“I will intercede with pertinent authorities,” he responded finally. “Yous have documentation to prove yous’ claim, of course?”
“I can supply a surfeit of applicable formulae,” Pret-Klob assured him. He rose from his peculiar crouch but did not approach the general’s seat. “I will provide the requisite contact information. I understand that our missing property is preparing to depart Niyu. Obviously, this matter of mutual interest must be resolved appropriately and to our mutual satisfaction before then.”
With that, the alien turned and departed, lurching away on its foot flaps, leaving behind only promises and a slightly foul smell. As he reflected further on the unexpected visitation, Saluu-hir-lek found himself increasingly troubled by its possible ramifications.
A hastily applied dose of the powerful stimulants he utilized for recreational relaxation whenever combat was not going well was sufficient to cure him of any lingering reservations.
Given how jittery and uneasy he had been those first weeks long ago when he was being held aboard the Vilenjji capture ship, it was amazing how well Walker had adapted to sleeping in alien surroundings. Now, whether on urbanized Seremathenn, in a traditional Niyyuuan military encampment, or aboard a parsec-traversing craft in deep space, he found that he was able to enjoy a deep and relaxing rest anywhere.
Hence the necessity for the hand that had at first touched him lightly on the shoulder to slap, then finally beat on his back before it finally succeeded in waking him up.
“George, dammit,” Walker began sleepily as he rolled over. “Haven’t you figured out how to let yourself out of a Charuchalan residence yet? If you’re bored, you need to—”
A pair of fingers touched themselves to his mouth. They were long, slender, and strong. “No shouting.” Admonishing, tense, the voice was familiar, though not in such circumstances. “Cannot tell what capabilities other aliens might have.”
He sat up sharply. In the near darkness of the quiet room he could see very little. What light there was came from a distant, pale pink indicator showing that the room’s electronics were functioning properly. Hovering above him was the vaguest of outlines; whipcord lean and motionless. But his nostrils detected a certain sweetish fragrance, as of slightly soured roses. It was instantly recognizable. During the preceding months, he had come to know it well.
“Viyv-pym?”
The fingers returned, this time to anxiously stroking his bare left shoulder. “You must rise up, Marcus Walker. Now!” In the feeble light, he saw that while she was touching him, she was looking elsewhere.
As he sat up and slipped off the sleeping frame he found himself, as usual, envying the Niyyuu their superb night vision. The best he could do was stumble and feel around for his clothing. The fact that he was naked did not trouble him and certainly did not interest her.
“What is it? What’s wrong?”
“They coming for yous.”
Fighting to blink sleep from his eyes and power up the hard drive that was his brain, he struggled to make sense of what was happening. “What are you talking about, Viyv-pym? Who’s ‘coming’ for me?”
“Not just for you. For you and yous’ friends. You must all of you leave, now, tonight.” Moving away from him, she checked the door readout against the instrumentation that encircled her narrow wrist. “I not know how much time remaining.”
While he finished fastening his adapted Niyyuuan attire, she woke George. Growling, the dog snapped upright on his smaller sleeping platform. When he saw who had awakened him, he was just as confused as Walker. She did her best to explain the reason for the nocturnal invasion as they exited the room and hurried to alert Sque and Braouk.
“I have found out that other aliens come look for you.”
Hurrying to keep up with her as George trotted alongside, Walker fought to make sense of what she was telling him. The Vilenjji implant functioned efficiently no matter how sleepy he was. “What other aliens?” He thought automatically of the Sessrimathe. Did they want him back? It was flattering, of course, but he had come to Niyu for a reason and had no desire to return to that paragon of civilization and its well-meaning, if sometimes overbearing, inhabitants.
“Big, purple-skinned, with eyes even larger than those of Niyyuu, wider than those of you small many-limbed friend.”
George uttered a sound that emerged halfway between yelp and curse. “Do their skulls rise to a point topped with little wavy things, like thick fur?” When she indicated in the affirmative as they turned a corner, there was no ambiguity in the dog’s subsequent angry exclamation.
So the persistent Vilenjji had tracked them all the way to Niyu, Walker mused. What of it? Why the worry and near panic on Viyv-pym’s part? The Vilenjji had no power here. Or was he, as was all too often the case, overlooking something? Certainly the sense of urgency she had conveyed ever since waking him suggested as much.
The last of the four fellow travelers to be unexpectedly roused from a sound sleep, Sque divined rapidly what had happened.
“The Vilenjji have found an ally among the Niyyuu, or they would not pose a threat to us.” Eyes that were slashes of silver set in dark maroon flesh looked up at those of the tall female Niyyuu. “You know who it is.”
She indicated in the affirmative. “I am sorry have to say these beings have corrupted the general. He is helping them.”
Braouk could not believe it. “Saluu-hir-lek, whom we assisted greatly, now betrays?”
As they exited the structure and hurried toward a silently waiting private transport, the ocean of lights of Charuchal-uul’s capital city pulsed around them. Other vehicles slid or soared past on silent repellers. An increasingly apprehensive Walker eyed each and every one of them, wondering which might hold implacable Vilenjji and their newly inveigled Niyyuuan cronies.
“I not sure what they promise him,” Viyv-pym told the lumbering Braouk, “but whatever the specifics, they apparently sufficient. Under some galactic law-reasoning, he sending Kojnian soldiers to help ‘recover’ you.” She looked back at Walker, who was following close behind. “This alien say you its property.”
“More twisting of the precepts of civilization.” Lacking true feet, legs, or massive supporting tentacles on the order of the Tuuqalian, Sque was having a difficult time keeping up. As her kind were not built for walking, running was almost as alien to them as flying. Perceiving her difficulty, Braouk scooped her up and bore her along, carrying the K’eremu as effortlessly as he would have an infant.
“It not matter,” Viyv-pym responded. As her breathing grew deeper, her muscular round mouth expanded and contracted like a miniature bellows. “Who wields what guns is what matter now. I make what arrangements I could, but I not Charuchalan and it difficult this time of night to make contact with relevant parties.”
“Something both the Vilenjji and our erstwhile comrade Saluu-hir-lek doubtless have taken into consideration.” Freed from the debilitating need to drag herself rapidly across the ground, Sque’s voice had strengthened.
Thankfully, the transporter Viyv-pym had engaged was large enough to accommodate all of them, including Braouk. Not trusting automatics that could be compromised, she had sensibly arranged for a manually controlled vehicle. In addition to the Charuchalan driver, it contained one other inhabitant.
“Sobj-oes!” As they entered the big transport, George bounded into the astronomer’s lap and gave her face a friendly lick. Having no tongue, she could not respond in kind. She had to settle for stroking his head with one hand, a compromise that more than satisfied him. He sat there, head up, eyes alert and forward, tail metronoming. “Where are we going? Someplace to hide out until the local authorities can get a handle on Saluu-hir-lek?”
She hacked up a racking cough of amusement. “Someplace, yes.” Leaning to her left to peer around him, she snapped instructions at the vehicle’s operator. They were beyond concise.
He must know where we’re going, Walker thought rapidly. Viyv-pym and the astronomer must have had e
nough time to brief him before they got here.
As the trim but capacious craft accelerated, he found himself seated close to Viyv-pym. “Where are you taking us?” Mindful of George’s question, he took a guess. “Local authorities?”
Those bottomless eyes seemed to flow into his. “Not safe. I know that Saluu-hir-lek has been compromised by these aliens. I not know who else. At such times, in such circumstances, all must be considered suspect. Promises of wealth and power render even the most upright susceptible. Also, I have no influence here. This is Charuchal-uul, not Kojn-umm. To ensure yous’ safety, must get yous away from here.”
“You’re sending us back to Biranju-oov?” he wondered.
It was Sobj-oes who replied. Her expression when she looked over at him, or as much of it as he could read, was electric with enthusiasm. “No, Marcus Walker. One hope most fervently that we are sending yous home.”
The main port was enormous, as befitted one serving the capital of a powerful dominion. Their transporter hummed right past it. As it did so, Walker could see an impressive ship emerging from the night sky and settling massively to ground. Unexpectedly, George began to laugh, snickering in his suggestive way as he rolled back and forth on the astronomer’s narrow, bony lap.
Seeing no humor whatsoever in their increasingly dangerous situation, Walker challenged the dog. “What’s so funny? You won’t be laughing very long if these Vilenjji catch up with us again.”
Composing himself, George scrambled back up into a sitting position. “I’m sorry, Marc. It’s just that after all these chronological years and light-years we’ve traveled, after everything we’ve been through, here we are being spirited away in the middle of the night again, to be bundled up and rushed off-planet.”
“It’s not the same,” Walker murmured in response. “This isn’t Earth.”
“Neither is where we’re going, remember?”
Angling sharply but smoothly to the left, the transporter entered an access that led to a subsidiary section of the main port. The lights were fewer here, the looming nearby facilities showing ample evidence of age and some neglect. Eying them, Walker had to remind himself that what he was seeing was still hundreds of years in advance of anything on Earth.
Looking like a conjoined cluster of mating white and gold beetles, a transfer craft sat quiescent on its raised service platform. It was not as large as the craft Walker had just seen land at the busy section of the port, but it was far larger than any commercial airliner on his homeworld. A loading ramp led at a modest angle up into a dark opening in one of the craft’s bulging components. As the transporter slowed to a halt nearby, a squad of energetic, determined Niyyuu emerged from the ship’s interior to greet it. All of the tall, slender, big-eyed natives were armed, Walker noted. And not with spears or swords, but with energy weapons and projectors.
Sobj-oes, for one, was clearly relieved to see them. “Some of yous’ crew,” she informed him. “Most are volunteers. Spirit of adventure not confined to Sessrimathe only.”
As he quickly exited the transporter, Walker studied the cluster of assembled Niyyuuan faces. Even in broad daylight and even given the length of time he had by now spent among them, it was sometimes difficult to tell what they were thinking. But it was clear that these were alert and aware. Their two-fingered grips on their weapons were firm. In this group, at least, there seemed to be slightly more females than males.
Without warning, several of them raised and leveled their weapons. Walker tensed, while next to him, George swiftly scampered around behind the human’s legs. The guns were not aimed at him and his friends however, but at a point past them. Behind them.
The second transporter that had pulled into the little-used service and loading area was larger than its predecessor. It proceeded to disgorge several dozen armed Niyyuu. Despite the poor light, Walker had no trouble making out the uniforms and insignia of the armed forces of the realm of Kojn-umm. A number of the soldiers appeared disheveled, as if they had been called to duty in haste and forced to dress themselves on the run. In the forefront, he immediately recognized a familiar and atypically undersized figure: Saluu-hir-lek, looking even more uncompromising than usual. Together with that of his companions, however, the bulk of Walker’s attention was reserved for the thick-bodied, robed, and sandaled figure that sloughed along beside the Niyyuuan general.
Not only was it a Vilenjji, it was a Vilenjji he and his friends recognized.
“Spawn of sewage, leaver of slime tracks, death sniffer,” Braouk rumbled threateningly. As the seething Tuuqalian started forward, Walker hurried to intercept him. There was no need for that—yet.
The Vilenjji was as imperturbable as ever. Businesslike, to another way of thinking. “I see that the special eloquence of the Tuuqalian remains intact. That is gratifying. I am always pleased to find mislaid goods undamaged.”
“Sorry we can’t say the same for you.” An irate George peeped out from behind Walker’s ankles.
Implacable, Pret-Klob trained widely curving oculars on the impertinent quadruped. “And the small furred one’s intelligence level has not reverted. I always worry about the permanence of complex neural modifications.” The tapering skull came up. “I hereby claim property rights of which my association has been illegitimately deprived.” One flap-tipped arm rose to point. “That one, and that, and the two behind them. Property of my association.”
As the barely restrained Braouk extended a pair of accusatory tentacles, Sque crawled out to the end of one. Her weight did not even cause it to tremble.
“While different worlds adhere to and live by their own individually promulgated legal systemologies, common galactic law forbids the holding of any sentient as chattel. This is not Vilenj. You have no power here.”
“On the contrary,” Pret-Klob countered her. “All that is required is that means be available for avoiding prolonged deliberation in legal analysis.” His eyes bored into Walker’s. “Once off this world and in open space, other rulings take effect. I and the surviving, and new, members of my association wish only to recover what is rightfully ours, originally acquired after much hard work and travail. These efforts at recovery have already cost us much.” Without changing tone in the slightest he concluded, “Our goods may already have suffered significant depreciation.”
“I wish I had bigger teeth,” George snarled. “I’d depreciate you right down to that frizzy pinhead of yours, and play kickball with your eyes.”
“An unlikelihood,” the Vilenjji responded impassively as he turned to peer down at his recently engaged Niyyuuan associate. “Every minute of this disagreeable but necessary enterprise is costly and awkward to expense. General, be so good as to proceed with the recovery of what are rightfully the assets of my association.”
At a sign from the grim-faced Saluu-hir-lek, the soldiers behind him started forward. Simultaneously, the remainder of the armed crew of the transfer craft drew and raised their own weapons so that they were in line with those of their comrades. Taken aback by this suggestion of serious resistance, the uncertain Kojnian soldiers held their own weapons at ready. In the distance, another ship thrummed as it lifted toward space.
Across the far too small, intervening strip of plasticized ground, both heavily armed groups regarded each other tensely.
16
Heedless of the potent weaponry pointed in her direction, Viyv-pym moved forward until she was standing in front of Walker and George. In a voice that did not shake, she addressed those confronting her. Her words, however, were directed not at a furious, startled Saluu-hir-lek, nor at the hulking alien standing next to the general, but at the troops clustered behind and on either side of them. Despite his nervousness at being confronted by so many lethal devices, as she spoke Walker eyed her with the kind of admiration men in his position usually reserved for females of the species who exceeded their annual sales quotas by six figures.
“Soldiers of Kojn-umm! That yous’ commander standing before yous. But this not yous
’ fight. We do not keep other intelligent beings as property in Kojn-umm. No realm, no commercial concern, no individuals on Niyu keep intelligent beings as property.” She paused to let her words sink in. “This foulness of a principle is what yous being asked to support. Not security of beloved home realm in courageous, traditional manner of our kind. Not defense of our homeworld. Nothing but a principle of commerce that as alien to the Niyyuu as is the small-headed creature that presently stand before you.
“By refusing do this dishonest thing yous do not disobey principles of combat for which yous enlisted. Is no proper combat here.” One slender arm gestured expansively to take in their surroundings. “This not Kojn-umm. No officer or official of Kojn-umm, no matter how famous or feted at home, have authority here.” The arm swung around and down, coming to rest lightly across Walker’s shoulders. “These sentients beside me have fought alongside you for many ten-days now. They have helped bring great acclamation to yous and to Kojn-umm. Is not right to betray them for benefit of other alien who has done nothing for either.” Her voice lowered.
“Whatever other alien has promised, whatever yous been told, one thing is clear to any soldier who claims Kojn-umm as home: is not right sell honor for profit.”
The Light-Years Beneath My Feet Page 24
