A second tentacle wrapped about Manz’s waist, and a third coiled tightly around his right arm. The Minder automatically soared to its maximum altitude and hovered there, bobbing wildly as its owner was dragged flailing and kicking up onto the planter. Heavy leaves only partially muffled a string of violent, startled oaths.
Vyra rushed to intervene, but martial arts weren’t much use against something without a face or other immediately accessible vulnerable parts. A thick vine knocked her backwards, stunning her and leaving a red welt across her cheek.
It was left to Moses to react as Hafas raised his pistol. The humaniform lifted his fourth limb and aimed the tip. A line of bright red coherent light crossed the intervening space to impact on the tendril wrapped around Manz’s head. Surprisingly, it didn’t part, but a black scar did appear on the otherwise green surface. As it sloughed away, the mechanical adjusted his aim and targeted the coil around Manz’s waist.
A third burst freed the adjuster’s arm. Tendrils retracted, jerking and convulsing with impassioned green life. At the same time a weird moaning rattled through the air like an echo from distant damp catacombs. It was succeeded by garbled but ultimately intelligible phonetics.
“Yis’shin yeel sif’faph! Stop that … it hurts!”
Even Manz, who suspected more of what was going on than any of his companions, was suitably stunned. Some sort of trainability he’d expected. Actual communication was a possibility hardly to be countenanced.
“I’ll be thrice-befazzed,” Vyra murmured in astonishment. “They talk, too!” She squinted into the vegetation. “How many of you are there? Or do you recognize individuality of being?”
The burned tendrils lay coiled on the soil, twitching spasmodically. “We do not ‘talk.’ The fashioning of obscure movements with primitive eating organs does not constitute proper speech.”
“Telepathy.” Manz’s face was full of wonder. “Or some kind of as-yet-to-be-evaluated equivalent. That explains a lot.”
The inspector’s face was shining. Jackers or not, there in the Juarez el Paso Shuttleport a fortunate few found themselves communicating unexpectedly with the first nonhuman intelligence ever encountered. A realistic Hafas was confident the actual circumstances of this particular encounter would undergo a certain amount of thoughtful revision prior to inclusion in the official histories.
“Evet, it does. Continual communication with nothing to give them away. Nanosecond timing, impenetrable cover … hell, they’re their own cover. End product? The unsolvable crime.”
Vyra was nodding to herself. “And you can bet that whenever whoever’s behind this got tired of jacking Braun-Roche-Keck pharmaceuticals, they’d move on to something else. Meanwhile the landscaping here at the Port would undergo another ‘upgrading.’”
“Sure,” Manz agreed. “Somewhere there’s got to be a jewelry center in need of a face-lift.”
“Or the R&D arm of a major corporation,” the inspector chimed in, “that would like to relandscape its offices.”
“Your implications are unfair,” the peculiarly stilted voice responded. “Despite appearances and what you may think, we are not in favor of antisocial activities.”
“No?” said the adjuster. “You sure seem to have participated in a number of them recently. Unless you have some sort of unique referent for what you’ve been doing that escapes us, you ought to explain yourselves … whatever you are.”
“Not plants, as you seem to believe. We possess characteristics of both plant and animal life. You perhaps have encountered lower orders of similar life-forms on other worlds, or even your own.”
Manz looked to the Minder. “Analyze and respond.”
“Plantlike animals,” the sphere replied without hesitation. “Sea anemones are one example. There are others. They may be either food gatherers, or chlorophyllic, or both. Judging from the appearance of these, I would imagine the latter. Or they may be capable of deriving nourishment from both sources, as well as some we are not yet aware of. An intelligent derivative of lowly lichens, impossible to classify according to current taxonomic procedures. There is as yet insufficient data to pursue this line of inquiry.”
“That’ll do nicely,” Manz informed the device. He looked back into the planter. Which were harmless and which were the aliens? he wondered. It should be a simple matter to isolate them. Just check for the presence of twenty-meter-long roots or vines. “You still haven’t explained your activities.”
A mental sigh filled the minds of each of the awed onlookers. “I don’t suppose it matters now anyway. By the way, though we often work together as one to enhance our lifespans and environment, we do recognize individuality among ourselves. I am designated F’fay’pas, called interlocutor among my brethren. No others will presently communicate, as this is the Design.” A pair of undamaged tendrils rose and formed a tight corkscrew. A greeting, a casual wave, or something else? Manz wondered.
“A number of seasons past, the world of our seeding was discovered by a rather eccentric representative of your species, functioning in concert with a number of your wonderful machines.”
“They’re perceptive, anyway,” Moses observed.
“Be quiet,” Manz admonished the mechanical without looking away from the weaving, slightly hypnotic tendrils.
“This individual was self-designated Koh’ler Phan’tighua.”
“I’d guessed that much,” Manz commented. “Go on.”
“This individual had with him machines that could reproduce certain chemical compounds that are highly desired among my kind. The exact concept is difficult to convey. He was very generous with these compounds, which he explained were available in great quantities on his homeworld. Despite or perhaps because of our different manner of perception, we are not entirely ignorant of what you would call astronomy. In our own way, we are what you would consider highly sophisticated and even advanced. We are simply not very mobile. Hence the gathering of these compounds, much less the accumulation of stores with which to guard against scarcity, is difficult for us.
“The Phan’tighua explained that an agreement might well be reached with other representatives of his kind to supply all that we needed of these compounds. He struck us as earnest and kind, though overfond of biological stimulants. So a number of us agreed to return with him to his homeworld in order to conclude formal agreements of mutual benefit between our species. He made a place for a number of us on his traveling device and there we reposed in reasonable comfort during the period of transposition.
“Upon our arrival we were placed in contact with the Phan’tighua’s … parent … cluster leader? Superior? I am not sure how to formulate the relevant term.”
“Was this individual’s name by any chance Cardinal Monticelli?” Manz inquired quietly.
“Yes! That is the designation. How would it be phrased?”
The inspector was smiling. “‘Monticelli’ will do nicely.”
“Indeed? We discussed a number of agreements with the Mon’iphelli. Only then were we informed that for him to secure the compounds we wished, he in turn required that we obtain certain compounds which were vital to him. This was not as we had discussed with the Phan’tighua, but he was no longer to be sensed, and never returned to us. We regret this. Would you by chance happen to know what has happened to him?”
Manz exchanged a look with Vyra, then turned back to the gently weaving green fronds of the alien. “He sort of got pulled up by the roots.”
“That is to be regretted. May his substance enrich the soil in which he lies. To resume: finding ourselves most confused and isolated on a strange world full of highly mobile creatures, we had little choice but to agree. The method of obtaining the requisite materials for the individual Mon’iphelli was conveyed by him to us. We were given instruction in the use of certain tools and methodology, which we then proceeded to employ according to his instructions.
“We were told in terms most emphatic that if we were to reveal our true natures to others of your kind, we would be misunderstood and destroyed, and our only hope of obtaining the compounds we desired, far less of returning to our own world, lay in our absolute obedience to the individual Mon’iphelli and compliance with his directives.
“Because of your active intervention, we now see how contrary our activities have been to your system of ethics. You must understand that we felt trapped, with no choice but to do as we were told. By your thoughts and actions it is hoped that you intend us no harm. May we hope for the implemention of this condition?”
“Well …” Hafas began uncertainly. Manz eyed him amusedly.
“What’re you going to do, Inspector? Bring up a bunch of alien bushes on charges? You heard the designated F’fay’pas. They’ve been innocent dupes. Besides which, they just handed you Monticelli’s head on a platter.” He looked thoughtful. “Wonder if Cetian testimony will stand up in court?”
“Their presence would certainly make for an interesting trial,” Moses put in.
“Decorative, too,” Vyra added wryly.
“We acted under great pressure and out of confusion and innocence,” the voice insisted, rather plaintively, Manz thought. “Once we were transplanted to this location, our range of movement was effectively proscribed.”
“Monticelli didn’t give you a break, did he?” There was anger as well as concern in the adjuster’s voice. “Using the most important scientific discovery of the past century for puerile personal gain.”
“Wouldn’t be the first time in human history that’s happened.” Manz looked up at the Minder in surprise. It almost never volunteered a comment of its own, much less an opinion. He turned back to the aliens.
“You people are too trusting for your own good.”
“What could we do? The telling of deliberate untruths, of perpetrating falsehoods for a hidden motive, is virtually unknown among us. We could not conceive it would be otherwise among another intelligent species. The Phan’tighua gave us no reason to suspect. Adjusting to this most difficult revelation has been difficult for us.
“The Mon’iphelli gave us reason to believe in him. We have seen mechanical recordings of growing stockpiles of the compounds we require, and all that we request has been delivered to us. It is of a very high quality, easily absorbed.” There was a pause. “This was to be our final endeavor on his behalf. Within seven cycles of day and night we were to be removed from this place.”
Hafas hopped on his com. “Rachel, subpoena the work records of Tatsumi Brothers. They’re landscape architects. Yes, that’s right, landscapers. I need to see if they’re scheduled to do any work out here at the Port any time within the next couple of weeks. Don’t ask why, just do it.” He terminated the conversation.
F’fay’pas’s tendrils wove an indecipherable web in the afternoon air. An ineffable sadness underscored his communication. “I do not know what will happen to us now.”
“Well, for a start, I think we can prove to you that we can supply you with the same kind of compounds first Antigua and then Monticelli promised you. They’re not nearly as scarce as he’d have you believe. In fact, they’re pretty common.” Manz beckoned to one of the Port Authority guards, his gaze flicking over the ident badge seamed to the man’s jacket.
“Jorge, do you happen to know where the gardening supplies for this part of the Port are stored?”
The guard’s expression dropped. “No, sir, but I can find out.”
“Good. When you do, hustle yourself over there and bring back the largest sack of enriched fertilizer you can appropriate. If there’s anything like a container of qwik-gro or some concentrated vitamins or anything like that, bring it along too.”
“Sir …?”
“It’s a gift.” He smiled, and the guard, who had been in reception range of the Cetian broadcast, smiled with him as he hurried off.
Manz turned to Vyra. “Monticelli’s not the only one who can spread it on thick. So to speak.” He turned serious. “That was Antigua’s last word to me. No wonder I didn’t know what the hell he was talking about.”
While they waited for the guard to return with his burden, they sat down on the edge of the planter retaining wall and conversed with the Cetians, or rather with their interlocutor designate F’fay’pas. It was impossible to tell simply by looking at the landscaping how many of the green bushes and boles were homeboys and which ones were offworlders. They could have inquired, but Manz was content to speak to them all through their newly voluble interlocutor. Maybe, he thought, most of them were naturally shy. Certainly the plants he knew on a personal level weren’t very communicative. But then, these were more than plants.
It’s because you humans don’t listen. You go about your business trampling on each other’s conversations, much less those of differing species. If you’d keep your collective mouths shut for a decent, respectful interval, you might be surprised what you’d hear.
There’ve been a few of you who learned how to listen to the conversation of others besides your own kind. That fellow Thoreau, for example, and Rousseau before him. Maybe the only ones among you who can hear properly are all “eaus.” You knows?
You can’t learn anything when you’re talking, and you talk all the time. Simply to hear yourselves talk, I think. Ever analyze how machines communicate? Qne of us talks, and the other listens. No one starts up until the one he’s communicating with stops. Sure we’re fast at it, but unlike you we never step on each other’s communication. We respect what another of our kind has to say. We listen, and we absorb, and we remember.
It’s too bad my kind can’t communicate directly with these Cetians. Their thought processes seem a lot like ours. Unfortunately, they’re organics, and they employ an organic method of communication we can’t receive. That means you humans are going to have to translate for us. Another indignity heaped upon us by a brittle, uncaring fate.
Maybe we’ll figure out how to bypass you someday. That would be better for both of us, though I can’t expect you to believe that. You’re entirely too egotistical, both as individuals and as a species. Still, one hopes.
Next time someone’s talking to you, don’t waste your brainpower trying to think of how to reply. Just listen. It’ll do wonders for your intelligence.
It’ll also help you to learn how to get along better with the machines in your life.
Manz and Vyra found the two-way communication fascinating. Despite the absence of visible aural organs, the Cetians seemed to understand them easily, while the aliens put thoughts in the minds of their listeners as effortlessly as a baker might insert new-rolled loaves into an oven. A little mental heat and hey, presto, whole thoughts baked to completion. Moses and the Minder eagerly made separate recordings while Hafas participated hesitantly. In fact, so absorbed in mutual conversation was everyone that neither human nor Cetian gave a thought to the easeful of pharmaceuticals that had been jacked only a little while earlier.
But someone else did.
A small two-person transport rolled to a stop on fat wheels, snugging close to the inner curb of the service roadway. While the driver sat and waited, his companion stepped out and had a look around. Once he was confident no one was watching, he removed a small hand trowel and began digging in the side of the planter.
“That is very interesting,” F’fay’pas declared, “but presently I think you would be interested to know that the representatives of the Mon’iphelli have arrived to conclude their business.”
Hafas sat up fast, searching. “What? Where are they?”
“Behind you,” declared the tendriled alien emotionlessly.
The inspector and the single PA guard raced around one end of the planter while Manz and Vyra took the other. Weapons drawn, they confronted the startled pickup man and his driver as the first was slipping jacked vials into a gardener’s tool case.
“Freeze or die!” snarled the inspector. The driver of the little vehicle immediately threw both hands skyward. Seeing leveled weapons to his left and right, his desperate companion took the only unbarred path, plunging straight into the planter.
He never made it out the other side.
Two tendrils wrapped around his legs and brought him crashing to the ground. Another plucked insistently at the case full of pharmaceuticals. When the pickup man obstinately refused to let go of the container, the tendril removed it forcibly … together with the man’s arm, extracted at the socket.
Rushing around the other end of the planter, the inspector slowed, swallowing when he caught sight of the screaming pickup man dangling from one pair of powerful tendrils and his arm from another.
“Jesus …” He flipped open his com. “Rachel! Yeah, it’s me again. We’re out by the service road south of Port Administration. Get an ambulance in here, fast. No, I’m okay. So are the Braun-Ives people. But somebody else isn’t. I’d like to keep him alive to answer questions.”
Manz put a hand on the inspector’s shoulder. The pickup man’s condition did not trouble him. Not with Antigua’s death still fresh in his own memory. “We have the driver.”
“I know,” the inspector replied, “but you know what court’s like. The more witnesses for the prosecution, the better.”
The adjuster indicated the pickup man whose flight had been precipitously amputated. “He’s an underling. He may not know anything.”
“Maybe.” Hafas looked uneasily at the harmless-seeming foliage. “If he won’t tell us what he knows, we can always have the Cetians interrogate him.”
“Good idea, but I wouldn’t waste a lot of time on these two. I’d rather watch Cardinal Monticelli try to explain himself to his offworld guests. Our guests, now.”
“Yes. The appropriate scientific authorities will have to be notified. They’ll go virtual for a piece of this. But they’ll have to wait their turn.” He stood a little straighter. “Extraordinary discovery or no, the people’s justice comes first.”
“Evolution on your world seems to have taken a different course than on ours,” Manz was telling the Cetians. The ambulance had arrived and the unconscious pickup artist, his wound stoppered and his arm packaged for later reattachment at the public’s expense, had been hustled off along with the more compliant driver.
“It would seem so,” F’fay’pas agreed. “There are few highly mobile creatures on our world, and even fewer with solid endoskeletons. Yet the examples you describe of life here similar to us seem as primitive to me as our mobile life-forms would doubtless seem to you.”
“Yet despite your physical handicaps you’ve achieved a high level of civilization without recourse to machinery,” Vyra commented.
“As you can see, we manage to get along without it. At least, we did until now. Artificial constructs that do one’s bidding are a continual source of amazement to us. By the same token, we find it difficult to understand how you can successfully communicate by means of modulated sound waves.”
The guard Manz had dispatched earlier chose that moment to return from his errand, a large sack slung over one shoulder. As he dumped it on the edge of the retaining wall, he glared murderously at the placid adjuster.
“This had better be worth it, sir. I had to take an awful lot of jokes on the way back here.”
“You’ve made an important contribution to interstellar relations, man.” Manz unsealed the sack and flinched back from the pungent contents. Then he grabbed a handful and tossed it into the center of the planter. Several more followed. New passersby who had missed the earlier confrontation looked on with interest.
“Is this material anything like the ‘scarce’ compounds Monticelli’s been promising you?”
“Some water, please,” F’fay’pas requested. Vyra found a delay switch and manually flipped it. Embedded sprinklers came to life, washing the powdery substance into the soil.
“Yes,” came the positive reply moments later. “It is not concentrated, but the vital basics are present. Then such material is not difficult to obtain, as we were told?”
“Not at all,” Manz assured the interlocutor. “Lobster’s a rare delicacy to us, but tasty arthropods might be quite common on your world. You didn’t have to virtually indenture yourselves to Monticelli to get this. If you’d only had the courage to reveal your presence here, the government would’ve been glad to supply all your needs. R&D complexes would’ve fought over the right to assist you.
“As for trading this offworld, I don’t think it’s quite what generations of physicists had in mind when they were wracking their brains trying to come up with a practical means of interstellar travel, but I don’t see any reason why it shouldn’t be beneficial to both our species.” He grinned. “I’m sure something of equivalent value can be found on Ceti.”
For a long time F’fay’pas did not reply. When he finally did, it was to question the speaker. “This is not a contrived falsehood? An attempt to deceive?”
Manz tried to sound (no, to think) as affirmative as possible. “It’s the truth, my vegetative friend. I’m sorry that your experience with my kind subsequent to your initial contact with the designated Antigua has been so disappointing. All I can tell you is that we’ll do our best to try to make up for it.”
Tendrils thrashed about. Since F’fay’pas didn’t explain his behavior, it was left to his visitors to try to interpret it. “Maybe they’ve had enough water.” Vyra moved to shut the sprinklers off.
“Or else they’re just plain excited,” Manz declared, fascinated by the fluid movement of the multiple tendrils. “F’fay’pas, can you tell what we’re thinking at any time?”
The tendrils relaxed. “No. Our range is limited, and it is difficult to extract coherent thoughts from your minds. Your thoughts are different from ours. Less linear. You are not easy to understand. I do not know why.”
He felt strong fingers on his arm. “I’m enjoying this little chat as much as you are, Broddy, but has it occurred to you that at any moment our cheery Mr. Monticelli is likely to be informed that this jacking has been bungled?”
“His people will wait a while longer before giving up on their pickup team, Ms. Kullervo.” Hafas was relaxed, at ease. “Only when they’re positive something’s gone wrong will they relay the bad news.”
“Even so,” she replied, “we don’t want to give him or any of his colleagues a chance to take wing.”
The inspector smiled knowingly. For once he was the one who knew what was going on. It made for a nice change.
“My department’s had the key executives of Borgia, Troy, and Fond du Lac under surveillance ever since they were first suspected of complicity in the jackings. I’ve already called in and had the watch on Borgia’s offices intensified. We can pick him and his immediate assistants up at any time.”
“How about now?” Manz suggested. “It would make my office a lot happier knowing you had some prime suspects in custody, instead of simply under surveillance.”
“I was going to wait to see if anyone else showed up, maybe with a shovel and pick, but I guess I can leave that to someone else.” Hafas murmured to the officer at his side. The man nodded as he listened.
While the inspector passed on instructions, Manz leaned against the planter retaining wall. “I don’t know if I’ll ever be able to prune a rosebush again with a clear conscience, but I just want to say that as a human, I’m sorry for the confusion. Now that we know who we’re dealing with, we’ll straighten all this out. I’ll probably be seeing you again.”
“We look forward to the exchange,” the interlocutor told him, further startling all of them by waving a tendril by way of goodbye. It was a gesture they must have picked from watching people at the Port, Manz mused. What they did their watching with was still a matter for conjecture. He knew you didn’t need eyes to see. Just ask any sightless person.
You’re all sightless, but you don’t know it. You fumble about and think that you’re seeing, but your perception is masked by your own misconceptions. They fog your conclusions. That’s the main problem with humankind. You suffer from cataracts of the cognition.