Phylogenesis - Alan Dean Foster [110]
“Then…he lied.” Jhywinhuran could barely muster the appropriate clicks to underscore her reply.
“So it would seem. But why? Why would this friend of yours, or any thranx, lie about being shifted from one part of the hive to another?”
“I do not know.” The sanitation worker stridulated softly. “But if he isn’t here, and he isn’t there, then where is he? And why is he wherever he is?”
“I do not know either, but unless something emerges to indicate otherwise, what we have here is unequivocal evidence of antisocial behavior. I am sure it will all become clear when he is located.”
When he was not, something akin to alarm set in not only among those thranx charged with locating the errant assistant food preparator, but among their human associates as well.
Jhywinhuran found herself waiting in an empty interrogation chamber. It was of modest size and in no way remarkable except for the presence among the usual resting benches of a trio of very peculiar sculptures whose purpose she was unable to divine. They looked like tiny benches, much too small to provide surcease and comfort to even a juvenile thranx. Instead of being open and easily accessed, one side of each of the squarish objects was raised above the rest, so that even if you tried to settle your abdomen across it, the stiff raised portions would make it next to impossible.
The hive had been turned upside down in the search for the missing assistant food preparator. When it was determined to a specific degree of assurance that not only was he no longer present in the hive, but that his body could not be found, a startled Jhywinhuran had found herself called away from her labor and ordered to this room. There she sat, and waited, and wondered what in the name of the lowest level of the supreme hive was going on.
She did not have to wait long.
Four people filed into the chamber. Two of them between them had only as many limbs as she did. She had seen humans around the hive before, but not often. They did not frequent the section of the colony where she worked, and she had had no actual contact with them herself. From her predeparture studies she was able to discern that both genders were represented. As was common among humans, their skin and single-lensed eye color varied markedly. These and other superficial physical variations she expected. She also was not surprised when they sat down in two of the peculiar constructs whose function had so puzzled her. She winced inwardly, unable to see how any being, even one as flexible as a human, could call “relaxing” a posture that required the body to almost fold itself in half.
But she was startled when conversation commenced, and the humans participated—speaking not in their own language but in a crude, unsophisticated, yet impressively intelligible rendition of Low Thranx.
“How long have you known the assistant food preparator who calls himself Desvenbapur?” The human female blundered slightly over the correct pronunciation of the title.
Jhywinhuran hesitated, taken aback by both the nature of the question and its source. She looked to the two thranx present for advice, only to have the eldest gesture compliance. Not politely, either. Clearly, something serious was afoot.
“I met him on the Zenruloim on the journey out from Willow-Wane. He was pleasant company, and as there were only four of us bound for this world, we naturally struck up an acquaintance. I also met and became friends with the engineers Awlvirmubak and Durcenhofex.”
“They do not concern us and are not involved in this matter,” the eldest thranx explained, “because they are not only where they are, they are who they are.”
She gestured bewilderment. “I don’t understand.”
“Neither do we,” the elder responded. “That is one of the purposes of this meeting: to reach understanding.” His antennae bobbed restlessly as he spoke, indicating no especial sentiment: only a continuing unease. “Your friend has gone missing.