Larry Niven - Footfall

“Da,” Dmitn said. “At the axis it would be quite safe, like the Podo Thuktun. So?”

“The room is circled by television screens, square and thick, with the same proportions as the Podo Thuktun. I saw our prison, empty, of course. I saw Dawson and one of the newcomers, a redhaired woman, working in the garden. They worked together, but they ignored each other. I saw you, Comrade Rogachev. Heh-hehheh. Very industrious you looked.”

“Go on,” Arvid said,

“There was much on those screens. One showed three of the fithp watching a viewscreen. On the screen they were watching, were scenes of a man and a woman-Comrades, the man had an enormous pecker, and she swallowed it, all of it.”

“What is this?’ Dmitri asked sharply.

“I have told you what I saw,” Nikolai said. “On one viewscreen were three fithp who watched a viewscreen. On that viewscreen was that scene, and others like it.”

“What else did the woman do?” Arvid asked.

“Nonsense,” Dmitri hissed. “What did the fithp do when they saw this?”

“Comrade Colonel, they must have found it interesting, because they rewound the tape and watched it again. Then they spoke among themselves, and spoke into communications equipment.”

“So,” Dmitri said to himself.

“What?” Arvid demanded.

“I do not know why, but I find it disturbing,” Dmitri said. “Did you see who they spoke with?”

“No. Soon that screen was blank. I waited, but there was no more. Then when I was ready to leave, I saw two views of the main control room, and there is a window, so it must be at the fore end. I knew there must be other screens, so I circled through the ducts for another view.” Nikolai’s voice had dropped until he was nearly whispering. Dmitri and Arvid crowded close. They pretended to have difficulty replacing the fastenings for the grill.

“I saw outside. Four screens in a row. Three look at the stars, and the views move back and forth. So does the fourth, but it looks out on black rock. At one end of its swing the screen looks along the hull of Thu ktun Flishithy. The fore end is right up against the rock,

“Do you remember the films they showed us? Thu ktun Flishithy leaving that other star? The nose was up against a kind of ball, pushing it. Now it is against black rock that has been carved like the kind of sculpture the Americans in New York are so fond of, twisted shapes that tell nothing.”

Arvid said, “So they have an asteroid base.”

“But they are pushing it,” Dmitri said. “Can’t you feel it?”

The hum of the drive: he had learned to ignore it, but it was there.”

Pushing it-yes. Where? I cannot think we will like the answer. So, Nikolai, you saw along the hull. Was it smooth, or was there detail?”

“I was lucky. One of the star-views turned to look sideways at an oval hatch. It opened while I watched, and a big metal snake uncoiled. Then the view shifted, and it was a view from the head of the snake, looking at another metal snake as it coiled itself into its own hatch. Then it turned and looked back along the hull. I saw quite a lot before it turned again and looked at nothing but stars. Aft of the ship is a violet-white haze. Ships are mounted along the rim, big ships, but there were many empty mountings.”

“Empty. Good,” Dmitri said. “Perhaps ships we have destroyed.”

“And perhaps ships that remain to attack our world,” Arvid said. “You have done well, Nikolai.”

Women! It has been long…

The Herdmaster paused at the door. More problems awaited him inside. At least I will no longer have the strange views of Fathisteh-tulk to confound me. One of the guards moved to open the door.

Where can he be? He must be dead. A secret corpse, and a key to more terrible secrets. “Thiparteth-fuft!”

“Lead me, Herdmaster.”

“Have the funeral pits searched. I am certain that the Advisor is dead, and I wish to know how he died.”

“At once”

Dead or not, I had no choice. Pastempeh-keph trampled conflicting feelings deep into the muddy substrate of his mind. The Traveler Herd must continue, and without an Advisor no decisions are possible. A replacement was needed. I have found one. Why am I so disturbed?

Siplisteph is a good choice. He has been to Winterhome. He commanded spaceborn, and they accepted his leadership. The sleeper females acclaimed him even though he is not mated. Now he must mate— Pastempeh-keph thought of eligible females. There are so few. Would the sleepers accept a spaceborn mare for the Advisor? That would go far toward uniting the Traveler Herd.

The door opened. Pastempeh-keph moved decisively into the theater. He need not have bothered to compose himself. Siplisteph, Raztupisp-minz, and Fistarteh-thuktun were shoulder to shoulder before the projection wall. They did not look up.

Thiparteth-fuft lifted his snnfp to bellow for attention, but the Herdmaster laid his digits across the guard officer’s forehead. “There is no need. Come, let us see what so fascinates them.”

The equipment had come from Winterhome; the only fithp equipment was a makeshift transformer to mate the human recording machines to Message Bearer’s current.

The Herdfnaster stood behind them. The forward and inward walls were a smooth white curve, a screen that would serve under thrust or spin. Advisor, breaker, and priest were in agitated argument. Their waving digits made shadows on the forward wall, where two humans similarly waved their arms and bellowed, trumpeted, a sound no fi’ could have matched. To fithp ears it seemed a song of rage and distress. Their clothes were thick, layered, a padding against cold. The male waved something small and sharp that glittered.

“At last my digits are whole again,” Raztupisp-minz translated.

“Meaning?” the Herdmaster asked.

The three fithp turned quickly. “Your pardon,” the Breaker said. “I did not hear you enter.”

“No matter. I ask again, what was the meaning of what the human said?”

“None. He was not crippled.” Raztupisp-minz turned back to the screen.

The Ilerdmaster waited. The humans on the screen huddled, conspired, all in that ear-splintering keening voice. “Have you ever heard them speak like that?” the Herdmaster demanded.

“Once. Nikolai, the legless one, spoke like that at length once, but far more softly. They call it singing.”

“What are they building?”

Breaker-One Raztupisp-minz only folded his digits across his scalp.

“The other recordings,” Raztupisp-minz demanded. “Siplisteph, you have brought others.”

Siplisteph only needed a moment to change tapes.

The four humans looked soft and vulnerable without their clothing. Two patches of fur apiece only pointed up their nakedness. Alien music played eerily across fithp nerves. “Mating.” Said Breaker-One, “Odd. I had the idea they sought privacy when they did that. Herdmaster, that isn’t the female’s genital area at all!”

“But that is the male’s.”

“Oh, yes. I’ve never seen it in that state… but of course they usually cover themselves. Does it seem to you that she might harm him accidentally?”

The priest spoke. “Why would they record this? Advisor, where was this found?”

“All tapes came from two sources, a building that displayed 83 of such, and one room of a dwelling. They’re marked. Ah, this came from the dwelling.”