Part 30

Over the next three days every member of the Green Band were evaluated or tested in all of their fields of study outside their own specialties. By mutual agreement, they all withheld their results from each other, so that they could surprise each other at the revealing.

The first day all of them except Jena and Jela submitted their best hunt recordings to be judged, and Tika also requested to be tested for the status of Master Hunter. Jena, Slin, Pina and Raz spent the afternoon tubing around India, challenging selected opponents among the Tiger People to combat in order to establish their status as fighters, and Tika accompanied them as their trainer. Only Raz received worse than minor injuries or lost his challenge, but it was a long one and a close one, that allowed him to fully demonstrate his skills, and he was pleased with the evaluation the judge gave him as the Meds treated his wounds. His ankle cast and heavily stitched right forearm did not affect the grin that he wore when they returned home to report their results.

The adults of the group spent the day with the Elders of the local Elephant People, being tested in comprehensive ecoculture. As part of that testing, the records of their evaluations of the balances of the wildlife on their territories for the last ten years were also scrutinized, and they were questioned about them.

The morning of the day after that, the entire group traveled to the University of Jaipur, to be tested in the academic fields. Naz and Slin were finished in three hours, and the rest of the adults were done within two hours after that. Jena's testing took seven hours, and then they all met in a cafeteria in the lowest level of the testing center for a late lunch. Since Tika, Pina and Raz assured the rest that they still had hours of testing to go, the five young stayed and the adults went home after eating. Raz was finished his tests three and a half hours later, Pina forty minutes after him. Tika did not join them in the cafeteria until eleven fifty that evening, having written academic tests as fast as she could for almost fourteen hours that day. She ate ravenously as they speculated on their results before tubing home. The five of them enjoyed a long soak in Tika's hot pool before surrendering to mentally exhausted slumber.

The third day Jela and Naz traveled to the Brahman Region for their fight challenges. Tika went with them as their trainer, Tira and Menak came along to provide moral support, and Davdan accompanied them on the journey so she could visit friends at the Enclave house there. Just before they arrived home at the tube station beneath Davdan 's house that night, Tika was called to hunt, and they cheerfully sent Tika on her way with Tira to keep her company.

The rest of the group's young stayed around home and were tested in ecoculture by the Elephant people.

"How did you get the call so quickly, after I waited weeks?" Jena asked when Tika and Tira arrived at Davdan's house late the next morning, looking tired but pleased.

"I have submitted a recording of me playing with Agg, teasing him unmercifully by slapping him lightly on the nose while fending off his attacks without injury for fifteen minutes." Tika explained with a grin. "The judges agreed that I needed no further testing of my ability in the area of close combat with dangerous animals. I asked for a hunt that was difficult in all the other ways instead, and I asked them to find me one before tomorrow if at all possible. Besides, I only asked to be tested as a Master Hunter, not a Grande Master as you did."

"So what did you get?" Pina asked eagerly.

"I went to Europe to hunt stone martens!"

"What is a stone marten?" Slin asked.

"They are like ferrets, or weasels, and completely nocturnal." Tika told him. "I studied them on screen on the tube there. Of all the animals in the world, they are probably the most secretive and stealthy. The preserved section of Old Zurich is one of the largest areas of preserved pre-Rationalist stone architecture that exist, and millions of stone martens live there. Millions of techs also live there, but the stone martens are so sneaky that less than one in ten thousand of the people have ever seen one! They are usually hunted by the local Ibex people with robotic and remote controlled devices, but they are dangerously numerous in that area right now due to a series of ecological events that began with a year of unusually heavy rain.

"I was given three hours to hunt them in Old Zurich, and three hours in a rock field in the Alps nearby. I got twenty-two of then in Zurich, and seventeen in the rock field! Most of the recording is actually pretty boring, though Tira-Mother was wonderful as my camera operator, but there is one thing you should see! Watch this!"

With that, she cued a section of the recording on her screen, and streamed it to them.

Tira had used a light-enhancing program on the recording, and it was easy to see what it showed. The rock field had a slope of around twenty-five degrees, and the recording initially showed Tika crouched behind a six-foot high boulder, looking upslope by edging her screen around the side of it. Tira zoomed upslope, and focused on three barely-visible stone martens engaged in some unidentifiable activity atop a flat-topped rock. She zoomed back downslope, where Tika was now lying on her belly and looking around the base of the boulder with her own eyes. She watched the stone martens for a minute, and when none of them had moved much for a while she eased quickly back behind the boulder and stood. She immediately threw three rocks in very quick succession, throwing almost as hard as she could, the first high in the air, the second at a lower angle and the third lower yet. The most amazing thing was that she was obviously throwing blind, having memorized the direction and locations of her targets, since the bulk of the boulder was between her and the stone martens, and she was throwing over it. As soon as the third rock had left Tika's fingers Tira had zoomed back upslope, testing the speed of her screen's auto-focus functions, and had just steadied the view on the three stone martens when all three were simultaneously and violently hit by the rocks, and two were knocked back off their flat topped boulder.

"The attending judges told me later that all three of those had been killed instantly." Tika smugly informed her awestruck group, and they all watched it several times more in amazement.

Of all the goals that they had set for themselves, only one was to remain unfulfilled. Though he was to try to do so on three consecutive nights, Naz failed to defeat Jela in pure combat. He was to finally admit he was unable to do so without resorting to some psychological trick, as he had done when he beat her with his chimpanzee attack. His first two attempts had been little more than serious sparring, but his third challenge was a far more serious thing, since their status challenges were done with, along with any need to save themselves for them. They had both gone to the med for multiple class one injuries after that one.

"Do not worry." Jela had chided as they left for the med. "As long as you can still make me laugh myself to death, I am yours!"

The day after that they held a great gathering at Tika Stadium.

Ostensibly the purpose of the gathering was to honor Sandor, since two days before he had announced both his decision to not contest the next election of the Leader of the Council of All Tiger People, and his impending retirement from politics.

The Green Band invited all of their friends and family from near and far, including Almona and Susan King, and Sandor and Shinra invited all of their many friends and family as well. The others of their guests were the rest of the Council of All Tiger People and their entourages, a great many other Elders of the Tiger People from lesser councils, and a selection of other prominent politicians, including Lonigan MacSanchez, Leader of the Council of All Peoples, and several other members of that council.

"Greetings, Tika." Lonigan MacSanchez smiled with a little bow when the two met in the foyer of the stadium upstairs from the tube station, where Tika and the Green Band were greeting guests as the hosts of the gathering. "I think you've been doing well. Your recent laws banning genetic White Elves from challenging natural humans to combat has gone a long way towards reassuring people of the honorable nature of your intentions.

"And that was a masterstroke, by the way, your adoption of the term 'natural humans' to denote those who are not elves. It's a term with only positive connotations, implying no inferiority to your people, while also reassuring us that you consider that your elves are indeed humans, if not natural ones."

"Thank you, Leader MacSanchez. Though it took no consideration to decide to use that term, it seemed the obvious choice."

"Good to hear. You should know that we have recovered the missing records and recordings of the construction of the weapons platforms and the missions that emplaced them. To our surprise, we have also recovered the three weapons platforms that were not launched because those missions were cancelled, disproving the previous reports of their destruction. As young Raz here suggested, analysis of the components of the weapons has led to the revealing of the last unknown details of the weapons case."

"I was aware of all that, Leader MacSanchez, as I have been following the coverage of the investigation closely."

"Ah. What you may not realize is that our investigators have now satisfied themselves that none of the weapons conspirators had any foreknowledge of what happened to Mission Specialist Jeffrey King. We also believe it to be extremely doubtful that another party could have smuggled a device that was capable of the attack on Jeffrey King onto his ship without the smuggler or the device being detected."

"I see." Tika thoughtfully nodded. "The implications of that are ... disturbing."

"They are indeed. We are reviewing every recorded astronomical observation that may reveal someone visiting the asteroid before Specialist King's mission arrived there, but so far, nothing has been revealed. We have also most carefully scrutinized the recordings from the other weapons platform that has been observing that asteroid since the incident, to try to decide if they have been altered to hide something leaving the asteroid, but we are reasonably sure that they have not. Therefore three possibilities remain. Either whatever attacked Jeffrey King is still on the asteroid and evaded the scans that were taken of it after the attack, or it has left the asteroid and was not detected because it was equipped with high quality 'stealth' technologies of the kind that were common at the end of the military era, or it has left the asteroid and was not detected because it is less than eighteen inches in diameter. And there is really nothing else to report about the genetics conspiracy."

"I see. Thank you for informing me, Leader MacSanchez." Tika smiled with a small bow. "Enjoy the gathering. I know Leader Sandor is looking forward to seeing you."

"Thank you." Leader MacSanchez told her with a smile and a bow of his own, and proceeded into the stadium.

There were less than six hundred guests at the gathering, and they would only have filled a small section of the stadium if conventional seating had been used. Instead, a temporary flat floor with deep harvest brown carpeting had been installed over the bowl-shaped bottom of the stadium, and it had been filled with loose semi-circular groupings of reclining armchairs with low end tables among them, and very wide aisles between them. The room's lights were so low they were almost off, and smokeless oil lamps had been set burning on each table to provide mood lighting. The groupings faced the same immense video display that had been used at the building's grand opening. It had been emplaced to one side of the floor, covering a third of the room, and before it was a stage with a podium of polished mahogany. Overall, a very luxurious and informal atmosphere was achieved by the arrangement.

As each group of arrivals entered the stadium they were met by a formally attired page who guided them to their assigned chairs and took their orders for drinks, snacks and intoxicants.

When the Green Band had greeted the last guests and checked them off the list of invitees, they entered the stadium and made their way to a large grouping of chairs closest to the podium.

Tika mounted the podium as her group seated themselves, her image appeared in the huge display behind her, and a soft spotlight shone on her, only bright enough to make her easily visible in the dim room.

"Greetings, and welcome. I am Tika, your host. We have gathered here today to honor Sandor of the Tiger People of Myanmar, Leader of the Council of all Tiger people. We will equally honor Shinra, his lifelong mate. For as you will see, she and he are two halves of an inseparable purpose.

"First we will mix and mingle for an hour. After that, we will watch an excellent two-hour documentary on the lives of Sandor and Shinra that I commissioned from Warner. Upon completion of its production, it was presented to Sandor and myself without charge, as a gift from the president of Warner.

"After the documentary, some of us will speak of Sandor and Shinra's greatness, and then our two honorees will gift us with their thoughts.

"We have a feast of many wonderful dishes available to you at any time. Our pages will gladly provide you with menus and take your orders. Enjoy the evening."

The next hour was an enjoyable one, and the presence of the Green Band and their friends and family prevented it from seeming like only another political meeting. Sandor and Shinra held forth to a constantly shifting group of thirty or so from the grouping beside the Green Band's, who also were surrounded by those who wished to meet them, and discuss their accomplishments.

Tika spent most of the hour explaining things about the White Elves. Many were under the mistaken impression that there was a distinct lifestyle of the White Elves, as there was a distinct lifestyle of the Tiger People. Tika patiently explained that the Elf-Mothers were from an even cross section of human society, and that they each continued to live the lifestyle of their people of origin. Thus, the territories of the wild people who hunted the surface of the region were divided as the surface of the world was. The Lakeside Zone was occupied by English speaking Tiger People, and half the zone next to it was home to Chinese speaking Tiger People, with a narrow strip of Japanese Tiger People between them. The Elf-Mothers of the Lion People had a zone, as did those of the Jaguar People. A half zone held the Wolf People of North America, another half Zone had Grizzly Bear and Polar Bear People, and a half zone was shared by the Wolf People of Europe and traditional aboriginals from Australia and the Pacific islands, who did not identify with a dominant predator. Similarly, the city of the Elf-kin techs was proportionally divided into sections for the speakers of the major remaining languages of the world; English, Spanish, Unified Chinese, and a village of Japanese. As one Elder had commented, the White Elf Region was like a miniature version of the world.

Only the Elephant People and other herbivorous eco-culturists, as well as those who cared for the oceans and great lakes, were not represented. When asked why those had not been included among the Elf-Mothers, Tika had explained that it would have been too much of a disruption to the eco-cultural process if the region's Elephant People had all been replaced at the same time as it's hunters.

The documentary was interesting, and provided a fascinating insight into the inner workings of Sandor and Shinra's lives. It showed the full extent of their co-operation and her equal contribution to his political career, a view that had never been revealed publicly before. And the gathering was indeed public, as it was broadcast live by a crew from Warner, who had as usual paid generously for the right to do so.

Lonigan MacSanchez gave the first speech, a deeply respectful tribute to the guests of honor, and the rest of the speeches were an equal mix of high praise, and a roasting of teasing witticisms.

When Sandor rose to speak, he drew Shinra by the hand to stand at the podium with him for the first time since he had entered politics.

They were given a standing ovation. When that had died down, Sandor hugged Shinra to his side with one arm, smiling down at her, before looking up at the assembled. "Thank you." he began.

"Now you know the truth. I have had a wonderful political career, because Shinra is shy. As it is, we are an equal partnership, but if she were not too shy to be active as a politician, she would not have needed me to win the Leadership of the Council of All Tiger People. And she would have won it a decade before I did, I think. Without her brilliance, I would have achieved nothing of note.

"You have said so many wonderful things about us tonight, you have left me little else to say. I have one more thing to tell you tonight, but before I do, we will yield the podium for a few minutes. I give you Davdan of the Green Band of the Tiger People, Chair Holder for the Great Indian Forest on the Council of All Tiger People, Ambassador for that council to the White Elves, inactive member in good standing of the Council of the Elder Judges of Fighting, five times Grande Champion, and just recently, Champion of the Tournament of Elder Staff Fighters. Davdan?"

Davdan rose to a polite round of applause and ascended the podium. "Thank you." she said, with a proud little smile. "Seven months ago the Green Band was formed to provide training to some very special young. At that time, I decided to achieve greatness as a leader, and I asked my new band-mates to allow me to help them achieve greatness, each according to their nature, to prove my ability as a leader, and to prove my ability to get things done.

"Truly, though I dedicated all of my resources, my ability, and my influence to this goal, I have not held a position of leadership in the Green Band. The talent and ability of my family group are so great, my contributions barely merit my position as an equal member among them. On the other hand, we have indeed achieved great accomplishments, greater than I could have ever dreamed, and many of them were things I could never have foreseen when we made our pact. The fortune I contributed when we began has been returned to me a hundredfold, and it will grow as many times again in the near future. In addition to our personal achievements, our efforts have changed the future of humanity for the better. And we were directly responsible for the revealing and resolving of the Academics War and the Weapons Conspiracy.