Phylogenesis Read online

  Foster, Alan Dean - Commwealth 02 - Founding 01 - Phylogenesis (v1.6)

  By Alan Dean Foster : _Published by Ballantine Books:_

  The Icerigger Trilogy

  ICERIGGER

  MISSION TO MOULOKIN

  THE DELUGE DRIVERS

  The Adventures of Flinx of the Commonwealth

  FOR LOVE OF MOTHER-NOT

  THE TAR-AIYM KRANG

  ORPHAN STAR

  THE END OF THE MATTER

  FLINX IN FLUX

  MID-FLINX

  BLOODHYPE

  THE HOWLING STONES

  The Damned

  Book One: A CALL TO ARMS

  Book Two: THE FALSE MIRROR

  Book Three: THE SPOILS OF WAR

  Other works

  THE BLACK HOLE

  CACHALOT

  DARK STAR

  THE METROGNOME and Other Stories

  MIDWORLD

  NOR CRYSTAL TEARS

  SENTENCED TO PRISM

  SPLINTER OF THE MIND'S EYE

  STAR TREK@ LOGS ONE-TEN

  VOYAGE TO THE CITY OF THE DEAD

  WITH FRIENDS LIKE THESE ...

  WHO NEEDS ENEMIES?

  MAD AMOS

  PARALLELITIES

  PHYLOGENESIS

  DIRGE*

  _* forthcoming_

  Books published by The Ballantine Publishing Group are available at quantity discounts on bulk purchases for premium, educational, fund?raising, and special sales use. For details, please call 1?500-733-3000.

  ***

  Sale of this book without a front cover may be unauthorized. If this book is coverless, it may have been reported to the publisher as "un­sold or destroyed" and neither the author nor the publisher may have received payment for it.

  A Del Rey® Book Published by The Ballantine Publishing Group

  Copyright © 1999 by Thranx, Inc. All rights reserved under International and Pan?American Copy­right Conventions.

  Published in the United States by The Ballantine Publishing Group, a division of Random House, Inc., New York, and simultaneously in Canada by Random House of Canada Limited, Toronto.

  Del Rey is a registered trademark and the Del Rey colophon is a trademark of Random House, Inc. http:__www.randomhouse.com

  Library of Congress Catalog Card Number: 00-190318

  ISBN 0-345-41861-1

  Manufactured in the United States of America

  First Hardcover Edition: June 1999

  First Mass Market Edition: July 2000

  10 9 8 7 6 54

  ***

  For Michael Goodwin and Robert Teague,First citizens of the Commonwealth.

  ***

  Alan Dean Foster - The Founding of the Commonwealth - Phylogenesis

  Table of Contents

  PROLOGUE

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Chapter Twelve

  Chapter Thirteen

  Chapter Fourteen

  Chapter Fifteen

  Chapter Sixteen

  Chapter Seventeen

  Chapter Eighteen

  Chapter Nineteen

  Chapter Twenty

  Chapter Twenty one

  Chapter Twenty two

  Appendix

  Classification Of Planets

  Galographics

  The AAnn Empire

  The Blight

  The Humanx Commonwealth

  Commonwealth Chronology

  About the Author

  ***

  PROLOGUE

  Things have a way of working out, if not always as planned. So it was with the Amalgamation that marked the estab­lishment of the sociopolitical organization that came to be known as the Humanx Commonwealth. Contact having been established and maintained for some sixteen years, it was assumed by those advising both of the hesitant, uncertain species that procession to second-stage contact would take place within a predesignated time frame and would involve the implementation of carefully considered procedures, intricately designed programs, and closely scrutinized agendas.

  That it did not happen this way was no fault of those charged with implementing the voluminously compiled and mutually agreed-upon contact strategy. All those involved, thranx and human alike, had done their work conscientiously and well. It was simply that, as history shows, there are times when events do not occur as planned. Physics included, the universe is not a perfectly predictable place. Action super-cedes fabrication. Stars that are not supposed to go nova for a billion years do. Flowers that are expected to blossom die.

  Anticipated ambassadors did not have the opportunity to exchange formal greetings. Innumerable carefully drawn covenants withered for lack of execution, made superflu­ous by unexpected realities. Formal protocols were rendered extraneous. Thus are the ways of virtuous diplomacy foully ambushed.

  Chance chose a poet as its champion, while coarse circumstance on its behalf conscripted a murderer.

  Chapter One

  No one saw the attack coming. Probably someone, or sev­eral someones, ought to have been blamed. Certainly there was a convulsion of recriminations afterward. But since it is an unarguable fact that it is hard to apportion blame-or even to assign it-for something that is without precedent, nascent calls for castigation of those responsible withered for lack of suitable subjects. Those who felt, rightly or wrongly, that they bore a share of the responsibility for what happened punished themselves far more severely than any traditional queen's court or council of peers would have.

  For more than a hundred years, ever since there had been contact between AAnn and thranx, animosity had festered between the two species. Given such a fertile ground and suf­ficiency of time, mutual enmity had evolved to take many forms. Manifesting themselves on a regular basis that var­ied greatly in degree, these were usually propagated by the AAnn. While a constant source of vexation to the ever-reasonable thranx, these provocations rarely exceeded the bounds of irritation. The AAnn would probe and threaten, advance and connive, until the thranx had had enough and were compelled to react. When forcefully confronted, the AAnn would invariably pull back, give ground, retreat. The spiral arm that was shared by both heat-loving, oxygen-breathing species was big enough and rich enough in stars so that direct conflict, unless actively sought, could be avoided.

  Habitable worlds, however, were scarcer. Where one of these was involved positions hardened, accusations flew more sharply, meticulously worded phrases tended to bite rather than soothe. Even so, the swift exchange of space-minus communications was always sufficient to dampen a potentially explosive confrontation. Until Willow-Wane. Until Paszex.

  Worvendapur bent his head and reached up with a truhand to clean his left eye. Out on the edge of the forest the wind tended to kick up dust. Lowering the transparent, protective shield over his face, he reflexively extended his antennae through the slots provided for that purpose and moved on, striding forward on all six legs. Occasionally he would arch his back and advance only on his four trulegs, not because he needed the additional manipulative capacity his versatile foothands could provide, but because it raised his body to its maximum standing height of slightly over a meter and a half and enabled him to see over the meter-high, lavender-tinted grass that comprised much of the surrounding vegetation.

  Something quick and chittering scuttled through the sedge close to his right. Using the truhand and foothand on that side of his thorax, he drew the rifle that was slung across his back and aimed it at the source of the noise, tensing in readi­ness. The muzzl
e of the weapon came up sharply as half a dozen _!ccoerk_ burst from the meadow. Letting out a whistle of fourth-degree relief, he let a digit slip from the trigger and reholstered the gun.

  Their plump brown bodies shot through with purple streaks, the flock of feathered !ccoerk fluttered toward the satin-surfaced lake, cooing like plastic batons that had been charged with static electricity. Beneath a feathered, concave belly one trailed an egg sac nearly as big as herself. Idly, Wor­vendapur found himself wondering if the eggs were edible. While Willow-Wane had been settled for more than two hundred years, development had been slow and gradual, in the conservative, measured manner of the thranx. Coloniza­tion had also been largely confined to the continents of the northern hemisphere. The south was still a vast, mostly un­known wilderness, a raw if accommodating frontier where new discoveries were constantly being made and one never knew what small marvel might be encountered beneath the next hill.

  Hence his rifle. While Willow-Wane was no Trix, a world that swarmed with dynamic, carnivorous life-forms, it was still home to an intimidating assortment of energetic native predators. A settler had to watch his steps, especially in the wild, uncivilized south.

  Tall, flexible blue _sylux_ fringed the shore of the lake, an impressive body of fresh water that dominated the landscape for a considerable distance to the north. Its tepid, prolific expanse separated the rain forest, beneath which the settle­ment had been established, from inhospitable desert that dropped southward from the equator. Founded forty years ago, the burgeoning, thriving colony hive of Paszex was al­ready sponsoring outlying satellite communities. Worvendapur's family, the Ven, was prominent in one of these, the agri town of Pasjenji.

  While rain forest drip was adequate to supply the settle­ment's present water needs, plans for future growth and ex­pansion demanded a larger and more reliable supply. Rather than going to the trouble and expense of building a reservoir, the obvious suggestion had been made that the settlement tap the ample natural resource of the lake. As the possessor of a subspecialty in hydrology, Wor had been sent out to scout suitable treatment and pipeline sites. Ideally, he would find one as close to the lake as possible that was also geologically stable and capable of supporting the necessary engineering infrastructure, from pumping station to filtration plant to feeder lines.

  He had been out in the field for more than a week now, taking and analyzing soundings, confirming aerial surveys, evaluating potential locations for the treatment plant and transmission routes for the water it would eventually supply. Like any thranx, he missed the conviviality of the hive, the press and sound and smell of his kind. Regrettably, another week of solitary stretched out before him. The local fauna helped to divert his thoughts from his isolation. He relished these always educational, sometimes engaging diversions, so long as one of them did not rise up and bite off his leg.

  Seismic soundings could have been made from the air, or by a mechanical remote, but for something as critical to the community's future as a water facility it was felt that on-site inspection and evaluation by a specialist was required. Wor could hardly disagree. If it proved feasible, this same lake water would be used to slake the thirst of his own offspring. When the spouts opened inside the hive, he wanted their flow to come from a station that would not be subject to incessant breakdowns or microbial contamination.

  Unlimbering his pack, he used all four hands to remove and set up the sounder. At the touch of a switch, its six slim, mechanical legs snapped into place. Setting the instrument down on the ground, he adjusted the controls until he was confident it was stationed in a precise and sturdy manner on the slightly boggy surface. Compared to many of the water­logged sites he had already visited and evaluated, the pres­ent location looked promising. It would not do to situate a water treatment plant on sodden, potentially temperamental ground.

  Activating the sounder, he stepped back and let his compound _gaze_ wander to a formation of _gentre!!m_ gliding past overhead. A widespread native species familiar from numer­ous encounters in the long-settled north, they were migrating to the southern rain forests to escape the onset of the north­ern wet season and its accompanying monsoon rains. Their translucent, membranous wings shimmered in the haze-heavy sunshine of midday. Long, flexible snouts inflated and col­lapsed as individuals called tumescently to one another.

  The sounder beeped softly, signifying the completion of the survey. While he had watched the wildlife soar past to vanish beyond the far horizon of the lake, the sounder had taken a sonic scan of the immediate vicinity to a depth of more than a hundred meters. From a study of such scans as well as a mass of other accumulating data, Worvendapur and his colleagues would choose a site for the filtration and pumping station.

  While there was no need for him to perform an in-depth analysis of the actual readings in the field, he was always cu­rious to see the unit's findings. Even more so than the average thranx, he was intensely interested in what the earth beneath his feet was like because he might have to live in it someday. The initial readouts that flashed on the screen were promising and devoid of surprise. As it had proven to be in every pre­vious reading, the ground on which he stood was composed primarily of sedimentary rock, with the occasional ancient igneous intrusion from a time when local tectonics were more active. Though the area, and for that matter the ground in which Paszex itself was located, was riddled with faults, they appeared to be long quiescent and of no especial concern.

  He dipped his head lower. Having only a transparent, nicti­tating membrane in place of opaque eyelids, he could not squint, but his antennae dipped forward until the tips were al­most brushing the screen. The sounder was reporting an anomaly, virtually beneath his feet. A very peculiar anomaly.

  It was so peculiar that he considered returning to the air-car and reporting what he had found. But while reliable, sounders were not perfect. No instrument was. And neither were those individuals charged with their operation. If he called in his concern and it turned out to be baseless, he would come off looking more than a little foolish in the eyes of his peers. Thranx humor could be as sharp as a young dancer's ovipositors. Uncertain how best to proceed, he car­ried the sounder toward the lake, repositioned it, and ran a second scan. This time, instead of studying the wildlife, he waited impatiently for the compact device to complete its work.

  The second scan, run from a different site, confirmed the readings of its predecessor. Worvendapur pondered long and hard. The unusual results he was getting could be due to a me­chanical fault in the instrumentation, a consistent error in the analysis program, a simple imperfection in the readout system or screen itself, or any one of half a hundred other possible reasons-any one of which would make more sense than what he believed the instrument was telling him.

  Breathing evenly through his spicules, he ran a detailed in­ternal check on the sounder's systems. As near as he could tell without taking it apart, something he was not qualified to do, the device was working perfectly. He then examined himself, and decided that he was working perfectly as well. Very well then. He would leave it to a committee to debate and settle on an interpretation of his inexplicable findings. But he would not rely on one reading, or even two. Moving the sounder again, he set about making the third of several dozen sound­ings of the immediate area, unaware that he was not doing so in isolation.

  His actions were being observed and subjected to the same kind of rigorous analysis that he was applying to the ground beneath his feet. The eyes that watched him were not com­pound, nor did they belong to representatives of the indigenous wildlife.

  "What is he doing?" Clad in color-shifting, pattern-changing camouflage garb, the AAnn advance scout was virtually invisible where she stood crouching within the wall of weaving lakeside sylux. Together with her companion, she watched the blue-carapaced intruder shift his six-legged de­vice, wait, then move it again.

  "I enjoy no personal familiarity with thranx scientific mecha­nisms," the other scout confessed. "Perhaps he is taking weat
her readings."

  The slightly larger of the two females gestured third-degree dissent and followed it with a hand movement indi­cating second-level impatience. "Why send a lone technician out here with a single small device to analyze the weather? Orbiters are far more efficient."

  "That is so," her companion conceded testily. "I was simply trying to suggest possibilities in the absence of information."

  The concealed reptilian visage peered through the grace­fully swaying, dark blue stems. Their constant motion made detailed observation difficult. Furthermore, it was far too humid out here on the surface for her liking. While the thranx thrived in rain forest surroundings-the steamier the better- the AAnn were most comfortable breathing air that was starved of moisture.

  "It takes readings of its surroundings. So _we_ will take readings of it taking readings." Removing a small, tubular device from her belt, she activated it and aimed the shiny, reflective end at the thranx. It was a bit of a gamble, but so preoccupied was the settler with his own work that he did not notice the occasional brief, transitory light flashing from among the dense, oscillating stand of sylux.

  The results confirmed the worst fears of both scouts.

  "He is making subsurface sonic readings."

  Her companion was properly alarmed. "That cannot be permitted!"

  "Correction," her superior gestured. "The taking of readings can be allowed. What must be prevented is the reporting of those readings to his peers."

  "Look!" Heedless of the fact that her sudden movement might reveal their position in spite of the camouflage gear, the other scout straightened and pointed.

  The thranx was folding up his equipment. Turning, he started resolutely back through the grass, making a straight line for his waiting transportation. Keeping low, their suits shifting pattern and hue to match grass instead of sylux, the two scouts followed, steadily closing the distance between themselves and the visitor. As they stalked him, they debated how best to proceed.

  "We should call this in," the smaller female decided.

  "Cannot. By the time the seriousness of the situation is realized and a decision handed down, the intruder will be gone and it will be too late to halt the dissemination of the information he has gathered. A broken tooth must be filed down before it can spread infection."