Diuturnity's Dawn

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Book: Diuturnity's Dawn Read Free
Author: Alan Dean Foster
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a preliminary proposal for establishing closer ties between their respective species. This had not even been voted on by the Congress on Terra, yet the signatories felt that opening negotiations with their thranx counterparts at the same time as the details were being debated on the human homeworld would, if nothing else, serve to accelerate mutual consideration of the delicate issues involved.
    It was an acknowledged diplomatic ploy, a means of forcing reluctant individuals on both sides to consider politically highly sensitive issues they might otherwise prefer to ignore. Easy enough for the executive director of the colony world of Kansastan to ignore the question of closer human-thranx relations—but not if he felt that his thranx counterpart on Humus was ready to vote on the matter. Merely having the proposals presented for contemplation forced those to whom they were delivered to deliberate their possible ramifications. A good deal of the work of real diplomacy consisted of engaging such individual uncertainties.
    Just agreeing on what was technically a compilation of informal suggestions was a triumph for those thranx and humans involved. Others, they knew, were actively working to discourage the implementation of even one of the proposals. One way to do this was to persuade those in positions to actually make decisions to simply ignore anything relevant that crossed their desks. Hence Anjou’s intense desire to have a face-to-face meeting with Eint Carwenduved. Haflunormet’s superincumbent could not only present proposals to the Grand Council; she could go so far as to make recommendations.
    Through Haflunormet, Anjou had been trying to arrange such a meeting for more than six months. Patience or pessimism, whatever one chose to call it, the seemingly endless procrastination was driving her crazy. She could not give vent to her true feelings, however—not in front of Haflunormet. The xenologists had been firm on that from the beginning. She had yet to meet a thranx who would not recoil in distaste at what was to them an often explosive human outburst of emotion.
    Anyway, she told herself, diplomats do not do that sort of thing. So the fact that she wanted to stop right there and then in the middle of the domesticated alien jungle and scream out her frustration to curious qinks and any other exotics within range of her voice had to remain nothing more than a passing fancy. But the desire did not wane quickly, she realized.
    The delay was not Haflunormet’s fault. She knew that. Thranx diplomacy made the human equivalent appear to progress at lightning speed. There was nothing to be done about it but persist, stay polite, and keep her hopes up.
    “Why the continuing reluctance?” She gazed over at glittering compound eyes that were more advanced than that of any terrestrial insect. “It’s just a meeting. It needn’t even last very long.”
    Haflunormet stepped, one set of legs at a time, over an artfully positioned
zell
root. “Eint Carwenduved continues to study the proposals.”
    “I know that—she’s been ‘studying’ them for the better part of a year.” At once, Anjou regretted her tone, even though it was unlikely that Haflunormet was aware of its significance. His knowledge of human gestures, facial expressions, and linguistic peculiarities was improving rapidly, however, so she was more concerned than she would have been a few months ago.
    He did not react as if he detected any bitterness, however. “You must understand, Fanielle, that such things take more time to be resolved among my kind than they seem to among yours. Carwenduved must be certain of herself before she commits to any course of action because she will inevitably be held responsible for relevant consequences.”
    Which was a fancy and not altogether alien way of saying that the eint was stalling, Anjou knew.
    “The eint marvels at your earnestness,” Haflunormet continued. “She sees no need for a ‘face-to-face,’ as you

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