Silence is Deadly Read Free Page A

nocturnal triped, was performing an involved plaiting of her own. Her three looping arms twined and untwined incessantly. Her expression was invisible behind the shaded translucency of her light shield.
    FIVE was equally capable of fanciful plaiting, but she kept her multifingered tentacles in a state of perfect relaxation. Her massive, conical head was bent forward slightly in a posture of attentiveness; her twig of a body was concealed by the drooping tentacles. The Fifth Councilor always maintained a guise of polite interest, however boring the report.
    SEVEN was listening silently, which meant that it was asleep. It was a massive lung in a slug-like body, and its regular wheezes were disconcertingly audible when it was awake. When it slept, its metabolism slowed almost to zero.
    FOUR probably was asleep. He was the council’s enigma, a faceless life form with a row of sensory humps located across his shoulders. He rarely spoke, and the only evidence of consciousness was the twitching and jerking of the humps as he focused and refocused his organs of sight and hearing to follow a discussion. Now the humps were motionless.
    Darzek turned his attention to EIGHT, Rok Wllon, the council’s Director of Uncertified Worlds. He had been watching the Eighth Councilor intermittently through the meeting, but now he scrutinized him with concern.
    Rok Wllon’s usual listening attitude was one of poised alertness as he waited to pounce on a contradiction or interrupt with a question. His knack for transforming an orderly meeting into acrimony with a well-placed interruption or two was exceeded only by his remarkable talent for interminable debate on inconsequential issues.
    But today he was leaning far back in his chair, and his half-closed eyes seemed to be focused on the infinity of the jace-vaulted ceiling. This entirely unwonted silence worried Darzek. There was no visible sign of illness—the Eighth Councilor had a decidedly blue set to his complexion, but that peculiar hue was his normal color, just as his normal but unlikely looking silhouette was massively broad when seen from the front and improbably narrow when viewed from the side-but something was decidedly wrong with him. Never before had he permitted E-Wusk to rattle off economic statistics without challenge.
    E-Wusk harrumphed twice and swung into his capsuled summary: The total volume of trade among the worlds of the Galactic Synthesis was up slightly. The trade of twenty-six and something per cent of the worlds had increased; the trade of twenty-eight and something per cent of the worlds had diminished. The trade of the others showed no significant fluctuation. A few worlds were experiencing unusual prosperity. A few were enmeshed in economic difficulties. Any councilor interested in either category could ask Supreme for a list of the twenty or thirty thousand worlds numbered therein. In E-Wusk’s opinion, the decacycle just concluded showed no anomalies, and none were predicted for the decacycle to come.
    The Second Councilor harrumphed to a conclusion and then sank back into a tangle of telescoping limbs.
    Darzek opened the meeting to discussion or questions. There was no response, so he officially accepted E-Wusk’s report with the council’s thanks. “Is there any further business?” he asked.
    The Third Councilor hurriedly unbraided its eye stalks and inflated its vocal sack. “I have a complaint,” it hissed.
    Darzek asked politely, “What is it that you wish to complain about?”
    “I’m not complaining,” THREE protested. “I have received a complaint. From compatriot tourists. They complain that they can’t see the government.”
    Darzek reflected for a moment. “That’s probably true.”
    “Of course it’s true. They make a long and expensive journey in order to view Primores, the central world of the galaxy, home of Supreme, principal site of the governing bodies of the Galactic Synthesis. And when they arrive here, it’s just another