XVII

“What’s that?” Pila rolled over and tried to get a glimpse of the communicator that Straat-ien was watching as he sat on the edge of the bed. The compact screen he held was eight centimeters square and capable of mock-holo projection.

She leaned up against him, slipping her arms around his chest, resting her chin on his left shoulder. “A Wais! How interesting. I see she isn’t wearing a translator.” She listened intently.

“Her gestures are certainly emphatic. Is this the one you told me about, the one you’ve known for so long?” He nodded. They continued listening together until the transmission ended.

Straat-ien put the communicator on the end table and lay back down on the bed. His companion snuggled close to him, lying on her right side, her left hand warm on his chest. They were silent for a while, each digesting the contents of the alien’s message.

“Do you think she’s right about us?” Pila finally asked.

“I don’t know.” Straat-ien stared at the ceiling. “Sometimes I think she knows more about us than we do ourselves.”

“So we’re doomed to keep fighting forever? These S’van will keep us from destroying ourselves but that’s it? No help to change old attitudes, no assistance in forging a peaceful civilization.” She frowned. “I don’t want to fight anymore.”

“Nor do I,” Straat-ien murmured. “But you and I have the benefit of Core insight. We’re a very small, not especially influential minority. The bulk of Humankind still looks at things differently.”

“It sounds like this Wais expects you to do something about it.”

He shrugged and kicked against the sheets that clung to his legs. “She knows me better than she knows any other Human. She knows about the Core and that we’re trying to find a way to make some changes in Human attitudes. That’s going to be hard enough going without active opposition. From the S’van, no less. They’re dangerously smart.”

“You think she’s safe?”

“She’s managed okay so far.” He looked thoughtful. “When the Core was deciding her fate, I argued that if we left her alone, she’d be useful to us someday. Here’s the proof of it.” He tapped the recorder. “If it wasn’t for her, we wouldn’t know about this S’van organization.”

“Right enough.” Pila was mature, and knowledgeable. “Now we can take steps to deal with that. A few suggestions in the right places and we can neutralize their influence without being obvious about it.”

Straat-ien sighed. “I wish we could persuade our own kind as easily. There’ve already been outbreaks of fighting on several of the colonies. The Core Council expects it to spread to Earth any time now. Why people can’t recognize the counterproductiveness of such regressive behavior is beyond me.”

She patted his chest. “As you pointed out, we enjoy the Core perspective, darling. Most of Humankind doesn’t … yet.”

“If we’re not careful, it never will. I know that the genome for the Amplitur-introduced neural nexus is dominant, but it’ll take hundreds of years for it to spread deep enough into the racial pool to make a real difference.”

“Until that happens we must do the best we can, Nevan. We have a great responsibility.” She ran her fingers through the hair on his chest.

“I wish I knew for certain if Lalelelang’s projections are right.”

“We have to assume that they are. Assuming otherwise means leaving our fate in the hands of the S’van and the Hivistahm and all the rest.”

“The S’van,” he muttered. “I would have sooner suspected the Hivis, or even the Massood. But not the S’van.”

“They joke and kid around to mask their intelligence,” she reminded him. “They always have.” She was silent for a moment, stroking him. “Nevan,” she inquired somberly, “do you think we have a chance? To integrate ourselves into Weave society and enjoy a peaceful, participatory future? Or is your Wais right and we’ll always be doomed to fighting and killing?”

“Lalelelang’s a pessimist, but she hopes we can change. She thinks that because of our unique perspective the Core can be the instrument of that change, that we can be the renovating anomaly her statistics don’t account for.”

Pila raised herself higher and stared hard at him. “I didn’t ask what she thinks. I asked what you think.”

He was silent for a while. Then he turned to envelop her in his arms and draw her down to him.

“Right now I think I’m tired of thinking.”

Cataloging the ocean of material she’d acquired, performing seminars, and designing course materials, all this left Lalelelang little time for promoting her theories or, for that matter, any kind of social life. Outwardly her triad sisters supported her efforts, but privately they despaired. Their brilliant, attractive, famous sister was wasting away, devoting her entire life to her studies. They told her repeatedly that her time was ill apportioned, but there was nothing they could do about it. Lalelelang would acknowledge their efforts on her behalf and proceed to ignore them, just as she ignored those males bold enough to approach her.

They could not know that she had much more than her own survival in mind.

Utilizing the university’s far-ranging facilities, she scrutinized the interworld media with grim conviction, seeking out the kind of information that never reached the general population. One world, even a portion of one continent, generated more than enough news to satisfy their interest. Besides, now that the war was well over, who cared what Humans, or for that matter the Hivistahm or the Massood, did on their own worlds? The Weave had been created to deal with the Amplitur. With that ancient interstellar threat finally removed the frequency of interspecies contact was already beginning to abate.

Her files grew, and with them her concern.

On Human-settled Daccar, sustained fighting had broken out between the inhabitants of the eastern and northern portions of the landmass. Though not as severe as the explosive outbursts of violence that had marred the history of Old Earth, it was worrisome enough.

A trio of S’van interlocutors who just happened to be on MacKay working on another project energetically offered to mediate a dispute which ignited on that Human colony world. Their offer was accepted, but they had only limited success.

On Mauka IV dissension took the form of a group of offshore islanders who, claiming neglect, sought to distance themselves from the central planetary administration on the mainland. As the islands numbered among their inhabitants a large number of recently retired soldiers, the extent of their resistance was out of all proportion to their actual population. There were no S’van present to help dampen either the ardor of the islanders or the reactive resentment of those on the mainland.

The worst troubles flared on Barnard’s, the first world to be colonized by Humans from Earth and one that was fast becoming nearly as urbanized. It was home also to a modest population of Massood, who did their best to remain aloof from their bipedal brethren’s uncivilized and rapidly deteriorating behavior. The existence of a large class of Humans who’d grown wealthy from activities related to the war only exacerbated growing tensions, which threatened to involve the Massood in spite of themselves.

It was a situation sufficiently degenerative to inspire quiet jubilation among the Amplitur, but though she searched many sources Lalelelang could find no indication of even indirect Amplitur involvement in the growing canon of Human deviant activity. Nor was there any indication of regression or restlessness among their former allies such as the Ashregan and Crigolit. All blithely continued to disarm and to vocally embrace the new peace.

Lalelelang knew the Amplitur must be aware of what was happening on the human worlds, but she had no more proof of it than she had to substantiate her other theories. The tentacled ones continued to dismantle their extensive military apparatus while taking hesitant steps toward participating in unrestricted interstellar commerce and communication. If their activities were inspired by ulterior motives, the Amplitur kept them well hidden.

Then, near the end of the fourth year following the first such outbreak, and contrary to her ominous predictions, the fighting leveled off. It did not cease entirely. Some inter-Human conflicts continued, new ones flared, but others were settled. Not every potential confrontation reached flash point, not every argument erupted in violence. Several serious commercial disputes were settled by agreement.

Having learned a painful lesson on Barnard’s, the Massood stayed out of such skirmishes. Any active S’van role remained invisible. Needless to say, the other members of the Weave ignored the ongoing Human preoccupation with violence as completely as was possible.

Maybe she’d underestimated the S’van. She wouldn’t be the first to have done so. Maybe they could keep the Human disease under control without having to cure it completely. Or perhaps the lid was being kept on further outbreaks of violence thanks to the work of Colonel Nevan Straat-ien’s mysterious Core. Or maybe they were working on the S’van. Whatever the cause, the results were encouraging.

Was there such a thing, even for an eccentric species like Homo sapiens, as a tolerable level of societal violence? She pondered the theoretical options.

Though distressed by the tumult, the rest of the Weave was more than willing to ignore it so long as it did not spread to their own worlds. Unlike the S’van, now that the war was over the general Weave population didn’t much care if Humankind exterminated itself. In fact, there were many who would have thought such a denouement a good thing.

Several hundred years of association with the Weave had wrought some perceptible changes in the fabric of Human society. There were signs that perhaps the first contact, William Dulac, had been at least partially correct in his evaluation of his own kind. Now that the war was over, social interaction between some Humans and their colleagues on other worlds began to expand.

If the S’van could be persuaded to change their minds about continuing the cultivation of Human fighting abilities, such progress toward true integrated civilization might be accelerated. If not, she knew it was possible for Humankind to someday revert to the kind of uninhibited homicidal warfare that had originally characterized the species. Lalelelang checked and rechecked her work. The stocky, hirsute humanoids were playing a very dangerous game on an unimaginably grand scale.

In any event, the best she could do was observe and monitor. The visit she had received from the S’van years earlier remained clear and sharp in her memory, as did the implication behind it.

Occasionally she wondered how her old friend the colonel, Nevan Straat-ien, was coping with peace, or if he was involved in any of the violent flare-ups among his people. There’d been no contact between them for a number of years. Maintaining contact between individuals who lived on different worlds was a difficult, not to mention expensive, proposition. Like most Humans, he was doubtless frantically busy. With his own career, perhaps a new one, or with a family. He had never discussed mating in her presence, but then why should he? His rituals and dances were not hers.

The unusual friendship that had developed between them had been forged of necessity and immediacy. Neither dition any longer existed. Now and then she took a moment to wish him well wherever he was, and flattered herself that he might occasionally do the same in remembrance of her. She wondered if he gave much thought to her theories and decided he did not. Weave civilization was not after all on the verge of being overwhelmed by rampaging Humans.

She was greatly pleased that time had proven her wrong.

So far.