Sliding Scales by Alan Dean Foster Page B

do with that execrable excuse for a sentient that he had providentially knocked over a cliff, sending it to its doom. As was proper, his report on the incident had been filed immediately. By now he thought it had long since been reviewed and accepted. Had something unforeseen cropped up to compromise his carefully crafted tale of alien deception and desperate self-defense? As he walked, he mentally reviewed what he had scribed. He could find no fault with it. His failure to do so only rendered him that much more uneasy.
    Dodging irritably around a couple of slowly hopping, visiting Vssey, he entered an appropriate lift and soon found himself at the entry to Keliichu's workplace. As befitted someone of such high status, it was located just below ground level, with a narrow horizontal port offering a view of carefully maintained external landscaping.It was as close as one stationed on Jast could get to a homey panorama. Trying not to let his unease show, he flashed his presence.
    Keliichu was waiting for him. The primary administrator's expression, posture, and tail position gave no indication of what the respected sandering was thinking. He appeared preoccupied, barely acknowledging Takuuna's entrance and elaborate salute as the newcomer sheathed his claws, turned his head to the right, and exposed his jugular. Nor did Keliichu come around the work desk to lightly grab Takuuna's throat in a polite gesture of greeting. Takuuna did not miss the gesture because it was not expected. This was not a personal encounter. Determined to stay calm, forcing himself to still the rapid side-to-side twitching of his tail, he waited silently.
    Keliichu turned to him. Not on him, but to him, Takuuna noted with relief. An AAnn could read more into a body movement or gesture than even the most perceptive human, and there was nothing in the way the primary administrator held his hands or his head, his shoulders or his tail, to suggest enmity.
    Keliichu wasted no time. “You have heard about the deathss at Morotuuver?”
    Takuuna gestured swift acknowledgement. Who had not? The horrifying incident was the talk of the AAnn community on Jast. “A terrible tragedy. Sso many good nye dead in the accident.”
    The senior administrator executed a brutally sharp gesture of disagreement muted by third-degree consideration. “It wass not an accident.”
    His visitor was taken aback. This was not the conversation he had expected to have. “But all the reportss indicated that—”
    Keliichu did not let him finish. Noted for his patience, the primary administrator was exhibiting all the signs ofone for whom time had become shortened. It occurred suddenly to Takuuna that even someone as senior as his host could come under pressure from above. That in turn suggested the involvement of authority beyond the merely local, perhaps stretching all the way back to Pregglin itself.
    What had happened? And how, by all the heat of all the sands of home, did it involve him?
    “It wass an act of ssabotage,” the administrator informed him moodily.
    Takuuna's head was spinning as he tried to keep up. “Ssabotage? But by whom, and to what purposse?”
    The administrator's head came up and he met his visitor's eyes squarely. Another time, another place, it might have been interpreted as a personal challenge to combat. But not here, not in this office, not during a prescribed meeting between superior and subordinate.
    “You, of all nye, sshould know that, Takuuna.”
    His thoughts raced. Why would anyone suppose that he would be familiar with … ? He began to smile inwardly. There was a childhood legend about guiding stars that favored certain newly born. He was beginning to believe that his was shining brightly. He could foresee the diminishment of a subjunctive already. Having arrived full of ignorance and worry, he strove to adjust his posture to reflect inner confidence. It was something he was beginning to feel.
    “Truly,” he responded ingenuously. “Why wass