Star Song and Other Stories Part 14

The volcano was getting ready to erupt.

"Get out of there," I whispered urgently to them, squeezing hard onto the basalt. Fumes were beginning to rise, and the glow was growing brighter. If they didn't leave right now...

But they didn't. The full-wing continued down, its dark shape disappearing below the rim of the crater. I held my breath, for some perverse reason counting the seconds.

And as I reached eleven, it happened. Abruptly, the crater belched out a huge plume of smoke and ash and red fire, lighting up the ground even as it darkened the sky. Three seconds later it was eclipsed by a second burst of flame, this one the clean and brilliant blue-white of the full-wing's missiles exploding.

My stomach wanted desperately to be sick. But there was no time for that now.

That first lava flow was still headed toward Tawni's village, and they were going to need all the help they could get if they were to evacuate in time.

Easing my legs over the ridge, I braced myself to jump.

And paused, as something near the leading edge of the lava flow caught my eye.

Someone or something was moving down there among the burning vegetation. I squinted, fumbling in the survival pack for a set of binoculars- And nearly fell off the ridge as the front of the lava flow erupted in a flash of green flame.

I fought for balance as a second flash followed the first, a fresh surge of horror stabbing into me. That was the flash of a Kailth hand weapon.

And there were only two reasons I could think of why anyone might be firing into the gloom down there. Either he was shooting at another survivor from the full-wing, or else he thought that was where I'd gone down.

My hand had been hunting in the survival pack for a set of binoculars. Now, it moved instead to the b.u.t.t of a SkyForce-issue 12mm pistol. Gripping it tightly, I swung my legs back to the far side of the ridge again- And found myself looking down into the face of a Kailth warrior.

If I'd taken even half a second to think about it I would have realized how stupidly suicidal the whole idea was. But I didn't take that half second. I hauled the 12mm out of the pack, flicked off the safety, and fired.

The weapon boomed, the recoil again nearly knocking me off the ridge. But the Kailth was no longer there. Without any preparatory movement whatsoever he had effortlessly leaped up to straddle the ridge beside me. Even as I tried desperately to swing the pistol around toward him, he reached across my chest and plucked it from my hand. "Human male," he said. "Come."

"Come where?" I asked, my voice trembling with reaction. "Why?"

The b.u.mblebee face regarded me. "That you may understand."

There were two other Kailth warriors standing by the lava flow when we arrived.

Two Kailth, and Tawni.

"Stane!" she burst out, running to my arms as soon as she saw me. "Oh, thank the G.o.d of Mercy-you are all right. You are all right."

I looked past her at the two Kailth, finally seeing what all the shooting was about. With those awesome handguns they were blasting a trench in the hard igneous rock of the volcano cone, diverting the slow-moving lava away from the villages below. "Yes, I'm safe," I murmured, holding Tawni close. "For now."

"For always," she insisted, drawing back to look into my face. "They have promised me your safety."

"Have they really." I looked at the warrior standing silently beside us and nodded toward the two Kailth digging the trench. "Is this what I need to understand?"

The Kailth stirred. "You must understand all that has happened."

I snorted. "Oh, I understand. All of it."

"Tell me," he challenged.

I glared at him, knowing that it was over. But at least before I died Tawni would get to see what her adored liberators really were. "You used me," I said.

"You got Tawni to give me a calix to take back to the UnEthHu. Which you've now used to kill Convocant Devaro and everyone aboard that full-wing."

"We regret the loss of the other humans," the alien said. "As we also regret the loss of the Kailthaermil warriors aboard the flyers which were destroyed. But their deaths were of Convocant Devaro's devising, not ours."

"How can you say that?" I demanded. "If I hadn't taken that calix back with me, none of this would have happened."

There was a soft hissing sound. "You do not yet understand, Stane Markand,"

the Kailth said. "If not for the calix, it would indeed not have happened this way.

But it would still have happened."

I shook my head, my brief flash of defiance draining away. "You're not making any sense," I said with a sigh. "It was the calix that brought Convocant Devaro here."

"No," the Kailth said firmly. "It was Convocant Devaro's desire for power over others that brought him. The calix did nothing but bring that desire into focus."

"You did not seek to use my gift for such purposes," Tawni added earnestly.

"For you it was a joy, and a blessing. It was only Convocant Devaro who sought to use it for his own gain."

I gazed back at her face. "So you knew all along," I said. "From the beginning I.

was nothing but a p.a.w.n in this."

Her mouth twitched as if I'd raised a hand to her. But she held my gazewithout flinching. "I gave you a gift from my heart," she said. "For friends.h.i.+p. It was not part of any plan."

"The Citizen-Three is correct," the warrior said. "Our plan was to begin there."

He pointed up at the bubbling fire of the volcano. "Tawnikakalina's gift was indeed only a gift." He regarded me thoughtfully. "If you were no more than a p.a.w.n, we would not tell you this."

"So why are you telling me?" I countered. "What do you want from me?"

"I have said already," the Kailth said. "Understanding." He reached out an armored hand to touch Tawni's shoulder. "There is ambition that drives one to be the best one can be," he said. "That is the ambition Tawnikakalina has for her art. Perhaps you have such ambition as well."

He lowered his hand. "But there is also ambition that seeks power over others, and does not care what destruction is left in its wake. We have seen this cruel madness in the Phas.h.i.+skar, and the Baal'ariai, and the Aoeemme. And we see it now in the humans.

"And when such ambition threatens the Kailthaermil, we must offer it the means to destroy itself."

I looked over at the other warriors still cutting their trench. "Convocant Devaro said war with you is inevitable. Is that what you mean?"

"No," the Kailth said. "We have no desire for war with the UnEthHu. You do not subjugate the other beings within your boundaries, but treat them with justice.

Nor are there fundamental human interests or needs which demand conflict with the Kailthaermil. War will come only if individual humans choose to create it for their own purposes."

I glanced up at the volcano. "Men like Devaro."

Tawni's grip tightened on my arm. "I do not wish war with your people, Stane,"

she said quietly.

"I don't want it either, Tawni," I said, looking at the Kailth warrior again.

"But it seems to me that the war may have already begun. Whether or not Devaro did this of his own free will, the fact remains that it was the Kailth who provided the calix that tempted him down that path."

"You are correct," the Kailth said. "The war has indeed begun."

Reaching into his armor, he pulled out the pistol he'd taken from me. I caught my breath, feeling Tawni shrink against my side. "But it is not a war against humans," the Kailth continued. "It is a war against meaningless and unnecessary war."

He held up the pistol. "This is such a war, Stane Markand, the war Convocant Devaro sought to create against the Kailthaermil Empire for his own purposes.

It may be stopped thus-"

He grasped the barrel with his other hand, and with a sharp crack of broken gunplastic snapped the weapon in half. A squeeze with the armored hand, and the barrel shattered into splinters.

"Or it may be stopped thus." Reaching into the shattered frame with two fingers, he gave a sharp tug and pulled out the firing pin. "It is a war that must be fought, or many innocent lives will be lost," he said quietly, handing me the pin and what was left of the ruined gun. "Which way would you choose for us to fight it?"

I looked at Tawni. She was gazing back up at me, the skin of her face tight with quiet anxiety. Waiting to see how I would react to all this.

Perhaps waiting to see if she had lost a friend.

"What about Tawni's people?" I asked the Kailth. "Devaro gave his calices away to others. If any of them tries to use them the same way he wanted to, they may come here to get more."

"The Kailthaermil freed us when we had no hope," Tawni said quietly. "To help them free others, we willingly accept the danger."

"Perhaps," the Kailth said, "you can help make them safer."

I looked down the slope, toward the villages below. "Yes," I said. "Perhaps I can."

And with a lot of help, I did. Ten months later, in a precedent-shattering treaty, Quibsh became joint colonial territory of the Kailth and UnEthHu.

Three.

years after that, convention was again shattered as the humans of Quibsh and Sagtt'a were granted full joint citizens.h.i.+p between the two races. Over those three years, six SkyForce officers and five more Convocants figured out Devaro's brainscan trick and attempted to use the calices to ama.s.s power. All of them either died in the attempt or were politically destroyed.

And in the midst of it all, in the greatest miracle of all, Tawni became my wife. And later, of course, your mother.

And so, as we stand here on the eve of the Fifth Joint Kailthaermil-UnEthHu Expedition into the unknown areas of the galaxy, I wanted you to know how my Year of YouthJourneying came out. It was the year I learned about politics and war, about ambition and selflessness, about art and death and love.

The year I grew up.

Our hopes and blessings go with you, my son, as you leave with the expedition tomorrow. May your nineteenth year be as blessed as mine.

With love, Dad.

The Play's the Thing

The whole trouble started when the Fuzhtian amba.s.sador announced that he wanted to see a Broadway play.

Though I suppose you could equally well say the trouble started when those first silent Fuzhtian probes snuggled coyly up behind our geosynchronous TV satellites and began s.h.i.+pping the signals back home. You might even go back further and say that it all started when Marconi's first radio went on-line and began spewing electromagnetic radiation out into s.p.a.ce for everyone to hear.

Oh, well, h.e.l.l, let's be honest. All of it really started with whoever the bunch of trouble-making Sumerians were who sat around on a rainy Sunday afternoon and invented entertainment.

Because that's really what started the trouble: our vast entertainment industry, and the Fuzhties' maniacal love for it.For a simple example-and this isn't supposed to be noised about-when the Fuzhtian s.h.i.+p landed outside the White House, the "Greetings and Joy to Humankind" line that will be going into the history books were actually his second words to the Secretary-General. His actual first words were an expression of disappointment from his government that Johnny Carson was no longer hosting the "Tonight Show." For those of you who'd always wondered why Carson suddenly came out of retirement right after that to do a one-month stint as guest-host, now you know.

I suppose it could have been worse. No, strike that-it could have been a lot worse. You've heard all the similes: a walking barn door with gorilla arms, a four-hundred-pound bag of blubbery muscle with pinfeathers; a cross between a bull and Doberman on steroids. Even without the kind of technology we know they had, the Fuzhties could have stomped the planet flat as Florida if they'd taken a mind to do so.

Which is why everyone had been falling all over themselves trying to satisfy the amba.s.sador's slightest whim. Partly it was residual fear that he might suddenly stop being congenial and start behaving the way any self-respecting B-movie creature his size ought to; but mainly it was because every national leader on the planet was visibly salivating over the prospect of getting their hands on Fuzhtian technology.

Anyway, at the time the amba.s.sador made his Broadway request he'd been on Earth about six months, getting everything he wanted. And I mean everything. He had the top two floors of an exclusive Was.h.i.+ngton hotel, specially commissioned airplanes and cars, and three of the premier chefs in Europe. Along the way he'd also collected an astonis.h.i.+ngly eclectic entourage, consisting of top US government officials, a smattering of foreign representatives whose countries had somehow caught his interest-we still don't know how or why he picked the ones he did-and a few oddb.a.l.l.s like me. I'd been up on a ladder doing some woodwork repair in the White House when the amba.s.sador apparently expressed some sort of vague approval of me. The next thing I knew I'd been hauled down, poured into a suit and handed a briefcase, and tossed in among the smiling State Department wonks whose job it was to dog the amba.s.sador's size-28 footsteps.

Long afterward I learned that what had captured the amba.s.sador's attention was not me but rather the hammer I'd been using. But by then I'd overheard enough under-the-breath comments about my relative usefulness to the group that sheer native orneriness required me to keep quiet about the error.

Besides, the briefcase they'd handed me that first day had contained a presidential plea for my cooperation and about two bucketfuls of money, both of which I was far too patriotic to walk away from.

But for whatever reason, I was in that elite group. And I'd been with them for about five weeks when, from out of the blue, the amba.s.sador made his request.

We still don't know what prompted him to bring it up at that particular time.

For that matter, we're not even sure how he knew about Broadway, unless he'd picked up a reference from one of those pirate transmissions their probes had been making. But however it happened, there it was, plain as day, that morning on the RebuScope: "Are you sure that's what it means?" Dwight Fogerty, a senior State Department wonk and head of our little group, asked as he peered back and forth between the RebuScope and the tentative translation.

"I don't see what else it could be, sir," chief translator Angus MacLeod said.

He'd been loaned to us by MI6 because he was both a whiz at crypta.n.a.lysis and a huge "Concentration" fan. Angus always called Fogerty "sir" because he was polite, not because Fogerty deserved it. "It's clearly 'eye w-ant two cee a br-rod-weigh' something. What else but play?"

"Well, who says that scale thing is 'weigh?' " Fogerty countered. "Maybe it's 'Broadscale' something."

"There's no such word as Broadscale," someone pointed out. "Or place, either."

"There's a Broad Sound, though," someone else said, punching keys on a laptop.

"It's near Rockhampton in Australia, near the Great Barrier Reef. Maybe that's a radio or stereo speaker, not a scale."

"And what, that last picture is us and him throwing a beach ball back and forth?" Fogerty scoffed.