Dirge - Alan Dean Foster [61]
“Would that not play into the hands of renegade humans, if it is indeed such who are responsible?” Truhands and foot-hands worked through the mass of debris in a digital ballet.
“Possibly. I hope those in charge keep that in mind when they make their final decision.” Raising up, he looked around the ravaged interior of the building. “Personally, I’d hate to see the last humans abandon this beautiful world without taking some answers away with them.”
“You said ‘abandon.’ If I grasp the meaning correctly, your authorities are not planning a recolonization?”
Lee eyed the insectoid in dismay before realizing that the thranx doubtless felt different about such matters, as they did about so many things. “It wouldn’t matter if they were or not. No human would settle here now, no matter how potentially profitable or life affirming. Despite its physical beauty, Treetrunk is seen as a world of death. Humans are…not always scientific in their response to such occurrences. For any of my kind to even think of resettling the Argus system, an incontrovertible explanation of what happened here must first be presented. Even then, I’m not sure very many people would want to live in the psychic vicinity of six hundred thousand dead.”
“‘Psychic vicinity’? What is that? Is it near Weald?”
Despite the serious turn of conversation, Lee had to smile. “It’s a state of mind, not an administrative boundary. Just take my word for it. No one will move here until they know for certain what annihilated their predecessors, and maybe not even then.”
“Six hundred thousand dead.” Reldmuurtinjak repeated the figure in Low Thranx. To Lee the melancholy mantra was a succession of ephemeral whisperings framed by an eloquence of musical whistles and clicks. It sounded even more foreboding in Low Thranx than it did in Terranglo. “All the dead have been accounted for, then?”
“Less some twenty-two thousand presumed incinerated or otherwise utterly obliterated.” Along with the rest of his associates the young researcher had been compelled to deal with such deranged statistics daily, but that did not make them any easier to take, or the images they conjured up unbidden any simpler to banish. Six…hundred…thousand. An inconceivable number, an unreal chronicle of annihilation.
As for the identities of the missing twenty-two thousand, they had been culled from the litany of the known deceased. There would be no burial for them, and their memorials would be anonymous. Lee had seen pictures, tridee recordings, drawings from life that had survived in schools and residences. The faces of the exterminated swam before him: wide-eyed, innocent, oblivious to the fate that was soon to befall them. The weight of the dead was crushing.
All of a sudden he wanted out. He’d had enough. Let someone else be the hero. To an unknown more perspicacious than himself he bequeathed the honor of unraveling the great enigma. Climbing to his feet, he regarded the industrious, methodical thranx without envy.
“That’s it. I’ve done my share here. I’m going to put in for transfer. I can’t take this anymore.” Focusing on the alien helped him to avoid looking at the surrounding desolation, kept him from hearing the screams of the dying or envisioning their helpless, terrified faces.
Reldmuurtinjak looked up from his work, his valentine-shaped head facing that of the taller human squarely. In the subdued light that filtered into the depression between floors, his blue-green exoskeleton shone dully. “Psychic vicinity beginning to affect you?”
“Something like that.” Glancing around to see if any of his colleagues were watching, he lowered his voice. “I hope it’s one of your kind that finds the answer. I hope it’s a thranx.”
Reldmuurtinjak gestured to express curiosity, even though he knew the human would in all probability not be familiar enough with thranx body language to appreciate the sensitivity of the response.
“Why? What difference does it make to the ultimate resolution?”
“Because I don’t want to think that your people are