Diuturnity's Dawn Read Online Free PDF Page B

Or with the Quillp, or the AAnn, or any of the diverse other intelligent races with whom humankind shared this corner of the Orion Arm. He had reason of his own to be grateful to the bugs. Without the aid they had rendered to humankind in the Pitarian War, a favorite grandniece of his might not have survived the fighting. Military assistance in the midst of conflict was always welcome.
    But the idea that relations should proceed beyond
that
was simply intolerable to one who loved his kind. The thranx might be all twirling antennae and sweet smells on the surface, but they were as alien as any sentient species humanity had yet encountered. The revelation that they had an actual colony in the Amazon Basin had been enough to trigger simmering outrage not only in men like himself, but in many who previously had given little thought to the problem.
    And it
was
a problem. How could humankind ever be certain of its safety, of its very future, if empty-headed authorities allowed aliens to expand beyond the customary, restricted diplomatic and commercial sites where they were allowed? The notion that such growth should not only be permitted but encouraged and codified was sufficient to prod Skettle and those of like mind to move beyond protest to action. Negotiations, he knew, were presently at a delicate stage and could go either forward or back. A well-timed statement might be enough to put a stop to foolishness that bordered on the seditious.
    Unlike others who felt similarly, Skettle did not think those humans who blindly advocated intimate ties with the thranx were traitors. They were simply ignorant. The bugs had deceived them. They were very clever, the thranx. Polite to a fault, ever conscious of the feelings of others, they had lulled supposedly astute people into a false sense of security the likes of which humankind had never before experienced.
    But not all of us, he thought resolutely as he presented his travel case for inspection.
    He waited while it passed beneath the Customs scanner. His corpus had already been cleared. Now it remained only for his luggage to do the same. Lawlor was the only potential weak link in the group, he knew. The man tended to exhibit unease even when no threat was apparent. That was why Skettle had chosen to carry this particular case. Old men were not usually the first to be suspected of smuggling.
    With a tip of his cap and a practiced smile, the earnest young inspector passed him through. Picking up his case on the other side of the scanner, Skettle resumed his trek through the terminal, staying in the middle of the stream of disembarking passengers. Compared to those on major worlds like Terra or Amropolus, the terminal was not large. The scanner had detected nothing inside his case beyond the expected: clothing, vacation gear, personal communicator—the usual unremarkable assortment of travel goods.
    It had not, however, performed a detailed analysis of the luggage itself. Even had it undergone that thorough an examination, the local authorities would still have been hard pressed to prove anything. Had they noted the composition of Lawlor’s case, and Martine’s, and subjected them to observation by a trained physical chemist, however, they would no doubt have been persuaded to investigate further.
    Each of the three cases was composed of a different set of materials. When certain specific sections of the trio were cut up and then layered together in the appropriate proportions, then treated with a commonly available binding fluid, the result was neat little squares of an extraordinarily dynamic explosive. Utilizing this product, Elkannah Skettle and his colleagues intended for the widely advertised Dawn Intercultural Fair to give off even more heat than its organizers intended.
    Everything had been carefully prepared in advance. It was meant for the deadly consequences to be blamed on unknown provocateurs working together with renegade thranx elements, but the apportionment of blame