Chapter Four

As time passed and contact was not resumed, Desvendapur could not keep from wondering if his friends had indicated their willingness to help him in his endeavor only to shut him up, and had forgotten all about his request as soon as they had returned to the comfort and familiarity of their own homes. But though it took a while to make things happen, the reluctant Broud eventually proved to be as good as his word.

There came a day when Des received a formal notification from the sub-bureau in charge of poets for his region, informing him that he had been assigned the post of fifth-degree soother to Honydrop. Hastily, he looked it up on his scri!ber. It was a tiny hive situated outside the main current of Willow-Wane life whose inhabitants worked at gathering and processing a few fields of imported, cultivated berries. Located high on a mountainous plateau, it suffered from weather sufficiently harsh to discourage most thranx from wanting to visit, much less immigrate. He would need protective clothing, a rarity among his kind, and a stolid disposition to endure the unforgiving climate. Furthermore, accepting the transfer would drop him two levels in status. He did not care. Nothing else was important.

What mattered was that the Honydrop hive was situated less than a day's journey from Geswixt.

There was no information to be had on a hypothetical, unacknowledged, and highly improbable human colony, of course. His personal scri!ber was a compact device capable of accessing every information storage dump on the planet, and he had long since given up hope of finding even the most oblique reference to such a development in its innards, no matter how clever or rigorous a search he assigned to it. There was plenty of information on the humans—more than he could hope to digest in a lifetime—and some on the progress of the mature project on Hivehom. But there was nothing about a continued presence on Willow-Wane of bipedal, intelligent mammals. Despite his most probing efforts, it all remained nothing more than rumor.

Reaching Honydrop involved no less than four transfers, from a major tube line to, at the last, a place on one of the infrequent independently powered supply vehicles that served the isolated mountain communities of the plateau. He had never imagined so hostile an environment could exist on a world as long settled and developed as Willow-Wane.

Outside the transparent protective dome of the cargo craft in which he was riding, trees grew not only at absurd distances from one another, wasting the space and soil that lay between, but stood independent of mutual contact. No familiar vines or creepers draped in graceful arcs from one bole to its neighbor. No colorful blossoms added color to trunks that were drab and dark brown. The tiny leaves they sported seemed too insignificant to gather sufficient sunlight to keep the growths alive.

Still, many grew tall and straight. It was exactly the sort of landscape in which one might expect to encounter alien visitors. But the only movement came from animals that, while exotic to his lowland eyes, were quickly recognized by the transport's crew and were well documented in the biological history of the planet.

A glance at the cargo craft's instrument panel showed that the temperature outside was much nearer freezing than he had ever hoped to experience other than theoretically. He made sure his cumbersome leg wrappings were securely belted and that the thermal cloak that slipped over his abdomen was sealed tight. This left his head and thorax unavoidably exposed. A thranx had to be able to see and to breathe. Knowing that he would tend to lose the majority of his body heat through his soft under-abdomen, he felt as confident as one could be in his special apparel.

The two drivers were similarly clad, though in contrast to his, their suits displayed evidence of long wear and hard use. They ignored the single passenger seated behind them as they concentrated on their driving and on the softly glowing readouts that hovered above the instrument panel. The vehicle sped along over a crude path pocked with muddy patches and small boulders. These did not impact on its progress because the bulky cargo craft traveled on a cushion of air that carried it along well above such potentially irritating natural obstructions. Outlying communities like Honydrop and Geswixt were too small and isolated to rate a loop on the network of magnetic repulsion lines that bound together Willow-Wane's larger hives. They had to be supplied by suborbital fliers or individual vehicles like the one on which he managed to secure transport.

One of the drivers, an older female with one prosthetic antenna, swiveled her head completely around to look back at him. "Cold yet?" He gestured in the negative. "You will be." Her mandibles clicked curtly as she turned back to her controls.

The paucity of vegetation compared to what he was used to was more than a little unnerving. It suggested an environment hostile beyond anything he had ever experienced. Yet, thranx lived up here, even at this daunting altitude and in these horrific conditions. Thranx, and if the Willow-Wane Project was more than just rumor, something else—something the tri-eints who made the decisions that affected all thranx wanted to keep from the eyes of their fellow citizens.

Other than an orbiting station, they couldn't have chosen a better place, Des mused as the cargo vehicle sped along below the granitic ramparts of the high mountains that framed the plateau. This was not terrain where thranx would casually wander or vacation. The AAnn would find the thinner air and infinitely colder temperatures equally uninviting. Glancing out the dome, he saw that the upper slopes of the peaks whose gaze they were passing beneath were clad in white. He knew what rilth was, of course. But that did not mean he had any desire to see it up close or to touch it. His body shivered slightly at the thought. There were certain kinds of inspiration he could do without.

Hardship, however, was not among them. Even if there was no colony, or if there was some other kind of clandestine government project involving subject matter that did not include bipedal intelligent mammals, the harsh surroundings had already suggested more than a few couplets and compositions to him. Any poet worthy of the designation was an open spigot. He could no more turn off the thoughts and words that cascaded through his head or the relevant twitches and tics that convulsed his arms and upper body than he could cease breathing.

There was little to see when they arrived. Unlike more established thranx communities in more salubrious climes, Honydrop was situated almost entirely below ground. Normally the surface would be covered with vehicular docking alcoves, a forest of power air intakes and exhausts, bulk storage facilities, and parks—lots of parks. But except for places where the brush and some of the peculiar local trees had been cut down, the terrain the cargo carrier embraced late that afternoon had been left in a more or less natural condition.

He had been expecting too much. Honydrop, after all, was only a very small community on the fringe of what was still the ongoing settlement of Willow-Wane. Three hundred and sixty-odd years was a long time in the settlement of a continent, but with an entire world to develop and civilize, there was still space to accommodate little-visited, empty places. The vast plateau on which Honydrop, Geswixt, and a few other minuscule outposts had been established was one locale where frontier still prevailed.

The transport slipped smoothly into a weather-battered shelter. Immediately, double doors labored to close behind it. To Des's surprise, the two drivers did not wait for the interior temperature to be raised to a comfortable level. They cracked the dome soon after shutting down the vehicle's engines.

The blast of cold air that struck the poet made him gasp. Shocked spicules caused his entire thorax to contract in reaction. Using all four hands he hurried to tighten the unfamiliar, constricting clothing around his unacclimated limbs and abdomen.

At least the interior of the warehouse reflected traditional thranx values. Everything was organized and in its place, although he had expected to see more in the way of supplies. An isolated community like Honydrop would require more support than a hive of similar size set in an equitable climate. Perhaps there were other storage facilities elsewhere. Disembarking from the cargo carrier, he took further stock of his surroundings. Power suits and mechanical assistants at the ready, a stevedore crew appeared. Working in tandem with the drivers, they began to unload the big bulk carrier. Des waited impatiently for his baggage, buried unceremoniously among the rest of the cargo.

A foothand prodded him from behind. Turning clumsily in the cold-weather gear, he saw a middle-term male staring back at him. Seeing that the local was encumbered by even more clothing than himself made Desvendapur feel a little bit better. The people who lived up here were not superthranx, inured to temperatures that would stiffen the antennae of any normal individual. They were subject to the same climatic vagaries as he.

"Greetings. You are the soother who has been assigned from the lowlands?"

"I am," Des replied simply.

"Wellbeing to you." The salutation was curt, the touch of antenna to antenna brief. "I am Ouwetvosen. I'll take you to your quarters." Pivoting on four trulegs, he turned to lead the way. When Des hesitated, his host added, "Don't worry about your things: They will be brought. Honydrop is not a big enough place in which to lose anything. When can you be ready to recite?"

Apparently, traditional protocol and courtesy were as alien to his new home as was the climate. A bit dazed, Des followed his guide. "I've only just arrived. I thought—I thought I might accustom myself to my new surroundings first."

"Shouldn't take you long," Ouwetvosen declared bluffly. "The people here are starved for therapeutic entertainment. Recordings and projections are all very well in their way, but they're not the same as a live performance."

"You don't have to tell me." Des followed his host into a lift. When the doors closed, the temperature within approached something closer to normal. His body relaxed. It was as if he had stepped into a larval nursery. Aware that Ouwetvosen was watching him closely, he straightened his antennae and shifted from six legs back onto four.

"Chilled?"

"I'm fine," Des lied.

His guide's attitude seemed to soften slightly. "It takes some getting used to. Be thankful you're not an agricultural worker. You don't have to spend time on the outside if you don't want to. Myself, I'm a fourth-level administrator. I don't go to the surface unless somebody orders me."

Desvendapur felt emboldened. "It can't be that bad." He indicated his cold-weather gear. "Equipped like this, I think I could stand it for a workday."

The administrator eyed him thoughtfully. "After a while, you probably could. That's how the agri folk dress. Except when the rilth is precipitating out of the atmosphere, of course. Then they require full environmental suits." His mandibles clicked sharply. "One might as well be working in space."

Des had not made it to the administrator's sarcasm. "You are subject to falling rilth? Here, at Honydrop? I saw some compacted on the high peaks, of course—but it actually falls here?"

"Toward the end of the wet season, yes. It does sometimes grow cold enough to freeze precipitation and make it fall to the ground. You can walk on it—if you dare. I've seen experienced, long-term agri workers do it barefoot. Not for more than a few moments," he added quickly.

Des tried to imagine walking barefoot in rilth, the icy frozen moisture burning the underside of his unprotected foot-claws, numbing nerves and crawling up his legs. Who would voluntarily subject themselves to such hell? That kind of cold would penetrate right through the chitin of a person's protective exoskeleton to threaten the moist, warm fluids and muscles and nerve endings within. Did he dare?

"One question, Ouwetvosen: Why did they name a hive situated in country like this, in a climate like this, Honydrop?"

His host glanced back at him and gestured with a truhand. "Someone had a sense of humor. What kind of sense, I'd just as soon not say."

Desvendapur's private quarters turned out to be of modest dimensions and were equipped with comfortable appointments. Once settled within, he prepared to address the matter of the individual climate control. His mouthparts parted contemplatively, then hesitated. It was his state of mind that was chilled, not his body. Here below the surface, within the Honydrop hive, the temperature was set at thranx norm and the internal humidity was raised to the appropriate 90 percent. Stop thinking about conditions on the surface, he admonished himself, and the rest of your body will follow your mind's lead.

Already he had composed and discarded a good ten minutes' worth of material. Inspired by what he had seen, it had been full of portentous references to the searing cold and barren mountains. Reviewing the stanzas, he realized that these were not what the locals would want to hear about. They wanted to be soothed, to be transported by his words and sounds and hand gestures; not reminded of the harshness of their surroundings. So he threw out everything he had contrived and began anew.

His inaugural recitation was well attended. Anything fresh was a novelty in Honydrop, and that included a recently arrived therapist like himself. Having full confidence in his abilities, he did not force his performance, and it went "soothly." Following his well-thought-out coda, more than a few females and males walked to the center of the small community amphitheater to congratulate him and to chat amiably. After the stark, tense journey up from the lowlands, it felt good to be back among a swarm, the warmth and smell of many unclothed thranx pressing close around him. He accepted their thanks and comments readily, grateful for the attention. Veiled promises of possible mating opportunities were appreciatively noted.

Reassured and exhausted, he retired to his quarters at the appropriate hour, reviewing in his mind all that he had seen and experienced since arriving. The isolation, the ruggedness of his surroundings, should make for inspired composing. In a few days he felt he would be mentally secure enough to join the agricultural workers on one of their daily forays to the berry fields, to watch them at work and experience more of this exotic, little-visited corner of Willow-Wane.

He knew he would be watched while his work was being evaluated. It would not do to inquire too quickly into rumors about a nearby mysterious project, or to ask frequently about clandestine government operations in the area. Honydrop was located a respectable distance away from and on the opposite side of a high, sharp mountain ridge from Geswixt, the hive that would be the support base for any eccentric out-world operations. Somehow he would have to find a way to pay the place a visit without arousing any suspicions. Honydrop was a typical agricultural community, albeit a markedly isolated one. Its inhabitants went about their business free of immoderate surveillance. Geswixt could be different.

If it wasn't, then he had come all this way and gone to all this trouble—not to mention sacrificing two levels in status— for nothing.

As the weeks passed he found himself settling in among his fellow workers. They were a hardy lot, the thranx of Honydrop. They appreciated every word of his poetry, every mannered gesture, dip of head, and spiral of antennae. Even the less inspired of his workmanlike refrains drew praise. His success, he felt, was due more to the ardor he emanated while performing than to any brilliance of invention. As a soother, he was inescapably impassioned. This additional emotional warmth was gratefully embraced by the citizens. Unsolicited commendations piled up in his record. There was talk of recommending him for an embedded shoulder star.

At any time, he could have requested a transfer to a larger, more rewarding venue. Promotion within his calling also beckoned. He made no effort to procure either.

What he did do was strive to make friends with anyone engaged in transportation, be it the operator of one of the loaders that gathered the plump fruit from the scattered fields, the drivers of internal individual transports, or the occasional visiting cargo pilot. A check of maps showed that it would be futile to attempt to walk overland to Geswixt or anywhere in its vicinity. Without a full environment suit he would never get across the intervening ridge, and there was no viable reason why a poet should need to requisition that kind of extreme-weather gear. It left him no choice but to try and hitch a ride some day.

The difficulty was that despite their geographic proximity, there was little interchange between Honydrop and Geswixt. The produce harvested by Honydrop hive went directly out of the mountains and down to processing plants in the nearest city. Nothing was shipped from Honydrop to Geswixt, and all necessary supplies came straight up from the lowlands. For all the formal intercourse that took place between the two hives they might as well have been on opposite sides of the planet.

He was sitting in one of the two community parks, surrounded by supplementary humidity, dense tropical growth, and edible fungi, basking in the artificial light that filtered hazily down from the ceiling, when he was approached by Heulmilsuwir. A logistics operator who, like many, admired his work, she had become a good if casual friend.

"Sweet tidings to you, Desvendapur."

He set his scri!ber aside, mildly irritated at having been interrupted in midcomposition. "Good day, Heul. Are you on off-time?"

"For a little while." She settled herself on the bench next to his, straddling it with her abdomen, her trulegs splayed out to either side. "You're still working, even here?"

"The curse of creativity." He made a soft, humorous gesture to take the edge off his tone. "Even a soother needs soothing. I find that in all of Honydrop, this place does that for me."

"Only this place?" Reaching out with a truhand, she stroked his slick, blue-green thorax just below the breathing spicules.

Idly, he mused on the slenderness of her ovipositors, curled up over her lower abdomen. "There are others," he conceded with grudging warmth.

They made inconsequential but diverting chatter for a while. Then her tone changed. "Am I wrong, or in the intervals when we were talking days ago did you mention that you would like to visit Geswixt?"

He fought to suppress his initial reaction. While his face was inflexible, his limbs were not. He felt he largely succeeded in hiding from this female what he was feeling. "A change of scenery, however transitory, is always a welcome diversion."

She indicated disagreement and clicked her mandibles sharply for emphasis. "Not if it means going outside. Personally, I can't imagine why anyone would want to go to the trouble of visiting Geswixt. Everything I've heard about the place suggests that it's a grim, spare little mining station, with nothing in the way of amenities." She gestured with a truhand. "Less so even than Honydrop."

"What do they mine there?" he asked absently. "What kind of ore?"

She gestured uncertainty. "I do not know. I think I remember hearing something about an ongoing dig for nonferrous materials, but I don't believe they've actually hit an ore body yet. They're still searching."

"And tunneling a lot, I imagine. A mine would mean many tunnels. A great deal of earth and rock would have to be moved."

She eyed him curiously. "Why, yes, I suppose so." Light flashed off the multifarious golden mirrors that were her eyes. "Anyway, if you really want to go there and have a look around, I've found someone who might take you."

His hearts pounded a little faster. "That is interesting. Would I know this person?"

"Perhaps. Her name is Melnibicon. She's a driver." When Des indicated his ignorance, Heulmilsuwir elaborated. "We've met a number of times, in the course of checking her manifests. It seems that there is a need for a certain medicine in Geswixt. A small quantity of a little-used enzymatic catalyst. Rather than wait to have it shipped from Ciccikalk, our department is sending some over the mountains to Geswixt. A quick courtesy run. Melnibicon is taking it. Since her transport will be pretty much empty except for a single package of medication, I thought she might have room for a passenger."

"You asked her on my behalf?" Had he not made a conscious effort to suppress it, Desvendapur might have been moved to affection.

"I knew you were interested, and I have enjoyed your recitals so much—and your company."

"I thought travel was prohibited between Honydrop and Geswixt." He watched closely for any reaction.

"Restricted. Not prohibited. Otherwise, clearing the requisite bureaucratic strictures would prevent Melnibicon from making the trip. Officially, casual travel is not supposed to take place. But now and again, people do make the journey."

Leaning forward, she reached into a beautifully embroidered, hand-woven abdominal pouch and handed him an embossed plastic rectangle.

"This is where you will find her. She's leaving mid-midday so she can make it back before dark. It is better to do these things on the cusp of the moment. Too much planning can lead to exposure. Are you going to meet with her and try to do this?"

Gathering all four trulegs beneath him, he slid off the bench. "I don't know," he lied. "I'll have to think about it. If I am found out, it could mean trouble for me."

"I won't tell." The logistics officer flexed her ovipositors coquettishly. "You will get there, have your little look around and visit, and be back before anyone in a position to object realizes that you've gone. Where is the harm in that?"

No harm indeed. Eventualities cascaded through his mind like logs swept before a spring monsoon. "I will be back tonight," he declared flatly.

"Of course you will." She abandoned her own bench to stand alongside him. "And I will be waiting to greet you, to hear all about your furtive visit to exotic Geswixt." She gestured amusement.

He started to leave, composing the necessary preparations in his mind. Then he hesitated and looked over at her. "Heul, why this interest in me? Why the persistence on my behalf?"

"You're a poet, Des. You conform so differently." With that she was gone, scampering off in the direction of one of the south tunnels. He watched her depart, then headed for his modest quarters. There were several small items he wanted to be sure and take along with him—-just in case.

If he was lucky, the opportunity might arise not to come back.

Melnibicon was an older, taciturn thranx whose ovipositors had long since lost their resilience and collapsed against her wing cases. After assuring herself that Desvendapur had come alone and had not been followed, she directed him into the back of the cargo lifter's cramped cockpit. No one saw him board, the rest of the warehouse facility's crew being fully occupied with tasks of their own.

Granted clearance, the lifter trundled out through the weather-tight double doors onto a small, spotless landing area. Des was jolted when the craft took off straight up, rising to a height of several hundred feet before leveling off and accelerating eastward.

"Sorry about that." Melnibicon grunted a terse apology as she kept a careful watch on her instrumentation, occasionally glancing up to take in the daunting view forward. "I'm used to hauling cargo and produce, not sightseers."

"It's all right." Settling himself onto the narrow, empty bench alongside her, he studied the view outside. Rugged peaks and jagged ridges saddled with rilth separated the fertile but cold valley beneath which Honydrop lay from the higher vale that was home to Geswixt. Once again, he saw that attempting to cross between the two on foot in anything less than full environmental gear would have brought a quick death to the hardiest thranx. In contrast, the lifter would make the trip in less than an hour.

He felt some sort of thanks was in order. "This is very good of you."

A reply that was more grunt than whistle assailed his ears. "This job is boring enough. A little risk is worth it for a little company. Talk to me poet. Tell me about yourself, and the world beyond this cold hell. How goes life in Ciccikalk?"

"Why ask me? You have pictures, images."

"That's not the same as hearing it from someone who's recently been places. Use flowery language, poet. I like being soothed in High Thranx."

He complied as best he was able, resorting to improvisation when knowledge and experience failed, and all the while doing his best not to look outside. Doing so reminded him of the cold death that awaited below.

In spite of his nervousness he found that the time passed quickly. When Melnibicon indicated that they had crossed the ridge and were descending into Geswixt, he forced aside his unease and pressed his face and antennae to the port.

The view was less than instructive. Not having any idea what to expect, he was still disappointed. The panorama was less than inspiring. Certainly it dispensed no revelations.

Below them, a long, narrow valley stretched from the impossibly inhospitable high mountains that lay to the north off in the direction of the distant sea. A fast-flowing river ran down the center of the valley. Unlike the country above and around Honydrop, the land showed no signs of cultivation. Only the rabble-free disc of the landing platform indicated the presence in the valley of intelligent inhabitants. They were flying over one of the most remote regions on Willow-Wane. Geswixt, like Honydrop and every other thranx hive built in a less than ideal climatic zone, would of course be located entirely underground.

What did you expect? he admonished himself as the lifter hummed through a pass between two rilth-clad crags. Hordes of humans dashing about in all directions, or genuflecting at the approach of every craft making an arrival? The absence of any visible indication that the bipedal mammals were present was hardly conclusive proof of their absence.

Neither, however, was it encouraging.

After an uneventful descent, Melnibicon set the lifter down gently on the landing disc and taxied forward until they were once more within a sheltering enclosure and surrounded by other vehicles. The assortment of battered, weather-scoured craft parked in the Geswixt terminal betrayed no hidden uses. The terminal looked exactly like the one in Honydrop, only larger. Cargo was being unloaded from one aircar while a small lifter was being filled with an assortment of crates and barrels from a pair of container transports. There was no evidence of unusual activity or exceptional security.

If it was after all nothing but rumor, he thought disappointedly, then he had wasted not just an afternoon but the past several seasons of his life on a quixotic, futile quest.

The muted hum of the lifter's engine died. Slipping free of the pilot's bench and gear, Melnibicon turned to look back at him. "Welcome to Geswixt. Is it what you expected?"

He gestured noncommittally. "I haven't seen anything yet."

She generated the high-pitched whistle that was thranx laughter. "Have a look around. I need to make delivery of that medication. They're waiting for it, so it shouldn't take long. Then I am going to take a little break for myself, chat with some fliers I know here." She spoke to the lifter and it replied with the correct time. "Be back in four time-parts. I'd rather not fly through these mountains after dark, even if the lifter does most of the flying itself. Just because the route is preprogrammed doesn't mean I don't want to be able to see where we are going."

Disembarking, he found himself alone in the spacious terminal. With no specific destination in mind, he wandered from craft to craft, observing handlers at work and asking what he hoped were innocuously phrased questions that would give the impression he knew about something that might or might not actually exist. The replies he received varied from the bemused to the straightforwardly indeterminate. In this manner he passed most of the remainder of the afternoon, at the end of which period he was no more enlightened than he had been prior to leaving Honydrop.

One young male in particular was having a difficult time shifting a stack of six-sided containers from an off-loading platform onto the back of a small transport vehicle. The machinery he was using to perform the work was balky and uncooperative. It was a rare example of thranx patience wearing thin. Having nothing else to do and already resigned to returning to Honydrop devoid of the edification he sought, Des wandered over and offered his help. If there was nothing here to stimulate his mind, at least he could exercise his body.

The youth accepted the stranger's offer gratefully. With the two of them working in tandem the process of shifting the containers accelerated noticeably. The open back of the little vehicle began to fill.

"What is in these?" Only mildly interested, Desvendapur glanced down at the container cradled in his four arms. The information embossed on the side of the gray repository was less than descriptive.

"Food," the other male informed him. "Ingredients. I am a food-preparation assistant, third level." There was no false pride in his voice. "Graduated at the top of my classification several years ago. That is how I secured this position."

"You make it sound like it's something special." Never known for his tact, Desvendapur was not about to open a new wing case now. He passed another container to the waiting male. "This is Geswixt, not Ciccikalk." In what had become a rote comment, he fished automatically. "Of course, if the humans were here, it would be different."

"Here?" The hardworking preparator whistled amusedly. "Why would there be any humans here, in Geswixt?"

"Why indeed? An absurd notion." A practiced Des displayed neither discouragement nor excitement.

His new acquaintance barely paused to catch his breath. "It really is. They are all up-valley, in their own quarters." He indicated the rapidly growing stack of containers. "This is food for them. I'm learning how to prepare sustenance not for our kind, but for humans."