They hadn’t waited for us to arrive. They were eating as they sang. A squad of the glassy robots were busily slithering along the cords, hand over hand-well, branch over twig-to serve the diners with great gobs of something that looked like pink mashed potatoes, only gluey enough to hold together in a ball; clusters of figlike fruits that probably weren’t fruits at all, because they were squirming; hinged food dishes containing stuff that I couldn’t see, but could smell when the nearest Horch opened theirs; mesh bags of what might have been nuts or vegetables or-well, anything at all. All I could see through the mesh was varicolored lumps of God knew what. The other thing the Horch were doing was drinking, out of bagpipe-looking bladders with spouts on one end. The Horch took the spouts in their triangular little mouths when they wanted a drink, and then some of them pointed the spouts at friends nearby and squeezed. For fun, I guess. The thin streams of yellowish liquid, looking unpleasantly like urine, splashed when they hit another Horch and kept on going when they missed. It didn’t matter which they did, though. The Christmas trees were diligently sucking the spilled liquid out of the air as they passed. These masters of the universe were having their fun at a kind of college fraternity brawl. I guess the overworked robots weren’t enjoying it, but probably they weren’t programmed to enjoy anything anyway.
Our personal robot first escorted Beert to the heart of the web. The Greatmother was there and eating industriously, pausing in her own consumption only, now and then, to stuff some particular delicacy into the mouth of her least grandson, Kofeeshtetch. Having their mouths full didn’t keep them from singing along, welcomingly waving Beert to join in.
Pirraghiz and I weren’t included in the invitation. We weren’t given the good seats, either. A pair of serving robots dropped their waitering duties long enough to tug us to webs at one vertex of the tetrahedron. Then they scuttled away to fetch fresh delicacies for the Horch.
We weren’t alone there. There were three or four Horch nearby, singing along lustily with the others though they couldn’t have been very high ranking-our place was the exact equivalent of a table by the kitchen door in a human restaurant, even to the procession of serving robots that streamed back and forth past us. Our neighbors didn’t stop singing. They darted their heads to glance at us as we arrived-not cordially. I could almost hear them asking each other what cretin had invited these nasty-looking lower orders to the feast. Especially ones who smelled as strange as Pirraghiz and, no doubt, me.
We weren’t totally neglected. After a few moments the robots began dropping tidbits off for us, too. First there were a couple of net bags containing some of those things like green plums I remembered from my interrogation days, then a wine sack, then two lumps of that pink dough. They didn’t hand them to us. They attached them, somehow, to the cables we were clinging to. I didn’t see how, exactly, because I was trying to figure out what was going on up in the high-rent district.
The Greatmother’s party wasn’t singing anymore. The least grandson seemed to have left the group, but I could see Beert and the Greatmother talking to each other, necks intertwined in deep conversation. I was pretty sure what they were talking about. It was me. Every once in a while one or both of them would dart their heads in my direction, but what was being said, I couldn’t guess. I could only hope that it had nothing to do with my destruction of valuable Horch machinery at the Eight Plus Threes.
Pirraghiz interrupted my fairly apprehensive thoughts about that by poking my shoulder. “Eat,” she said.
That was easier said than done; I didn’t see how I could hang on to the cable and eat at the same time. Pirraghiz solved the problem for me. She had linked herself to the cable with one of her lesser arms. Now she took a firm hold of my leg with another, thus safely mooring me, while she finished picking over the goodies the robots had left us with a couple more. Having six arms certainly had its points.
She drew me close enough to hear her over the noise of the singing, which was getting even more boisterous. “You can eat this,” she said, offering me a lump of the pink dough. “Some of the fruits, too, after I pick the seeds out. Not the liquid. Not anything else.”
The pink stuff was warm and soft and smelled a little like garlic. I nibbled at it to be polite. Although I was hungry, I still had the hope in my heart, now dwindlingly faint, that before long I would be where I could get a thick steak, with french fries and a few slices of red, ripe tomatoes, and maybe even a bottle of beer...
“Look,” Pirraghiz said, sounding surprised.
What she was pointing at was the least grandson, rapidly swinging himself in our direction, looking as though he had something to talk to us about.
He did. As soon as he was near he announced importantly, “I have solved the problem of the order of battle-theoretically, provided it is allowed to occur. Listen attentively.”
He didn’t have to say that. I was doing it already. He settled himself in, close to my head, and stared into my eyes.
“There are three eights and two of the vessels on your planet,” he informed me. “One is considerably larger than the others, so we will not attack that one. To one of the smaller ones, first we will send in two waves of fighting machines, two at a time. I had thought,” he said meditatively, “of perhaps using a pair of the warriors of the Others as a deception tactic for the first wave.” He surprised me. “You have some of their warriors?” “Of course. Quite a few were still alive, though wounded, when this place was taken. Most did not survive, but some did, even after questioning. Later, when they had been removed from the control of the Others, the Greatmother gave them to me as pets. I possess a number of such creatures,” he told me proudly. “I study them to learn what lesser organisms are like, so as to be prepared for dealing with them at the Eschaton. Perhaps sometime I will show some of them to you.”
This particular lesser organism was getting impatient. I coughed to get him back on track. “That would be nice, but about your plan-?”
“Yes, the order of battle. I decided against using the organic warriors. Since they are no longer controlled, they have become quite cowardly and I do not trust their fighting skills. So we will use our machines in the first two waves. Then you and your-uh-associate”-he was looking at Pirraghiz-“will go in the third transmission, also armed with copies of your projectile weapons. By then the fighting machines should have neutralized whatever forces the Others have in place. Not many, I think. The Others will not expect us to bother them in a place like that. Then you will be free to act as you wish.” I was rapturously hanging on every word. Then he brought me down. “Assuming, of course, that the Greatmother gives such orders. I believe she and Djabeertapritch of the Two Eights are discussing it now.”
He twisted his neck to look in her direction. Then he said in sudden alarm, “I believe she is getting ready to speak! I must go! I will talk to you further later on. That is, I will if the project still seems feasible.”
I could have wished for fewers ifs and maybes, but I could feel my heart speeding up. Pirraghiz was looking at me curiously. She had certainly heard every word, but if she wanted to say something about the exchange, she didn’t have a chance, because just then the singing stopped at some signal I hadn’t caught. Everyone was silent. Even the robots paused in their rounds for a moment, as the Greatmother began to speak.
“Nestmates and honored guest,” she began-I noticed the “honored guest” was in the singular; Pirraghiz and I were not included. “We rejoice at this time at the reunion of a lost nest with the grand consortium of the Horch. We are greatly, and most pleasantly, surprised to have Djabeertapritch, descendant of our people of the Two Eights, with us. I have made him a promise, which I will keep at this celebration.” She darted a coquettish look in Beert’s direction. “What I have not decided,” she went on, sounding like a teasing Santa Claus with a young child on his lap, “is whether it is better to prolong his suspense a bit longer or to reveal the surprise to him now.” That brought on murmurs from the audience. I could hear that some of the
m were saying, “Now!” while others said, “No, make him wait,” and a fair number were speaking what I took to be jocular obscenities. But they were all laughing about it, even the Greatmother. (“I believe they have had a great deal of the intoxicating liquid,” Pirraghiz whispered in my ear.)
The Greatmother bent her neck to her least grandson, who was tugging at her arm. I noticed that Kofeeshtetch was hanging upside down relative to her, but she didn’t seem to care-well, that didn’t matter as much for the Horch as it would for us, since their heads could go every which way.
Then she lifted her head, giggling. “My least grandson asks to have the surprise now,” she announced. “Djabeertapritch? Do you agree?”
Beert wasn’t doing any of the laughing, seemed to have something serious on his mind, but he rose to the occasion. “I will be pleased with whatever pleases the Greatmother,” he said diplomatically.
“Yes, of course. Very well. This surprise is a very great fool, Djabeertapritch. She was unwise enough to come to this place after the fighting had begun, and we did not allow her to leave.” The Greatmother paused for dramatic effect, then issued an order to the robots. “Bring the prisoner in!”
CHAPTER THIRTY-FOUR
Every Horch head in the banquet hall turned toward one of the vertices of the tetrahedron, where the diners were scrambling to get out of the way. They needed to, for what entered was a procession.
First came a fighting machine in full combat alert, backing into the room with its weapons trained on what followed. That was a couple: a Christmas tree chained to a creature with spindly legs and arms and a head like a jack-o’-lantern. Another fighting machine brought up the rear, also with dead aim on the captive.
I knew what she was at once.
I was in the presence of one of the Others. One of Dopey’s Beloved Leaders. A member of the species that, at this very moment, was casually deciding whether it would be more advantageous to annihilate everyone I knew and loved, or turn them into abject slaves.
When Pirrzghiz put one worried arm on me I realized I was shaking. I gave her a nod to reassure her, but I couldn’t stop.
I wasn’t the only one affected. For most of the Horch this poor captive was old news, but not for Beert. His neck and both arms were stretched out toward her, frozen motionless, and his little snake mouth was open in shock.
The Greatmother made that choking, staccato sound that was a Horch laugh. “Well, Djabeertapritch,” she said, delighted with her effect. “How do you like your surprise? Would you like to speak to her? Ask her some questions about how it feels to be a captive, as you were to her people?”
He managed to make a slow, negative shake of his head, but that was it. The female Beloved Leader was not so reluctant. She turned that great, round, scarecrow head toward Beert and spoke through her huge teeth. “I excrete into the mouth of your Greatmother,” she said in a shrill, piping, venomous voice. “I will do the same to all of you when the Eschaton comes and you organisms are all shrieking in pain as we trample you under our feet.”
She was speaking perfect Horch, far better than Beert’s farm-boy drawl. I saw the reason: one of those ribbed, golden scabs tucked under the swell of the pumpkin where it joined the skinny neck. When she leaned forward to hiss at Beert, I saw, too, that the last link of the chain that held her to the Christmas tree had actually been grafted into her flesh. They were taking no chances with this representative of the ultimate enemy.
The Greatmother was switching her head about ominously. I thought for a moment there was going to be a major hissing match between the two of them, if not something more physical. Beert prevented it. He spoke up.
“Prisoner,” he said, “the Greatmother called you a fool, but you are an even bigger fool than you know. You will not win. We Horch are stronger and braver and wiser than you, and even the lower species are going to rise against you.” He turned to the Greatmother. “Have I permission to speak now?”
She graciously waved her neck in assent, and he began to talk. I hung there in suspense, almost dreading to hear what he was going to say.
He began, “I speak to you from the belly, revered Greatmother, and to all you Horch of the Four and Ones. I am Djabeertapritch of the Two Eights, which is no more.”
That was a letdown for me, right there. Beert wasn’t delivering any casual talk, it was an oration! I was willing to bet that the son of a bitch had been rehearsing it to himself all along. Discouraged, I slumped back, waiting for him to get to a point, but I was the only one in the room who felt that way. Every one of the Horch had stopped their foolery and were listening with their little mouths wide-open.
Beert seemed to intend to give the whole history of his nest: “When the Horch came to the Two Eights they slew us by the sixteens of sixteens of sixteens, most cruelly and treacherously...” Well, I had heard all of that. And about how the survivors had been taken to the prison planet, and what happened to them there. However, the Four and Ones were eating it up. They hissed and moaned when he spoke of how people from their nest had been studied and used for experimental purposes, and when he came to their rescue by the Eight Plus Threes there were scattered cheers.
I might have cheered myself, because that was when he got to what I wanted to hear. “Then our little nest was free at last. As were the members of those other species whom the Others had imprisoned there. And it is of those other species that I would speak, revered Greatmother.”
Now he had my full attention, all right. “Some of you have seen the Wet One, whom we have helped return to his own planet to do battle with the Others who have enslaved it. His species was fortunate-a little fortunate-because their planet still exists. Not all were that lucky.
“You all know the species of the large one with many limbs”-his neck was outthrust toward Pirraghiz-“because some of them were here when you bravely captured this place. Their fate may be the worst of all. Not only were they compelled for a long, long time to be the servants of the Others, but their planet is long lost.
“The planet of the four-limbed one, whose name is Dan, is yet free, but perhaps not for long. The Others have already begun to infiltrate it. Dan wishes to be returned there so that he can help fight them off.”
He hesitated, eyeing me with a look I couldn’t interpret. Then he said, “Dan’s are a simple people, Greatmother. Their machines are crude. They have little wisdom. And they are not a peaceful race. I say only of them that their people are divided among themselves, with many ‘nations’ which make their own customs and laws, and sometimes actually go to war with each other.” Shocked stir among the Horch; Beert went bravely on, overriding the mutterings. “Nevertheless, they do not deserve to be made slaves of the Others. It is not their fault that their limbs are stiff and their brains are imprisoned in a box of bone on their necks. They are not animals. Their brains are in some ways almost the equal of our own. So I ask you to help him in this cause, revered Greatmother, and”-he hesitated, then got it out-“I ask you for more than that. I wish to go with him myself; to do what I can to prevent what happened to my planet from happening to his. Greatmother, will you grant me this wish?”
When Beert finished speaking there was a stir among the assembled Horch. Our nearest neighbors craned their necks to study Pirraghiz and me curiously, silently at first. Then not so silent. One of them abruptly clapped his hinged feeding dish against his belly armor. Then another did. Then they were all doing it, rhythmically, like the kind of we-want-a-touchdown thing that people do at football games. And then they began to sing again, first one or two, then the whole damn collection of them at once.
I don’t think it was the same song I had heard before, but I wasn’t paying attention to the words. I was staring at Beert.
The guy had taken me by surprise. Not only had he chosen not to denounce me as a capricious destroyer of Horch machines, but what was this about coming to Earth with us? That had never been part of the plan.
I realized Pirraghiz was shaking my leg. I blinked a
t her. “The Greatmother is beckoning us,” she whispered. “I think she wants us to come to her.”
They were all looking at us, as a matter of fact, even the Greatmother. As soon as I was close she darted her head at mine, inspecting me at close range far more thoroughly than before. But I was looking at the female Other. At close range I could see that the creature had not had an easy life lately. Her clothing was smudged and torn, and there were recent scars on the bulbous pumpkin face. As Pirraghiz set me down, not two meters away, the Other rattled her chains and hissed venomously at me. The Greatmother didn’t even look at her. “I tire of this filth’s presence,” she said to the air. “Remove her!”
As the crystal robots were dragging the Other away, the Greatmother twisted her neck to look at Beert. “You are determined to do this?” she asked. “To risk your life for the sake of some lower organisms?”
He didn’t look at me. “I am determined,” he said.
Then she sighed. “It will be done. My least grandson has prepared a plan which we will follow.” And added, “You are very brave, Djabeertapritch.”
And so he was, in more ways than the Greatmother knew.
PART EIGHT
Going Home
CHAPTER THIRTY-FIVE
When the Greatmother said “Do it” she didn’t mean do it on Tuesday. She didn’t even mean do it when the feast was over. Kofeeshtetch disappeared at once, promising to meet us at the transit machine, and then it was maybe five minutes before a pair of Christmas trees came charging along the cords to drag me and Beert away, Pirraghiz following. Cheers broke out as we left, and then another burst of raucous song. I was glad enough not to have to stay for that.
We stopped by the rooms to collect Beert’s personal glass robot. That was useful, since it gave me a chance to pick up my little mesh bag of Horch goodies. Beert gave me a dark look but didn’t say anything, and we were at the transit machine long before Kofeeshtetch and the troops.
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