The Uplift War

Fiben had often wondered how much of the popularity of the thunder dance came from i

Like many college-trained chims, Fiben liked to think he was too sophisticated for such simple-minded ancestor worship. And generally he did prefer Bach or whale songs to simulated thunder.

And yet there were times, alone in his apartment, when he would pull a tape by the Fulminates out of a drawer, put on the headphones, and try to see how much pounding his skull could take without splitting open. Here, under the driving amplifiers, he couldn’t help feeling a thrill” run up his spine as “lightning” bolted across the room and the beating drums rocked patrons, furniture, and fixtures alike.

Another naked dancer climbed the mound, shaking his own branch and chuffing loudly in challenge. He crouched on one knuckle as he ascended, a stylish touch frowned upon by orthopedists but meeting with approval from the cheering audience. The fellow might pay for the verisimilitude with a morning backache, but what was that next to the glory of the dance?

The ape at the top of the hill hooted at his challenger. He leapt and whirled in a finely timed maneuver, shaking his branch just as another bolt of strobe lightning whitened the room. It was a savage and powerful image, a reminder that no more than four centuries ago his wild ancestors had challenged storms in a like fashion from forest hilltops — needing neither man nor his tutling scalpels to tell them that Heaven’s fury required a reply.

The chims at the tables shouted and applauded as the king of the hill jumped from the summit, gri

This was another reason females seldom joined the thunder dance. A full-grown male neo-chim had most of the strength of his natural cousins on Earth. Chimmies who wanted to participate generally played in the band.

Fiben had always found it curious that it was so different among humans. Their males seemed more often obsessed with the sound making and the females with, dance, rather than vice versa. Of course humans were strange in other ways as well, such as in their odd sexual practices.

He sca

Fiben was begi

A balcony lined the three walls facing the dance mound. Patrons leaned over, banging on the slats and encouraging the dancers. Fiben turned and backed up to get a better look… and almost stumbled over a low wicker table as he blinked in amazement.

There — in an area set aside by rope barrier, guarded by four floating battle-robots — sat one of the invaders. There was the narrow, white mass of feathers, the sharp breastbone, and that curved beak… but this Gubru wore what looked like a woolen cap over the top of its head, where its comblike hearing organ lay. A set of dark goggles covered its eyes.

Fiben made himself look away. It wouldn’t do to seem too surprised. Apparently the customers here had had the last few weeks to get used to an alien in their midst. Now, though, Fiben did notice occasional glances nervously cast up toward the box above the bar. Perhaps the added tension helped explain the frantic mood of the revelers, for the Grape seemed unusually rowdy, even for a working chim’s bar.

Sipping his pint bottle casually, Fiben glanced up again. The Gubru doubtless wore the caplike muff and goggles as protection from the noise and lights. The guard-bots had only sealed off a square area near the alien, but that entire wing of the balcony was almost unpopulated.

Almost. Two chims, in fact, sat within the protected area, near the sharp-beaked Gubru.

Quislings? Fiben wondered. Are there traitors among us already?

He shook his head in mystification. Why was the Gubru here? What could one of the invaders possibly find of worth to notice?

Fiben reclaimed his place at the bar.

Obviously, they’re interested in chims, and for reasons other than our value as hostages.

But what were those reasons? Why should Galactics care about a bunch of hairy clients that some hardly credited with being intelligent at all?

The thunder dance climaxed in an abrupt crescendo and one final crash, its last rumblings diminishing as if into a cloudy, stormy distance. The echoes took seconds longer to die away inside Fiben’s head.

Dancers tumbled back to their tables gri

Now that Fiben understood the tension in this place he wondered why anyone came at all Boycotting an establfsh-ment patronized by the invader would seem such a simple, obvious form of ahisma, of passive resistance. Surely the average chim on the street resented these enemies of all Terragens!

What drew such crowds here on a weeknight?

Fiben ordered another beer for appearances, though already he was thinking about leaving. The Gubru made him nervous. If his contact wasn’t going to show, he had better get out of here and begin his own investigations. Somehow, he had to find out what was going on here in Port Helenia and discover a way to make contact with those willing to organize.

Across the room a crowd of recumbent revelers began pounding the floor and chanting. Soon the shout spread through the hall.

“Sylvie! Sylvie!”

The musicians climbed back onto their platform and the audience applauded as they started up again, this time to a much gentler beat. A pair of chimmies crooned seductively on saxophones as the house lights dimmed.

A spotlight speared down to illuminate the pi

The upper half of her face was covered by a beaked mask crested with white feathers. The fem-chim’s bare nipples were flecked with sparkles to stand out in the light. Her skirt of silvery strips began to sway with the slow rhythm.

The pelvises of female neo-chimpanzees were wider than their ancestors’, in order to pass bigger-brained progeny. Nevertheless, swinging hips had never become an ingrained erotic stimulus — a male turn-on — as it was among humans.

And yet Fiben’s heart beat faster as he watched her allicient movements. In spite of the mask his first impression had been of a young girl, but soon he realized that the dancer was a mature female, with faint marks of having nursed. It made her look all the more alluring.

As she moved the swaying strips of her skirt flapped slightly and Fiben soon saw that the fabric was silvery only on the outside. On the i

He flushed and turned away. The thunder dance was one thing — he had participated in a few himself. But this was altogether different! First the little panderer in the alley, and now this? Had the chims of Port Helenia gone sex-crazed?

An abrupt, meaty pressure came down upon his shoulder. Fiben looked to see a large, fur-backed hand resting there, leading up a hairy arm to one of the biggest chims he had ever seen. He was nearly as tall as a small man, and obviously much stronger. The male neo-chimp wore faded blue work dungarees, and his upper lip curled back to expose substantial, almost atavistic canines.