Up here, with only the buzz of the wasps for company, Fiben could almost pretend he didn’t have a care, in this world or any other. He could put out of his mind wars and all the other silly preoccupations of sapient beings.
Fiben pouted, his expressive lips drooping low. He scratched himself under his arm.
“Ook, ook.”
He snorted — almost silent laughter — and imagined he was back in an Africa even his great-grandfathers had never seen, in forested hills never touched by his people’s too-smooth, big-nosed cousins.
What would the universe have been like without men? Without Eatees? Without anyone at all but chimps?
Sooner or later we would’ve invented starships, and the universe might have been ours.
The clouds rolled by and Fiben lay back on the branch with narrowed eyes, enjoying his fantasy. The wasps buzzed in futile indignation over his presence. He forgave them their insolence as he plucked a few from the air as added morsels.
Try as he might, though, .he could not maintain the illusion of solitude. For there arrived another sound, an added drone from high above. And try as he might, he couldn’t pretend he did not hear alien transports cruising uninvited across the sky.
A glistening fence more than three meters high undulated over the rolling ground surrounding Port Helenia. It was an imposing barrier, put up quickly by special robot machines right after the invasion. There were several gates, through which the city’s chim population seemed to come and go without much notice or impediment. But they could not help being intimidated by the sudden new wall. Perhaps that was its basic purpose.
Fiben wondered how the Gubru would have managed the trick if the capital had been a real city and not just a small town on a rustic colony world.
He wondered where the humans were being kept.
It was dusk as he passed a wide belt of knee-high tree stumps, a hundred meters before the alien fence. The area had been planned as a park, but now only splintered fragments lay on the ground all the way to the dark watchtower and open gate.
Fiben steeled himself to go through the same scrutiny as earlier at the checkpoint, but to his surprise no one challenged him. A narrow pool of light spilled onto the highway from a pair of pillar spots. Beyond, he saw dark, angular buildings, the dimly lit streets apparently deserted.
The silence was spooky. Fiben’s shoulders hunched as he spoke softly. “Come on, Tycho. Quietly.” The horse blew and pulled the floating wagon slowly past the steel-gray bunker.
Fiben chanced a quick glance inside the structure as he passed. A pair of guards stood within, each perched on one knotted, stick-thin leg, its sharp, avian bill buried in the soft down under its left arm. Two saber-rifles lay on the counter beside them, near a stack of standard Galactic faxboards.
The two Talon Soldiers appeared to be fast asleep!
Fiben sniffed, his flat nose wrinkling once more at the over-sweet alien aroma. This was not the first time he had seen signs of weaknesses in the reputedly invincible grip of the Gubru fanatics. They had had it easy until now — too easy. With the humans nearly all gathered and neutralized, the invaders apparently thought the only possible threat was from space. That, undoubtedly, was why all the fortifications he had seen had faced upward, with little or no provision against attack from the ground.
Fiben stroked his sheathed belt knife. He was tempted to creep into the guard post, slipping under the obvious alarm beams, and teach the Gubru a lesson for their complacency.
The urge passed and he shook his head. Later, he thought. When it will hurt them more.
Patting Tycho’s neck, he led the horse through the lighted area by the guard post and beyond the gate into the industrial part of town. The streets between the warehouses and factories were quiet — a few chims here and there hurrying about on errands beneath the scrutiny of the occasional passing Gubru patrol skimmer.
Taking pains not to be observed, Fiben slipped into a side alley and found a windowless storage building not far from the colony’s sole iron foundry. Under his whispered urging, Tycho pulled the floating hover over to the shadows by the back door of the warehouse. A layer of dust showed that the padlock had not been touched in weeks. He examined it closely. “Hmmm.”
Fiben took a rag from his belt apron and wrapped it around the hasp. Taking it firmly in both hands, he closed his eyes and counted to three before yanking down hard.
The lock was strong, but, as he’d suspected, the ring bolt in the dpor was corroded. It snapped with a muffled “crack!” Quickly, Fiben slipped the sheaf and pushed the door along its tracks. Tycho placidly followed him into the gloomy interior, the truck trailing behind. Fiben looked around to memorize the layout of hulking presses and metalworking machinery before hurrying back to close the- door again.
“You’ll be all right,” he said softly as he unhitched the animal. He hauled a sack of oats out of the hover and split it open on the ground. Then he filled a tub with water from a nearby tap. “I’ll be back if I can,” he added. “If not, you just enjoy the oats for a couple of days, then whinny. I’m sure someone will be by.”
Tycho switched his tail and looked up from the grain. He gave Fiben a baleful look in the dim light and let out another smelly, gassy commentary.
“Hmph.” Fiber! nodded, waving away the smell, “You’re probably right, old friend. Still, I’ll wager your descendants will worry too much too, if and when somebody ever gives them the dubious gift of so-called intelligence.”
He patted the horse in farewell and loped over to the door to peer outside. It looked clear out there. Quieter than even the gene-poor forests of Garth. The navigation beacon atop the Terragens Building still flashed — no doubt used now to guide the invaders in their night operations. Somewhere in the distance a faint electric hum could be heard.
It wasn’t far from here to the place where he was supposed to meet his contact. This would be the riskiest part of his foray into town.
Many frantic ideas had been proposed during the two days between the initial Gubru gas attacks and the invaders’ complete seizure of all forms of communication. Hurried, frenzied telephone calls and radio messages had surged from Port Helenia to the Archipelago and to the continental out-lands. During that time the human population had been thoroughly-distracted and what remained of government communications were coded. So it was mainly chims, acting privately, who filled the airwaves with panicked conjectures and wild schemes — most of them horrifically dumb.
Fiben figured that was just as well, for no doubt the enemy had been listening in even then. Their opinion of neo-chimps must have been reinforced by the hysteria.
Still, here and there had been voices that sounded rational. Wheat hidden amid the chaff. Before she died, the human anthropologist Dr. Taka had identified one message as having come from one of her former postdoctoral students — one Gailet Jones, a resident of Port Helenia. It was this chim the General had decided to send Fiben to contact.
Unfortunately, there had been so much confusion. No one but Dr. Taka could say what this Jones person looked like, and by the time someone thought to ask her, Dr. Taka wag dead.
Fiben’s confidence in the rendezvous site and password was slim, at best. Prob’ly we haven’t even got the night right, he grumbled to himself.
He slipped outside and closed the door again, replacing the shattered bolt so the lock hung back in place. The ring tilted at a slight angle. But it could fool someone who wasn’t looking very carefully.
The larger moon would be up in an hour or so. He had to move if he was going to make his appointment in time.