“Sure, my sis used to go to those college parties. Sounded like fun.” The scarred chim turned to the bartender and slapped the polished surface. “Two pints! One for me an’ one for my college chum!” Fiben winced at the loud voice. Several others nearby had turned to look their way.
“So tell me,” his unwelcome acquaintance said, thrusting a paper bottle into Fiben’s hand. “Ya have any kids yet? Maybe some that are registered, but you never met?” He did not sound unfriendly, rather envious.
Fiben took a long swallow of the warm, bitter brew. He shook his head, keeping his voice low. “It doesn’t really work that way. An open birthright isn’t the same as an unlimited — a white card. If the planners have used any of my plasm I wouldn’t know it.”
“Well why the hell not! I mean its bad enough for you bluesies, having to screw test tubes on orders from the Uplift Board, but to not even know if they’ve used the gunk… Hell, my senior group-wife had a planned kid a year ago… you might even be my son’s gene-dad!” The big chim laughed and clapped Fiben again heavily on the shoulder.
This would never do. More heads were turning his way. All this talk about blue cards was not going to win him friends here. Anyway, he did not want to attract attention with a Gubru sitting less than thirty feet away. “I really have to be going,” he said, and started to edge backward. “Thanks for the beer. …”
Somebody blocked his way. “Excuse me,” Fiben said. He turned and came face to face with four chims clothed in bright zipsuits, all staring at him with arms crossed. One, a little taller than the others, pushed Fiben back toward the bar.
“Of course this one’s got offspringl” the newcomer growled. He had trimmed his facial hair, and the remaining mustache was waxed and pointed.
“Just look at those paws of his. I’ll bet he’s never done a day of honest chim’s work. Probably he’s a tech, or a scientist.” He made it sound as if the very idea of a neo-chimp wearing such a title was like a privileged child being allowed to play a complicated game of pretend.
The irony of it was that while Fiben’s hands might be less callused than many here, under his shirt were burn-scars from crash landing on a hillside at Mach five. But it wouldn’t do to speak of that here.
“Look, fellas, why don’t I buy a round. …”
His money flew across the bar as the tallest zipsuiter slapped his hand. “Worthless crap. They’ll be collectin’ it soon, like they’ll be collecting you ape aristocrats.”
“Shut up!” somebody yelled from the crowd, a brown mass of hunched shoulders. Fiben glimpsed Sylvie, rocking up on the mound. The separate strips of her skirt rippled, and Fiben caught a glimpse that made him start with amazement. She really was pink… her briefly exposed genitals in full estrus.
The zipsuiter prodded Fiben again. “Well, Mr. College-man? What good is your blue card gonna do you when the Gubru start collecting and sterilizing all you freebreeders? Hah?”
One of the newcomers, a slope-shouldered chim with a barbelate, receding forehead, had a hand in a pocket of his bright garment, gripping a pointed object. His sharp eyes seemed carnivorously intent, and he left the talking to his mustachioed friend.
Fiben had just come to realize that these guys had nothing to do with the big chim in the dungarees. In fact, that fellow had already edged away into the shadows. “I — I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
“You don’t? They’ve been goin’ through the colonial records, bub, and picking up a lot of college chims like you for questioning. So far they’ve just been taking samples, but I’ve got friends who say they’re planning a full-tilt purge. Now what d’you think of that?”
“Shut th’ fkup!” someone yelled. This time several faces turned. Fiben saw glazed eyes, flecks of saliva, and bared fangs.
He felt torn. He wanted desperately to get out of here, but what if there were some truth in what the zipsuits were saying? If so, this was important information.
Fiben decided to listen a little while longer. “That’s pretty surprising,” he said, putting an elbow on the bar. “The Gubru are fanatical conservatives. Whatever they do to other patron-level races, I’d bet they’d never interfere with the process of Uplift. It’s against their own religion.”
Mustache only smiled. “Is that what your college education tells you, blue boy? Well it’s what the Galactics are saying that counts now.”
They were crowding Fiben, this bunch who seemed more interested in him than in Sylvie’s provocative gyrations. The crowd was hooting louder, the music beating harder. Fiben’s head felt as if it might crack under the noise.
”…too cool to enjoy a working man’s show. Never done any real labor. But snap his fingers, an’ our own chimmies come running!”
Fiben could tell something was false here. The one with the mustache was overly calm, his barratrous taunts too deliberate. In an environment like this, with all the noise and sexual tension — a true grunt shouldn’t be able to focus so well.
Probationers! he realized suddenly. Now he saw the signs. Two of the zipsuited chims’ faces bore the stigmata of failed genetic meddling — mottled, cacophrenic features or the blinking, forever-puzzled look of a cross-wired brain — embarrassing reminders that Uplift was an awkward process, not without its price.
He had read in a local magazine, not long before the invasion, how the trendy crowd in the Probie community had taken to wearing garishly colored zipsuits. Fiben knew, suddenly, that he had attracted the very worst kind of attention. Without humans around, or any sign of normal civil authority, there was no telling what these red-cards were up to.
Obviously, he had to get out of here. But how? The zipsuits were crowding him closer every moment.
“Look, fellas, I just came here to see what’s happenin’. Thanks for your opinion. Now I really gotta go.”
“I got a better idea,” the leader sneered. “How about we introduce you to a Gubru who’ll tell you for himself what’s goin’ on? And what they’re plannin’ to do with college chims. Hah?”
Fiben blinked. Could these chens actually be cooperating with the invader?
He had studied Old Earth History — the long, dark centuries before Contract, when lonely and ignorant humanity had experimented horribly in everything from mysticism to tyranny and war. He had seen and read countless portrayals of those ancient times — especially tales of solitary men and women who had taken brave, often hopeless stands against evil. Fiben had joined the colonial militia partly in a romantic wish to emulate the brave fighters of the Maquis, the Palmach, and the Power Satellite League.
But history told of traitors, also: those who sought advantage wherever it could be found, even over the backs of their comrades.
“Come on, college chum. There’s a bird I want you to meet.”
The grip on his arm was like a tightening vice. Fiben’s look of pained surprise made the mustachioed chim grin. “They put some extra strength genes into my mix,” he sneered. “That part of their meddling worked, but not some of the others. They call me Irongrip, and I got no blue card, or even a yellow.
“Now let’s go. We’ll ask Bright Talon Squadron Lieutenant to explain what the Gubru’s plans are for chim bright boys.”
In spite of the painful pressure on his arm, Fiben affected nonchalance. “Sure. Why not? Are you willing to put a wager on it, though?” His upper lip curled back in disdain. “If I remember my sophomore xenology right, the Gubru are pretty sharply clocked into a diurnal cycle. I’ll bet behind those dark goggles of his you’ll find that bloody bird is fast asleep. Think he’ll like being awakened just to discuss the niceties of Uplift with the likes of you?”