Generated by ABC Amber LIT Converter, http://www.processtext.com/abclit.html *************************************************** Author: Alan Dean Foster Title: Phylogenesis Series: The Founding the Commonwealth Series No: 01 0f 03 Original copyright year: 1999 Genre: Science Fiction Date of e-text: 05/09/2001 Prepared by: Last Revised: / / Revised by: Version: 1.0 Comments: Please correct any errors you find in this e-text, update the txt file’s version number and redistribute. *************************************************** By Alan Dean Foster :Published by Ballantine Books: The Icenggger Trilogy ICERIGGER MISSION TO MOULOKIN THE DELUGE DRIVERS The Adventures of Flinx of the Commonwealth FOR LOVE OF MOTHER-NOT THE TAR-AIYM KRANG ORPHAN STAR THE END OF THE MATTER Generated by ABC Amber LIT Converter, http://www.processtext.com/abclit.html FLINX IN FLUX MID-FLINX BLOODHYPE THE HOWLING STONES The Damned Book One: A CALL TO ARMS Book Two: THE FALSE MIRROR Book Three: THE SPOILS OF WAR THE BLACK HOLE CACHALOT DARK STAR THE METROGNOME and Other Stories MIDWORLD NOR CRYSTALTEARS SENTENCED TO PRISM SPLINTER OF THE MIND'S EYE STAR TREK@ LOGS ONE-TEN VOYAGE TO THE CITY OF THE DEAD WITH FRIENDS LIKE THESE . . ....WHO NEEDS ENEMIES? MAD AMOS PARALLELITIES PHYLOGENESIS DIRGE* * forthcoming Books published by The Ballantine Publishing Group are available at quantity discounts on bulk purchases for premium, educational, fund-raising, and special sales use. For details, please call 1-500-733-3000. *************************************************** Sale of this book without a front cover may be unauthorized. If this book is coverless, it may have been reported to the publisher as "un sold or destroyed" and neither the author nor the publisher may have received payment for it. A Del Rey® Book Published by The Ballantine Publishing Group Copyright © 1999 by Thranx, Inc. All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copy right Conventions. Published in the Generated by ABC Amber LIT Converter, http://www.processtext.com/abclit.html United States by The Ballantine Publishing Group, a division of Random House, Inc., New York, and simultaneously in Canada by Random House of Canada Limited, Toronto. Del Rey is a registered trademark and the Del Rey colophon is a trademark of Random House, Inc. http://www.randomhouse.com Library of Congress Catalog Card Number: 00-190318 ISBN 0-345-41861-1 Manufactured in the United States of America First Hardcover Edition: June 1999 First Mass Market Edition: July 2000 10 9 8 7 6 54 *************************************************** For Michael Goodwin and Robert Teague, First citizens of the Commonwealth. *************************************************** PROLOGUE Chapter One Chapter Two Chapter Three Chapter Four Chapter Five Chapter Six Generated by ABC Amber LIT Converter, http://www.processtext.com/abclit.html Chapter Seven Chapter Eight Chapter Nine Chapter Ten Chapter Eleven Chapter Twelve Chapter Thirteen Chapter Fourteen Chapter Fifteen Chapter Sixteen Chapter Seventeen Chapter Eighteen Chapter Nineteen Chapter Twenty Chapter Twenteone Chapter Twentytwo Appendix Classification Of Planets Galographics The AAnn Empire: The Blight: The Humanx Commonwealth: Commonwealth Chronology *************************************************** PROLOGUE Things have a way of working out, if not always as planned.So it was with the Amalgamation that marked the estab lishment of the sociopolitical organization that came to beknown as the Humanx Commonwealth. Contact having beenestablished and maintained for some sixteen years, it wasassumed by those advising both of the hesitant, uncertainspecies that procession to second-stage contact would takeplace within a predesignated time frame and would involvethe implementation of carefully considered procedures, intri cately designed programs, and closely scrutinized agendas. That it did not happen this way was no fault of thosecharged with implementing the voluminously compiled andmutually agreed-upon contact strategy. All those involved,thranx and human alike, had done their work conscientiously and well. It was simply that, as history shows, there are timeswhen events do Generated by ABC Amber LIT Converter, http://www.processtext.com/abclit.html not occur as planned. Physics included, theuniverse is not a perfectly predictable place. Action super- cedes fabrication. Stars that are not supposed to go nova for a billion years do. Flowers that are expected to blossom die. Anticipated ambassadors did not have the opportunityto exchange formal greetings. Innumerable carefully drawncovenants withered for lack of execution, made superflu ous by unexpected realities. Formal protocols were renderedextraneous. Thus are the ways of virtuous diplomacy foullyambushed. Chance chose a poet as its champion, while coarse circumstance on its behalf conscripted a murderer. Chapter One No one saw the attack coming. Probably someone, or sev eral someones, ought to have been blamed. Certainly therewas a convulsion of recriminations afterward. But since it isan unarguable fact that it is hard to apportion blame—or even to assign it—for something that is without precedent, nascentcalls for castigation of those responsible withered for lack ofsuitable subjects. Those who felt, rightly or wrongly, that theybore a share of the responsibility for what happened punishedthemselves far more severely than any traditional queen'scourt or council of peers would have. For more than a hundred years, ever since there had beencontact between AAnn and thranx, animosity had festeredbetween the two species. Given such a fertile ground and suf ficiency of time, mutual enmity had evolved to take manyforms. Manifesting themselves on a regular basis that var ied greatly in degree, these were usually propagated by theAAnn. While a constant source of vexation to the ever-reasonable thranx, these provocations rarely exceeded thebounds of irritation. The AAnn would probe and threaten, ad vance and connive, until the thranx had had enough and werecompelled to react. When forcefully confronted, the AAnn would invariably pull back, give ground, retreat. The spiral arm that was shared by both heat-loving, oxygen-breathingspecies was big enough and rich enough in stars so that direct conflict, unless actively sought, could be avoided. Habitable worlds, however, were scarcer. Where one ofthese was involved positions hardened, accusations flewmore sharply, meticulously worded phrases tended to biterather than soothe. Even so, the swift exchange of space-minus communications was always sufficient to dampen apotentially explosive confrontation. Until Willow-Wane. UntilPaszex. Worvendapur bent his head and reached up with a truhand toclean his left eye. Out on the edge of the forest the windtended to kick up dust. Lowering the transparent, protective shield over his face, he reflexively extended his antennaethrough the slots provided for that purpose and moved on,striding forward on all six legs. Occasionally he would archhis back and advance only on his four trulegs, not becausehe needed the additional manipulative capacity his versatilefoothands could provide, but because it raised his body to itsmaximum standing height of slightly over a meter and a half and enabled him to see over the meter-high, lavender-tintedgrass that comprised much of the surrounding vegetation. Something quick and chittering scuttled through the sedgeclose to his right. Using the truhand and foothand on that sideof his thorax, he drew the rifle that was slung across his backand aimed it at the source of the noise, tensing in readi ness. The muzzle of the weapon came up sharply as half adozen !ccoerk burst from the meadow. Letting out a whistleof fourth-degree relief, he let a digit slip from the trigger andreholstered the gun. Their plump brown bodies shot through with purplestreaks, the flock of feathered !ccoerk fluttered Generated by ABC Amber LIT Converter, http://www.processtext.com/abclit.html toward thesatin-surfaced lake, cooing like plastic batons that had beencharged with static electricity. Beneath a feathered, concavebelly one trailed an egg sac nearly as big as herself. Idly, Wor vendapur found himself wondering if the eggs were edible. While Willow-Wane had been settled for more than two hundred years, development had been slow and gradual, inthe conservative, measured manner of the thranx. Coloniza tion had also been largely confined to the continents of thenorthern hemisphere. The south was still a vast, mostly un known wilderness, a raw if accommodating frontier wherenew discoveries were constantly being made and one never knew what small marvel might be encountered beneath thenext hill. Hence his rifle. While Willow-Wane was no Trix, a worldthat swarmed with dynamic, carnivorous life-forms, it wasstill home to an intimidating assortment of energetic native predators. A settler had to watch his steps, especially in thewild, uncivilized south. Tall, flexible bluesylux fringed the shore of the lake, animpressive body of fresh water that dominated the landscapefor a considerable distance to the north. Its tepid, prolificexpanse separated the rain forest, beneath which the settle ment had been established, from inhospitable desert thatdropped southward from the equator. Founded forty yearsago, the burgeoning, thriving colony hive of Paszex was al ready sponsoring outlying satellite communities. Worvendapur's family, the Ven, was prominent in one of these, theagri town of Pasjenji. While rain forest drip was adequate to supply the settle ment's present water needs, plans for future growth and ex pansion demanded a larger and more reliable supply. Ratherthan going to the trouble and expense of building a reservoir,the obvious suggestion had been made that the settlementtap the ample natural resource of the lake. As the possessor ofa subspecialty in hydrology, Wor had been sent out to scoutsuitable treatment and pipeline sites. Ideally, he would findone as close to the lake as possible that was also geologicallystable and capable of supporting the necessary engineeringinfrastructure, from pumping station to filtration plant tofeeder lines. He had been out in the field for more than a week now,taking and analyzing soundings, confirming aerial surveys,evaluating potential locations for the treatment plant andtransmission routes for the water it would eventually supply.Like any thranx, he missed the conviviality of the hive, the press and sound and smell of his kind. Regrettably, anotherweek of solitary stretched out before him. The local faunahelped to divert his thoughts from his isolation. He relishedthese always educational, sometimes engaging diversions, so long as one of them did not rise up and bite off his leg. Seismic soundings could have been made from the air, orby a mechanical remote, but for something as critical to thecommunity's future as a water facility it was felt that on-site inspection and evaluation by a specialist was required. Worcould hardly disagree. If it proved feasible, this same lakewater would be used to slake the thirst of his own offspring.When the spouts opened inside the hive, he wanted their flow to come from a station that would not be subject to incessantbreakdowns or microbial contamination. Unlimbering his pack, he used all four hands to removeand set up the sounder. At the touch of a switch, its six slim,mechanical legs snapped into place. Setting the instrumentdown on the ground, he adjusted the controls until he wasconfident it was stationed in a precise and sturdy manner onthe slightly boggy surface. Compared to many of the water logged sites he had already visited and evaluated, the pres ent location looked promising. It would not do to situate awater treatment plant on sodden, potentially temperamentalground. Activating the sounder, he stepped back and let his com poundgaze wander to a formation ofgentre!!m gliding pastoverhead. A widespread native species familiar from numer ous encounters in the long-settled north, they were migratingto the southern rain forests to escape the onset of the north ern wet season and Generated by ABC Amber LIT Converter, http://www.processtext.com/abclit.html its accompanying monsoon rains. Theirtranslucent, membranous wings shimmered in the haze-heavy sunshine of midday. Long, flexible snouts inflated and col lapsed as individuals called tumescently to one another. The sounder beeped softly, signifying the completion of the survey. While he had watched the wildlife soar past to vanish beyond the far horizon of the lake, the sounder hadtaken a sonic scan of the immediate vicinity to a depth ofmore than a hundred meters. From a study of such scansas well as a mass of other accumulating data, Worvendapurand his colleagues would choose a site for the filtration and pumping station. While there was no need for him to perform an in-depthanalysis of the actual readings in the field, he was always cu rious to see the unit's findings. Even more so than the averagethranx, he was intensely interested in what the earth beneathhis feet was like because he might have to live in it someday. The initial readouts that flashed on the screen were promisingand devoid of surprise. As it had proven to be in every pre vious reading, the ground on which he stood was composedprimarily of sedimentary rock, with the occasional ancientigneous intrusion from a time when local tectonics weremore active. Though the area, and for that matter the groundin which Paszex itself was located, was riddled with faults,they appeared to be long quiescent and of no especial concern. He dipped his head lower. Having only a transparent, nicti tating membrane in place of opaque eyelids, he could notsquint, but his antennae dipped forward until the tips were al most brushing the screen. The sounder was reporting ananomaly, virtually beneath his feet. A very peculiar anomaly. It was so peculiar that he considered returning to the air-car and reporting what he had found. But while reliable,sounders were not perfect. No instrument was. And neitherwere those individuals charged with their operation. If hecalled in his concern and it turned out to be baseless, hewould come off looking more than a little foolish in the eyesof his peers. Thranx humor could be as sharp as a youngdancer's ovipositors. Uncertain how best to proceed, he car ried the sounder toward the lake, repositioned it, and rana second scan. This time, instead of studying the wildlife, he waited impatiently for the compact device to completeits work. The second scan, run from a different site, confirmed thereadings of its predecessor. Worvendapur pondered long andhard. The unusual results he was getting could be due to a me chanical fault in the instrumentation, a consistent error inthe analysis program, a simple imperfection in the readoutsystem or screen itself, or any one of half a hundred otherpossible reasons—any one of which would make more sense than what he believed the instrument was telling him. Breathing evenly through his spicules, he ran a detailed in ternal check on the sounder's systems. As near as he could tellwithout taking it apart, something he was not qualified to do,the device was working perfectly. He then examined himself,and decided that he was working perfectly as well. Very well then. He would leave it to a committee to debate and settle onan interpretation of his inexplicable findings. But he wouldnot rely on one reading, or even two. Moving the sounderagain, he set about making the third of several dozen sound ings of the immediate area, unaware that he was not doing so in isolation. His actions were being observed and subjected to the samekind of rigorous analysis that he was applying to the ground beneath his feet. The eyes that watched him were not com pound, nor did they belong to representatives of the indigenouswildlife. "What is he doing?" Clad in color-shifting, pattern-changing camouflage garb, the AAnn advance scout wasvirtually invisible where she stood crouching within the wallof weaving lakeside sylux. Together with her companion, shewatched the blue-carapaced intruder shift his six-legged de vice, wait, then move it Generated by ABC Amber LIT Converter, http://www.processtext.com/abclit.html again. "I enjoy no personal familiarity with thranx scientific mecha nisms," the other scout confessed. "Perhaps he is taking weatherreadings." The slightly larger of the two females gestured third-degree dissent and followed it with a hand movement indi cating second-level impatience. "Why send a lone technicianout here with a single small device to analyze the weather?Orbiters are far more efficient." "That is so," her companion conceded testily. "I was simplytrying to suggest possibilities in the absence of information." The concealed reptilian visage peered through the grace fully swaying, dark blue stems. Their constant motion madedetailed observation difficult. Furthermore, it was far toohumid out here on the surface for her liking. While the thranx thrived in rain forest surroundings—the steamier the better—the AAnn were most comfortable breathing air that was starvedof moisture. "It takes readings of its surroundings. Sowe will take read ings of it taking readings." Removing a small, tubular device from her belt, she activated it and aimed the shiny, reflectiveend at the thranx. It was a bit of a gamble, but so preoccupiedwas the settler with his own work that he did not notice theoccasional brief, transitory light flashing from among thedense, oscillating stand of sylux. The results confirmed the worst fears of both scouts. "He is making subsurface sonic readings." Her companion was properly alarmed. "That cannot bepermitted!" "Correction," her superior gestured. "The taking of readingscan be allowed. What must be prevented is the reporting ofthose readings to his peers." "Look!" Heedless of the fact that her sudden movement might reveal their position in spite of the camouflage gear,the other scout straightened and pointed. The thranx was folding up his equipment. Turning, hestarted resolutely back through the grass, making a straightline for his waiting transportation. Keeping low, their suitsshifting pattern and hue to match grass instead of sylux, thetwo scouts followed, steadily closing the distance betweenthemselves and the visitor. As they stalked him, they debatedhow best to proceed. "We should call this in," the smaller female decided. "Cannot. By the time the seriousness of the situation isrealized and a decision handed down, the intruder will begone and it will be too late to halt the dissemination of the information he has gathered. A broken tooth must be fileddown before it can spread infection." "I dislike making a decision of such gravity without au thority from above." "So do I," her larger companion agreed, "but that is whyyou and I are here, and most everyone else is not." The second scout straightened to her full height, her scaly tail switching nervously back and forth. "He is Generated by ABC Amber LIT Converter, http://www.processtext.com/abclit.html nearly to hisvehicle." "I can see that," hissed her colleague. "The time in which to debate how best to resolve this matter has passed." Pow erful legs pumping, she broke into a sprint. Worvendapur opened the storage compartment and care fully slid the folded sounder inside, making sure that thecover sealed tightly before turning and heading for the board ing ramp. He would call a meeting of his work group as soonas he returned to Paszex. The information contained in thesounder was of sufficient import to justify an emergencysession. Even as he began mentally rehearsing his presenta tion, he fervently hoped that some mechanical glitch, someother explanation he had overlooked, was responsible for thecontroversial readings, and that he was not seeing what hethought the sounder was seeing. In light of the potential explosiveness of that informationhe knew he ought to be more alert, but the peaceful, bucolicsurroundings lulled him. Besides, in a minute or two he wouldbe on his way back to the settlement, traveling at high speed just above the tops of the grass. There was nothing to worry about. Even when he glimpsed movement out of the side ofone eye he felt no especial concern. Then he saw the glint of light on something of artificial manufacture, and knew that what was approaching was atonce larger and more lethal than anything he had encounteredsince commencing his survey. Truhand and foothand reached down and back, all eightdigits clutching at the rifle. Before it was halfway clear ofits holster, a shaped sonic pulse struck the upper portion ofWorvendapur's abdomen, stunning his nervous system and punching a hole in his blue-green exoskeleton. The force ofthe impact lifted him off the ground and threw him sidewaysagainst the idling aircar. Still trying to draw his weapon, heslammed off the gleaming, scored fuselage and collapsed tothe ground. As he finally managed to withdraw the rifle, a heavy sandaledfoot came down on his truhand. Several of the delicate ma nipulative digits crumpled under the weight, but the woundedhydrologist was beyond feeling the pain. Despite the strongbracing of his chitinous internal structure, his insides werestarting to leak out through the hole that had appeared just be neath his upper set of vestigial wing cases. Consciousness and sight fading in tandem, he looked up tosee a pair of homicidally alert eyes staring down at him. Thenthe piece of sky that framed the eyes shifted and he was ableto discern the smooth outline of the skull, clad in camouflage suiting that was struggling to simulate a cloud. A second pairof eyes hovered nearby, glaring at him from behind a fluidmask of falsified brush. Words passed between the two fig ures. No linguist, Wor understood none of what they weresaying in their clipped, sharp tones. He kept trying to reachhis rifle with his foothand alone. "What do we do now?" the smaller of the two assassinswondered aloud. "Take it in?" "Of what use is a corpse?" Removing her foot from thethranx's crushed truhand, the scout nudged the gaping, bleed ing abdominal wound with the tip of her weapon. The help less researcher cried out softly beneath her. "The shot was alethal one." Moving the muzzle forward, she placed it againstthe side of the blue-green, valentine-shaped head. Her ex pression did not change as she pulled the trigger. The skull jerked once, twin antennae twitched violently, and then thebody lay still. As the two scouts deliberated how best to pro ceed, the bands of red and gold that shone from the com pound eyes of their victim gradually began to take on theblank brown tint of lifelessness. The scouts were stolid but apprehensive when they werecalled before the tripartite board of inquiry. Generated by ABC Amber LIT Converter, http://www.processtext.com/abclit.html Following theconclusion of the usual terse formalities, questions were put to the female pair by their superiors, to which answers wereunhesitatingly given. "We felt we had no choice," the senior scout explained yet again. "The thranx was about to depart." "We had to act," added her comrade by way of support. The senior officer present scratched at an itch behind hishead. His neck scales were dulled with age, and he was longoverdue to shed and replace his skin. But his eyes were stillbright, his mind sharp. "You did the only thing you could." He emphasized hisconclusion with a gesture indicative of second-degree con viction. "If the field researcher had returned to his settlementwith the information he had gathered, our solitude would im mediately have been compromised. That revelation must be prevented until our presence here is militarily secure." "Then we were correct in our assumptions about his activi ties?" the senior scout inquired. A junior officer gesticulated assent. "The information con tained in the alien field instrumentation you recovered wasextracted. It was substantially as damaging as you feared." "The situation is to be regretted," added the third presidingofficer, "but had you not acted as you did it would be muchworse. That was quick thinking of you to place the body in theaircar, program it to retrace its course, and self-destruct afterit had traveled a specified distance." He looked at his col leagues. "With luck, the locals will make the assumption thattheir researcher died as the result of a mechanical failure onthe part of his equipment." The senior officer gestured affirmatively. "These thranxare simple settlers. They are not sophisticated visitors fromHivehom. Our report will reflect these considerations." Slittedeyes met those of the two scouts who continued to standstiffly at attention, their tails held motionless and straightout behind them. "It is fortunate you were in a position to ef fect this nullification. Appropriate commendations will be forthcoming." The two scouts, who had entered the inquiry desiring simplyto avoid condemnation for having precipitated the fatal con frontation, were silently overjoyed. The hopes of their superiors, however, and of their supe riors' superiors, were not to be fulfilled. Contrary to theiroverly sanguine predictions, the local thranx proved not tobe as unresponsive as would have been wished. Puzzled bythe circumstances in which the competent, well-liked hy-drologist had perished, a pair of auditors was sent out fromPaszex with orders to retrace the path of the deceased. Whentheyfailed to return, a larger search party was empow ered. Following its equally inexplicable disappearance, thesettlers requested and not long thereafter received an officialcommission of inquiry from the long-established northerngovernment. Covering the same conspicuously murderous ground asthe thranx who had gone before them, they rediscovered whatthe by now long-demised Worvendapur had threatened toexpose. In the ensuing violent confrontation, most of theheavily armed force was wiped out. But this time, the AAnncould not kill them all. Their retreat and flight covered bytheir rapidly falling comrades, a small contingent of thranx succeeded in reaching the settlement to report not only what they had found, but what had taken place subsequent to theirdiscovery. With serious escalation now appearing to be the onlychoice left to them, the AAnn proceeded to track