Three high, chirped notes cut their outrage off abruptly. The lead Kwackoo swiveled quickly and bowed to the Suzerain, who had scuttled to the end of its perch closest to the two chims. The Gubru’s beak gaped as it bent to regard Gailet, first with one eye, then the other. Fiben found himself sweating rivulets.
Finally, the alien straightened and squawked a pronouncement in its own highly clipped, inflected version of Galactic Three. Only Fiben saw the tremor of relief that passed down Gailet’s tense spine. He could not follow the Suzerain’s stilted prose, but a vodor nearby commenced translating promptly.
“Well said — said well… spoken well for captured, client-class soldiers of foe-clan Terra… Come, then — come and see… come and see and hear a bargain you will certainly not disapprove — not even in your patrons’ names.” Gailet and Fiben glanced at each other. Then, as one, they bowed.
The late morning air was clear, and the faint ozone smell probably did not foretell rain. Such ancient cues were useless in the presence of high technology anyway.
The barge cruised south past the closed pleasure piers of Port Helenia and out across the bay. It was Fiben’s first chance to see how the harbor had changed since the aliens had arrived.
The fishing fleet had been crippled for one thing. Only one in four trawlers did not lie beached or in dry dock. The main commercial port was almost dead as well. A clump of dispirited-looking seafaring vessels listed at their moorings, clearly untouched for months. Fiben watched one of the still working fishing trawlers heave into view around the point of the bay, probably returning early with a fortuitous catch — or with a mechanical failure the chim crew felt unable to deal with at sea. The tub-bottomed boat rose and fell as it rode the standing swell where sea met bay. The crew had to struggle since the passage was narrower than it had been in days of peace. Half of the strait was now blocked by a towering, curving cliff face — a great fortress of alien cerametal.
The Gubru battleship seemed to shimmer in a faint -haze. Water droplets condensed at the fringes of its ward-screens, rainbows sparkled, and a mist fell over the struggling trawler as it forced its way past the northern tongue of land at last. Fiben could not make out the faces of the chim crew as the Suzerain’s barge swept overhead, but he saw several long-armed forms slump in relief as the boat reached calm waters at last.
From Point Borealis the upper arm of the bayshore swept several kilometers north and east toward Port Helenia itself. Except for a small navigation beacon, those rough heights were unoccupied. The branches of ridgetop pines riffled gently in the sea breezes.
Southward, however, across the narrow strait, things were quite different. Beyond the grounded battleship, the terrain had been transformed. Forest growth had been removed, the contours of the bluffs altered. Dust rose from a site just out of view beyond the headland. A swarm of hovers and heavy lifters could be seen buzzing to and fro in that direction.
Much farther to the south, toward the spaceport, new domes had been erected as part of the Gubru defensive network — the facilities the urban guerrillas had only mildly inconvenienced in their abortive insurrection. But the barge did not seem to be heading that way. Rather they turned toward the new construction on the narrow, hilly slopes between Aspinal Bay and the Sea of Cilmar.
Fiben knew it was hopeless asking their hosts what was going on. The Kwackoo technicians and servitors were polite, but it was a severe sort of courtesy, probably on orders. And they were not forthcoming with much information.
Gailet joined him at the railing and took his elbow. “Look,” she whispered in a hushed voice.
Together they stared as the barge rose over the bluffs.
A hilltop had been shorn flat near the ocean shoreline. Buildings Fiben recognized as proton power plants lay clustered around its base, feeding cables upward, along its flanks. At the top, a hemispherical structure lay face upward, glimmering and open like a marble bowl in the sunshine.
“What is it? A force field projector? Some kind of weapon?”
Fiben nodded, shook his head, and finally shrugged. “Beats me. It doesn’t look military. But whatever it does sure must take a lot of juice. Look at all those power plants. Goodall!”
A shadow slipped over them — not with the fluffy, ragged coolness of a cloud passing before the sun, but with the sudden, sharp chill of something solid and huge rumbling over their heads. Fiben shivered, only partly from the drop in temperature. He and Gailet couldn’t help crouching as they looked up at the giant lifter-carrier that cruised only a hundred meters higher. Their avian hosts, on the other hand, appeared unruffled. The Suzerain stood on its perch, placidly ignoring the thrumming fields that made the chims tremble.
They don’t like surprise, Fiben thought. But they are pretty tough when they know what’s happening.
Their transport began a long, slow, lazy circuit around the perimeter of the construction site. Fiben was pondering the white, upturned bowl below when the Kwackoo with the pink ruff approached and inclined its head ever so slightly.
“The Great One deigns — does offer favor… and will suggest commonality — complementarity … of goals and aims.”
Across the barge, the Suzerain of Propriety could be seen perched regally on its pedestal. Fiben wished he could read expressions on a Gubru face. What’s the old bird got in mind? he wondered. Fiben wasn’t entirely sure he really wanted to know.
Gailet returned the shallow bow of the Kwackoo. “Please tell your honored patron we will humbly attend his offer.”
The Suzerain’s Galactic Three was stilted and formal, embellished with mincing, courtly dance steps. The vodor translation did not help Fiben much. He found himself watching Gailet, rather than the alien, as he tried to follow what the hell they were talking about.
“… allowable revision to Ritual of Choice of Uplift Advisor . . , modification made during time of stress, by foremost client representatives… if performed truly in best interests of their patron race…” Gaflet seemed visibly shaken, looking up at the Gubru. Her lips pressed together in a tight line, and her intertwined fingers were white with tension. When the Suzerain stopped chirping, the vodor continued on for a moment, then silence closed in around them, leaving only the whistle of passing air and the faint droning of the hover’s engines.
Gailet swallowed. She bowed and seemed to have difficulty finding her voice.
You can do it, Fiben urged silently. Speechlock could strike any chim, especially under pressure like this, but he knew he dared not do anything to help her.
Gailet coughed, swallowed again, and managed to bring forth words.
“Hon-honored elder, we … we cannot speak for our patrons, or even for all the chims on Garth. What you ask is … is …”
The Suzerain spoke again, as if her reply had been complete. Or perhaps it simply was not considered impolite for a patron-class being to interrupt a client.
“You have no need — need not … to answer now,” the vodor pronounced as the Gubru chirped and bobbed on its perch. “Study — learn — consider… the materials you will be given. This opportunity will be to your advantage.”
The chirping ceased again, followed by the buzzing vodor.
The Suzerian seemed to dismiss them then, simply by closing its eyes.
As if at some signal invisible to Fiben, the pilot of the hover barge banked away from the frenzied activity atop the ravaged hilltop and sent the craft streaking back across the bay, northward, toward Port Helenia. Soon the battleship in the harbor — gigantic and imperturbable — fell behind them in its wreath of mist and rainbows.
Fiben and Gailet followed a Kwackoo to seats at the back of the barge. “What was all that about?” Fiben whispered to her. “What was the damn thing sayin’ about some sort of ceremony? What does it want us to do?”