The Uplift War

Closest to the trunk of that tree sat an adult female neo-chimpanzee — a “chimmie” — dressed only in shorts, holding a chim baby in her arms. The little mother’s brown eyes were wide with fear.

Next to them was a small, smooth-ski

But it was the fourth and last being in the other tree that had Athaclena confused.

She recalled a neo-dolphin sound-sculpture her father had brought home to Tymbrim from his travels. This was just after that episode of the ceremony of Acceptance and Choice of the Tytlal, when she had behaved so strangely up in that extinct volcano caldera. Perhaps Uthacalthing had wanted to play the sound-sculpting for her to draw her out of her moodiness — to prove to her that the Earthly cetaceans were actually charming creatures, not to be feared. He had told her to close her eyes and just let the song wash over her.

Whatever his motive, it had had the opposite effect. For in listening to the wild, untamed patterns, she had suddenly found herself immersed in an ocean, hearing an angry sea squall gather. Even opening her eyes, seeing that she still sat in the family listening room, did not help. For the first time in her life, sound overwhelmed vision.

Athaclena had never listened to the cube again, nor known anything else quite so strange… until encountering the eerie metaphorical landscape within Robert Oneagle’s mind, that is.

Now she felt that way again! For while the fourth creature across from her looked, at first, like a very large chimpanzee, her corona was telling quite another story. It ca

Calmly, placidly, the brown eyes looked back at her. The being obviously far outweighed all the others combined, yet it held the human child on its lap delicately, carefully. When the little girl squirmed, the big creature merely snorted and shifted slightly, neither letting go nor taking its gaze from Athaclena. Unlike normal chimpanzees, its face was very black. Ignoring her aches, Athaclena edged forward slowly so as not to alarm them. “Hello,” she said carefully in Anglic.

The human child smiled again and ducked her head shyly against her furry protector’s massive chest. The neo-chimp mother cringed back in apparent fear.

The massive creature with the high, flattened face merely nodded twice and snorted again. It fizzed with Potential!

Athaelena had only once before encountered a species living in that narrow zone between animal and accepted client-class sophont. It was a very rare state in the Five Galaxies, for any newly discovered pre-sentient species was soon registered and licensed to some starfaring clan for Uplift and indenture.

It dawned on Athaclena that this being was already far along toward sentience!

But the gap from animal to thinker was supposed to be impossible to cross alone! True, some humans still clung to quaint ideas from the ignorant days before Contact — theories proposing that true intelligence could be “evolved.” But Galactic science assured that the threshold could only be passed with the aid of another race, one who had already crossed it.

So it had been all the way back to the fabled days of the first race — the Progenitors — billions of years ago.

But nobody had ever traced patrons for the humans. That was why they were called k’chu-non… wolflings. Might their old idea contain a germ of truth? If so, might this creature also… ?

Ah, no! Why did I not see it at once?

Athaclena suddenly knew this beast was not a natural find. It was not the fabled “Garthling” her father had asked her to seek. The family resemblance was simply too unmistakable.

She was looking at a gathering of cousins, sitting together on that branch high above the Gubru vapors. Human, neo-chimpanzees, and… what?

She tried to recall what her father had said about humanity’s license to occupy their homeworld, the Earth. After Contact, the Institutes had granted recognition of mankind’s de facto tenancy. Still, there were Fallow Rules and other restrictions, she was certain.

And a few special Earth species had been mentioned in particular.

The great beast radiated Potential like … A metaphor came to Athaclena, of a beacon burning in the tree across from her. Searching her memory Tymbrimi fashion, she at last drew forth the name she had been looking for.

“Pretty thing,” she asked softly. “You are a gorilla, aren’t you?”

16

The Howletts Center

The beast tossed its great head and snorted. Next to it, the mother chimp whimpered softly and regarded Athaclena with obvious dread.

But the little human girl clapped her hands, sensing a game. ”Rilla! Jo

A gorilla, Athaclena looked at the giant, silent creature in wonderment, trying to remember what she had -been told in passing so long ago.

Its dark nostrils flared as it sniffed in Athaclena’s direction, and used its free hand to make quick, subtle hand signs to the human child.

“Jo

Athaclena moved a little closer. “No,” she said. “Benjamin didn’t do anything bad. At least not since I met him — though I am begi

Athaclena stopped. Neither the child nor the gorilla would understand what she now suspected. But the adult chim knew, clearly, and her eyes showed fear.

“I’m April,” the small human told her. “An” that’s Nita. Her baby’s name is Cha-Cha. Sometimes chimmies give their babies easy names to start ’cause-they don’t talk so good at first,” she confided.

Her eyes seemed to shine as she looked at Athaclena. “Are you really a Tym… bim… Tymmbimmie?”

Athaclena nodded. “I am Tymbrimi.”

April clapped her hands. “Ooh. They’re goodguys! Did you see the big spaceship? It came with a big boom, and Daddy made me go with Jo

April made a scrunched up face, pantomiming suffocation.

“He let go when we were up in th’ trees, though. We found Nita an’ Cha-Cha.” She glanced over at the chims. “I guess Nita’s still too scared to talk much.”

“Were you frightened too?” Athaclena asked.

April nodded seriously. “Yeth. But I had to stop being scared. I was th’ only man here, and I hadda be in charge, and take care of ever’body.

“Can you be in charge now? You’re a really pretty Tymbimmie.”

The little girl’s shyness returned. She partly buried herself against Jo

Athaclena could not help staring. She had never until now realized this about human beings — of what they were capable. In spite of her people’s alliance with the Terrans, she had picked up some of the common Galactic prejudice, imagining that the “wolflings” were still somehow feral, bestial. Many Galactics thought it questionable that humans were truly ready to be patrons. No doubt the Gubru had expressed that belief in their War Manifesto.

This child shattered that image altogether. By law and custom, little April had been in charge of her clients, no matter how young she was. And her understanding of that responsibility was clear.

Still, Athaclena now knew why both Robert and Benjamin had been anxious not to lead her here. She suppressed her initial surge of righteous anger. Later, she would have to find a way to get word to her father, after she had verified her suspicions.

She was almost begi