Manta's Gift

TWENTY-FIVE

The Brolka spooked as Manta eased up alongside it, scattering fomprur in all directions with its fins as it darted away. It jerked again as Pranlo suddenly appeared in front of it, twisting into a rightangle turn to duck away from him. Straight toward Drusni; but even as she lunged forward to intercept, the Brolka made another twisting turn that ending up with it pointed toward open air.

Another splash of fomprur, and it was off and running.

Manta muttered a curse under his breath. So much for that approach.

"Nimble little guys, aren't they?" Pranlo commented, watching the Brolka disappearing in the distance as he swam up beside Manta. "You sure we need to catch one of them?"

"I'm not sure of anything," Manta growled, feeling disgusted with the whole thing. "I just thought it might be useful to see one up close."

"What for?" Drusni asked as she coasted up to join them. "I mean, I'm sure it's for something useful," she added hastily. "I just don't understand exactly what."

"Don't worry about hurting my feelings," Manta assured her with a sigh. "I don't even know if any of this is useful anymore. As far as I can tell, all we've been doing for the last nineday is treading wind and chewing air."

"Then why exactly are we doing it?" she asked reasonably.

"Because I'm out of ideas," Manta confessed.

"That was fast," Pranlo murmured. "A whole nineday, and we're giving up already?"

Manta flipped his tails helplessly. "I warned you," he reminded them, a cloud of depression starting to blow across his feelings. What in the world had he been thinking, agreeing to tackle this problem?

"I told you this wasn't my area of expertise."

"Well, area of expertise or not, we're not giving up," Drusni insisted. "I still have faith in you."

"So does Latranesto," Manta muttered.

"Yes, but I have more," Drusni said. "Because I know you better than he does. And because I've seen you in action."

Manta winced. "With the probe?"

"That too," she said calmly. "But I was thinking more about that time we spotted that Sivra pack riding on a Vuuka."

Manta flicked his tails. "I don't remember being particularly clever with that one."

"You weren't exactly stupid, though," Drusni said. "You recognized the danger, even though Sivra normally couldn't get up to Level One. And you quickly took strokes to solve it: You sent me for the Protectors, and you kept attacking the Sivra so they couldn't get a solid grip on the Breeder they were attacking."

She touched his fin. "But mostly I was thinking about the fact that you didn't give up and quit until the Protectors arrived. And you're not going to give up now."

Manta shrugged his fins. "I'm not so sure."

"I am," Drusni said firmly. "You don't give up, and you're smarter than you think. That's a good combination. So just relax and let it happen, okay?"

Manta grimaced. Relax. With his life, Pranlo's and Drusni's lives, and the future of the entire Qanskan people balanced across his back. Relax.

"Let's try going over what we already know," Pranlo suggested. "Maybe you'll see something you hadn't noticed before."

Manta flipped his tails. Sure, why not? "Fine," he said. "Okay. The plants and animals start dying out, certain ones first, a list of which is available if we think it'll do us any good."

"And it starts in Centerline," Drusni added.

"Right," Pranlo said. "Now, what's different about Centerline?"

"It's not as warm as the southern regions," Drusni offered. "Did we decide it's darker at sundark, too?"

"Yes," Manta confirmed. "I made some observations back near Centerline while I was waiting for Pranlo to bring you to see me."

"Right," Pranlo said. "And you said that was because...?"

"Because of extra radiation in the outer regions," Manta said. "I don't know why that would be, though I seem to remember that the magnetic field gets stronger as you head toward the poles. That could have something to do with it."

"Whatever all that means," Pranlo said. "You sure you're not just making up all these words to impress us?"

"You're not the ones I have to impress," Manta reminded him dryly.

"Right," Pranlo said, just as dryly. Then he sobered. "You know, though, that might be something to consider if it comes down to that."

"If what comes down to what?" Manta asked, frowning.

"If we can't come up with a solution, maybe you should just make something up that sounds impressive even if it doesn't mean anything," Pranlo said. "At least that would get Latranesto and the other Counselors off your back."

"Pranlo!" Drusni said, sounding shocked. "That's lying. How can you even suggest such a thing?"

"Well, why not?" Pranlo countered. "Manta didn't ask to have this oversized Vuuka dropped on him.

Besides, you heard Latranesto—it'll be hundreds of suncycles before things start getting really bad.

Why shouldn't Manta get to live out the rest of his life in peace?"

"Because it's dishonest," Drusni said.

"Sure, but this bunch of Counselors will never know," Pranlo shot back. "They might not know even if he does fix the problem. It might take until we're all dead for anyone to notice things getting better."

"I don't care," Drusni said.

"Okay, okay, that's enough," Manta cut in. "This isn't worth arguing about. I appreciate your concern for my life and happiness, Pranlo, but I'm not going to lie to the Counselors. If I can't figure out how to fix this thing, I'll say so."

"So there," Drusni said with a sniff.

"And if you want to know the truth, I'm surprised you'd even suggest such a thing," Manta added.

"Don't you want to grow up to be one of the Wise and get to go live on Level Eight?"

"Right," Drusni seconded, "I plan to live there someday. Aren't you coming with me?"

Pranlo flipped his fins. "Personally, I'm not going to worry about it," he said. "I figure some Vuuka's going to get me long before that."

"Pranlo!" Drusni scolded. "What a thing to say!"

"And speaking of Vuuka," Pranlo said casually, "that's another thing about Centerline. There are more predator attacks back there, Vuuka and Sivra both."

It took Manta a pulse to get his mind back on the original subject. "Maybe," he said. "Though that doesn't necessarily mean there are more predators. The Brolka in the outer regions draw off a lot of the attacks. But that leads us to something else we know: that the bulk of the Qanska live in Centerline. Anything else?"

"There's less interesting food there," Drusni commented, snagging a tendril of silvery-blue jeptris as it floated past her. "This stuff is a lot better."

"And that has to be the key, somehow," Manta said, eying the tendril. "The lack of plant variety in Centerline."

"So what do you think it means?" Drusni asked as she took a bite.

"I wish I knew," Manta said, still staring at the jeptris as it dangled from the corner of her mouth. It had been dayherds since he'd really looked at Jovian plants, he realized suddenly. Probably not since those first heady days as a Baby, in fact. Ever since then, he'd basically followed the usual Qanskan pattern of identifying the various food plants strictly by color and then gobbling up the ones they wanted.

Which meant that he'd never really looked at these outer-region plants at all...

Drusni must have seen something in his expression. "You have something?" she asked.

"I don't know," Manta said. "On Earth, I know, this kind of problem usually mean there's been overgrazing. People or animals have eaten some variety of plant down to almost nothing, which then upsets some other ecological balance."

"Well, if it was a matter of overeating, the chinster and prupsis would be long gone," Pranlo pointed out. "At least from Level One. I loved that stuff when I was a Midling."

"Me, too," Drusni agreed, taking another bite. "I sure wouldn't have passed them up for this stuff, at least back then. What did you call it again?"

"Jeptris," Manta told her. "And you're right; it is a little too spicy for most children to appreciate."

"Tastes change as you get older," Pranlo said. "So you're saying it must have been the adults who—what was that word again? Ate too much of it?"

"Overgrazed," Manta supplied.

"Right. Who overgrazed the jeptris?"

"I guess that makes sense," Manta said slowly. "Except then what happened to the jeptris on Level One? There aren't all that many adults allowed up there."

"Maybe it doesn't grow on Level One," Drusni said.

"Beltrenini said it did," Manta told her. "Hold on a pulse, will you? Don't eat that last bite."

"What, you want it?" Drusni asked as he maneuvered closer to her.

"No, I just want to look at it," he said, coming to a halt practically snout to snout with her. The jeptris was a delicate thing, he saw. Thin filaments of silver were twisted together with other filaments of light blue, the whole thing looking rather like a French braid with tiny leaves at the intersection points. Woven into the middle of the pattern, spaced at precise intervals between the leaves, were what looked like cone-shaped berries.

And that single look was all it took. "This is chinster," he told the others.

"What are you talking about?" Pranlo protested. "Chinster is light purple, all of it. This stuff is silvery blue."

"I know that," Manta said. "But it's chinster, all right. Or else a really good spinoff."

"A really good what?" Drusni asked.

"A spinoff," Manta said. "That's like a new product that's derived from a larger but mostly unrelated product—"

"Whoa, whoa," Pranlo cut him off. "Can you give that to us in tonals?"

"Sorry," Manta apologized. For a pulse there he'd drifted back into business school mode. "What I'm saying is that jeptris and chinster seem to be very much the same sort of plant. They've got the same form, same structure—even the shape of the berries is the same. The only differences I can see are in the color and taste. It's as if one of them is nothing more than a different version of the other."

"All right," Drusni said cautiously. "Maybe. But how does something like that happen? A plant is a plant, just like a Qanska is a Qanska and a Vuuka is a Vuuka. How does it change into something else?"

"I don't know," Manta admitted, his first rush of excitement fading away. It had to be a mutation of some kind. Didn't it?

But how could a mutation that was massive enough to change color and taste not also change the plant's appearance? Shouldn't it at least make it look a little different?

He was still floating snout to snout with Drusni. Silently, he backed away from her, turning his tails to his friends.

What was he doing here, anyway? He was just a humble business major, on a world that had never even heard of the concept. Spinoffs he understood; profit and loss he understood. Inflow and outflow, structure and management and takeovers and economics. Those he understood.

But not this scientific stuff. Not any of it.

Problem-solver. Like the Deep he was. Business problems, maybe. Spinoffs, profit and loss, inflow and outflow—

His wind of thought hit an abrupt calm. Spinoffs. Inflow and outflow...

And Level Eight. Inflow and outflow and Level Eight...

"Manta?" Drusni murmured tentatively.

And suddenly, there it was, staring him in the face. The answer to all of it.

Maybe.

He spun back around to face them, a sudden surge of energy flowing straight out to his fin tips. "I've got it," he said.

"What?" Pranlo and Drusni said in unison.

"I know what's going on," Manta said. "I don't know all the details; not yet. But I know what's happening. And I know why."

"Well, don't keep us in suspense," Pranlo said. "What is it?"

"I should have listened to myself from the beginning," Manta said. "Inflow and outflow. Basic business concepts."

He smiled tightly. "And Level Eight," he added. "Where all good little Qanska hope to go when they grow up to be the Wise. Come on."

He flipped over and headed north. "Wait a pulse," Pranlo called after him. "Where are we going?"

"Back to Centerline to see Latranesto," Manta called back. "If I'm right, we're going to need the humans' help to figure out what exactly to do to fix the problem."

"What does Latranesto have to do with the humans?" Drusni asked as she and Pranlo caught up and settled into a pacing swim beside him.

"He doesn't," Manta said. "But I know humans, and they don't ever give anything away for free. I'm going to need something I can trade with them."

"And you think they're going to want a lumpy Counselor?" Pranlo asked, sounding confused.

Manta flicked his tails. Latranesto, he suspected, was not going to like this. Not a single bit. "No," he said. "Not exactly."

"Well, it's confirmed," Hesse said, dropping with jerky awkwardness into Faraday's desk chair.

"Nemesis Six is definitely on the move, and it's definitely coming here."

"How long before it arrives?" Faraday asked. "We've still got two to three weeks, right?"

"Two weeks and four days," Hesse said, drumming his fingers silently on the edge of the desk.

"Assuming it stays with its current schedule."

"So we've still got time," Faraday concluded. "There's no need to panic just yet."

"Panic?" Hesse suddenly seemed to notice what his fingers were doing. "Right," he apologized, bringing them to an abrupt halt. "Sorry. I'm just... this whole thing's got me spinning three ways from clockwise. What in the System is she up to?"

"You tell me," Faraday said. "I'm not very up-to-date on what's been happening around here lately."

"But that's just it: I don't know," Hesse said. "I've been over Six's equipment list twice. If there's any special sensor or search gear aboard, I can't find it."

"What about the crew?" Faraday asked. "Anyone aboard with special expertise?"

"Not that I can find in any of the crew profiles," Hesse said. "Near as I can tell, the whole Nemesis project is basically a sort of high-class, low-profile grunt duty. You go out and sit in the middle of nowhere waiting for a call that never comes."

"Or at least a call that hasn't come yet" Faraday reminded him soberly. "If and when a rogue comet comes by with Earth in its crosshairs, we'll be damn glad we've got those stockpiles sitting ready to go."

"Maybe," Hesse said, not sounding convinced. "But anyway, you sit out there for a few months and then get rotated back to civilization. Doesn't seem like the kind of place you'd stick someone with special talents or training."

"How about the political aspect?" Faraday suggested. "Anyone's son or daughter or nephew on Nemesis Six who she might be hoping to influence?"

"I suppose that's possible," Hesse said doubtfully. "I don't have a complete listing of all the System's high and mighty to run a comparison against. But if that was what she wanted, why bring the whole platform here? Why not just send a transport?"

"Good question," Faraday conceded. "So what does that leave us? The weapons themselves?"

Hesse grimaced. "Frankly, that's all I can see."

Faraday nodded. He'd suspected they would arrive at this conclusion sooner or later. But all the other possibilities had at least had to be looked at. "So what could she want with a pair of half-gigaton nukes?"

"Only one thing I can think of," Hesse said. His fingers, Faraday noted, had started their silent drumming again. Clearly, he was having a really hard time with this. "And I don't like it at all."

"So tell me," Faraday prompted.

Hesse seemed to brace himself. "You remember we talked once about the way Liadof handled defeat?"

"Yes, I remember," Faraday said.

"Maybe I was wrong," Hesse said. "I mean, about what I said then about revenge never being her primary goal. Or maybe she thinks she's found a way to meet her agenda and get revenge at the same time."

Faraday frowned. "You're not actually suggesting she's planning to use Nemesis weapons against Jupiter Prime, are you?"

"Not Prime, no," Hesse said grimly. "I think she's going to use them against the Qanska."

Faraday pursed his lips. So there it was, at last. Exactly as he'd anticipated. "There is, of course, no way in hell we can let that happen," he told Hesse. "The Omega extortion attempt was bad enough.

Using nuclear weapons against the Qanska would be a deliberate act of war."

"I know," Hesse said soberly. "And it gets worse. From the way she keeps insisting we keep track of the herd where Mr. Raimey grew up—"

He swallowed. "Well, I'm afraid that's the one she's going to go after."

Faraday nodded. Again, as anticipated. "Which, not coincidentally, is also the herd where Pranlo and Drusni are swimming."

"Or at least where their children are," Hesse said. "Pranlo and Drusni themselves haven't been seen there for several weeks. But Liadof might even like that better. Kill the children; leave the parents alive to suffer their loss."

"Charming," Faraday murmured. "There's one other point. If Liadof blames Drusni for Omega's failure, she undoubtedly blames Manta for the rest of it. If and when he reappears, where is he likely to go but his old herd, to swim along with his old friends?"

"Oh, hell," Hesse muttered. "I hadn't even thought about that. But you're right, that probably is where he'd go."

"He hasn't reappeared, has he?"

"Not yet," Hesse said. "No one in the herd's been talking about him, either. At least, not with anything new."

"And the subvocalizer isn't picking up anything?"

"Not since Omega. Wherever he is, he's out of range."

Faraday pursed his lips. "All right," he said. "I guess the time has come. What do your backers need from me in order to stop her?"

Hesse's eyes widened briefly. Maybe he'd expected to have to do more convincing. "Well, basically, we need your public support," he said, stumbling slightly over the words. He really was nervous about all this. "A live newsnet conference, maybe, where you can officially come out against Liadof and her faction."

"Too risky," Faraday said, shaking his head. "Too many ways Liadof could cut the transmission before I even got going. Especially way out here."

"How about a recording, then?" Hesse suggested. "We could make a permchip of your statement and then transport it off Prime where she couldn't control the transmission."

"That's even worse," Faraday told him. "A permchip could be intercepted, and we'd never even know it until it was too late."

He cocked an eyebrow at Hesse. "Besides, it occurs to me that this is a bit premature. I don't even know for sure if these supporters of yours will even back me up."

"Oh, they will," Hesse assured him. "They've made that very clear."

"They may have made it clear to you" Faraday countered. "They haven't said word one to me. I can't afford to stick my neck out without a reasonable assurance that it won't get chopped off."

He smiled tightly. "Or at least, that it won't get chopped off alone," he amended. 'We must all hang together—' "

" 'Or we shall all hang separately,' " Hesse finished for him. "Benjamin Franklin; yes."

"And as true today as it was back then," Faraday said. "Looks to me like the ball's back on your side of the net."

"Yes, of course," Hesse said, getting to his feet. "All right, I'll talk to them and see what kind of guarantees they can come up with."

"Good," Faraday said. "And remind them to make it fast. We've got less than three weeks before Nemesis Six gets here."

"I will," Hesse promised. He hesitated, just noticeably, then nodded. "Good-bye, Colonel," he said, stepping to the door and knocking. "I'll get back to you as soon as I can."

Faraday nodded in return. The guard opened the door, and Hesse was gone.

With a tired sigh, Faraday turned back to his desk. So there it was: Liadof's opening shot in this insane private war of hers. A war, if she got her way, that would leave her in an even stronger position than she enjoyed right now.

And with consequences to the Qanska that would be impossible to predict. To the Qanska, and to Manta.

Or whatever it was Manta had become.

He sat down in front of his computer. For better or worse, the die was now cast. The players were taking up their positions on the chessboard, and the game was about to begin in earnest.

And in the quiet battle about to take place, a pawn could easily see as much action as a queen or a knight or a bishop.

Maybe even the pawn named Colonel Jakob Faraday.