Dirge - Alan Dean Foster [29]
“We are on course to achieve that.” Yeicurpilal bent to pick up a piece of driftwood. It had a lovely grain. Swinging it back and forth in the manner of strolling humans she had observed, she caused the nervous Joshumabad to put more distance between them. Disturbed at the pleasure she felt as a consequence of the result she had produced, she flung the stick aside. It landed in the water and began to drift away on the slight current. Was the same likely to happen to thranx hopes for this world and its peculiar, frustrating, sometimes maddening inhabitants?
“What is the council afraid of?” she asked when she had disposed of the stick.
“Being preempted by these Pitar. We have perused all the reports. It has been noted how the humans are far more comfortable in the presence of the Pitar than they are with us.”
“They are not more comfortable,” Nilwengerex declared firmly, speaking for the first time. “They are infatuated. I have some limited experience in intraspecies contact, with the Quillp as well as the AAnn, and I have never seen anything like this. It is not so much that they believe everything the Pitar say, or take all of it at face value, as the fact that they want so desperately to believe their own perceptions. These are, as you know, colored by the external appearance of the Pitar, who according to what my human colleagues have told me in response to my inquiries represent everything that is physically perfect in the human imagination.”
Joshumabad considered. A bird, one of this fecund world’s many acrobatic aerial life-forms, momentarily distracted him as it flew by overhead. He would have had even a harder time concentrating had he known that the sea eagle was evaluating him as a potential meal.
“How can they be so accepting? Physical appearance has nothing to do with the trustworthiness and dependability of another. It does not matter if one is speaking of an individual or, as in this instance, an entire species. Even a hou!p knows to look deeper.”
“They are mesmerized by the superficiality of external beauty as embodied in these visitors.” Nilwengerex was a staid, humorless male, Yeicurpilal mused, but ruthlessly good at his work. She ranked him near the bottom of potential companions and at the very top as an advisor. Whether he was aware of her opinion she did not know. Males did not challenge senior females in matters of personality. He knew his position within the hive and was content with it.
“I do not understand.” Joshumabad executed a complex gesture indicative of internal confusion. “They are manifestly intelligent, fast learners, enthusiastic explorers. Yet in the presence of these Pitar they slough off several hundred years of social maturity. If we were to encounter a sapient species that resembled the thranx ideal we would be welcoming, but not…”
“Sappy.” Nilwengerex picked up a shell and began to examine the intricate, brightly tinted calcareous whorls. “As usual, the humans have a word for it, even if that is one they themselves would not apply to their present condition. However, nothing prevents me from using it.” He handed the shell to Joshumabad, who extended a truhand to accept it reluctantly. To have refused would have constituted a small but inescapable insult.
“Interestingly,” the culture specialist continued, “they are very much aware of their own insupportable reaction. At least, the more intelligent among them are. The great fevered mass of humankind seems largely oblivious. They wish only to expand and enhance contact with their new friends. Deeper consequences do not concern them.”
“What about the reception accorded our delegation by these Pitar?” The representative of the Grand Council was not at all comfortable with the information he was receiving.
“Formal and polite,” Yeicurpilal told him. “Insofar as we have been able to determine by cross-referencing with our