The chim emissaries had doffed homespun and were now decked out in silvery formal robes, cut in a style appropriate for bipeds of their form and status. It took courage to approach this way. Although the vehicles were disabled — there had not been a sign of activity for more than half an hour — the three chims had to be wondering what the enemy would do.
“Ten to one the birds try using a robot first,” Robert muttered, his eyes intent on the scene below.
Athaclena shook her head. “No bet, Robert. Notice! The door to the center barge is opening.”
From their vantage point they could survey the entire clearing. The wreckage of the Howletts Center buildings loomed darkly over one still smoldering hover tank. Its sister, useless barrels drooping, lay canted on its shattered pressure-skirts.
In between the two wrecked fighting machines, from one of the disabled barges, a floating shape emerged.
“Right,” Robert sniffed in disgust. It was, indeed, a robot. It, too, carried a flapping banner, another depiction of the rayed spiral.
“Damn birds won’t admit chims are above the level of groundworms, not unless they’re forced to,” Robert commented. “They’ll try to use a machine to handle the parlay. I only hope Benjamin remembers what he’s supposed to do.”
Athaclena touched Robert’s arm, partly to remind him to keep his voice down. “He knows,” she said softly. “And he has Elayne Soo to help him.” Nevertheless, they shared a formless feeling of helplessness as they watched. This was patron-level business. Clients should not be asked to face a situation such as this alone.
The floating drone — apparently one of the Gubru’s sample collection ’bots, hastily adapted to diplomatic functions — came to a halt four meters from the advancing chims, who had already stopped and planted their banner. The robot emitted a squeal of indignant chatter that Athaclena and Robert could not quite make out. The tone, however, was peremptory.
Two of the chims backed up a step, grinning nervously.
“You can do it, Ben!” Robert growled. Athaclena saw knots stand out in his well-muscled arms. If those bulges had been Tymbrimi change glands, instead… She shivered at the comparison and looked back to the scene below.
Down in the valley, Chim Benjamin stood rock still, apparently ignoring the machine. He waited. At last its tirade ran down. There was a moment of silence. Then Benjamin made a simple arm motion — exactly as Athaclena had taught him — contemptuously dismissing the nonliving from involvement in sapient affairs.
The robot squawked again, this time louder, and with a trace of desperation.
The chims simply stood and waited, not even deigning to answer the machine. “What hauteur,” Robert sighed. “Good going, Ben. Show ’em you got class.”
Minutes passed. The tableau held.
“This convoy of Gubru came into the mountains without psi shields!” Athaclena announced suddenly. She touched her right temple as her corona waved. “That or the shields were wrecked in the attack. Either way, I can tell they are growing nervous.”
The invaders still possessed some sensors. They would be detecting movement in the forest, runners drawing nearer. The second assault group would arrive soon, this time bearing modern weapons.
The Resistance had kept its greatest power in reserve for the sake of surprise. Antimatter tended to give off resonances that were detectable from a long way away. Now, though, it was time to show all of their cards. By now the enemy would know that they were not safe, even within their armored craft.
Abruptly, and without ceremony, the robot rose and fled to the center barge. Then, after a brief pause, the lock cycled open again and a new pair of emissaries emerged.
“Kwackoo,” Robert announced.
Athaclena suppressed the glyph syrtunu. Her human friend did have a propensity for proclaiming the obvious.
The fluffy white quadrupeds, loyal clients of the Gubru, approached the parlay point gobbling to each other excitedly. They loomed large as they arrived in front of the chims. A vodor hung from one thick, feathery throat, but the translator machine remained silent.
The three chims folded their hands before themselves and bowed as one, inclining their heads to an angle of about twenty degrees. They straightened and waited.
The Kwackoo just stood there. It was apparent who was ignoring whom this time.
Through the binoculars Athaclena saw Benjamin speak. She cursed the need to watch all this without any way to listen in.
The chim’s words were effective, however. The Kwackoo chirped and blatted in flustered outrage. Through the vodor came words too faint to pick out, but the results were nearly instantaneous. Benjamin did not wait for them to finish. He and his companions picked up their banner, turned about, and marched away.
“Good fellow,” Robert said in satisfaction. He knew chims. Right now their shoulder blades must be itching terribly, yet they sauntered coolly.
The lead Kwackoo stopped speaking. It stared, nonplussed. Then it began hopping and giving out sharp cries. Its partner, too, seemed quite agitated. Now those on the hill could hear the amplified voice of the vodor, commanding “. . . come back! …” over and over again.
The chims continued walking toward the line of trees until, at last, Athaclena and Robert heard the word.
“. . .come back… PLEASE!…”
Human and Tymbrimi looked at each other and shared a smile. That was half of what this fight had been about.
Benjamin and his party halted abruptly. They turned around and sauntered back. With the spiral standard in place once more they stood silently, waiting. At last, quivering from what must have been terrible humiliation, the feathered emissaries bowed.
It was a shallow bow — hardly a bending of two out of four knees — but it served. Indentured clients of the Gubru had recognized as their equals the indentured clients of human beings. “They might have chosen death over this,” Athaclena whispered in awe, though she had planned for this very thing. “The Kwackoo are nearly sixty thousand Earth years old. Neo-chimpanzees have been sapient for only three centuries, and are the clients of wolflings.” She knew Robert would not be offended by her choice of words. “The Kwackoo are far enough along in Uplift that they have the right to choose death over this. They and the Gubru must be stupefied, and have not thought out the implications. They probably can barely believe it is happening.”
Robert grinned. “Just wait till they hear the rest of it. They’ll wish they’d chosen the easy way out.”
The chims answered the bow at the same angle. Then, with that distasteful formality out of the way, one of the giant avioids spoke quickly, its vodor mumbling an Anglic translation.
“The Kwackoo are probably demanding to speak with the leaders of the ambush,” Robert commented, and Athaclena agreed.
Benjamin betrayed his nervousness by using his hands as he replied. But that was no real problem. He gestured at the ruins, at the destroyed hover tanks, at the helpless barges and the forest on all sides, where vengeful forces were converging to finish the job.
“He’s telling them he is the leader.”
That was the script, of course. Athaclena had written it, amazed all the while how easily she had adapted from the subtle Tymbrimi art of dissemblement to the more blatant, human technique of outright lying.
Benjamin’s hand gestures helped her follow the conversation. Through empathy and her own imagination, she felt she could almost fill in the rest.
“We have lost our patrons,” Benjamin had rehearsed saying. “You and your masters have taken them from us. We miss them, and long for their return. Still, we know that helpless mourning would not make them proud of us. Only by action may we show how well we have been uplifted.