“Yeah,” Gailet sniffed. “With a Gubru Librarian in charge now, I can just imagine asking one of them for a scan-dump on resistance warfare!”
“Well, supposedly…”
The discussion had been going on this way for quite a while. Fiben coughed behind his fist. Everyone looked up. It was the first time he had spoken since the long meeting began.
“The point is moot,” he said quietly. “Even if we knew the hostages would be safe. Gailet’s right for yet another reason.”
She darted a look at him, half suspicious and perhaps a little resentful of his support. She’s bright, he thought. But we’re going to have trouble, she and I.
He continued. “We have to make our first strikes seem less than they are because right now the invader is relaxed, unsuspecting, and completely contemptuous of us. It’s a condition we’ll find him in only once. We mustn’t squander that until the resistance is coordinated and ready.
“That means we keep things low key until we hear from the general.”
He smiled at Gailet and leaned against the wall. She frowned back, but said nothing. They had had their differences over placing the Port Helenia resistance under the command of a young alien. That had not changed.
She needed him though, for now. Fiben’s stunt at the Ape’s Grape had brought dozens of new recruits out of the woodwork, galvanizing a part of the community that had had its fill of heavy-handed Gubru propaganda.
“All right, then,” Gailet said. “Let’s start with something simple. Something you can tell your general about.” Their eyes met briefly. Fiben just smiled, and held her gaze while other voices rose.
“What if we were to…”
“How about if we blow up…”
“Maybe a general strike…”
Fiben listened to the surge of ideas — ways to sting and fool an ancient, experienced, arrogant, and vastly powerful Galactic race — and felt he knew exactly what Gailet was thinking, what she had to be thinking after that unnerving, revealing trip to Port Helenia College.
Are we really sapient beings, without our patrons? Do we dare try even our brightest schemes against powers we can barely perceive?
Fiben nodded in agreement with Gailet Jones. Yes, indeed. We had better keep it simple.
37
Galactics
It was all getting pretty expensive, but that was not the only thing bothering the Suzerain of Cost and Caution. All the new antispace fortifications, the perpetual assaults by coercion gas on any and every suspected or detected Earth-ling site — these were things insisted upon by the Suzerain of Beam and Talon, and this early in the occupation it was hard to refuse the military commander anything it thought needed.
But accounting was not the only job of the Suzerain of Cost and Caution. Its other task was protection of the Gubru race from the repercussions of error.
So many starfaring species had come into existence since the great chain of Uplift was begun by the Progenitors, three billion years ago. Many had flowered, risen to great heights, only to be brought crashing down by some stupid, avoidable mistake.
That was yet another reason for the way authority was divided among the Gubru. There was the aggressive spirit of the Talon Soldier, to dare and seek out opportunities for the Roost. There was the exacting taskmaster of Propriety, to make certain they adhered to the True Path. In addition, though, there must be Caution, the squawk of warning, forever warning, that daring can step too far, and propriety too rigid can also make roosts fall.
The Suzerain of Cost and Caution paced its office. Beyond the surrounding gardens lay th« small city the humans called Port Helenia. Throughout the building, Gubru and Kwackoo bureaucrats went over details, calculated odds, made plans.
Soon there would be another Command Conclave with its peers, the other Suzerains. The Suzerain of Cost and Caution knew there would be more demands made.
Talon would ask why most of the battle fleet was being called away. And it would have to be shown that the Gubru Nest Masters had need of the great battleships elsewhere, now that Garth appeared secure.
Propriety would complain again that this world’s Planetary Library was woefully inadequate and appeared to have been damaged, somehow, by the fleeing Earthling government. Or perhaps it had been sabotaged by the Tymbrimi trickster Uthacalthing? In any event, there would be urgent insistence that a larger branch be brought in, at horrible expense.
The Suzerain of Cost and Caution fluffed its down. This time it felt filled with confidence. It had let the other two have their way for a time, but things were peaceful now, well in hand.
The other two were younger, less experienced — brilliant, but far too* rash. It was time to begin showing them how things were going to be, how they must be, if a sane, sound policy was to emerge. This colloquy, the Suzerain of Cost and Caution assured itself, it would prevail!
The Suzerain brushed its beak and looked out onto the peaceful afternoon. These were lovely gardens, with pleasant open lawns and trees imported from dozens of worlds. The former owner of these structures was no longer here, but his taste could be sensed in the surroundings.
How sad it was that there were so few Gubru who understood or even cared about the esthetics of other races! There was a word for this appreciation of otherness. In Anglic it was called empathy. Some sophonts carried the business too far, of course. The Thennanin and the Tymbrimi, each in their own way, had made absurdities of themselves, ruining all clarity of their uniqueness. Still, there were factions among the Roost Masters who believed that a small dose of this other-appreciation might prove very useful in the years ahead.
More than useful, caution seemed now to demand it.
The Suzerain had made its plans. The clever schemes of its peers would unite under its leadership. The outlines of a new policy were already becoming clear.
Life was such a serious business, the Suzerain of Cost and Caution contemplated. And yet, every now and then, it actually seemed quite pleasant!
For a time it crooned to itself contentedly.
38
Fiben
“Everything’s all set.”
The tall chim wiped his hands on his coveralls. Max wore long sleeves to keep the grease out of his fur, but the measure hadn’t been entirely successful. He put aside his tool kit, squatted next to Fiben, and used a stick to draw a rude sketch in the sand.
“Here’s where th’ town-gas hydrogen pipes enter the embassy grounds, an’ here’s where they pass under the chancery. My partner an’ I have put in a splice over beyond those cottonwoods. When Dr. Jones gives the word, we’ll pour in fifty kilos of D-17. That ought to do the trick.”
Fiben nodded as the other chim brushed away the drawing. “Sounds excellent, Max.”
It was a good plan, simple and, more important, extremely difficult to trace, whether it succeeded or not. At least that’s what they all were counting on.
He wondered what Athaclena would think of this scheme. Like most chims, Fiben’s idea of Tymbrimi personality had come mostly out of vid dramas and speeches by the ambassador. From those impressions it seemed Earth’s chief allies certainly loved irony.
I hope so, he mused. She’ll need a sense of humor to appreciate what we’re about to do to the Tymbrimi Embassy.
He felt weird sitting out here in the open, not more than a hundred meters from the Embassy grounds, where the rolling hills of Sea Bluff Park overlooked the Sea of Cilmar. In oldtime war movies, men always seemed to set off on missions like this at night, with blackened faces.
But that was in the dark ages, before the days of high tech and infrared spotters. Activity after dark would only draw attention from the invaders. So the saboteurs moved about in daylight, disguising their activities amid the normal routine of park maintenance.