Warhorse (43 page)

“I'll be damned,” Marlowe echoed. “She's right, sir. The vultures have grouped into optical nets again…in front of the
sharks
.”

“They've switched sides,” Kennedy said, shaking her head in obvious wonderment. “Seen which way the battle was going, and decided en masse to join with the winners.”

On a hunch, Ferrol keyed for a forward visual scan. “Our optical net's gone, too, Captain,” he told Roman. “The vultures are …” He paused, searching.

“They're heading for the battle,” Marlowe put in.

“Interesting, indeed,” Roman said thoughtfully. For a moment he stared at his displays…and then, as Ferrol watched, a tight smile tugged at his lips. Reaching over, he keyed his intercom. “Rrin-saa?”

“I hear, Rro-maa. We cannot hold Sleipnninni for much longer—”

“No need,” Roman cut him off. “Tell Sso-ngii he can let Sleipnir go any time now, only to try and hold it down to a couple of gees.”

“Your wishes are ours.”

Roman keyed off the intercom; and as he did so the
Amity
abruptly lurched forward. Ferrol fought his stomach, and a moment later Sleipnir had settled down to a steady three gee acceleration. “I hope you've timed this right,” he told Roman as the brief nausea faded away. “I really don't think we want to get there while the fight's still going on.”

“I don't think that'll be a problem,” Roman said. “I expect the sharks will have been beaten too far down to bother us by the time we arrive. And actually, it'll probably be better to get there a little early than to be too late.”

Ferrol frowned at him. “Too late for what?”

“You'll see. Give the
Scapa Flow
a call; tell them to rendezvous with us at the nearest shark as soon as they're all dead.” He gazed thoughtfully at the display. “If I'm right, we all have a lot of work ahead of us.”

“T
HEY'RE LATE.”

Roman turned from his contemplation of the viewport and the scene outside it, and took a long look at Ferrol. Seated in the far corner of his office, as far from the desk and two guest chairs as possible, the other's face and body language were alive with low-level tension. “They'll be here,” Roman assured him. “Being late is one of those qualities that make Tampies so darn endearing.”

Ferrol snorted; but his tension seemed to ease a bit. “Right,” he said dryly.

Roman studied him. “You sure you don't want a filter mask? Even with the air system going full blast some of their odors are going to get through.”

Ferrol took a deep breath, as if trying to get all the air he could while it was still clean. “Thank you, but no,” he said, glancing at the door. “I'm going to need to reprogram my reactions eventually, and this seems as good a time as any to start.”

“All right.” Roman cocked an eyebrow. “But no hitting then,” he warned.

Ferrol flushed. Apparently, he'd forgotten that little incident, so long ago, in
Amity
's hangar. “No hitting, sir,” he promised.

The door buzzed. “Here they are,” Roman said; and the panel slid open to reveal Rrin-saa and Sso-ngii, their twisted faces almost hidden behind their filter masks. “Come in,” he invited them, gesturing to the two guest chairs facing him. “Please; sit down.”

“We hear,” Rrin-saa said, leading the way into the office.

The door slid shut behind them, and as they settled themselves in the chairs Roman threw a glance at Ferrol. Still tense, but clearly under solid control. He would be all right, Roman decided. “So,” he said, turning his attention back to the Tampies. “Dr. Tenzing tells me his people have done about all the work on the dead sharks that they can for the moment, so we'll be ready to leave Kialinninni soon. I was hoping that you might have changed your mind about ending
Amity
's charter once we've returned to the Cordonale.”

“We cannot,” Rrin-saa said. “We were lied to, Rro-maa. Lied into taking part in an unneedful killing. I have stated the
Amity
experiment is over, and I must maintain that stating.”

Roman nodded. “I understand,” he said. “Certainly, consistency is an important part of policy decisions. I just thought that, given that we now know exactly why
Amity
's space horse breeding program worked, the basis for that decision might have changed.”

Rrin-saa's head tilted briefly to the side. “We do not
know
why the breeding was successful,” he said, a note of firmness to his voice. “We know the presence of humans was necessary; that is all.”

So the Tampy was determined not to give a single millimeter on this. Not that Roman had really expected him to; in their own sedate way, the Tampies could be just as mule-headed as humans. “Well, then,” he told the other, “allow me to explain it to you. It worked because human beings, as you're so fond of pointing out, are predators…and because an accelerated breeding cycle is how space horses respond to the presence of predators.”

“That is not yet proved,” Rrin-saa said.

“Perhaps not to Tampy standards of proof,” Roman countered, “but all the indications are there, and for us those indications are quite adequate. When two hundred space horses are not only willing but actually eager to attack a half dozen of their worst enemies, it's pretty clear that their ecological pattern of defense is to fight back with sheer brute-force weight of numbers. And there's only one way to get brute-force numbers.”

Rrin-saa hesitated, then touched fingers to ear. “You may be correct,” he allowed.

“You know I am,” Roman said. “Whether you'll admit it or not. And that should be disturbing to you…because of all the aspects and patterns of nature which you've thought you understood, space horses have always been right up there near the top.”

“We do not claim all knowledge, Rro-maa,” Rrin-saa said. “We observe; we learn; we understand. Some understandings come swiftly, others only over centuries of study. The Tamplissta will ponder what we have observed, and will learn from it.”

“Good.” Roman flicked his gaze to Sso-ngii, back to Rrin-saa. “Then ponder this, as well, when you settle down to pondering things. You were wrong about space horses; I submit to you that you've been wrong about humanity, as well.”

Rrin-saa gazed back unblinkingly, his head tilting again to the side. “We do not yet understand you fully, Rro-maa. Yet, we understand you better than you perhaps know.”

Roman shook his head. “No,” he said. “You think you do, but you really don't. You've gotten it into your heads that we're nothing more or less than tall, misshapen Tampies who can't or won't see the patterns of nature around us and who you're determined to raise to your level of sensitivity even if it kills us. You've held that picture for twenty years now, and refuse to let it go.”

“You are sentient creatures, Rro-maa,” Rrin-saa said. “You have power over the balances of nature, and thus have responsibilities toward them.”

“I understand what you're saying,” Roman agreed. “And believe it or not, we
do
recognize and accept those responsibilities. But on
our
terms, not yours.” He took a deep breath, feeling the weight of history pressing down on his shoulders. He'd joined the
Amity
in hopes of stopping a war neither side would really win. This was very likely the last chance he, personally, would have of doing that. “You see yourselves as the guardians and preservers of nature, Rrin-saa,” he told the Tampy, speaking slowly and clearly. “You see the patterns and ecosystems, and you fit yourselves into them. Human beings are different. We see those same patterns, but then we mold them to our own needs.”

“You use them,” Rrin-saa corrected, his voice more whiny than usual. “And you then destroy them.”

Roman shook his head. “Use, yes; but destroy, no. Of course there've been exceptions; some of them disastrous. But most of the time we haven't so much
destroyed
the patterns of nature as we've
changed
them. There's a difference, you know.”

“But it is not your right to change them,” Rrin-saa insisted.

“And that's exactly where you've been wrong all these years,” Roman told him. “It
is
our right. It's our right because that's where we fit into the patterns of nature: as beings whose gift is to build and construct and re-combine; to alter the faces of our worlds.” He pointed his finger at Rrin-saa. “And what's more, as beings whose gift is to respect all such natural patterns, it's your responsibility to
allow
us that freedom.”

The Tampies gazed back wordlessly, both with heads tilted sideways at nearly identical angles. Surprised, or deep in thought; Roman wasn't sure which the gesture indicated. “Do you understand what I'm saying?” he prompted.

Slowly, Rrin-saa's head returned to vertical. Pulling himself back together. “I cannot answer you, Rro-maa,” he said. “But I will speak to the Tamplissta. This is a thought that must be pondered by all.”

Roman breathed a quiet sigh of relief. “That's all I ask, Rrin-saa. And while you all ponder, consider this, as well.” Picking up a small glass vial from the desktop, he offered it to Rrin-saa. “Do you have any idea what this is?”

Rrin-saa accepted the vial, peered cross-eyed at its contents. “It appears to be dust,” he said.

“It is indeed,” Roman nodded. “Dust sweat, to be exact, taken from one of the dead sharks out there. Dust sweat which, we believe, contains a complete record of its last few minutes of life. The record of six powerful sharks trying desperately to escape as they're telekened to death by two hundred maddened space horses.”

“Such death is part of the pattern of nature,” Rrin-saa said. “It is not the same as the hunt we were lied into assisting.”

“I don't argue that,” Roman said. “My point is something else entirely. What do you think a shark would do if it Jumped into a new star system and encountered a dust sweat record like that?”

For a long moment Rrin-saa stared at the dust. “I do not know,” he said at last. “I know only that some predators would avoid a place where others had met death; that is all.”

“It's enough,” Roman told him, feeling a warm surge of victory. He'd feared that the Tampies wouldn't recognize the significance of the dust, or would deny it even if they did. But Rrin-saa had clearly chosen to be both honest and as open as Tampies ever were. “Because if the sharks follow that same pattern, then we've found our defense against them—a defense, please note, that doesn't require you to kill the sharks or in any other way interfere with their normal ecological patterns.”

Rrin-saa peered over the vial at him. “Perhaps,” he said. “But only if there were sufficient dust. There is not.”

“No,” Roman agreed, smiling tightly. “But there will be. You see, one of the ways we humans alter our environment is by breaking interesting things like dust sweat down to their component molecules…
and then duplicating them.
We'll be taking four hundred kilograms of the stuff back to the Cordonale with us; in a few weeks we can have tons of it made up, ready to scatter all through your systems.” He nodded at the vial in Rrin-saa's hand. “So take that sample back to the other Tamplissta…and as you ponder the future of your relationship with humanity, consider that perhaps we were set here in space together for the express purpose of assisting each other. Each race complementing the other, each contributing talents and viewpoints the other lacks.”

“We do not wish to be your enemies, Rro-maa,” Rrin-saa said softly. “We never have wished that.”

“I'm glad,” Roman nodded. “We, too, don't wish to be your enemies…but we also can never be your duplicates.”

For perhaps a dozen heartbeats the Tampies sat in silence. Then, shaking abruptly, Rrin-saa rose to his feet. “I will bring your words to the Tamplissta, Rro-maa,” he said. “We will ponder them.”

“That's all I ask,” Roman nodded. “Then I will thank you for coming, and allow you to return to your preparations for departure.”

Sso-ngii rose to stand silently beside Rrin-saa. “Farewell, Rro-maa,” Rrin-saa said, the whiny voice oddly grave as, in unison, both Tampies traced a brief pattern in the air with their hands. “We have learned much aboard
Amity.
We trust you have learned, as well.”

Roman nodded. “We have indeed, Rrin-saa. Farewell.”

They turned to Ferrol, still sitting quietly in his corner, and repeated the hand-waving gesture. Then, without looking back, they left.

Roman looked at Ferrol, feeling himself sag with the release of tension he hadn't realized he was carrying. “I was starting to think that they weren't going to notice you at all,” he commented.

Ferrol shrugged. “I wasn't particularly worried either way. That was a nice speech, Captain—probably the most eloquent I've ever heard actually delivered from memory.”

“Thank you. Let's hope it does some good.”

“It will, if they're honest with themselves,” Ferrol said. “Misjudging their ‘helpless' space horses that badly has got to have done
something
to that smug confidence of theirs. A good reappraisal of assumptions and prejudices ought to send a lot of them to the trash heap.”

For a moment Roman was tempted to point out Ferrol's vast experience with reappraising prejudices. “It was worth a try, anyway,” he said instead.

“Right.” Ferrol hesitated. “So. We'll be leaving for Solomon in a few hours, you said?”

“The
Amity
will,” Roman nodded. “I gather you won't?”

Ferrol blinked. “How did you know?”

“You've been spending a lot of time on the laser to the
Scapa Flow
,” Roman reminded him, “which was at the time hanging around the Tampy ships. When couriers then started popping in and out, it was pretty obvious you were working a deal.”