Divergence

So. They were as strong as they looked.

How well did they see and hear? None of the Zardalu was turned his way at the moment. Birdie drummed lightly on the side of the empty food box with his fingertips, producing a light pa-pa-pa-pam. No result. A few harder blows with the flat of his hand produced no reaction from the Zardalu.

Birdie stood up, slowly and quietly, went across to the side of the chamber, and began to edge his way around it. The Zardalu were close to the single exit, but on one side there was space for a human to slide along the wall without coming within tentacle range of any of them.

Birdie sidled along until he was no more than a few paces from the nearest Zardalu. He soon reached a point where he could see out of the chamber. The exit led to an open corridor. One mad dash would take him out there and on his way through the unknown interior. He rose onto the balls of his feet. At that very moment the biggest one, the one identified as Holder, fluted a few liquid sounds to where Graves, Kallik, and J’merlia were lying.

“With respect, Commissioner Kelly,” Kallik called. “The Zardalu do not want you in your present location. You are commanded to return at once to join the rest of us. And when you do so, the Zardalu order you to refrain from hammering on the food containers. The noise creates unrest in the young.”

Birdie nodded. The scariest thing of all was that the Zardalu did not bother to threaten him with consequences if he did not obey. They knew he knew. He was turning to inch his way back along the same smooth gray wall when he caught sight of movement in the outside corridor. He forced himself to keep turning, resisting the urge to stop and stare. His split-second glance had not been enough to identify the individual person. But it was a person, and not a Zardalu, Cecropian, or other alien. Someone human was out there, crouched low in the angle of the corridor, peeping out now and again to observe what was going on inside the chamber. And far behind, almost indistinguishable from the darker shadows, Birdie thought he had caught a glimpse of another, less familiar form.

Birdie slid steadily back along the wall and returned to sit by Julius Graves. A few minutes earlier he had been convinced that the Zardalu were hard of hearing; now he was not so sure. For all he knew they could hear the slightest whisper. And even if they could not, certainly Kallik could, and the traitorous Hymenopt would tell the Zardalu anything that she heard.

He leaned forward to put his mouth right next to Graves’s ear. “Don’t say anything or do anything,” he breathed. “But help may be on the way.”

“What?” Graves said, loud enough to be heard twenty yards off. “You’ll have to speak up, Commissioner. My hearing isn’t too good.”

“Nothing,” Birdie said hurriedly. “I didn’t say a thing.”

Several of the Zardalu turned to stare at them with those huge, heavy-lidded eyes of cerulean blue. Before Birdie had time to feel guilty at rousing them to attention, another land-cephalopod, closer to the door, started up onto his powerful splayed tentacles. There was a pipe-organ whistle from the ingestion organ, and the Zardalu headed out of the chamber.

Birdie had never seen anything that big move so fast and so silently. The Zardalu flashed out of the room like a silent specter of midnight blue, one moment there, the next vanished. Birdie heard the sound of rapid movement outside and a startled cry. He knew that the sound had not come from the vanished Zardalu. Those were human vocal cords, the same ones that now produced a hoarse roar of pain.

“What was that?” Graves asked. “What happened?”

Birdie did not need to answer. The vanished Zardalu was coming back into the room. It was not alone. Dangling two meters from the ground, suspended by one brawny tentacle wrapped around his neck to carry his weight and cut off his breathing, hung the kicking, purple-faced figure of Louis Nenda.

“Not to spy.” Louis Nenda rubbed at his bruised throat. Released from the killing grip of the tentacle but with another sinewy extensor wrapped snugly about his chest and arms, he was reluctant to meet the gaze of either humans or aliens. He kept his eyes downcast, and he spoke in a low voice.

“Not to spy,” he said again. “Or to turn against my fellow humans. I came here to — to try to — negotiate.”

Kallik was crouched in front of him, half her ring of eyes fixed on his expression, the others attentive to her masters. The leader of the Zardalu whistled and fluted, and its companion’s grip on Nenda tightened.

“You were told in the last meeting that you were not to take the initiative,” Kallik translated. “You were told to stay and arrange with the being called Speaker-Between for the Zardalu’s immediate departure from this place. Are humans too stupid to understand direct command?”

“No.” Nenda was struggling for breath. The ropy arm around his chest was gradually tightening. “We held that meeting, just like we said we would. But it was no good! Speaker-Between wouldn’t agree they could leave. We can’t control him!”

There was a louder series of clicks from Holder as those words were passed on.

“But you suggested that you could. You must be taught a lesson,” Kallik translated.

Another tentacle came forward and wrapped its ropy end section around Nenda’s left leg. It began to pull. As the limb was slowly twisted and stretched downward, Nenda roared in agony.

“Let him go! Right now.” Julius Graves rashly ran forward to stretch up and beat at the Zardalu’s lower body. Another tentacle came up and batted him contemptuously away. At the same time, Kallik produced a rapid series of chirps and whistles.

The twisting and pulling ended, and Nenda sagged in the Zardalu’s grasp.

“I have explained,” Kallik said to Graves, lying winded on the floor, “that humans are quite different from Hymenopts. The removal of any limb would be far more serious in Louis Nenda’s case than in mine. It would probably result in death.”

Graves nodded. But as Nenda’s leg was released, Holder spoke again to Kallik.

“Holder asks,” the Hymenopt said to Nenda, “why should your death matter? You were once my master, and perhaps I am trying to serve you, even now. I said that is not so. But Holder points out that the young ones are in need of proper food, and the value of your continued existence is not clear. Holder is sure that you were attempting to spy, even though you deny it. and Finder, the Zardalu who captured you, thought that it saw another stranger, far along the corridor, one that fled when you were taken. Another spy, perhaps, who escaped when you could not? But that is not the issue here. Can you suggest one reason why you should be allowed to live? If so, give it quickly.”

Nenda glanced at Julius Graves and Birdie Kelly, then looked away. His face and neck were covered in sweat. “I can give Holder a reason,” he said huskily. “That is why I came here. I can be very valuable to you, if you will promise that my life will be spared. And if you don’t hurt me any more. I am not able to — to stand more pain.”

“Holder is amused by your ignorance and presumption,” Kallik replied after another brief exchange with the Zardalu leader. “A Zardalu makes no promise. But it will listen to you, rather than killing you at once. What do you possibly have that is of value?”

Nenda licked his lips. “Tell Holder this. They want to escape from here and get back to a planet in the old Zardalu Communion. Well, I can show them how to do it. Right now.”

Another whistled exchange. “Holder does not believe you.”

“Tell Holder that I can prove it. In her travels through this artifact, one of our party found the entry point to a Builder transportation system. She told the rest of us about it — explained exactly where it is, how to use it. It’s in working order. Tell Holder I can take her there, and they can be on their way to where they want to go. They’ll be gone before Speaker-Between even knows they found the entry point.”