Swelk got no more rest that sleep-shift, her mind lost in a haze of odd findings and vague suspicions. So what did she know? That the so-called F'thk were robots controlled by the starship's performer passengers, with full cooperation of the officers. That the "symbols of galactic unity" the F'thk distributed everywhere were audiovisual bugging devices. That she was excluded from whatever the F'thk, and the Krulirim behind them, were doing.
Why these things should be true was a mystery, but as her mind grappled with the few hard facts, an unsettling theory took shape in her mind.
Testing that theory would require taking a big risk.
The product of a conformist species, Swelk had wondered if her revised Earth news filter would find any skeptical humans. She need not have worried. Her handicaps and social isolation made her more individualistic than any Krul whom she knew—but the cacophony of human viewpoints exceeded her ability to comprehend.
Once governmental pronouncements and mainstream networks were excluded, Earthly theories about the F'thk knew no logical bounds. Speculations ranged from the imminence of a supernatural catastrophe, if she correctly understood this English word "apocalypse," to an equally delusional expectation that the F'thk had crossed the light-years looking for fresh meat.
Then again, end-of-the-world scenarios weren't so bizarre: nuclear tensions increased wherever the F'thk visited. Catastrophe, if not from paranormal causes, was an increasingly realistic prediction.
Still, she did not see how the hysteria in the alternate channels helped her. If she could contact any of these hysterics, she saw no reason why she would. They, like she, were on the outside of whatever was happening, trying to look in.
It did not help her sense of hopelessness that most Earthly information was beyond her reach. In the time it had taken the Consensus to reach Earth—a few months of relativity dilated ship's time, several years of Earth time—the humans had migrated much of their information infrastructure from analog to digital technology. What the humans called their Internet apparently brimmed with information. The lifeboat computer had not been designed to interoperate with human networking protocols, alas, and she lacked the skills to expand its repertoire.
So the latest query had put her into noise overload. What she sought might not exist anywhere in this ocean of information. With little hope of success, she asked the computer to look again, this time saving only broadcasts with demeanor like several calm news readers that she identified and that expressed concern about the F'thk.
"What do you want?" Grelben grumbled.
"A word with Rualf," answered Swelk apologetically. Long gone were the days when the captain let her be alone on the bridge. She had waited to contact the actor until she knew he was here.
"It's not a problem, Captain," Rualf said soothingly. "I will talk with her."
She launched into a prepared speech about a recording he had once shown her. The new interpretation was not urgent; she sidled as she spoke until she was leaning against the horizontal working surface at the front of an unoccupied console. The underside of the ledge was her target.
Her deformed limb was near the workstation. The infirmity made most people uncomfortable; they tended not to look in its direction. For once, she welcomed their distaste. With two good limbs and the rim of the ledge to support her, she used the obscured limb to take a blob of sticky putty from a pocket between her body and the console. The blob was loosely wrapped in plastic sheeting to which the adhesive did not cling well.
Swelk flattened the blob against the underside of the ledge. The plastic, which peeled off silently, was returned to her pocket. She removed a spare pocket computer, which she pressed deep into the putty. The weak extremity cramping from such unaccustomed fine-motor activity, she stretched sticky stuff around the edges of the computer, the better to secure it.
"Are you about done?" asked the captain. "We have work to do here."
"Almost, sir." Her real task complete, she brought to a conclusion her rambling discussion with Rualf. "I'll be tending to the Girillian animals, if you need me."
Neither suggested that such a consultation was likely, which was fine with her. She hobbled to the cargo hold, where she had left her usual pocket comp. Her call to the hidden unit on the bridge went through silently, because she had disabled its speaker.
" . . . A house in Vrdlek City," declared Rualf's voice. Expensive property.
"I prefer something in the desert," responded Grelben. "Perhaps shorefront on the Salt Sea."
Swelk bobbed her sensor stalks in relief. Her improvised bug worked.
The search program in the lifeboat computer was goal seeking. When the main channels that it monitored failed to locate information to Swelk's newly stringent specifications, the set of frequencies audited was expanded, then expanded again.
Swelk found herself reviewing a segment recorded from a history channel, puzzled that the computer had selected this. Mid-interview she understood. The biography was of a famous scientist, who had ended her career as an inspirational teacher. Her most infamous student, it seemed, was a Kyle Gustafson, "the former presidential science assistant and resigned chairman of the American Commission on Galactic Studies." The camera lingered momentarily on an image of two men.
One man she knew from Rualf's spying device: the President. And that leader's science advisor had resigned in an undisclosed disagreement over the F'thk?
"Computer. Find out all you can about this Kyle Gustafson."
"What do you think, Stinky?"
The male swampbeast humphed contentedly. He pressed his head against the one-time broom with which he was now regularly groomed. Both swampbeasts, tentatively Stinky and Smelly, loved to be brushed between their nostrils. It was hard not to like creatures who took such joy from Swelk's ministrations.
Humph wasn't much of an answer to her question: why interact with humanity through the F'thk? The easy explanation was xenophobia: use of what she now recognized as robots to avoid direct dealings with the odd aliens. That seemed wrong—nowhere on her travels had she encountered Krulirim using robots to interact with previously discovered intelligent species.
She considered herself an expert in cultural variation, what little there was, among the Krulirim. Entertainers were one such variation. Certainly their willingness, even desire, to be personally visible, to be the focus of attention, was outside her people's mainstream. Rualf's troupe was clearly at the center of contacts with the humans—the F'thk were their robots.
Smelly flumphed in impatience. She also wanted to be groomed. "Almost your turn, baby." What advantage did the F'thk offer over direct interaction with the humans?
Smelly lowered her head to butt Swelk. The impact could have been much harder—it was only a request for attention. She patted her oversized charge affectionately. "Big beastie. What a big . . ." She was suddenly reminded of a fact that familiarity had obscured—the swampbeasts loomed over her, as they towered over any Krul.
As humans would tower over any Krul.
The robots called the F'thk, however, were taller than nearly all humans. The F'thk "eyes" were very near the tops of their un-Krulchukor heads. There was an advantage to using F'thk rather than Krulirim to interact with the humans, and one that would appeal to the troupe.
Assuming the F'thk "eyes" were camera lenses, an unobstructed view for image capture.
"If a human group did spot one, surely it would be attributed to its enemy."
Swelk stiffened. She had been resting in an acceleration couch, sipping absently on a high-energy drink from the lifeboat's emergency stores. "Return to the start of that conversation," she ordered the computer. "Display text version."
Most bridge chatter turned out to be irrelevant, giving her hope that what she feared about this conversation was all in her imagination. Still, she believed that the inconclusiveness of her spying meant only that the most interesting discussions took place in another cargo hold of the Consensus, part of the ship to which the entertainers had free access but from which she was barred. There, presumably, could be found the controls for operating the F'thk.
"Enemy" was one of the keywords with which she screened for anything useful. After a momentary pause, a screen filled with text. She scanned past the pleasantries as Rualf joined Grelben on the bridge.
Rualf: Are our satellites all in position? Can they see in sufficient detail?
Grelben: Yes and yes. (impatient tone) As I said they would.
Rualf: And the humans do not know?
Grelben: Your people listen to the Earth recordings, not mine, but I would not think so. The satellites we deployed are radar-invisible; it would take very bad luck for the humans to physically see one. If a human group did spot one, surely it would be attributed to its enemy.
Rualf: Stupid freaks. (laugh) Lovely monstrosities.
Swelk read on, in fascination and horror. There could be no doubt: a conspiracy against the Earthlings was under way. Much about how the plot would unfold remained clouded, but its purpose was clear—and what she had most feared.
Rualf put it best. "Close-ups from our satellites of missile launches and nuclear destruction. Intercepts of Earth's media as they scurry in panic. Recordings from our bugs of their final moments." A gleeful laugh. "Yes, the humans respond well to their cues. When they blow themselves up, what a fine and profitable movie we will make of it."
"I've been counting on it," said the captain.
Light-years from any authorities, Swelk had never felt so alone. Her species' at-best benign neglect for their less accomplished fellow sapients was awful enough. That was nothing compared to what she had discovered: the planned genocide of the humans in the name of profit.
And she had led the plotters to Earth.
She shut herself into her tiny cabin, clutching the sleep cushion with trembling limbs, smothering moans of despair in the bedding. Her sensor stalks slumped in abject misery against her torso.
What a fool she was. What arrogance to have thought herself a capable observer of Krulchukor culture. Now her ignorant presumption would destroy the most advanced civilization her people had ever encountered.
No.
She willed her limbs to relax, opened her eyes, focused her mind. Shame solved nothing. Realistically, nothing she could do aboard this ship would change anything.
She had to get to Earth.