The silence was spooky. Fiben’s shoulders hunched as he spoke softly. “Come on, Tycho. Quietly.” The horse blew and pulled the floating wagon slowly past the steel-gray bunker.
Fiben chanced a quick glance inside the structure as he passed. A pair of guards stood within, each perched on one knotted, stick-thin leg, its sharp, avian bill buried in the soft down under its left arm. Two saber-rifles lay on the counter beside them, near a stack of standard Galactic faxboards.
The two Talon Soldiers appeared to be fast asleep!
Fiben sniffed, his flat nose wrinkling once more at the over-sweet alien aroma. This was not the first time he had seen signs of weaknesses in the reputedly invincible grip of the Gubru fanatics. They had had it easy until now — too easy. With the humans nearly all gathered and neutralized, the invaders apparently thought the only possible threat was from space. That, undoubtedly, was why all the fortifications he had seen had faced upward, with little or no provision against attack from the ground.
Fiben stroked his sheathed belt knife. He was tempted to creep into the guard post, slipping under the obvious alarm beams, and teach the Gubru a lesson for their complacency.
The urge passed and he shook his head. Later, he thought. When it will hurt them more.
Patting Tycho’s neck, he led the horse through the lighted area by the guard post and beyond the gate into the industrial part of town. The streets between the warehouses and factories were quiet — a few chims here and there hurrying about on errands beneath the scrutiny of the occasional passing Gubru patrol skimmer.
Taking pains not to be observed, Fiben slipped into a side alley and found a windowless storage building not far from the colony’s sole iron foundry. Under his whispered urging, Tycho pulled the floating hover over to the shadows by the back door of the warehouse. A layer of dust showed that the padlock had not been touched in weeks. He examined it closely. “Hmmm.”
Fiben took a rag from his belt apron and wrapped it around the hasp. Taking it firmly in both hands, he closed his eyes and counted to three before yanking down hard.
The lock was strong, but, as he’d suspected, the ring bolt in the dpor was corroded. It snapped with a muffled “crack!” Quickly, Fiben slipped the sheaf and pushed the door along its tracks. Tycho placidly followed him into the gloomy interior, the truck trailing behind. Fiben looked around to memorize the layout of hulking presses and metalworking machinery before hurrying back to close the- door again.
“You’ll be all right,” he said softly as he unhitched the animal. He hauled a sack of oats out of the hover and split it open on the ground. Then he filled a tub with water from a nearby tap. “I’ll be back if I can,” he added. “If not, you just enjoy the oats for a couple of days, then whinny. I’m sure someone will be by.”
Tycho switched his tail and looked up from the grain. He gave Fiben a baleful look in the dim light and let out another smelly, gassy commentary.
“Hmph.” Fiber! nodded, waving away the smell, “You’re probably right, old friend. Still, I’ll wager your descendants will worry too much too, if and when somebody ever gives them the dubious gift of so-called intelligence.”
He patted the horse in farewell and loped over to the door to peer outside. It looked clear out there. Quieter than even the gene-poor forests of Garth. The navigation beacon atop the Terragens Building still flashed — no doubt used now to guide the invaders in their night operations. Somewhere in the distance a faint electric hum could be heard.
It wasn’t far from here to the place where he was supposed to meet his contact. This would be the riskiest part of his foray into town.
Many frantic ideas had been proposed during the two days between the initial Gubru gas attacks and the invaders’ complete seizure of all forms of communication. Hurried, frenzied telephone calls and radio messages had surged from Port Helenia to the Archipelago and to the continental out-lands. During that time the human population had been thoroughly-distracted and what remained of government communications were coded. So it was mainly chims, acting privately, who filled the airwaves with panicked conjectures and wild schemes — most of them horrifically dumb.
Fiben figured that was just as well, for no doubt the enemy had been listening in even then. Their opinion of neo-chimps must have been reinforced by the hysteria.
Still, here and there had been voices that sounded rational. Wheat hidden amid the chaff. Before she died, the human anthropologist Dr. Taka had identified one message as having come from one of her former postdoctoral students — one Gailet Jones, a resident of Port Helenia. It was this chim the General had decided to send Fiben to contact.
Unfortunately, there had been so much confusion. No one but Dr. Taka could say what this Jones person looked like, and by the time someone thought to ask her, Dr. Taka wag dead.
Fiben’s confidence in the rendezvous site and password was slim, at best. Prob’ly we haven’t even got the night right, he grumbled to himself.
He slipped outside and closed the door again, replacing the shattered bolt so the lock hung back in place. The ring tilted at a slight angle. But it could fool someone who wasn’t looking very carefully.
The larger moon would be up in an hour or so. He had to move if he was going to make his appointment in time.
Closer to the center of Port Helenia, but still on the “wrong” side of town, he stopped in a small plaza to watch light pour from the narrow basement window of a working chim’s bar. Bass-heavy music caused the panes to shake in their wooden frames. Fiben could feel the vibration all the way across the street, through the soles of his feet. It was the only sign of life for blocks in all directions, if one did not count quiet apartments where dim lights shone dimly through tightly drawn curtains.
He faded back into the shadows as a whirring patroller robot cruised by, floating a meter above the roadway. The squat machine’s turret swiveled to fix on his position as it passed. Its sensors must have picked him out, an infrared glow in the misty trees. But the machine went on, probably having identified him as a mere neo-chimpanzee.
Fiben had seen other dark-furred forms like himself hurrying hunch-shouldered through the streets. Apparently, the curfew was more psychological than martial. The occupation forces weren’t being strict because there didn’t seem to be any need.
Many of those not in their homes had been heading for places like this — the Ape’s Grape. Fiben forced himself to stop scratching a persistent itch under his chin. This was the sort of establishment favored by grunt laborers and probationers, chims whose reproductive privileges were restricted by the Edicts of Uplift.
There were laws requiring even humans to seek genetic counseling when they bred. But for their clients, neo-dolphins and neo-chimpanzees, the codes were far more severe. In this one area normally liberal Terran law adhered closely to Galactic standards. It was that or lose chims and ’fins forever to some more senior clan. Earth was far too weak to defy the most honored of Galactic traditions.
About a third of the chim population carried green reproduction cards, allowing them to control their own fertility, subject only to guidance from the Uplift Board and possible penalties if they weren’t careful. Those chims with gray or yellow cards were more restricted. They could apply, after they joined a marriage group, to reclaim and use the sperm or ova they stored with the Board during adolescence, before routine sterilization. Permission might be granted if they achieved meritorious accomplishments in life. More often, a yellow-card chimmie would carry to term and adopt an embryo engineered with the next generation .of “improvements” inserted by the Board’s technicians.