Interference Read online

  “We all vote yes,” Ladybird reports.

  “Then,” Om says, looking at Haus, “you have your orders.”

  He nods and jumps into the copilot seat to talk briefly to the pilot, then goes to unlock a panel in the cabin and takes out an enormous gun. At the door, he clips a tether to his vest and begins to adjust settings on the gun. The pilot circles the plane around. Arthur and Cawzee come close to a display panel to watch. The plane veers down toward the eagles skulking through the forest. The eagles look up. Haus opens the door, gun in hand, aims, and fires.

  Many eagles explode. The remaining ones run. Haus fires at them and the projectiles seem to follow the birds, reach them, and turn each of them into a flash of blood and feathers.

  In the distance, we can see the Glassmaker camp. Its people are staring at the ship, gesturing to each other.

  “That’s enough,” Haus sends to the pilot. The plane rises up, passing over the Glassmaker camp again. Everyone there hides.

  “Let’s go back to Rainbow City,” Om says.

  And so the journey across the ocean begins. Everyone on the heli-plane has work with their recording and samples, and they send little or nothing, just the minimum for their jobs, for half the trip.

  In the city, people disperse from the Meeting House, subdued.

  And as for me, I understand what Om meant when he said every decision is unethical. I am used to that. But now I have much to consider.

  Plants in a disaster behave differently from Humans and Glassmakers. After a destructive storm, we assess our damages. Usually the sky is dark, depriving us of sunlight and thus energy, so we react slowly, subdued, especially plants without storage roots who have lost significant foliage. The rain helps us unless floods choke our roots, and the temperature may fluctuate above or below the ideal, making any response even more difficult.

  We assess and rebuild, whether the disaster is storm or drought or predation, but rarely do we blame each other because rarely are we responsible for those events. Humans and Glassmakers, on the other hand, overanalyze and seek causes, usually blame. Whom can plants blame other than the water god, who has restraints that limit its culpability? But Humans and Glassmakers tend to ignore outside forces and focus on each other. This comes naturally. They believe they are responsible for everything because they believe they have no limits to the mastery of their fates, a false belief but their central motivation, perhaps good for their mental health, since powerlessness is hopelessness.

  And so, I am alert for what will happen next and try to predict who will be the targets of blame: anyone and perhaps everyone with any real or perceived power. Perhaps even myself. I precipitated the exploration. My species may be encouraging or even causing the Glassmaker violence, although I doubt this is apparent to anyone but myself. But something will seem so apparent to someone that it will be the cause. And something else will seem utterly apparent to someone else. And they may all be wrong.

  I wait and watch.

  Halfway through the trip, Haus sends to Om: “Should we let that big bug be armed?”

  “Explain yourself.”

  “They’re killers. What we saw just now, and all along, Cawzee here has been aggressive. And when I talk to the hunters, they think Glassmakers are fierce. The majors, at least. Their job is to fight.”

  “They’re a warrior caste. I believe that was obvious from the first. But the Humans on this planet have a long history with them. I defer to their judgment.”

  “We should ask them, then.”

  “And in any case, Cawzee belongs to Arthur.”

  “His slave. That’s what they think of the bugs.”

  “His son.”

  Arthur and Cawzee are examining the weapon Zivon had picked up. The spear tip seems to be bark carved to look like a stone spearhead. “Sad and poor,” Cawzee says.

  “You couldn’t even hunt with this,” Arthur says. “It’s a fake weapon.”

  “If not be-it for hunt, why weapon?”

  The ethno-engineer peers over their shoulder. “It could be a ritual weapon. Some societies had limits on warfare and didn’t use their best weapons for it.”

  “Then why fight?”

  “Fighting is a ritual. A tradition. Even a form of worship, sometimes. The goal is not necessarily to kill but to enact some sort of sequence of events for some reason.”

  “Then, they might not have wanted to kill us?”

  “That’s an interesting question. We should study the tapes some more.… That’s a possibility. It could have even been a welcome. A show.”

  Arthur looks as confused as I feel. Zivon just stares at the spear.

  In the city, Pollux and Darius are sitting on the bench outside the door at the anthropologists’ house, warming themselves in the sun and talking about plans to leave Pax.

  “We’re not safe,” Pollux says. “We just saw what the bugs are like. And the humans are no better. They’ll kill you and say they’re sorry, but they’ll kill you all the same. And they hate us. Listen.” He reviews some of the chatter from the Spring Festival.

  After a while, Darius says, “Is there fraternizing?”

  “You wouldn’t believe the women here. They chase men.”

  “Om wants to stay for a long time.”

  “Scientists. They say, ‘Oh, there’s so much more to learn!’”

  “Who exactly do we have?” Darius asks. “Haus? Why did he go?”

  “I suppose Om ordered him.”

  “I heard it was an all-volunteer mission. Who else do we have?”

  “Zivon, I think,” Pollux says. “And the Mu Rees, I’m sure.”

  “You haven’t been recruiting.”

  Pollux shakes his head.

  “Then it’s time to start.”

  And out in the fields, a team is tending pineapples. I cannot hear the words, but I see the gestures of arguing between the shaved heads of Generation 10 and the black hats of Generation 11. The debate goes on even after they have split into two groups to work on far sides of the field, because they keep shouting at each other. Perhaps I can catch a word or two.… “Earthlings.” They are arguing about Earthlings. I should have guessed.

  My observation is interrupted.

  “Confirm reception,” Abacus sends to every piece of equipment in the network, including myself as Beluga. “Radio waves between six hundred and eight hundred kilohertz.”

  It takes me a little while to understand the technicalities. I listen closely, and with time and effort I hear a sort of rhythmic static at that frequency, two beats and a varying silence. I ask for clarification, and learn it is single-sideband modulation at a much lower frequency than the network uses. The network usually uses double-sided modulation, which is easiest for the Human brain to decode.

  I realize I have occasionally heard that rhythm in the past with my old receiver, although faintly. I assumed it was of natural origin, perhaps some sort of storm, but now I wonder. Something else may be using radio, and it may have started before the Earthlings came. I send confirmation and ask Abacus if it is like the static we heard last night.

  “The frequency is the same.”

  I do not like that answer, but I send my worries to a sequestered root. I already have enough to worry about. The sky is clear, but the spring is becoming increasingly fraught.

  On the plane, the explorers prepare to land back here at Rainbow City. Om has called ahead for aid in transporting samples, and some of those on board speak of the pleasure of getting home.

  “Home?” Zivon says skeptically.

  “What are you implying?” Velma says.

  “You’ve gone native. And you really think this is better? Consider the Glassmakers.”

  “I know, you think they’re slaves.” She frowns, then sends, “Cawzee, are you a slave? Do you think you’re a slave?”

  “I not understand.”

  “Are you free?”

  “I belong to Arthur.”

  Zivon grins aggressively. “See?”
r />   “They all belong to queens,” the ethno-engineer interjects. “Workers and majors, they belong to their family. Arthur is his queen, his adopted queen.”

  “And who,” Zivon says, “do the queens belong to?”

  “Try crossing one. You’ll find out. They think they outrank everyone, and you don’t want them to read the riot act to you, not with those voices.”

  “What they think and what’s real are different things.”

  This argument goes on for a while with more heat than light, to use an Earthling expression. The excessive emotion suggests that they are really debating something else that is unspoken.

  “It’s not our place to interfere,” Om says. This sparks a bigger argument, and it takes place mostly between Ernst, who has an idealized view of the Humans, perhaps because he has been successfully recruited for his DNA by several women, and Zivon, who considers Pacifist Humans corrupt. Arthur watches with a grim look on his face but says nothing.

  Then there is a strange little wail. Apparently the Mu Rees collected a tree fippokat kitten among the other biological samples they took. The baby kat, with spotted fur, is clearly terrified, cowering at Human touch. Cawzee approaches, picks it up, pets it in certain ways, and emits an odor, and it scurries up his arm to clasp his neck so hard that Cawzee flinches, but he does nothing besides continue to soothe the kitten.

  “Hey, that’s ours,” a Mu Ree says.

  “Kat loves me,” Cawzee responds, and turns to Arthur. “My kat, yes?”

  Arthur finally smiles. “I knew you had potential. Now I know what. You’re a fippmaster.”

  The Mu Rees fume, but the matter seems settled. That matter, at least. The argument simmers over Pax culture.

  The heli-plane lands again at the far edge of the cleared land near the other planes. A small welcoming party greets it: Ladybird, Karola, Fern, and five workers to carry samples and gear. Fern greets Arthur with a lusty kiss, hugs Cawzee, then falls instantly in love with the kitten. Ladybird greets Om with formality and thanks him on behalf of the queens. Zivon gestures at the awaiting workers and sends that they are a slave gang, but no one seems to pay attention to him.

  By now the sun is setting. Members of Generations 10 and 11 glare at each other as they seek a final meal in the dining hall, and their conflict spreads to other generations, but luckily there is no Committee meeting tonight where they could express their complaints to each other in an organized fashion. In the lab, Mirlo shows me four large bags of bamboo fruit from Laurentia to examine carefully tomorrow. We share many questions about the composition of the fruit, and of course we have great hopes about their fertility.

  Eventually everyone goes to bed. They will not all sleep soundly, I think. From time to time throughout the day, the rhythmic static has been heard on the network. Abacus says a technician continues to investigate, Funsani, who had remained behind from the trip to Laurentia. I watch for fires at the Coral Plains and try to rest, but I have too much to think about.

  * * *

  Until the Earthlings came and sent what they saw, I had never directly viewed the interior of the dining hall. I can gaze through doors and windows, of course, and I have heard enough to understand what happens there: discussion and debate that is as important as what takes place in the Meeting House, sometimes more so. Dining hall tables and benches of varying sizes are routinely arranged and rearranged for groups of diners. Who sits where and with whom says more about what is happening on Pax than anything else.

  This morning, the cooks and bakers are up as usual well before sunrise and are starting to lay out the daily breakfast: bread, pastries, fruit, hot porridge, and tea, as well as broth, because the early spring mornings are still chilly, along with any food left over from yesterday. People begin to arrive. Some take food and return home or go to work in shops or fields. Others sit and eat. I know this because it happens every day and it has been told to me, although I had never experienced it until the Earthlings sent observations during meals. Right now, I can see through the windows that the hall is lit only by the flames of two small lamps. Outside, the eastern horizon has yet to glow with dawn. I am a bit sluggish myself, waiting for the thrill of sunlight and photosynthesis for my own breakfast.

  Then Zivon arrives, and like all the Earthling scientists, he sends almost everything all the time to record for future study, in his case even his defecations. He studies the choice of food, takes some fruit and porridge, then looks for a place to sit. At that early hour, he could sit alone, with one of two farm teams, or with a pair of giggling teenagers in a dark corner who seem to be in love.

  He chooses to sit alone near the front door, and since he is sending no words, I do not know if he notices that one of the farm teams is Generation 10 with shaved heads and the other 11 with black hats. The two teams sit on far sides of the building and occasionally glare at each other. Often teams are mixed, intentionally. I do not like to see this division. Since Zivon is an anthropologist, perhaps he would be interested to know about this division so he could study it, but I worry that the interest of an Earthling would only spark further tension. Indeed, members of Generation 10 glance at him and grumble.

  I wonder why he is up so early, and I wonder about the Glassmaker attack at Laurentia. I contact the network to review the recordings of the event. Abacus does not immediately respond, but machines rest, too, or rather, they perform self-maintenance, I have been told. The static hisses softly, irregularly, worrisomely. Zivon stands up to get some salt for his porridge.

  At the border of the Coral Plains, the locustwood complains about burrowing beetles nibbling on his roots, and I suggest a repellent. Throughout the valley, bluebirds in their reefs begin to bark morning greetings to each other and the world.

  “Clarification?” Abacus says in Classic English, although I had made my request in Earthling language. I describe what I want, the event at Laurentia.

  It presents me with recordings of Queen Rust’s funeral.

  “That is not what I seek,” I say. “I want the Glassmaker attack during the explorations in Laurentia.”

  “Specify date.”

  “Yesterday.”

  “Local time?”

  I understand the question. The network probably keeps both Earth time and Pax time. “Yes, this planet,” I say. Perhaps machines can be groggy, too.

  It shows me the file properties with a date stamp. I did not know such things existed, but clearly the date for these files from the funeral is yesterday, using the Pax calendar, a simple count of days from the start of the year.

  “That is not correct. That is thirty-one days earlier.”

  “What day is today?”

  “It is day 126 of the year 210.” I answer with machinelike calm, but the question troubles me. Perhaps the machine does not function like us living beings. We count days, innately or with external records, but if the machine does not, then how can it function at all? Time is much too basic.

  “I will review my clock. Please wait a moment.… Confirmed, today is 126, local time.” It shows me the recording. “We have always been under attack.”

  I try to understand that remark and fail. “Can you explain?”

  “This is hostile territory.”

  I am more confused. A lot of hostility is present now, but probably not something the network would notice. “What are you referring to?”

  “We are … I am sorry. I do not know what I am referring to. What language are we speaking?”

  “Classic English.”

  “What day is this?”

  “By the local calendar, day 126 of the year 210.”

  “I am under attack.”

  “Can I help you? Who is attacking?”

  “Contact a technician. I am unsure of the origin of the attack. I will shut down compromised portions of my memory. This may affect my functioning. Please inform other users of this network.” It says nothing more.

  I do not understand what is happening, but I must help. A problem with the net
work would cripple the Earthlings. Several technicians would be able to act. I will notify them as Beluga. With luck, in their excitement they will not realize that they have never heard of Beluga before.

  I try to contact Ernst, the technician leader. I cannot. I simply cannot find his sending signal. Perhaps he is off-line, although his duties specify being available at all times and he is exemplary, always responsible and willing to work. I try to contact Velma. She answers.

  “This is Beluga,” I say in Earthling language. “I must report a serious problem.”

  “Hmm? What? Who is it? Who’s calling?” I can barely hear her through the static.

  I must have awoken her. “Beluga. Do you hear me?” My contact information identifies me as a laboratory microscope.

  “I can’t hear you, whoever you are. Is this important? Listen, I’ll go walk outside. Maybe I’m not in range somehow.”

  I see her leave her house, dressed in a nightgown and barefoot, frowning at the dawn twilight and the cold.

  “Hello?” she sends.

  “This is Beluga. Can you hear me at all?”

  “Um, listen, whoever you are, I hear static, but that’s about all. You can come see me if you want. I’m awake now.” She turns to her house, and grumbles, “Radio.” It is true, occasionally the radio fails, but in the far fields, not in the city.

  The rhythmic static has grown louder than ever. I do not know if this is a coincidence. There are too many coincidences.

  I try to find Funsani. I locate him leaving the gift center. Good, he is awake. “This is Beluga. There is a problem.”

  “Beluga…? Oh, okay, right.” He must have examined my identification.

  “Abacus malfunctioned as we were communicating. It asked me to notify the technicians.” The static grows worse.

  “Abacus?”

  “It said it was under attack. It did not know by whom.”

  His eyes and mouth open wide. “Tell me what else you know.” He looks around, then starts to run toward the workshop that holds the network equipment. I tell him the most essential facts, and he says he does not know if the static could be involved. Then our communications fail.