Chapter Twenty

 

While the poacher named Hapec busied himself breaking down the camp and carefully obliterating any memory of its existence, his colleague, whose name was Maruco, kept a watchful eye on their two prisoners. He concentrated his attention on the fidgety Cheelo, allowing Desvendapur to roam freely through the evaporating encampment. Whenever it looked as if the thranx might be wandering too far afield, Maruco directed his human prisoner to "call" the alien back. This Cheelo proceeded to do with much meaningless flailing of fingers. Desvendapur continued to fulfill his part in the masque by waiting for Cheelo to finish each charade before complying, not with the human's gestures, but with the directives the poet had already perfectly comprehended.

In this manner the two poachers remained ignorant of the alien's cognizance. Had Desvendapur possessed a weapon, he could simply have shot both of them. But all he had was the small cutting tool in his improvised survival kit. Granted complete surprise, he might have employed it successfully to incapacitate one of the two antisocials, but not both of them. They were too lively, too alert, too attuned to a life of imminent threat and danger. Additionally, while not directly suspicious of the alien in their midst, neither were they especially comfortable in the thranx's presence. Consequently, he was never able to get within a few meters of either of them before they began acting uneasy.

One such experimental advance caused Maruco to comment. "Tell the bug to keep its distance, man. God, but it's repulsive! Smells good, though. Myself, I think you're personally bent, but your suggestion is straight: Somebody will pay plenty for it." He shrugged, holding his rifle casually— though not casually enough. "Me, I wouldn't keep another intelligence in captivity, but I never understood the people who do keep animals. Hapec and I, we don't even keep monkeys."

"Why do you guys stick with this?" Cheelo was genuinely curious. His attention wandered without ever entirely ignoring the poacher's weapon. Given a reasonable chance of success, he'd make a grab for it. Such an opportunity had not yet presented itself. "Rangers and security scanners must be all over the Reserva. Is poaching a few skins and feathers that profitable?"

"Hapec and me, we do all right. But it's more than that. Our ancestors lived free here, hunting and fishing all over this country. They took what they wanted, when they needed it. When the Reserva was drawn up and its boundaries formalized, everybody who lived here was kicked out and resettled on the borders of their former homelands. All in the name of preserving a lousy bunch of plants and animals and a natural CO₂ exchanger for the atmosphere. Like the planet was going to run short on oxygen, anyway." His tone was bitter. "This is Hapec's and my way of getting a little back, of reasserting our ancestral claims to this land."

Cheelo nodded somberly. "I can understand that." Privately he thought the poacher's explanation was a facile rationalization heavily layered with pretentious bullshit. Their two captors kept slipping into the Reserva not to honor their ancestors but because they were making a nice, cushy, illicit living, and for no other reason. Taking revenge for some long-forgotten, sketchily remembered great-grandpa had nothing to do with it. He'd known small-time ninlocos like Hapec and Maruco all his life, had grown up with them. Maybe it made them feel a little better to conduct their miserable, self-serving offenses under the cover of an agreeable fiction. Cheelo Montoya didn't buy it for a minute. What the ingenuous insectile in his company thought of the situation he couldn't imagine. Nor could he find out if he wanted to, at least not for a while. To ensure that Cheelo's captors kept him alive it was necessary for the bug to continue to play mute.

Rustling noises rose from behind the encampment, back among the denser undergrowth. Cheelo strained to see. "So, this little place of yours: Where is it?"

"You'll see soon enough." As Maruco spoke, his partner began to remove from their stretchers and carefully fold the partially cured jaguar and margay pelts. When he had finished with that, he resumed breaking camp, reducing everything to a pile of poles, bindings, and disparate organic waste. This was then scattered among the concealing brush, to decay and disintegrate, along with any indication that people had ever spent any time at this particular spot.

"Must be rough." Cheelo was under no illusion that his attempts at casual conversation would ingratiate him with their captors, but in lieu of any alternative activity, it would have to suffice. "Having to tear down and make a new camp every time you come into the Reserva."

Maruco was dismissive. "Gets easier with practice. You learn what trees make the best hide stretchers, what vines are the most supple and easiest to work. Why do you give a damn?" He grinned nastily. "Thinking of going into competition?"

"Not me." Cheelo shook his head. "I'm a city boy."

"I figured. You skin different game."

As soon as the airtruck was loaded, the two captives were herded on board. Cheelo found nothing exceptional about the vehicle. He'd seen camouflaged stealth transport before. But Desvendapur was fascinated. It was the first complex piece of purely human technology he had encountered in person, and every facet of it, from the layout of the instrumentation to the design of the climate-controlled interior, was new to him. There was, of course, no place for him to sit down. For thranx purposes, the floor was more accommodating than the seats designed for humans. He chose to stand, balancing himself as the vehicle lifted in virtual silence from its hiding place to rise into the canopy.

Though it took four times as long as a straight flight would have, Maruco followed a course that kept them below spreading crests of the forest emergents, utilizing the canopy for cover whenever possible and only rising above it when the airtruck threatened to leave too expansive a path of destruction in the form of broken branches and snapped lianas in its wake. From time to time the closely entangled rain forest gave way to meandering streams and the occasional cocha that allowed him to fly low at higher speeds without leaving a trail behind.

Only when the first foothills hove into view among the mists and low-hanging clouds was Cheelo moved to comment. "I thought you said this place of yours was just outside the Reserva?"

"It is." Maruco spoke without turning while his partner kept a watchful eye and the muzzle of a rifle trained on their human captive. "If you're familiar with the area, then you know the western border of the Reserva runs right up this side of the Andes."

Cheelo watched the foothills give way rapidly to steep, green-shrouded slopes. "I know. I just assumed your place would be down low, where you could hide it in the trees."

Maruco smiled knowingly as the airtruck, following a gorge, commenced a steady climb. "That's what any rangers patrolling the fringes would think. So we set ourselves up right out in the open, up where it's barren and cold and uncomfortable. What stupid chingons would stick themselves out on a treeless ridge for everybody to see? Not anybody running a poaching operation, right?"

"We've never had any trouble," Hapec chipped in. "Nobody checks on us or our little shack." He revealed a mouthful of gleaming, artificial, ceramic teeth. Light gold was currently a fashionable dental tint. "Anybody asks, we tell 'em we're running a private bird-watching operation."

"It's not a whole lie." Maruco was in a jovial mood. "We do watch birds. And if they're rare enough, we also snare and sell 'em."

As the airtruck entered the zone of cloud forest and the permanent mists that cloaked the mountainsides in lugubriously wandering blankets of gray and white, the poacher switched from manual to instrument driving. Earlier, the de-humidifier had shut down and the vehicle's internal climate control had switched over from cool to heat. Meanwhile Cheelo continued the meaningless banter that fooled no one. If provoked, either of the two poachers would as soon shoot him as spit on him. He knew it, and he knew they knew he knew it. But it was better than dead silence or trading insults. At least he might learn something.

Desvendapur certainly was. Not only the journey but the edgy conversation taking place between the three humans continued to provide him with an unbridled flow of suggestion, stimulation, and inspiration. Unable to freely utilize his scri!ber for fear that their captors might appropriate it, he concentrated on observing and remembering all that he could. Tenseness and barely concealed agitation were racial characteristics his kind had abandoned in favor of polite communion hundreds of years ago. In a highly organized society that chose to dwell underground in eternally close quarters, courtesy and politeness were not merely encouraged, they were an absolute necessity.

Humans, apparently, fought and argued at the slightest provocation. The energy they expended in such recurrent confrontations was breathtaking to behold: wasteful, but fascinating. It seemed they had stamina to spare. The most excitable thranx was more circumspect and conservative. The knowledge that they intended to sell him into some kind of captivity did not engage him half so much as their constant bickering. Captivity, if it occurred, would not be so bad. It would allow him to continue studying humankind at close quarters. He doubted, however, that his troubled human companion felt similarly.

It was him these antisocial humans wanted, not Cheelo Montoya. Neither did the poet have further need for the self-confessed thief. More than once Desvendapur thought about speaking up, revealing to the two poachers his fluency in their language. The only reason he did not was because he knew it would mean the death of his companion. While that would be, based on what he knew of Cheelo and what the man had told him, small loss to the species, it contravened any number of thranx rules of conduct. Recreant that he was, Desvendapur was not prepared to break with custom and culture to that extent. At least, not yet. For the moment it was more amusing to play the game, to listen to the new humans make comments about him convinced that he understood nothing of what they were saying.

After a substantial interval the airtruck rose out of the clouds and into sunshine so bright and unfiltered it was painful. In the pure, cerulean distance rose peaks that effortlessly crested five thousand meters. Just ahead, a stony, intermittently green plateau rolled off to the west: hills standing atop mountains. The only signs of habitation were a few detached farmhouses and long stretches of mountainside covered with phototropic sheeting to protect the potatoes and other crops thriving beneath.

On the eastern edge of a high ridge stood a modest, unspectacular domicile attached by a pedestrian corridor to a slightly larger structure. A roll-up door retracted as the air-truck approached. Guiding the vehicle in manually—use of its automatic docking system ran the risk of sending out faint but detectable signals curious rangers might pick up— Maruco brought it to a stop in the exact center of the garage when the appropriate telltale on the truck's console turned green. A flip of one switch and the vehicle settled gently to the smooth, impervious floor. The door rolled noisily shut behind them as the structure's internal heating panels roared to life.

Flanking their captives, the poachers led them through the access corridor to the main building, which was sparsely but comfortably furnished. Halfway there Hapec frowned at the alien.

"What's the matter with it?" He nodded pointedly.

Cheelo, who had been paying little attention to the thranx as he tried to memorize every detail of their prison, now turned to see that the bug was quivering. It took him only a moment to realize what was happening.

"He's cold."

"Cold?" Maruco let out a snort of disbelief as they passed a wall readout. "It's twenty-three in here."

"That's too cold for thranx. It told me it found the rain forest brisk. And it's much too dry in here. It needs at least ninety percent humidity and more like thirty-three, thirty-four degrees to be really comfortable."

"Shit!" Hapec muttered." I’ll die."

"No you won't. But it's liable to."

Grumbling under his breath, the other poacher addressed the house system, directing it to ratchet the interior climate up to something approaching the reported thranx minimum level of comfort.

"Maruco!" His companion protested as both the humidity and the temperature began to climb.

"Quit your bitching," the smaller of the two poachers snapped. "It's only for a little while. Couple of days, until we can finalize a deal. Shouldn't take any longer, not for something as special as this." He smiled fatuously at Desvendapur. "You're going to make us rich, you sickening pile of legs and feelers. So be comfortable for a while. We'll live with it." The poet regarded the antisocial human blankly and with perfect comprehension.

"And now you," the poacher informed his other captive coldly, "get tied up."

"You can't do that," Cheelo protested. "It'll... it will upset the alien. It's convinced you two are friendlies. Necklace me and you'll unsettle it."

"So let it be unsettled. If we have to, we'll tie it up as well." Hapec was already removing fasteners from a drawer.

"You could lose it. It could hurt itself struggling to get free, or even choke to death."

"We'll take the chance." Both poachers were moving toward the apprehensive Cheelo, Maruco with a rifle still aimed at him. "If it protests, we can always untie you. Don't make this hard for us, or for you."

"Yeah," Hapec warned him. "Consider yourself lucky. By rights, the ants ought to be scooping out the last of your eyeballs right now."

Having no choice in the matter, Cheelo submitted to having the plastic restraints secured around his wrists and ankles. When the poachers judged them tight enough, Maruco removed the safety strips and the plastic sealed itself, melt-welding shut at the joints. Glancing behind him, the poacher noted the alien's lack of reaction.

"Doesn't look like your bug buddy is too upset. Make it easy on yourself. Tell it this is all part of some weird human welcoming ritual."

"Tell it yourself," Cheelo spat, his anger making him thoughtless.

Hapec's hand started to come up, but he was restrained by his companion. "Don't give him any excuses. And we really don't want to upset our prize pretty if we can avoid it." Leaning close, Maruco stared hard into the snugly manacled thief's eyes. "You, on the other hand, I don't mind upsetting. Behave yourself, and you'll end up with a nice, free, private suborbital ride. Make trouble and we'll just have to sell the bug without an interpreter." Straightening, he turned to regard the thranx, which was presently engaged in a detailed examination of the kitchen facilities.

"What does it eat? Is it hungry?"

Subdued and unhappy, Cheelo replied in a reluctant mumble. "It's strictly vegetarian: hates the sight of meat. It can digest a lot of terrestrial plants. I don't know what kind are the most nourishing. I'll have to ask it." He held up his bound wrists. "Of course, I can't talk to it with my hands tied."

Maruco's expression twisted. It was clear neither poacher had thought of that when they'd secured him. With a knife, he slit the wrist bindings. "Okay, but as soon as you get the answers we need, you get tied up again. And no tricks."

Cheelo spread his palms wide. "What am I going to do? Tell it to call the rangers? Remember, it's here covertly, too." Turning his attention to Desvendapur, he began an elaborate wiggling and twisting of his fingers.

The poet paid dutiful attention to these meaningless gestures before replying with truhand and foothand gesticulations of his own. What he said with his hands was that Cheelo was a pontik, a particularly slow and stupid kind of grub. The two antisocials were pepontiks, or pre-pontiks, an even lower class of intelligence not bright enough to be classified as stupid. None of the three humans had the slightest idea what his complex gestures meant, of course, but it amused him to respond so.

Determining how best to reply not to Cheelo's meaningless inquiry but to the antisocial's actual query was a bigger problem. Since he could not speak, he would have to establish his dietary requirements in some other fashion. Turning away, he embarked on an up-close examination of the sink, leaving Cheelo to fend for explanations himself.

Deprived of support, Montoya improvised. "It's not hungry right now, and when it's not hungry it doesn't like to talk about food."

Maruco grunted. "We'll thaw out a selection of fruits and vegetables. It can pick out what it wants or needs. Meanwhile, I've got a sale to advertise. Hapec, you unload the truck." His partner nodded and headed for the access corridor that linked the two main buildings. The other poacher's gaze narrowed as he considered his one bound prisoner. "You bounce around enough to make me think you're trying to slip out of those seals, and I'll put a couple of 'em over your face." His smirk widened. "You can tell the bug it's part of the ritual." He glanced in Desvendapur's direction.

"I'm not going to check its pack, or container, or whatever that thing is riding on its back, because I don't want to upset it. I know it's not carrying any weapons because if it was it would have tried using them by now."

Cheelo nodded. "Like I told you: It was doing research. That's why it has cooperated so far. It's not armed." This, insofar as Cheelo knew, was the actual truth.

"Fine. We'll leave it at that—for now, anyway." Reaching down, the poacher slapped another self-sealing strap on the other man's wrists. In seconds they were tightly bound again. "That's so you can't 'talk' to it behind my back while I'm working."

Turning, he walked to a desk near the rear of the room and settled himself into a chair. Within minutes he was communicating with faraway places and the representatives of an orderly succession of individuals whose ethics were as impoverished as their bank accounts were expansive.

While a helpless Cheelo sat and fumed silently, the ever-inquisitive Desvendapur continued his exploration of the poachers' quarters. The temperature and humidity had risen to levels the poet found tolerable, if not entirely comfortable, and he was thoroughly enjoying a respite that he knew could not last. As he continued his examination of the room and its contents, Cheelo's expression underwent an extraordinary succession of contortions. None of them held any meaning for the poet, though it was clear by their frequency and urgency that the human was urging him to do something.

Desvendapur could not let himself be sold, of course. If no alternative presented itself, he was convinced that he could survive and even thrive in human captivity. But it was not the preferred option for the future. In human captivity, his performances would not be properly appreciated. He needed a thranx audience. Therefore, if possible, he had to find a way to return to the colony. Unable to see a way clear to doing that himself, he realized he would need Cheelo's assistance. That did not mean it was necessary to rush matters, and he had no intention of doing so. While the two antisocial humans desired to profit from his existence, Desvendapur suspected they would not hesitate to kill him if they felt sufficiently threatened. Surely Cheelo understood that.

Hapec soon returned from unloading and stabilizing the airtruck. Establishing himself in the kitchen area while his partner continued his steady stream of secured-transmission intercontinental conversation, the other poacher began meal preparations. For the moment, both captives found themselves largely, though never entirely, ignored.

Faced with a situation for which a lifetime of study and learning had not prepared him, Desvendapur was compelled to fall back on that one aspect of his personality that had never failed him: his imagination. As he pursued his examination of the domicile, he proceeded to lay out in his mind a sequence of actions in much the same way he would design an extended recitation, complete with appropriate revisions and adjustments.

None of this was apparent to the anxious Cheelo, who grew progressively more distraught in his bonds. Thanks to some fast thinking he had managed to buy some time, but, unlike a new communicator or tridee subscription, it was not guaranteed: There was no return policy in place in the event of dissatisfaction. The two poachers were not deep thinkers. Any little thing, any irritation of the moment or insignificant occurrence, might set them off. In that event he knew they might cast careful consideration and practicalities to the tepid wind that seeped upward from the cloud forest below, and blow his head off. He knew this because he and they were of a kind, representatives of that same subspecies of humanity that tends to react to awkward circumstance as opposed to thinking about it. Maruco and Hapec were too much like him for him to be comfortable around them. The devil he knew was himself.

Convinced he was at least not in imminent danger of being executed, he switched from watching them to tracking the movements of the thranx. It was impossible to know what the alien was thinking since he could not talk to it without giving away the fact that it understood Terranglo. He had to content himself with imagining. What did it make of all this? Did it care what happened to him? Cheelo knew he didn't care what happened to it, but right now his future prospects rested entirely with the many-legged insectoid. His life was in the bug's hands—all four of them.

If it forgot the scenario, if it deviated from the play and spoke aloud, then the poachers would quickly realize that they had no need of a translator. He would be rendered instantly extraneous. There were many steep precipices just east of the prefab abode into which a body could be thrown to be swallowed forever by rain forest, gully, and cloud. Silently he importuned the thranx to keep silent. Even if they found themselves sold, at least they would still be alive. Future prospects seemed considerably more promising when viewed from a perspective of abiding survival. Who could tell? With luck he might be able to persuade their buyers to make a brief stopover in Golfito.

He tried to cheer himself up. If the poachers and the bug just kept their heads this wouldn't turn out so bad. Didn't he need to hide out for a while? Wasn't that what he was doing down in the untrammeled rain forest in the first place? What better place to lie low—after he had finalized arrangements for his future with Ehrenhardt, of course—than the private zoo or collection of some incredibly rich patron who had just made a very expensive and very illegitimate purchase? As he had so many times in his desperate, frenetic life, he set about trying to mentally arrange events to his advantage. Even the bug was cooperating, maintaining silence while pretending to examine every object within the building.

He was giving Desvendapur too much credit. The thranx was not pretending. While the poachers ignored him, he took the time to study each individual example of human manufacture in great detail, paying particular attention to how the two humans operated their manifold devices. Once, the one called Hapec caught the thranx peering over his shoulder as he ran the cooker. The human gestured clumsily and ordered him to step farther back. Maintaining the fiction that he could not understand the man's speech, the poet obediently interpreted the gestures and moved away.

By mealtime Cheelo, though still nervous and worried about the poachers' state of mind, had resigned himself to his captivity. He cooperated while Hapec fed him listlessly, and he watched with as much interest as the poachers while Desvendapur picked through the assortment of rehydrated fruits and vegetables he was offered. When their prize captive seemed satisfied, the two men sat down to their own meal. Dinnertime conversation on their part consisted of coarse jokes, inconsequential natterings, and an impassioned discussion of how much money they were going to clear for selling the only representative of a recently contacted intelligent species into involuntary captivity. While salt, pepper, and hot sauce played a part in their dining, their conversation was seasoned by neither ethics nor morals.

When Desvendapur had eaten his fill, he stepped back from the exotic but nutritious banquet his captors had laid out before him, ambled over to a far corner, and casually picked up one of their rifles, cradling the lethal device in his right truhand and foothand. It took a moment before Hapec noticed the alien aiming the muzzle of the weapon at him.

"Hey. Uh, hey, Maraco!" The human's lower jaw descended, and his mouth remained open to no apparent purpose.

"Shit!" His eyes darting rapidly back and forth between his two prisoners, the other poacher pushed carefully away from the table. "Cheelo! Man, you tell the bug to put that down. It's holding a full charge, and the safety is off. Tell it it's liable to hurt itself. What's it doing, anyway? We're its friends, helping it to see and study more of our world. Go on, man: Remind it!"

"I can't tell him anything," Cheelo replied tersely. "My hands, remember?"

This time Maruco didn't hesitate. Rising slowly from his chair and keeping his eyes on the enigmatic thranx, he nervously edged his way over to where his other prisoner was secured. Using his knife, he once again released the captive's arms.

A relieved Cheelo promptly began rubbing circulation back into his wrists. "Hey, what about my legs?"

"What about your legs?" the poacher growled. "You don't talk to it with your feet."

"Free his legs." Desvendapur gestured with the rifle. Designed for thicker-digited, clumsier human hands, the weapon felt light in his arms. Manipulation and activation would be a simple matter.

"Sure, just be careful with that. .." Maruco paused, the knife halting in midswipe, as he stared wide-eyed at the alien. "Son-of-a-bitch-whore!"

"You can talk!" Both poachers were gazing in open-mouthed disbelief at the suddenly voluble alien in their midst.

"Not very well, but my fluency is improving with practice. His legs?" Again the rifle moved.

Slowly, the poacher knelt and ran the blade across the restraining plastic. With a curt gasp of relief, Cheelo kicked his feet apart.

A thranx did not need to look out of the corner of its eyes to see action transpiring off to one side. Multiple lenses scanned a much wider field than human eyes could see, allowing for considerably greater peripheral vision. He shifted the tip of the weapon significantly in the direction of the larger human, who had risen and taken a step in the direction of the other gun.

"Although I am not familiar with the kind of result it produces, I believe I know how this weapon operates. I also believe that you should move the other way and stand alongside your friend."

"It's bluffing." Maruco began edging away from Cheelo, who had risen from the chair where he had been imprisoned and was now stomping about in an attempt to get circulation flowing to his feet again. "It doesn't know how to fire the gun."

"Yeah?" Keeping his hands in plain sight, Hapec slowly and carefully came around behind the table to join his colleague. "Then you go pick the other one up."

As he studied the weapon-wielding bug, Maruco spread his hands innocently wide, ignorant of the fact that the subject of his supplication did not know the meaning of the gesture.

"Okay, so you can talk. There's no need for this. We mean you no harm." Smiling ingratiatingly, he nodded at the now-standing Cheelo. "Our tying him up is just part of a special greeting and guest ritual."

"No it isn't," Desvendapur responded in his whispery but increasingly articulate Terranglo. "You forget that while I did not speak, I could listen. I have heard and understood everything that has been said since you first appeared before us in the forest. I know that you meant to kill us until Cheelo convinced you to sell us instead." He did not need to be familiar with the extraordinary diversity of human facial expression to interpret the one that now dominated the muscles of the poachers' countenances.

Still rubbing his wrists and flicking out his feet to stimulate the long-restrained muscles, Cheelo walked over to his alien companion. Having resigned himself to being sold as part of a package deal, he now found himself in a position he thought not to experience again for some time.

"You're full of surprises, bug."

The heart-shaped head and its great golden eyes turned toward him. "My name is Desvendapur."

"Ay, right." He reached out with both hands. "I'll take that now. Not that I don't think you can use it, but I'm probably a better shot than you." As the poet complaisantly handed over the weapon, Cheelo added by way of afterthought, "You do know how to use it, don't you? You weren't bluffing?"

"Oh, I'm sure I could have activated it. The firing mechanism is simple, and although the weapon is designed for human arms and hands, it fits well enough in mine. I would never have done so, of course."

"What's that?" Maruco strained to make certain he had heard properly.

"Although we have had to fight to defend ourselves in the past, and have evolved from primitive ancestors who battled constantly among themselves, we have become a peaceful species." Antennae bobbed elaborately. "I could never have shot you unless my life was directly threatened."

"It was threatened!" Cheelo reminded him.

The thranx shook its head, further surprising the poachers by its mastery and utilization of a common human gesture. "My freedom of movement was at risk, not my life. Although my preference is to return to the colony, I could have tolerated being transported to another part of your planet, could have lost myself in exposure to an entirely new environment and surroundings."

Maruco blinked. "Then why did you pick up the gun in the first place?"

"As I said, because for many reasons I would prefer to return to the hive. Also because my life and freedom of movement were not the only ones at stake." Both antennae dipped in Cheelo's direction.

A welter of conflicting emotion surged to the fore within the thief as the thranx's words sank in. It didn't object to being sold. It had picked up the rifle for his sake as much as for its own. Confronted by the rara avis of actual, genuine emotion, he had no idea how to respond, did not know what to say.

Screw it.

"Come on, Deswhel—Desvencrapur. We're outta here." With the rifle, he gestured at Maruco. "I want the airtruck. I told you, I've got an appointment to keep. If coaxed right, I think that truck'll make it all the way up to the isthmus."

Keeping his hands in plain sight, the angry poacher nodded in the direction of the accessway that connected the ridge-top living quarters to the shop and garage. "You'll leave us marooned here."

"Bullshit." Cheelo laughed, enjoying the turn of events fully. "Your buyers are going to come running, and they'll be bringing their own transportation." He grinned broadly. "Of course, they're not gonna be real happy with you when they find out that the prize you offered them decided not to hang around. Now, what about that truck?"

"It's an open design," Hapec told him. "Take it. I just have to unlock the navigation system."

"Like hell. All you have to do is activate the cencomp. You think I'm gonna give you a chance to program the engine for self-destruct? D'you think I was born dumb, like you two?" Maruco's expression tightened, but the poacher said nothing.

"Let's go." Cheelo gestured with the muzzle. "Despindo— Des, you follow me. We'll get as close to this colony of yours as you think we safely can, and I'll drop you there."

"Colony?" Maruco's small black eyes blinked. "What colony?"

Cheelo ignored him, waiting for the thranx's reply.

"Among my people I am guilty of the most egregious antisocial activity. They would confine me until I could be sent offworld for more formal punishment. So if you do not object, Cheelo Montoya, I would rather continue to travel in your company. For a little while longer, at least."

"No can do, big-eyes. This boy's jungle jaunt is over. I got to fly a long ways now, or I'm gonna be late for the dance. Besides, don't you have your poems, your compositions, to perform for your fellow bugs?"

The blue-green head swayed gently from side to side. "Insufficiently mitigating circumstances, I am afraid. I would far rather continue my ruminations, would much prefer to seek additional inspiration. Some day, of course, I will reveal them to all the hives. But not yet." Overhead lighting sparkled in his eyes, imparting to the multiple lenses a muted crystalline gleam. "There is still so much more I wish to do."

"Have it your way." An indifferent Cheelo gestured again with the rifle. Plenty of time to decide what to do with the bug once they were safely back down in the rain forest. As the two poachers stumbled off ahead of him, Maruco looked back over his shoulder.

"What were you saying about a colony? There's a whole colony of 'em here on Earth? Down in the Reserva? I never heard nothing about anything like that."

"Shut your face and keep moving. I know the truck's coded, so you're going to start it for me."

"Then it's true! There's an alien outpost in the Reserva that's being kept from the public." Rising excitement dominated the poacher's voice. "And you didn't say outpost; you said colony." He looked over at his partner. "This might be the biggest secret on the planet. Any one of the fifty big media groups would pay a lifetime annuity for that kind of information. It's worth a helluva lot more than one live bug." Once more he looked back at the stony-faced Cheelo."

What do you say, vato? We've got the facilities here for communicating worldwide while hiding the source of the signal. We sell the information to the highest bidder and split it three ways. Nobody gets sold; nobody gets hurt. Plenty credit for everybody." When Cheelo failed to respond, Ma-ruco's agitation increased. "Hell, we don't need vow to sell it. But the Reserva's a big place, and this colony or base or whatever it is must be really well hid. Hapec and I are down there a lot, and we've sure never suspected anything like this was there. You know where it is. Whatever media group buys in ain't going to want to go hunting for the place. They'll want to set down right on top of it, before some competitor gets wind of what's going on." His voice fell slightly. "You do know where it is?"

"Pretty much," Cheelo lied. "Close enough so that anybody interested could find it within a week."

"Well come on then, man! Don't waft this off. We can be partners. All of us, we'll be rich."

"First you were going to kill me," Cheelo reminded him, his tone chilly. "Then you were going to sell me as a talking accessory to a bug."

"Heyyy," the poacher demurred, "it was nothing personal." They were approaching the garage. "That was just business. You're a businessman, chingon. That was business then; this is business now. You need our business contacts; we need what you know."

Cheelo found himself growing confused. The poacher's insinuating spiel was beguiling. "What about the bu—about Des. He may be an outcast among his own people, but he'd never agree to the premature exposure of the colony."

"Chinga the bug," Maruco snapped. "If it has a problem with this, blow its stinking guts out. We don't need it no more. What do you care? It's just a big, ugly, alien bug"

"It's intelligent. Probably more so than either of you two. Probably... probably more than me. It's... it's an artist."

Maruco laughed madly as they entered the garage. The airtruck rested where it had been parked, sleek and silent, its propulsion system fully recharged and awaiting only coded reactivation. With it at his disposal Cheelo knew he could reach Golfito. Or at least Gatun, where he had friends and could safely refuel.

His finger tightened imperceptibly on the rifle's trigger. "It's not funny. I used to think it was, but I've changed my mind. So now what the hell am I supposed to do? Trust you?"

"Yeah, you can trust us. Can't he, Hapec?"

"Sure. Why should we do anything? We need you to show the site to whoever buys the story," the other poacher observed. As he spoke, he was drifting to his left, toward a wall lined with tools.

"Don't even think about it." The muzzle of the rifle flicked sideways so that it was aimed straight at the bigger man's back. As soon as it shifted away from him, Maruco whirled. A compact, high-strung bundle of muscle and furious energy, he threw himself at Cheelo.