Diuturnity's Dawn Read Online Free
Author: Alan Dean Foster
be jostling for room within her womb. He tried to lighten the moment. “As you possess no ovipositors that I could observe going into pre-laying spasm, I had no visual clue to your condition.”
“It’s all right. I’ll be fine.” Meeting his gaze, which she assumed reflected his concern even though his compound eyes could not convey anything like such a complex emotion, she announced firmly, “Tell Eint Carwenduved that the pregnant human Fanielle Anjou is making a formal
Bryn’ja
request.”
Haflunormet started, his antennae twitching. Then he simultaneously whistled his amusement and understanding. “The news will place the eint in a difficult position.”
That’s the idea, she thought, wincing perceptibly for effect. If she understood the pertinent aspect of thranx culture correctly, no adult could refuse a first Bryn’ja request from a female who was about to lay. Such a compunction applied equally to ordinary citizens, respected poets, noted teachers, and everyone within the hive irrespective of function. It even applied to diplomats.
Of course, it was a blatant lie. Surely, she told herself, the first time in history one had been employed in the service of diplomacy. She would have to make sure her colleagues at Azerick were informed of her “condition” lest the always thorough thranx decided to check on it with a second source. Once her rather abrupt pregnancy was verified, it would be interesting to see how the thranx would react. Time would at last become a factor. To refuse a first Bryn’ja request from a gravid female until after she laid her eggs would earn the refuser significant opprobrium. Her only real concern was whether or not the custom would apply across species lines. And if it did, would it be subject to the same onerous, lingering deliberation as every other communication she had asked Haflunormet to pass along to the chamber of the eint? Could any thranx authority move at more than a sluggard’s pace, no matter the incidental circumstances?
The official response was as revealing as it was gratifying. So much of successful diplomacy was not about knowing how to do something, or when, but how to step just ever so slightly outside the boundaries of traditional, formal negotiation without falling into the pit of cultural transgression.
Within thirty-two hours, she received acknowledgment of her long-sought-after appointment.
2
The Bwyl were furious. They had been ever since the revelation of the presence on Willow-Wane of the covert human outpost there, with its clandestine attempts to bring humans and thranx closer together, had been divulged to an unknowing hive public more than eighty years earlier. It was bad enough, from the standpoint of the Bwyl, that humans and the thranx had cooperated in a war against the Pitar that was no hive’s business. The disclosure that the soft-bodied, bipedal mammals had been allowed to establish what amounted to a de facto colony on a developed thranx world amounted to cultural sacrilege. The purity of the Great Hive had been defiled.
Worse still, the vast majority of thranx had reacted indecisively at best, indifferently at worst, to the announcement. Now that the war against the Pitar lay nearly in the receding past, where humans were concerned the average burrower seemed to hold little in the way of strong opinion. So long as the humans posed no overt threat to the Great Hive and did not ally themselves with the bellicose AAnn, the typical worker was content to ignore them. And if the respective life tunnels of the two species happened to intersect now and then, why, it would only be polite to pause and allow those traveling crosswise to pass without confrontation.
It was all very bewildering to the Bwyl. What about the sanctity of the hive? Where was traditional deference to poetic purity? Bad enough to allow these red-blood-pumping creatures access outside the usual restricted diplomatic missions. To allow ordinary citizens to mix with
“It’s all right. I’ll be fine.” Meeting his gaze, which she assumed reflected his concern even though his compound eyes could not convey anything like such a complex emotion, she announced firmly, “Tell Eint Carwenduved that the pregnant human Fanielle Anjou is making a formal
Bryn’ja
request.”
Haflunormet started, his antennae twitching. Then he simultaneously whistled his amusement and understanding. “The news will place the eint in a difficult position.”
That’s the idea, she thought, wincing perceptibly for effect. If she understood the pertinent aspect of thranx culture correctly, no adult could refuse a first Bryn’ja request from a female who was about to lay. Such a compunction applied equally to ordinary citizens, respected poets, noted teachers, and everyone within the hive irrespective of function. It even applied to diplomats.
Of course, it was a blatant lie. Surely, she told herself, the first time in history one had been employed in the service of diplomacy. She would have to make sure her colleagues at Azerick were informed of her “condition” lest the always thorough thranx decided to check on it with a second source. Once her rather abrupt pregnancy was verified, it would be interesting to see how the thranx would react. Time would at last become a factor. To refuse a first Bryn’ja request from a gravid female until after she laid her eggs would earn the refuser significant opprobrium. Her only real concern was whether or not the custom would apply across species lines. And if it did, would it be subject to the same onerous, lingering deliberation as every other communication she had asked Haflunormet to pass along to the chamber of the eint? Could any thranx authority move at more than a sluggard’s pace, no matter the incidental circumstances?
The official response was as revealing as it was gratifying. So much of successful diplomacy was not about knowing how to do something, or when, but how to step just ever so slightly outside the boundaries of traditional, formal negotiation without falling into the pit of cultural transgression.
Within thirty-two hours, she received acknowledgment of her long-sought-after appointment.
2
The Bwyl were furious. They had been ever since the revelation of the presence on Willow-Wane of the covert human outpost there, with its clandestine attempts to bring humans and thranx closer together, had been divulged to an unknowing hive public more than eighty years earlier. It was bad enough, from the standpoint of the Bwyl, that humans and the thranx had cooperated in a war against the Pitar that was no hive’s business. The disclosure that the soft-bodied, bipedal mammals had been allowed to establish what amounted to a de facto colony on a developed thranx world amounted to cultural sacrilege. The purity of the Great Hive had been defiled.
Worse still, the vast majority of thranx had reacted indecisively at best, indifferently at worst, to the announcement. Now that the war against the Pitar lay nearly in the receding past, where humans were concerned the average burrower seemed to hold little in the way of strong opinion. So long as the humans posed no overt threat to the Great Hive and did not ally themselves with the bellicose AAnn, the typical worker was content to ignore them. And if the respective life tunnels of the two species happened to intersect now and then, why, it would only be polite to pause and allow those traveling crosswise to pass without confrontation.
It was all very bewildering to the Bwyl. What about the sanctity of the hive? Where was traditional deference to poetic purity? Bad enough to allow these red-blood-pumping creatures access outside the usual restricted diplomatic missions. To allow ordinary citizens to mix with
Readers choose
Michelle Celmer
Christopher Hitchens
Caryl Phillips
Mark Twain
Laura Joh Rowland
Laurie Faria Stolarz
John Updike
Angie Fox