For the second time he started to turn away. “It was good to see you both.”

“Des,” Nio began, “I—we both have thought about you often, and wondered if, well—if there is ever anything either of us can do for you, if you ever need any help of any kind…”

Des stopped, turning so suddenly that Nio’s antennae flicked back over her head, out of potential harm’s way. It was an ancient reflex, one she was unable to arrest.

Preparing to leave, Des had been struck by a thought pregnant with possibility. Tentative, restricted contacts between humankind and the thranx had been taking place for a number of years now. There were not supposed to be any humans on his world. Not since the Project, begun on Willow-Wane, had been shifted to Hivehom. But—what if it were true? What if such outrageous, fantastic creatures were engaged in building, not a simple research station, but an actual colony right here, on one of the thranx’s own colony worlds? The promise, just possibly, of the inspiration his muse and life had thus far been lacking?

“Broud,” he said sharply, “you work for the government.”

“Yes.” The other young male wondered what had happened to
transform his former colleague’s manner so dramatically. “I am a third-level soother for a communications processing division.”

“Near this Geswixt. Excellent.” Desvendapur’s thoughts were churning. “You just offered me help. I accept.” Now it was his turn to lean forward, as the members of the commemorative funeral crowd began to disperse. “I am experiencing a sudden desire to change my living circumstances and go to work on a different part of the planet. You will recommend me to your superiors, in your best High Thranx, for work in the Geswixt area.”

“You ascribe to me powers I don’t possess,” his age-counterpart replied. “Firstly, I don’t live as near this Geswixt as you seem to think. Neither does Nio.” He glanced at the female for support and she gestured encouragingly. “Rumors may alert and influence, but they weigh little and travel easily. Also, as I told you, I am only a third-level soother. Any recommendations I might make will be treated by my superiors with less than immediate attention.” Antennae dipped curiously forward. “Why do you want to uproot your life, shift tunnels, and move nearer Geswixt?”

“Uproot my life? I am unmated, and you know how little family remains to me.”

His friends shifted uncomfortably. Broud was beginning to wish Des had never come over to talk with them. They should have ignored him. But Nio had insisted. It was too late now. To simply turn away and leave would have been an unforgivable breach of courtesy.

“As for the reason, I should think that’s obvious,” Des continued. “I want to be nearer to these bizarre aliens—if there is any basis to these rumors and if there actually are any still living on Willow-Wane.”

Nio was watching him uneasily. “What for, Des?”

“So I can compose about them.”

This book contains an excerpt from a forthcoming novel by Alan Dean Foster.

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Library of Congress Catalog Card Number: 98-92742

eISBN: 978-0-307-54048-5

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