“Then I’ll follow you,” he replied readily, “and keep my mouth shut.”
Pivoting neatly, the K’eremu resumed scuttling down the long, dim passageway. “Two prudent decisions in one coherent phrase. Despite inherent shortcomings, a glimmer of evolution may be discerned. One can but hope.”
Which is what all of them were doing as they silently followed their insufferably egotistical guide onward into the darkness.
Triv-Dwan led the quintet of members forward. Two of them bore an assortment of capture gear. The other three were heavily armed. Bearing with them the decision of the association, as finalized by Pret-Klob and its other senior members, they were operating under a mandate to recapture the still at-large inventory, but not to take chances. It was imperative that the inventory, who had already had the audacity to disgrace a previous search group, not be allowed to escape into the inner regions of the ship a second time. The group’s instructions were clear: If the absent inventory could not be recaptured this time, it was to be terminated.
At least, after days of wandering aimlessly, the group now had something definite to track. The sensors they all carried had picked up an unmistakable indicator. At least one large organic signal and possibly more lay directly ahead of them, moving steadily in the opposite direction. Despite the carnage that had been wrought by the free-roaming Tuuqalian, Triv-Dwan felt confident. The two other hunting groups that had also been searching for the missing inventory were closing in on the signal from opposite sides. By coordinating their approach, all three should arrive to confront the source of the signal at the same time. Not even the Tuuqalian, Triv-Dwan felt, could make an escape through three synchronized hunting groups.
Immediately on his right, Sjen-Kloq wrapped her arm flaps tighter around the impressive long weapon she carried. The members of all three groups had been cautioned to attempt capture first and shoot only as a last resort. The warning was superfluous. Everyone knew how much profit was at stake. But they would not put their lives at risk to preserve it. That had been tried immediately subsequent to the initial mass escape of the inventory, and had resulted in the deaths of several members of the association.
It would be good, he knew, to finally see the last of the escapees helpless in clean restraints. Their return would be a lesson to the already recovered inventory: Escape from the enclosures was a futile gesture. Expensive as it had already been, in terms of lives and ship-time, the lesson should not be wasted.
A glance at the sensors that lined his limber right upper appendage indicated that they were closing rapidly on the target. Whatever food and drink the inventory had been able to scavenge should be running low by now, he reflected. Weakness would take its toll on mental as well as physical acuity. With luck, the recapture would go smoothly, with no damage either to inventory or to any members of the three hunting groups. A separate indicator showed that Hvab-Nwod’s and Skap-Bwil’s teams were closing rapidly. Seeing that all possible avenues of flight were blocked to them, perhaps the inventory would behave rationally and give up without a struggle. If they did so, Triv-Dwan would be among the first to compliment them on having done well to remain at liberty for so long. After all, valuable lessons could be learned even from lowly inventory.
Sjen-Kloq had been forced closer to him by the narrowness of the passageway they were presently negotiating. Triv-Dwan felt the presence of the other members of their group close behind. Having limited space in which to operate did not trouble him. Less room for them to maneuver meant correspondingly less opportunity for the inventory to slip past.
According to the sensor readouts they were very close now. His suckers tightened on the capture device he held. For a change, everything was proceeding flawlessly. Both other groups should be in position within seconds.
“There!” Sjen-Kloq hissed sharply as her own sensors switched from remote to direct visual perception. Simultaneously, Triv-Dwan unleashed his device. From the opposite direction, a member of Hvab-Nwod’s team did likewise.
Both shockeshes swiftly enshrouded their target. Enveloped, startled, and stunned, it ceased moving immediately. It did so without protest and without crying out. Weapons and devices at the ready, all three groups rushed forward. What they saw resulted in confusion, bemusement, frustration, anger, and a rapidly dawning realization that this time they had not only been humiliated in the manner of Dven-Palt, but humiliated in a way that was as inimitable as it was ancient.
On Triv-Dwan’s limb, as on those of his fellow association members, organic sensors continued to glow with the fullness of detection. Before them, the object of their resolve stood motionless, uncertain how to respond to what had happened to it. It was a repair automaton. A repair automaton that had been methodically and liberally coated with the organic byproducts of not one but four different free-ranging inventory. No wonder the insensate mechanical had given off such a strong and distinctive signal of organic presence. It was emitting other signals as well; ones that Triv-Dwan and his fellow members were at pains to ignore. While distracting, these did not trouble him half so much as the realization that, for a second time, the diligence and technological superiority of the Vilenjji had been systematically deceived.
As he turned away from the sight that was at once unpleasant and taunting, it also left him wondering where, if not here, the unspeakable absent inventory had betaken themselves.
The corridor was big. The accessway was big. The final atmosphere lock itself, leading straight into the secondary vessel, was bigger than he had expected. Instead of the small, narrow, easily sealed entrance he had envisioned, Walker found himself sprinting through an arching portal capacious enough to pass a rhino. Scuttling along beside him, listening to his exclamation of surprise, Sque marveled at his lack of common sense.
“These secondary relief craft are designed to accommodate Vilenjji. Vilenjji are large. In an emergency, the intent is to provide for as many individuals as possible. Forcing them to enter a vessel designed to save their lives by making them cross a narrow threshold slowly and one at time would be counter to its purpose.”
“A happy coincidence, for which I am grateful, many times.” For one of the few times since they had fled the grand enclosure, Braouk did not have to duck or squeeze to fit through a passage. If the Tuuqalian had been relieved by their success before, now he felt positively liberated.
Walker glanced back over a shoulder. There was still no sign of any pursuit. Whether the clever if odious diversion propounded by the inventive Sque had succeeded in drawing the attention of the Vilenjji away from them or because their vain captors had not believed a handful of escapees could conceive of attempting so daring a gambit he did not know. All he did know was that they had successfully gained entrance to one of the subsidiary spacecraft whose location she had memorized from her prior study of the Vilenjji control box.
When the K’eremu, with a boost from Braouk that enabled her to reach the relevant instrumentation, caused the heavy outer and inner doors to spiral shut behind them, Walker felt as if he had just surmounted Everest solo sans supplementary oxygen. If everything went for naught from now on, they had at least in some small way struck back at their abductors. The nature of the triumph was delicious: The abductees were themselves now engaged in the process of stealing from those who had stolen them. Tit for tat, far out among the stars. He wondered if the Vilenjji, when they discovered what was happening right under their olfactory orifices, would feel mortified. He hoped so.
George was running around the interior of the secondary craft, sniffing and exploring. The voluminous central chamber was lined with what looked like giant ice cream scoops: seats or lounges for a couple of dozen Vilenjji forced to abandon ship. With Sque beckoning them onward, they passed through the chamber and into a smaller one beyond. Though it boasted the same customary high ceiling, it overflowed with tiny projection devices and other arcane instrumentation whose purposes Walker did not even attempt to grasp. There were also two more of the archetypical body s
coops. As the escapees studied their surroundings, several projection devices winked to life. Bits of dense light, like floating kanji characters mated with exotic flowers, appeared in the air around them. The majority were concentrated forward of the portal through which they had just entered.
“Up,” Sque commanded impatiently. For once, an energized Braouk responded without comment, poetical or otherwise. Placing two tentacles next to each other, the Tuuqalian provided a sturdy pedestal for the much smaller K’eremu. Effortlessly, Braouk lifted her up into the web of hovering light-shapes. Gripping his tree-trunklike supportive limbs with half a dozen of her own much smaller ones, she launched into an intense study of the softly glowing, evanescent structures that now surrounded her like so many curious pixies.
That left the two Terrans free to explore the corners of the craft’s forward chamber. So elated were both of them at their success in having coming this far that Walker took no offense at Sque’s patronizing directive, “Do not touch anything the function of which you do not understand. Which is to say, do not touch anything.”
“We’re still a long ways from getting free of the Vilenjji,” George reminded him, trotting alongside. “We’re still a long ways from anywhere.”
“But we have a chance,” Walker told him. “It might be no more than a minuscule chance, but that’s more of one than we had squatting in our enclosures like so many—”
“Dogs in a pound?” George finished for him.
Walker looked down at his friend. “I wasn’t going to say that,” he replied somberly.
“Doesn’t matter. I wanted to. Remember it the next time you find yourself comparing degrees of freedom.” The black nose rose and dipped to indicate a nearby patch of luminous alien imagery. “Wonder what that does?”
Walker eyed the cluster of carmine and orange lights that formed an eye-catching basket of floating photons in front of them. Unlike similar luminosities that hovered above their heads at Vilenjji limb-level, this out-of-the-way mass of drifting radiance was practically resting on the deck. Head down, George approached it with his usual caution.
Walker added to it. “Sque said not to touch anything.”
“Doesn’t smell.” The dog raised its head. “It’s just light. Why does she get to give all the orders? Why does she get to do everything?”
“Because she knows how,” Walker reminded him. “Because she’s a representative of the high and mighty all-knowing, all-seeing, all-stuck-up but inarguably ingenious K’eremu. Because if anyone’s going to get us out of this, it’s her.”
“Screw that,” George shot back. “It’s time I was treated like a dog.” So saying, and before a startled Walker could move to stop him, he reached out with his front right leg and gently pawed the bundle of hovering lights.
His claws went right through the drifting shape. They were nothing but lights, after all. Then a rising hum made both of them turn.
“I told you not to touch anything,” Sque called down to them from her perch atop the Tuuqalian’s extended limbs. Encouragingly, she did not sound any more than usually scornful, much less worried.
The upper half of the front of the chamber was retracting.
As it slid upward into the ceiling, the universe was revealed. Distorted by whatever engine or drive drove the Vilenjji craft, but still stunning in its expanse and glory. It was far more impressive, and more overawing, than had been the view through the modest passageway port they had encountered earlier. Curving halfway around the forward chamber in imitation of a Vilenjji eye, it also allowed them, for the first time, a view of part of the Vilenjji ship itself.
It was immense. Even after days of wandering through its dimly lit passageways, Walker had not really succeeded in acquiring an honest impression of its true size. And they were seeing only a small part of it, he reminded himself. Only that portion that was visible through a corner of the secondary craft’s viewport. Certainly it was bigger than your average ocean liner or cruise ship. The sheer scale of it brought home to him in a way nothing else could the magnitude of what they were attempting. The starship was intimidating in ways he had not envisioned. Surely they had no chance of escaping the grasp of beings who could construct, operate, and steer something that was infinitely beyond the collective capability of the entire human species.
“Podal toggle,” Sque announced from on high, by way of explanation for what they had done.
So that was what the impudent George had activated. The cluster of dazzling hovering alien luminosity, an incomprehensible mystery, was nothing more than a foot switch. And why not? A wandering spider could short out a massive computer. A skittering rat could interrupt a beam of light, setting off all manner of unforeseen consequences. And a curious, defiant dog could trigger an alien photonic input.
You didn’t have to be able to explain the physics of an internal combustion engine to know how to drive a car, he reminded himself. Maybe, just maybe, their chances of actually escaping the clutches of the Vilenjji were a shade more than minuscule.
Turning to study the thousands of silent, alien stars now visible through the sweeping curve of the forward transparency, he came to a solemn conclusion.
He would allow himself at least as much hope as a dog.
14
Although to all intents and purposes it appeared that they had succeeded in gaining entry to the secondary craft without being observed, it was their activity there that finally alerted the Vilenjji to their presence. As the smaller vessel’s internal systems were accessed and brought on line by the busy Sque, notification was passed to relevant instrumentation elsewhere within the main ship. These instruments in turn alerted those whose responsibility it was to monitor such matters.
The fact that every one of the secondary craft’s internal monitors had been shut down from inside was in itself instructive. As far as the hastily informed Pret-Klob was concerned, the only question remaining was how many of the still-at-large inventory had managed to gain access to such a sensitive installation. Certainly the missing female K’eremu must be counted among them, since of the four remaining escapees she alone theoretically possessed sufficient skills to control such advanced functions. Perhaps allowing the specimen in question to occasionally accompany selected Vilenjji outside her enclosure had not been a notion that could, in hindsight, be commended for its wisdom.
What of the dangerous giant, the Tuuqalian? Was it still with her? Analysis of the multiple excretory deposits that had been used to deceive Triv-Dwan’s hunting group confirmed that it had accompanied the K’eremu at least that far, together with the two oddly matched specimens from the far-distant overheated water world. It seemed likely that all four were now sequestered within the secondary vehicle. At least, he reflected, it was good to know they had finally been located. The task now at hand was to extract them from their final hiding place without damaging either the relief craft itself or the diverse quartet of specimens.
He proceeded to issue the necessary directives.
“Our captors are trying to access the outer lock.” From her seat atop the rock-solid Braouk’s supportive tentacles, Sque studied the concentrated barrage of flashing lights and drifting colors that filled the air before her. To Walker the condensed light show reminded him of what he saw when he squinted his eyes tight together while driving past a bunch of neon signs at night. He was glad that the coronal hodgepodge made more sense to the K’eremu, because it was nothing but a colorful blur to him.
Braouk’s flexible eyestalks allowed him to scan his immediate surroundings without having to put her down. “I see nothing, viewed from my perspective, like weapons. Nothing with which, taking even utmost care, for defense.”
“No need to stock weapons in a lifeboat,” Walker conceded. A dull thump drew his attention back the way they had entered, through the spherical chamber with its scoop seats, to the now sealed inner lock and beyond. “I wonder if they’d damage their own backup craft just to get at us?”
“Why not, if we’ve mad
e them mad enough?” George was pacing restlessly back and forth. “Sque said this ship has several others.”
“I have sealed the outer lock as best I can,” the K’eremu announced from on high. “No doubt they are even now seeking a means to override what I have done. Once they have succeeded at that, they will then need to compute a new sequence to forcibly open the inner portal. We can further seal ourselves in here, but that would only postpone the inevitable.”
“Then what do we do?” George asked her.
She spared a glance for the fretful dog. “Remove ourselves from such eventualities—I hope.”
The distant thump was not repeated. Standing in the forward chamber with George panting nervously at his side, Walker experienced the kind of helplessness he had not felt since he was the smallest lineman playing for his Pop Warner football team, always facing bigger kids. At such times, he’d gotten run over a lot. Then his growth, both physical and mental, had taken a sustained spurt, and he was the one doing the pancaking.
Now it was like he was ten again, back in kids’ league, wondering what kind of stance he ought to assume. Facing the spherical chamber through the open portal of the control room he knew one thing for certain: Die here he might, but he was not going back to the enclosure the Vilenjji had fashioned for him. He’d had enough of Cawley Lake, both the real and the transplanted. Whatever happened next, he was done once and for all with being caged.
Stepping back into the forward chamber, he joined Braouk in searching for something that could be used as a weapon.
The smaller ship rolled slightly to its right. Possessed of an athlete’s balance (albeit one who had put on some weight over the previous nine years), he managed to stay upright. Four-footed and with a low center of gravity, George had no problem handling the unexpected jolt, nor did the immovable Braouk. Sque murmured something Walker’s implant was unable to translate effectively. Flashing through the air, multiple maroon tentacles conducted light. All the K’eremu needed was a baton and accompanying music, Walker mused, and the illusion would have been complete.
Lost and Found Page 21
