The Candle of Distant Earth (7 page)

“Look,” Walker finally told them, after what an increasingly uneasy George felt was far too long a pause, “even if the decision was made to do so, what makes you think we'd have anything to defend? Your own people would have to agree to stand up and fight. You just said that your people had ‘adapted to the necessity.'”

“Adapted, yes,” Sehblidd told him, and this time the tips of his white whiskers arced noticeably forward. “But that does not mean any of them are happy about it. It is an accommodation that was forced on us because we have not been able to see any other alternative. Offered one…” He let the implication hang in the air.

“We're on our way home,” Walker informed them decisively. “We've no idea how long it's going to take us to get there, or even if we'll be successful in the attempt. We may have to give up and return to Niyu, the world of our hosts. We can't stay here, waiting to help you defend yourselves against an assault that may not come in any of our lifetimes.”

“You could train us,” Ussakk declared.

“What?” Walker turned to the astronomer.

“You could train us. Show us how to best organize ourselves for a planetary defense against what is a technologically superior but small attacking force. Perhaps leave us with some advanced weapons, or the schematics for the same that we could try to build ourselves. The Hyfft are not innovators in such things, but we are very good copyists and fabricators.” Moving close, he rested one small four-fingered hand on the human's right wrist.

“I am not saying such an effort would make any difference. It may very well be that the Great Government would decide not to employ the results of such training and gifts, and choose to continue appeasing the Iollth. But it would at least provide a possible alternative. We would reward such an effort on your part with everything at our disposal.”

“You've been wonderful hosts,” Walker told him. “But as I've said, a decision of this magnitude isn't up to me.” He glared warningly at George, but this time the dog stayed silent. “Training and the designs for advanced weapons, hmm? Supplying both would still take time. I don't know…”

Both Sehblidd and Mardalm came up to him. Echoing the gesture of the astronomer Ussakk, each placed one hand on his left or right wrist. “Please, at least put the matter before those in a position to make such a decision,” the bureaucrat implored him. “If you cannot do this, we will of course understand.” He stepped back, as did his two companions.

They continued their tour of the gardens. Nothing more was said about the request that had so unexpectedly been put forth. It didn't have to be. Both of Walker's wrists tingled with the memory of those small, clutching fingers.

If only, he thought angrily, the Hyfft weren't so damn selfless.

“Madness!” Tentacles fanned out neatly around the base of her body like the spokes of a wheel, Sque focused silvery eyes on Walker and edged closer to the rear of the landscaped pond that had been installed in their quarters solely for her use. “Can it be that your simple mind has so soon forgotten the very reason for our presence here?”

“I agree with the squid.” Brusque as always, George promptly plumped himself down on a nearby pillow.

Walker eyed them both. “I'm as anxious to be on our way as both of you are. But if we're going to ask these people for their help in finding Tuuqalia, how can we turn down their request that we help them?”

“Watch me.” Rolling over on his pillow, George commenced snoring; loudly, pointedly, and mockingly.

Sque was more fulsome, if less visual, in her objections. “They are not the same thing, Marcus. You know they are not. In nowise is asking for assistance in preparing a vector equivalent to helping an entire species prepare for war.”

“For defense,” Walker argued. “You've seen some of this world. These are good folk. They don't deserve what these Iollth do to them on a regular basis.”

The K'eremu raised four appendages. “None of us deserved to be forcibly abducted from our homeworlds, but we were. None of us deserve to live in a universe that is, save for the occasional pinprick of a partially oxygenated world, harsh, cold, and deadly—but we do. Had we not come along, life here would have proceeded, for better or worse, exactly as it always had. It is not incumbent on us to expend time and effort to change that.” Metal gray eyes searched his face.

“Oh, I don't know.” Not for the first time, Walker found himself thoroughly irritated by the K'eremu's unrelenting assurance. “Maybe it is because it's the right thing to do.”

“Ah, so now the truth comes out.” Maroon tentacles waved in the air. “Ethics trump practicality. A noble, but ultimately misplaced gesture.”

“Not from the standpoint of the Hyfft,” he shot back.

She crawled halfway out of her pond, water dripping from her tentacles and turning her slick skin shiny under the overhead lights. “Might I have the temerity to remind you that we each of us have our own viewpoints regarding this matter, and that they do not necessarily coincide with the needs of the fatuous aliens who happen to be our present hosts?”

“I can't get you to agree to this,” he muttered unhappily.

“That's for sure.” George had rolled onto his back and was regarding his friend unblinkingly.

“And it's true,” a disappointed Walker conceded, “that Gerlla-hyn and his staff would also have to agree. They might balk at a proposal like this no matter what we here decide.”

“I think we should help these Hyfft, without question.”

All eyes turned to the back of the single, expansive chamber. Braouk reposed there, his massive body squatting on four tree-like lower limbs, his eyestalks fully extended in opposite directions.

“Why?” George demanded to know, sitting up on his haunches. “Because ‘it's the right thing to do'?”

“That,” the giant Tuuqalian admitted, “and also because it will inspire our hosts to work as hard and as long as possible to discover the information we seek.”

The dog snorted. “Easy for you to say, when it's your world they have by far the best chance of locating.”

“Find Tuuqalia and it becomes easier to find your Earth,” Braouk reminded the dog. “And,” he added as one stalk-mounted eye swiveled slightly, “K'erem.”

“Perhaps,” admitted Sque as she climbed fully out of her pond. Drawing herself up to her full height of a meter and a third, she focused her attention on the lone human. “It might also get us killed. According to our hosts, these near-mythical Iollth are overdue to lavish their inimical attentions on this world, are they not?”

Walker nodded, knowing that the K'eremu was now wholly familiar with the gesture. “That's what the Hyfft have been telling us.”

“Then it is not inconceivable that should we linger among them for a while, we might still be here when they arrive, and find ourselves caught in the middle of a resultant conflict that is none of our business and is not in our interests.”

George nodded shrewdly. “That might just be what our furry little friends are counting on. That Sehblidd character already as much as asked us to intervene directly. I don't trust him. Too clever by a tail.”

“We already declined to do that,” Walker reminded him. “Sehblidd immediately downgraded their request to one for training and the loan of arms or armament schematics. That shouldn't take very long to supply.”

“Long enough to get us killed,” Sque pointed out, “if these beings arrive while we are still here.” Her eyes glittered. “You fail to make your case, friend Marcus. I believe you would fail to make it to Commander-Captain Gerlla-hyn and his staff as well.”

They were evenly divided, Walker saw, with himself and Braouk arguing for lending assistance while Sque and George stood against it. It was time to put forth more than words on behalf of his position.

Turning, he extracted a small communicator unit and spoke into it softly. “You can come in now, Ussakk.”

“More begging?” Sque hissed derisively as she scuttled unhurriedly back into her pond. “More pleading?”

“No,” Walker countered as he watched the Hyfftian astronomer enter from the far side of the refurbished warehouse. “I think, a little history.”

Halting before the much larger human, Ussakk had to crane his neck to meet the other biped's eyes. “I thank you for this opportunity. Sehblidd explained to me what was needed, and helped to requisition the pertinent materials.” Gesturing with his whiskers toward the other occupants of the high-ceilinged chamber, he began unlimbering the equipment strapped to his back. “This should only take a day-fragment to prepare. Please bear with me.”

George sniffed, but this time as much out of curiosity as disdain. “As if we were in a hurry to go somewhere.”

True to his word, the astronomer soon had a small device assembled in the center of the spacious compartment. In response to his verbal urgings, it began to project images above and between the small audience. The imagery, Walker noted, was as sharp and three-dimensional as any he had seen generated by Niyyuuan or even Sessrimathe equivalents. Truly, the Hyfft were not backward: they were simply isolated from the mainstream of galactic civilization. Isolated, and pacific.

The historical recordings showed Iollth landing ships hovering low over neatly laid out Hyfftian cities and towns, manipulating physics in assorted inimical ways to rain death and destruction on the helpless communities below. Though sophisticated in their own right, Hyfftian aircraft armed with little more than improvised weaponry were no match for the invaders, who when annoyed by the attention could simply ascend to heights the Hyfft could not reach. From orbit, missiles and energy beams poured down on the helpless defenders. Only faint outlines of the main Iollth vessels were available, taken from ground-based imaging instruments.

When queried about this deficiency, an apologetic Ussakk explained, “My people tried to obtain better images, but whenever an attempt was made to shift a satellite closer to the invaders' starships, it was immediately destroyed. None of our satellites was armed because, as you already know, there is usually no need for them to be. And also because the Iollth would regard such a development as a provocation that would stimulate even harsher response than usual.”

The presentation wore on, until everyone was sickened and appalled at the seemingly senseless destruction. Only Sque did not appear touched by emotion.

“If this is an attempt to horrify, it fails. The extent to which many non-K'eremu species pervert their tiny quotient of presumed intelligence is well-known, and constitutes only one more reason why my kind prefer to be left alone. Any half-sentient who travels widely quickly discovers that ‘civilization' is a relative term—usually relative to whichever militarily superior species happens to be defining it at the time.” Multiple flexible limbs gestured at the waning projection and the last of its disturbing images. “I have seen nothing that surprises me, nor moves me to change my opinion.”

“It only mine, reinforces much more strongly, to help,” declared Braouk melodiously. A pair of powerful upper appendages moved in the direction of the dire imagery. “To assist those, who help us all, is rightness. Rightness personified.” The bulky body swelled with a sudden intake of air, and both eyestalks went vertical above it. “I could not return to the beckoning plains of Tuuqalia knowing I had abandoned such a cry for aid from the very folk who proved responsible for providing me with a direction homeward.”

The K'eremu's gray eyes turned to the huge Tuuqalian. “They have as yet provided no such thing.”

“Working on it, with all possible speed, they are,” her far more massive companion countered. Ussakk added confirmation to the Tuuqalian's claim.

“Theory is not fact, good intentions not conclusions,” Sque lectured him.

“I'm still inclined to vote to help,” Walker put in.

George looked up at his friend. “Even if it means delaying our journey? And at the risk of imposing on the hospitality and friendship of our friends the Niyyuu?”

Walker nodded. “That's a risk I'm willing to take.”

The dog snorted. “Be interesting to see your reaction if the Niyyuu simply decide they've had enough and head home one day without us. That would leave us stuck here permanently.” The dog cocked his head sideways. “You've changed, Marc. Time was you'd be a realist, be focused solely on getting back home. What's happened to you?”

Walker watched as Ussakk quietly deactivated his projector and prepared to disassemble it. Despite the mortal danger his people faced, he did not plead for their assistance, was not begging. Physically, the Hyfft was small. But in dignity, he exceeded everyone in the room.

“You're right, George. I have changed. The past several years have changed me.” He eyed his friend evenly. “I've learned there are more important things to do with one's existence than trade orange juice futures at a profit.” He raised his gaze to the astronomer. “So even if it entails the risk of displeasing the Niyyuu, I'm going to insist that we stay awhile and try to help these people.”