Chapter Two

 

The thranx do not bury their dead: the deceased are lovingly recycled. Like so many components of thranx culture, this was a tradition that reached back to their primitive origins, when hives were ruled by pretech, egg-laying queens, and anything edible was deemed worthy of consumption, including the remains of a demised fellow citizen. Protein was protein, while nourishment and survival continued to take precedence over emerging notions of culture and civilization. The manner in which the traditional recycling was carried out was more decorous now, but the underlying canon remained the same.

Farewell giving was far more elaborate and formalized than it had been in the times before talking, however, though the one whose praises were presently being sung would doubtless have dubbed them overwrought. For a poet famous on not just Willow-Wane but all the thranx worlds, Wuuzelansem had been even more than conventionally modest.

Desvendapur remembered the last time he had sat with the master. Wuuzelansem's color had deepened from the healthy aquamarine of the young beyond the blue-green of maturity until in old age his exoskeleton had turned almost indigo. His head had swayed uncontrollably from side to side, the result of a nonfatal but incurable disease of the nervous system, and he but rarely rose up on only four legs, needing all six all the time to keep him from falling. But though they might flash less frequently with the fires of inspiration, the eyes still gleamed like burnished gold.

They had gone out into the rain forest, the great poet and his master class, to sit beneath a yellow-boled cim!bu tree that was a favorite of the teacher's. Possessed of its own broad, dense canopy of yellow-gold, pink-striped leaves, this was the time of year of the cim!bu's flowering. Nectar-rich blossoms of enormous length saturated the air with their perfume, their dangling chimelike stamens thick with pollen. No insects hummed busily about those blooms; no flying creatures lapped at the dripping nectar. Attendants looked after the pollination of the cim!bu. They had to. It was an alien, a foreigner, an exotic outsider that was native to Hivehom, not Willow-Wane. A decorative transplant propagated by settlers. It thrived in the depths of the native forest, even though surrounded by strangers.

Beneath the cim!bu and the rest of the dense vegetation, Yeyll throve. The third-largest city on Willow-Wane, it was a hive of homes, factories, training institutes, recreational facilities, and larvae-nurturing chambers. Technologically advanced they had become, but when possible the thranx still preferred to dwell underground. Yeyll wore the preserved rain forest in which Wuuzelansem and his students strolled on its crown, like a hat. Though it exuded the scent of wildness, in reality it had been as thoroughly domesticated as any park.

There were benches beneath the cim!bu. Several of the students took advantage of them as they listened to the poet declaim on the sensuousness of certain lubricious pentameters, resting their bodies lengthwise along one of the narrow, rustic wooden platforms and taking the weight off their legs. Des preferred to remain standing, absorbing the lesson with one part of his mind while the other contemplated the lushness of the forest. The morning had dawned hot and humid: perfect weather. As he scanned the surface of a nearby tree, his antennae probed the bark, searching out the tiny vibrations of the creatures that lived both on and beneath its surface. Some were native insects, ancient relatives of his kind. They paid no attention to the declamations of the revered Wuuzelansem or the responses of his students, being interested only in eating and procreating and not in poetry.

"What do you think, Desvendapur?"

"What?" Dimly, it registered on his brain that his name had been invoked, together with the attached verbal baggage of a question. Turning from the tree, he saw that everyone was looking at him—including the master. Another student might have been caught off guard, or left at a loss for words. Not Des. He was never at a loss for words. He was simply sparing with them. Contrary to what others might believe, he had been listening.

"I think that much of what passes for poetry these days is offal that rarely, if ever, rises to the exalted level of tendentious mediocrity." Warming to the subject, he raised his voice, emphasizing his words with rapid, over expansive movements of his truhands. "Instead of composing we have composting. Competitions are won by facile reciters of rote who may be craftsmen but are not artists. It's not all their fault. The world is too relaxed, life too predictable. Great poetry is born of crisis and calamity, not long hours whiled away in front of popular entertainments or the convivial company of friends." And just in case his audience felt that he was utilizing the opportunity to answer the query in order to grandstand before the master, he concluded with a choice, especially coarse, expletive.

No one spoke, and fixed thranx countenances were capable of little in the way of facial expression, but rapid hand movements showed that his response had elicited reactions ranging from resentment to resignation. Desvendapur was known to be habitually outrageous, a quality that would have been more readily tolerated had he been a better poet. His lack of demonstrated accomplishment mitigated against acceptance by his peers.

Oh, there were occasional bursts of rhetorical brilliance, but they were as scattered as the quereequi puff-lions in the trees. They manifested themselves just often enough to keep him from being kicked out of the master classes. In many ways he was the despair of the senior instructors, who saw in him a promising, even singular talent that never quite managed to rise above an all-consuming and very unthranx-like preoccupation with morbid hopelessness. Still, he flashed just enough ability just often enough to keep him in the program.

Even those instructors bored with his disgraceful outbursts were reluctant to dismiss him, knowing as they did his family history. He was the last of the Ven save two, the progenitors and inheritors of his family having been wiped out in the first AAnn attack on Paszex more than eighty years earlier. This harsh hereditary baggage had traveled with him all the way north to Yeyll. Unlike the wrong word or an inept stanza, it was something he would never be able to redraft.

"Ven, Ven? I don't know that family," acquaintances would murmur. "Does it hail from near Hokanuck?"

"No, it hails from the afterlife," Desvendapur would muse miserably. It would have been better for him if he had come from offworld. At least then it would have been easier to keep his family history private. On Willow-Wane, where everyone knew the tragic history of Paszex, he could indulge in no such covertness.

Wuuzelansem did not appear upset by his comments. It was not the first time his most obstreperous student had expressed such sentiments. "You condemn, you criticize, you castigate, but what do you offer in return? Crude, angry platitudes of your own. Specious sensitivity, false fury, biased frenzy. 'The jarzarel soars and glides, dips to kiss the ground, and stumbles, perspiring passion: contact in a vacuum.' "

Softly modulated clicks of approval rose from the assembled at this typically florid display of words and whistles from the master. Desvendapur stood his physical and intellectual ground. Wuuzelansem made it seem so easy, the right words and sounds spilling prolifically from his jaws, the precisely correct movements of his hands and body accompanying and emphasizing them where others had to struggle for hours, days, weeks just to compose an original stanza or two. The war was particularly acute within Des, who never seemed quite able to find the terminology to frame the emotions that welled up from deep inside him. A simmering volcano, he emitted much steam and heat, without ever really erupting creatively. Artistically, something vital was missing. Aesthetically, there was a void.

He accepted the lyrical rebuke stolidly, but the way in which his antennae curled reflexively back over his head revealed how deeply he had been stung. It wasn't the first time, and he did not expect it to be the last. In this he was correct. Poetry could be a savage business, and the master's reputation did not extend to coddling his students.

Looking back, Des was not surprised that he had survived the rigors of the curriculum. But despite being utterly convinced of his own brilliance, he was nonetheless surprised when he was graduated. He had expected dismissal with less than full ordination. Instead, he found himself armed with private blessings and official certification. Graduation had led to a boring but just barely tolerable position with a private company in the wholesale food distribution business, where he spent much time composing attractive jingles lauding the beauty and healthfulness of the concern's produce and products. While it provided for the maintenance of his physical upkeep (he certainly ate well), his emotional and artistic well-being languished. Day after day of waxing lyrical about the multifarious glories of fruits and vegetables left him feeling like he was ready to explode. He never did, with the result that one vast, overriding fear dominated his waking thoughts.

Would he ever?

Dozens of invited guests were arrayed in the traditional circle in the garden where the dead poet was to be recycled. Notables and dignitaries, former students both famous and obscure, representatives of clan and family, all listened politely to the respectful speeches and ennobling refrains extolling the virtues of the deceased that droned out on the steamy morning breeze. The ceremony had already gone on too long. Much longer than the humble Wuuzelansem would have liked. Had he been able to, Des reflected amusedly, the master would long since have excused himself from his own sepulture.

Wandering through the crowd as the sonorous liturgy wound down, he was surprised to espy Broudwelunced and Niowin-homek, two former colleagues. Both had gone on to successful careers, Broud in government and Nio with the military, which was always in need of energetic, invigorating poets. He wavered, his habitual penchant for privacy finally giving way to the inherent thranx proclivity for the company of others. Wandering over, he was privately pleased to find that they both recognized him immediately.

"Des!" Niowinhomek bent forward and practically wrapped her antennae around his. The shock of familiarity was more refreshing than Des would have cared to admit.

"A shame, this." Broud gestured with a foothand in the direction of the dais. "He will be missed."

" 'Rolling toward land, the wave pounds on the beach and contemplates its fate. Evaporation become destruction.' " Nio was quoting from the master's fourth collection, Des knew. His friends might have been surprised to know that the brooding, apparently indifferent Desvendapur could recite by rote everything Wuuzelansem had ever composed, including the extensive, famously uncompleted Jor!k!k fragments. But he was not in the mood.

"But what of you, Des?" As he spoke, Broud's truhands bobbed in a manner designed to indicate friendliness that bordered on affection. Why this should be so Des could not imagine. While attending class he had been no more considerate of his fellow students' feelings than anyone else's. It puzzled and even unnerved him a little.

"Not mated, are you?" Nio observed. "I have plans to be, within the six-month."

"No," Desvendapur replied. "I am not mated." Who would want to mate with him? he mused. An unremarkable poet languishing in an undistinguished job leading a life of untrammeled conventionality. One whose manner was anything but conducive to the ordinary pleasures of existence. Not that he was lacking in procreational drive. His urge to mate was as strong as that of any other male. But with his attitude and temperament he would be lucky to spur a female's ovipositors to so much as twitch in his direction.

"I don't think it's such a shame," he went on. "He had a notable career, he left behind a few stanzas that may well outlast him, and now he no longer is faced with the daily agony of having always to be brilliant. The desperate quest for originality is a stone that crushes every artist. It was good to see you both again." Dropping his foothands to the ground to return to a six-legged stance, he started to turn to go. The initial delight he had felt at once again encountering old friends was already wearing off.

"Wait!" Niowinhomek restrained him with a dip and weave of both antennae—though why she should want to he could not imagine. Most females found his presence irksome. Even his pheromones were deficient, he was convinced. Searching for a source of conversation that might hold him, she remembered something recently discussed at work. "What do you think about the rumors?"

Turning back, he gestured to indicate a lack of comprehension. Suddenly he wanted to get away, to flee, from memories as much as from former friends. "What rumors?"

"The stories from the Geswixt," she persisted. "The hearsay."

"Chrrk, that!" Broud chimed in with an exclamatory stridulation. "You're talking about the new project, aren't you?"

"New project?" Only indifferently interested, Des's irritation nevertheless deepened. "What 'new project'?"

"You haven't heard." Nio's antennae whipped and weaved, suggesting restrained excitement. "No, living this far from Geswixt I see that it is possible you would not have." Stepping closer, she lowered her voice. Des almost backed away. What sort of nonsense was this?

"You cannot get near the place," she whispered, her four mouthparts moving supplely against one another. "The whole area is fenced off."

"That's right." With a truhand and opposing foothand Broud confirmed her avowal. "With as little fanfare and announcement as possible, an entire district has been closed to casual travel. It is said that there are even regular aerial patrols in the area to seal off the airspace all the way out to orbital."

Mildly intrigued in spite of himself, Des was moved to comment. "Sounds to me like somebody wants to hide something."

Using four hands and all sixteen digits, Nio insinuated agreement. "A new biochemical facility doing radical research. That's the official explanation. But some of us have been hearing other stories. Stories that, in the fourteen years they've been being propagated, have become harder and harder to dismiss."

"I take it they don't have anything to do with biochemical research." Des desperately wanted to leave, to flee surroundings that had become suddenly oppressive.

Broud implied concord, but left it to his companion to continue with the explanation. "Maybe a little, but if so and if the stories are true, then such research is peripheral to the central purpose of the Geswixt facility."

"Which is to do what?" Des inquired impatiently.

She glanced briefly at Broudwelunced before replying. "To watch over the aliens and nurture a growing relationship with them."

"Aliens?" Des was taken aback. This was not what he had expected. "What sort of aliens? The Quillp?" Refusing to ally themselves with either thranx or AAnn, that race of tall, elegant, but enigmatic creatures had long been known to the thranx. And there were others. But they were well and widely familiar to the general populace. Why should any of them be part of some mysterious, secretive 'project'?

But then what did he, bard to fruits and vegetables, know of covert government undertakings?

"Not the Quillp," Nio was telling him. "Something even stranger." She edged closer, so that their antennae threatened to touch. "The intelligent mammals."

This time, Des had to pause before replying.

"You mean the humans? That's an absurd notion. That project was shifted in its entirety to Hivehom years ago, where the government could monitor it more closely. There are no humans left on Willow-Wane. No wonder it's the basis for rumor and speculation only."

Nio was clearly pleased at having taken the notoriously unflappable Desvendapur aback. "Bipedal, bisexual, tailless, alien mammals," she added for good measure. "Humans. The rumor has it that not only are they still around, they're being allowed to set up a colony right here on Willow-Wane. That's why the Council is keeping it quiet. That's why they were moved from the original project site to the isolated country around Geswixt."

He responded with a low whistle of incredulity. Mammals were small, furry creatures that flourished in deep rain forest. They were soft, fleshy, sometimes slimy things that wore their skeletons on the inside of their bodies. The idea that some might have developed intelligence was hardly to be credited. And bipedal? A biped without a tail to balance itself would be inherently unstable, a biomechanical impossibility. One might as well expect the delicate hizhoz to fly in space. But the humans were real enough. Reports on them appeared periodically. Formal contact was proceeding at a measured, studied pace, allowing each species ample time to get used to the existence of the fundamentally different other.

All such contact was still ceremonial and restricted, officially limited to one project facility on Hivehom and a humanoid counterpart on Centaurus Five. The idea that a race as bizarre as the humans might be granted permission to establish permanent habitation on a thranx world was outlandish. There were at least three different antihuman groups that would oppose such a development, perhaps violently. He said as much to his friends. Nio refused to be dissuaded. "Nevertheless, that is what the rumors claim."

"Which is why they are rumors, and why stories imaginative travelers tell so often differ from the truth." For the second time he started to turn away. "It was pleasant to speak with you both."

"Des," Nio began, "I... we both have thought about you often, and wondered if... well, if there is ever anything either of us can do for you, if you ever need any help of any kind..."

He stopped, turning so suddenly that her antennae flicked back over her head, out of potential harm's way. It was an ancient reflex, one she was unable to arrest.

Preparing to leave, he had been struck by a thought pregnant with possibility. Bipedal, tailless, intelligent mammals were an oxymoron, but no one could deny that the humans existed. Tentative, restricted contacts between humankind and the thranx had been taking place for a number of years now. There were not supposed to be any humans on his world. Not since the project begun on Willow-Wane had been shifted to Hivehom. But what if it were true? What if such outrageous, fantastic creatures were engaged in building not a simple research station, but an actual colony right here, on one of the thranx's own colony worlds?

It was what the AAnn had sought to do by force, in their repeated attacks on the Paszex region. It was extraordinary to think that the Grand Council might actually have granted equivalent permission to another species, and to one so alien.

What possibilities might such an unprecedented situation present? What wonders, however inherently appalling, did it conceal? What promise would such an outlandish discovery hold?

The promise, just possibly, of the inspiration his muse and life had thus far been lacking? The thought simultaneously terrified and intrigued him.

"Broud," he said sharply, "you work for the government."

"Yes." The other young male wondered what had happened to transform his former colleague's manner so dramatically. "I am a third-level soother for a communications processing division."

"Near this Geswixt. Excellent." Desvendapur's thoughts were churning. "You just offered me help. I accept." Now it was his turn to lean forward, as the members of the commemorative funeral crowd began to disperse. "I am experiencing a sudden desire to change my living circumstances and go to work on a different part of the planet. You will recommend me to your superiors, in your best High Thranx, for work in the Geswixt area."

"You ascribe to me powers I don't possess," his age-counterpart stammered, truhands fluttering to indicate his distress. "Firstly, I don't live as near this Geswixt as you seem to think. Neither does Nio." He glanced at the female for support, and she gestured encouragingly. "Rumors may alert and influence, but they weigh little and travel without effort. Also, as I told you, I am only a third-level soother. Any recommendations I might make will be treated by my superiors with less than immediate attention." Antennae dipped curiously forward. "Why do you want to uproot your life, shift tunnels, and move nearer Geswixt?"

"Uproot my life? I am unmated, and you know how little family remains to me."

His friends gesticulated uncomfortably. Broud was beginning to wish Des had never come over to talk with them. His behavior was uncouth, his manner unrefined, and his motives obscure. They should have ignored him. But Nio had insisted. Now it was too late. To simply turn away and leave would have been an unforgivable breach of courtesy.

"As for the reason, I should think that's obvious," Des continued. "I want to be nearer to these bizarre aliens—if there is any basis to these rumors and if there actually are any still living on Willow-Wane."

Nio was watching him uneasily. "What for, Des?"

"So I can compose about them." His eyes gleamed, the light reflecting gold from intricately interlocking lenses." Wuuzelansem did. He was a frequent contributor to the original project, composing for as well as about humans. I personally attended at least three performances during which they were mentioned." His antennae twitched at the remembrance. "Difficult as it may be to believe, he always claimed that despite the absence of appropriate cultural referents, they appreciated his poetry."

"What if there are no humans near Geswixt?" Broud felt compelled to point out. "What if the rumors of this implausible, unlikely, alien colony in the making are just that and nothing more? You will have embarked upon a radical change to your life for nothing."

Des turned to look at his colleague. "Then I will meditate on my impulsiveness and try to salvage illumination from the depths of quandary. Either way it will be an improvement over my present circumstances." He gestured with a truhand in the direction of the nearest tunnel entrance to the city below. "There is nothing for me here. Comfort, shelter, familiar surroundings, daily work, ritual compliments, intimacy with familiars. Nothing more."

Nio was openly shocked. Desvendapur was even more maladjusted than she had ever supposed. "Those things are what all thranx desire."

Des whistled sharply and clacked his mouthparts together in a particularly offensive manner. "They are the enemies of poetry. My mind embraces all, but with them my aesthetic is eternally at war."

"Poetry should reassure, and comfort, and soothe," Broud was moved to protest.

"Poetry should explode. Stanzas should burn. Word sounds should cut like knives."

Broud drew himself up on all four trulegs. "I see that we suffer from a serious difference of philosophy. I believe that my job as a poet is to make people feel better, about both themselves and their surroundings."

"And mine is to make them uncomfortable. What better source of inspiration than beings so grotesque they are scarcely to be believed? What rationale could the government possibly have for allowing them to set up a colony here?" He gestured emphatically with both truhands. "A small, official contact station to which access is severely restricted is one thing—but an actual colony of the creatures? If this is true, no wonder it is being carried out in secret. The hives would never stand for it."

Nio gestured uncertainly. The crowd was continuing to thin around them, the park emptying as attendees vanished down a handful of subsurface accessways. "If colonization is actually being carried out, there could be other reasons for the government wanting to keep things quiet. We are not privy to the rationale that underlies the Grand Council's inner decisions."

Des indicated understanding with a flip of his antennae. "What other reasons? They're afraid that hasty exposure of these aliens' intentions might enrage the populace, especially with the AAnn's repeated attempts to establish and enlarge their presence here by force. It would make sense to keep a second alien presence among us quiet for as long as possible." He stridulated wistfulness. "I have heard recordings of their voices. They can communicate, these mammals, but only with difficulty."

"I know nothing about them," Broud protested. "Remember, at this point their continued presence on Willow-Wane is only a rumor. Officially, they were all moved to Hivehom years ago. To find out if the rumor has any basis in fact you would have to speak with someone directly connected to this new project. If there is a new project."

Des pondered furiously. "That should be possible. Surely these colonizing humans, if they exist, must be supervised and attended by specialists of our own kind, if only to see that their activities remain unknown to the population at large. Aliens can be isolated, but not their supervisors. Every thranx needs the camaraderie of the hive."

Nio whistled amusement. "Why, Des, you hypocrite."

"Not at all," he shot back. "I need the hive around me as much as anyone. But not at all times, and not when I'm in search of inspiration." He looked up and past her, to the north. "I need to do something wonderful, something unique, something extraordinary, Nio. Not for me is the comfortable, easy life we usually aspire to. Something inside me pushes me to do more."

"Really?" Broud had had just about enough of their pretentious and probably unbalanced colleague. "What?"

Eyes full of reflected sunlight focused on his. "If I could explain it away, my friend, I would be assembling appliances and not words. I would be like a worker and not a poet."

Broud shifted uncomfortably. Without actually coming out and saying so, or directly denigrating Broud's profession, the other male had made him feel a bit like a lowly line worker himself. Des did not give him time to ponder the actuality of any deeper meaning hidden in his comment, however.

"Can you help me, Broud? Will you help me?"

Caught between Desvendapur's unwavering stare and Nio's curious one, Broud felt trapped into assenting. "As I've said, there is little I can do."

"Little is what I have here. Your help is more than I could hope for."

All four trulegs shifted beneath Broud's abdomen. "If it will make you happy..." he clicked lamely.

"I'm not sure that anything will make me happy, Broud. There are times when I would welcome death as an end to all this purposeless striving and futile activity in search of newness. But in lieu of an incipient demise—yes, it would make me less miserable."

"Then I'll see what I can do for you. I do not know how close I can get you to this mythical colony site. It is possible that I am already the nearest artist within our classification, and as you know, a little poetry goes a long way."

"Do the best you can." Advancing almost threateningly, Des dipped his antennae to entwine them tightly with the other male's. "After inspiration, hope is the best any poet can wish for."

"Just how close to these creatures are you hoping to get?" Nio asked him.

Desvendapur's tone, his whistles and clicks, were charged with excitement. "As close as possible. As close as you and I are now. I want to see them, to look upon their deformities, to smell their alien odor, if they have one. I want to peer into their eyes, run my truhands over their soft, pulpy skin, listen to the internal rumblings of their bodies. I will incorporate my reactions in a dramatic narrative suitable for distribution across all the thranx worlds!"

"What if, assuming any are present, they're simply too hideous, too alien to study at close range?" she challenged him. "I've seen the pictures of them, too, and while it is nice to think that we might have some new intelligent friends in this part of the Arm, I'm not sure I would want to spend any time in their actual company. That may be a matter best left to contact specialists." One foothand contorted in a gesture of mild distaste. "It is said that they have a vile odor."

"If specialists can sustain contact and survive, so can I. Believe me, Nio, there is little in reality that can exceed the warped imaginings of my mind."

"I have no doubt of that," Broud muttered. Already he was regretting his compliance, his offer to assist his colleague in his inexplicable efforts to get close to the aliens. Of course, it was very likely that there were no humans on Willow-Wane and that Desvendapur would be wasting time and energy looking for them. The thought made him feel better.

"If it exists, this is not only a secretive but highly sensitive government undertaking." Nio put a truhand on Des's thorax, just below the neck and above the first pair of breathing spicules. "You're not going to do anything antisocial, are you? I would hate for you to end up as a negative mention on the daily tidings."

"I don't care about that." She found his degree of indifference alarming. "But I will be careful, because if I break a law it will keep me from accomplishing what I hope to achieve. My own inner, personal goals—not the rules of society—will keep me honest."

"You need help." Broud's head was bobbing steadily, an indication of how seriously he viewed his colleague's intentions. "Urgent therapy."

"Perhaps the effort alone will be enough to divert me into the tunnel of satisfaction. Perhaps the presence of humans is in fact no more than rumor. In either event, the change will relieve me of my boredom and help to alleviate my depression."

Broud was heartened by this assessment, if not entirely put at ease. "I will research possible openings near Geswixt. As soon as I have found the closest, I will recommend you for the position. It might be a lesser post than the one you enjoy now."

"That does not matter," Des assured him. "I will compose poetry for sanitation workers charged with disposing of hazardous wastes. I will sweep tunnels."

"Machines do that," Nio reminded him.

"Then I will write poetry for the machines. Whatever is necessary." Seeing the way in which they held themselves, he was compelled to comment further. "I can tell that you both think I'm crazy. Let me assure you that I am in possession of all my mental faculties and am perfectly sane. What I am is relentlessly driven."

"As a fellow poet, I know how small the difference is," Broud commented dryly. "You walk a thin line in this matter, Desvendapur. Have a care you don't fall off."