Dirge

by Alan Dean Foster

  “It not following is,” ThirtyOneSon observed. “It still just standing there staring at the opposite wall is.” He peered past the human and down the empty corridor. “Maybe for the rest of the crew it waiting is.”

  “I’m beginning to think there no rest of the crew is.” TwelveSon’s thoughts were tumbling. “If there were they ought to have by now arrived. This a very small ship is.”

  A contemplative ThirtyOneSon was quiet for a moment. “Then this being a sole survivor of the accident that trapped this vessel here is.”

  “I beginning to think so am.” TwelveSon hesitated. “Unless the others, if there are others, are all dead, or otherwise immobilized.”

  “I don’t know about you, but I not looking am.” The larger Unop-Patha was adamant. “We our family mandate here and more have fulfilled, by this craft entering and one human finding. Let FortyDaughter or others from the ship explore further. We leavetaking are owed.”

  “I agree. But one last time let us try.” He turned back toward the human, who had not shifted from its splayed stance against the wall. “If it will with us come and our communications people can with it make contact, others may not hunt for answers to difficult questions have to.”

  “Yes,” his companion readily agreed, “and if it a lost craft from one of the orbiting warships is, we valuable merit for performing a rescue should acquire.”

  “Wonder make one it does, though.” TwelveSon had approached to within arm’s reach of the much more massive human. “If that the case is you would expect the humans both of these moons to be scouring, as well as the planetary surface in search of their lost comrade. And to have informed our ship upon arriving here that one of theirs had missing gone.”

  “Communication the key is,” ThirtyOneSon observed. “Once that established is, then the human all such questions for us can answer.”

  Reaching out for the second time TwelveSon grabbed the human, this time reaching up over his head to tug on the creature’s arm. Its helmeted head jerked around sharply, and the Unop-Patha could see the large facial orifice gaping and moving once again. But the human would not leave its place flattened against the wall.

  Bemused, TwelveSon stepped back—only to see that his companion had retreated several steps and was staring mutely up at the alien. “Now what is it?”

  It took ThirtyOneSon a moment to respond. “Your suit’s transmission pickup. Off internal communication switch and change to—” He glanced down at the wrist console he had been fingering. “—eighty-six point three dash eleven.”

  “Why, what the point is?” TwelveSon looked from his friend back up at the immovable alien. “Don’t tell me you understand it can?”

  “Yes.” ThirtyOneSon’s words were barely audible. “Yes, I can understand it. Just listen, and you will, too.”

  Bewildered and a bit angry, TwelveSon proceeded to do as his companion suggested. As soon as he entered the recommended frequency into his suit instrumentation his ears were assailed by the voice of the alien, and he understood the truth of what ThirtyOneSon had told him. He found that he could indeed understand the human.

  It screaming was.

  11

  “They’re saying what?”

  Having not been told to stand at ease, the orderly remained at attention in the anteroom, surrounded by the Victorian-era bric-a-brac that was the commander’s favored décor. “They claim to have rescued a human from the inner moon, sir. They say—” The orderly glanced down at his reader to the printout of the report to make certain he was recounting everything accurately. “—that they found one live human in a single small vessel on the far side of the moon. Beyond being alive, they cannot testify as to his condition, though they believe it to be marginal.”

  “This is preposterous.” As she spoke, Commander Lahtehoja was sealing up the sides of her lightweight duty boots. “Neither we nor the Shaka are missing any personnel, and I would be more than a little upset to learn that all shuttle craft and lifeboats were not accounted for. I know that the level of boredom is high among the crews, but if some people have gone for an unauthorized joyride I am not going to be pleased.”

  With each sentence the commander’s voice had diminished. Eyes set front, body stiff and ramrod straight, the orderly knew what that meant. In contrast to others, when Lahtehoja grew quiet it meant she was really angry. When a soldier had to strain to hear the commander’s words, it was time to look for a hole to hide in.

  He pivoted sharply to follow her as she exited the commander’s quarters and headed for the bridge, moving with the same long, purposeful, relentless strides that had made her a champion quintathlete in her days at the Academy. Crew they encountered stopped whatever they were doing to snap to attention and salute, gestures that she acknowledged perfunctorily. Anyone who had thought that inspection and survey duty at ill-fated Treetrunk would be a walk through an aerogel had neglected to note the name of the commander currently in charge.

  A lift carried them to the auxiliary bridge blister situated on the upper-middle portion of the big ship. Far forward, the immense projection fan of the KK drive dominated the field of vision. With the warship rotated to face the planet, the white-girdled globe of Treetrunk loomed in the view dome.

  More salutes and salutations greeted her arrival. Lahtehoja did not move to take her seat but instead strode directly over to confront the officer on duty. Captain Miles vaan Leuderwolk was a paunchy, easygoing career officer who favored a shaved head and imposing beard. For all his rough appearance he was known to laugh frequently and easily. He looked like he should have been spending his days serving lager in a beer garden instead of directing a warship. Those who served under him were inordinately fond of their easygoing master. No such rumor had ever been attached to Lahtehoja.

  “What do we have, Miles?” The commander’s eyes were black, small, and intense as a laser. You had to look for them, but nobody wanted to find them.

  The captain of the Ronin wore his bemusement as artlessly as his beard. “You read the report from central communications?”

  “I’ve heard it.” A flick of the head in the orderly’s direction was sufficient to explain. “Who are these Unop-Patha? I’m not familiar with their kind.”

  “I’ll tell you on the way to B hold.” Vaan Leuderwolk smiled through his beard. “I don’t know much about them, either. Just the basics. They have very little contact with us, and we with them. When they popped out of space-plus here a few weeks ago they requested and were subsequently granted permission to do some cultural and scientific survey work.”

  Lahtehoja led the way, forcing the captain and the orderly to have to hurry to keep up. “I don’t remember being notified of this arrival.”

  Leuderwolk shrugged. “It happened when you were on sleep shift. “Buthefasi over on the Alexander Nevsky didn’t deem it important enough to bother you.”

  Lahtehoja muttered something under her breath but did not comment further. She knew it was a failing of hers that she felt the need to know everything about everything that was going on under her command. A good commander had to know how to delegate, a skill that was not among her strengths. Nevertheless, although Buthefasi had acted properly, this was one particular she was sorry she had missed.

  Her ignorance was soon to be rectified, however.

  Having just listened to as concise a briefing as the relevant department had been able to prepare with virtually no notice at all, vaan Leuderwolk filled her in on what was known about the Unop-Patha as it had been related to him. Occasionally she would nod her understanding or interrupt to ask a precise, terse question. By the time they reached B hold she felt she knew as much about these Unop-Patha as did the captain of the Ronin.

  They were waiting for her: half a dozen child-sized aliens with round, almost tubby bodies, big eyes, and no visible ears. What she could see of their bodies was covered with a thick, coarse, green-brown hair. They wore miniature space suits and had removed their headgear. Small black noses with four openi
ngs peeped out from near the top of the skull, just barely visible within the dense fur.

  Lahtehoja and her small entourage halted before them. A specialist eighth-class wearing the insignia of communications walked over, saluted, and accepted the commander’s admonition to stand easy with obvious relief.

  Lahtehoja glanced automatically at the man’s ident. “What do we have here, Mr. Waitangi?”

  The specialist was prepared. “Their vessel hailed ours, Commander, and requested permission to come alongside. They claimed to have found and picked up a lone human from a marooned ship drifting in low synchronous orbit on the far side of the nearer moon.” As he spoke the specialist frequently glanced down at the oversized reader he held, the rapid but controlled movement of his eyes automatically scrolling the information it displayed. “We had to run the transmission three times to make sure we had it straight.” He smiled tolerantly at the waiting, curious aliens. “Their communications technology is pretty primitive.”

  “Apparently it was good enough to find this person when neither we nor any of our predecessors in this system could.”

  The specialist’s smile vanished instantly. “Naturally, they want to transfer him, but they say that they can’t.”

  Lahtehoja’s neatly highlighted brows drew together, and her voice fell slightly. “Why not?”

  The young man hurried his response. “They say that when they try, he—we’ve determined from their description that the individual in question is male—he resists. Sometimes violently.”

  The commander nodded knowingly. “And they’re afraid he’ll hurt one of them or do some damage to their ship. I can understand that, noting the disparity in our respective sizes.”

  “Excuse me, Commander, but that’s not the reason.” The specialist assumed an apologetic air. “They say that they have him safely isolated on their ship, but they’re afraid he’ll hurt himself.”

  “Hmm.” Lahtehoja eyed the inquisitive, clearly awed visitors with new respect. “So we don’t know much about these Unop-Patha, but we see that they understand compassion. I’ll accept that as a basis for working with any alien species. Ask them if they will permit some of our medical personnel to go aboard their ship and remove this person they have so obligingly rescued.”

  With a nod, the specialist turned to face the visitors. As he spoke through the translator that hung from around his neck he crouched to bring his face more in line with those of the aliens he was addressing—and also to assume a less intimidating aspect.

  It took a few moments, what with the specialist’s need to adjust the translator each time human or alien spoke. Unlike High Thranx, for example, or Pitar, no one on board the warship spoke Unathian. There was no need for it.

  Eventually the specialist rose. The look of satisfaction on his face preceded his announcement. “They say that they have no objection, but suggest that anyone we wish to send to visit their vessel be chosen as much for physical dimensions as for pertinent skills.”

  “Thoughtful of them.” The commander turned her head in vaan Leuderwolk’s direction. “Find me some short doctors and nurses and have them assembled here. Let’s see what these people have found.” In a less authoritative tone she added, “What the devil is one lone individual doing stuck out here, of all places, and where the hell did he come from?”

  “I’m as curious to know as you are, Ludmilla.” The captain watched as the petite aliens began redonning their rudimentary suit helmets. “Who wouldn’t be?”

  It took several hours for the hastily assembled medical team to be transported to the Unathian vessel and to return. They made the transfer in a couple of the Ronin’s accessory craft—not because Lahtehoja and vaan Leuderwolk did not trust the patently inoffensive Unop-Patha, but because the transportation the aliens courteously offered to provide would have been too cramped even for the purposely diminutive group of physicians and assistants.

  Lahtehoja was back on the bridge attending to the normal workday duties of a task-group commander when she was notified that the medical team had returned. Leaving the Ronin under designated cluster command, she and vaan Leuderwolk took an express lift to the infirmary. Lieutenant Colonel Holomusa, chief of medical staff, was waiting for them in the reception area. Cursed with the face and frame of a caricatured undertaker, he resorted to scanning makeup to enliven his otherwise doleful appearance. For all that, he was an upbeat and merry fellow, exactly the sort a patient confined in an infirmary would want to see coming toward them.

  He was not smiling now, however. Lahtehoja did not like to see confusion and uncertainty spread like a mask across the faces of those under her command. She especially did not like to see it dominating the usually cheerful countenance of a ranking physician.

  “I can see the prognosis in your face.” She sighed. “Educate me.”

  Holomusa glanced down at his reader. “Anglo-Oceanic male, height one hundred and seventy-two centimeters, weight fifty-one kilos.” Noting her questioning look he added, “The reduced body weight doesn’t appear to fit naturally on his frame. He has the underlying musculature of a much stockier man. One doesn’t have to be a physician to be able to tell just by looking at him that his health has suffered—psychologically as well as physiologically. In other words, he’s had to deal with shock to his nervous system as well as an insufficiency of food. Naturally, each magnifies the deleterious effects of the other.” The chief medical officer swallowed. “After examining him, I’d say it’s a wonder he’s not in worse shape. Given his condition, it’s something of a surprise that he’s even alive.”

  Vaan Leuderwolk spoke up. “To what do you attribute his survival, Ben?”

  The physician made a noncommittal gesture with his reader. “Better to ask him that. It certainly wasn’t a sound and satisfying diet. He’s suffering from an impressive catalogue of nutritional deficiencies.” He nodded in the direction of the recovery chamber. “Not vitamins, though. Pills can help, but they’re no substitute for solid food.”

  Lahtehoja turned toward the silent, shuttered chamber where their mysterious visitant lay. “You’re feeding him now?”

  “In a manner of speaking.” Holomusa chuckled softly. “He’s receiving a steady flow of osmotic fluids.”

  Vaan Leuderwolk nodded knowingly. “When will he be able to sit up and take solid food?”

  “Yes, and how soon can we talk to him?” Lahtehoja had to restrain herself from carrying the conversation into the recovery room. Commander of the visiting force she might be, but within the confines of the infirmary it was Holomusa who was in charge.

  “I don’t know,” the chief medical officer replied candidly.

  The commander ground her teeth—a bad habit she had never quite been able to break. “That’s not the kind of answer I expect from my staff. I don’t deal in incertitude.”

  “You think I like to?” Among the complement of the Ronin, the chief physician was one of the few the commander could not intimidate. “Nonspecific as it is, that’s my prognosis. The man’s comatose. I’m not going to try and force him out of it. Push his condition and we could lose him permanently.”

  As always, Lahtehoja was ready with a sharp retort. Instead of delivering it to the unblinking physician, she sighed again and raised her gaze ceilingward. “All right, Ben. It’s your call. What happened when you went aboard the Unathian ship?”

  “They took us to the room where they were holding him.” Holomusa’s tone was even, professional, but vaan Leuderwolk could tell that the physician had been shaken by the incident. “He was curled up in a corner, not quite fully fetal, but on the way. As soon as I saw the state he was in I ordered everyone else to remain in the corridor and out of his line of sight. I’m not a big man, but the Unop-Patha are a lot smaller, and I had to bend low to fit through the doorway.”

  “What did he do when you entered his ‘space’?” Lahtehoja’s voice was flat, unemotional, analyzing.

  “Started whimpering,” the physician told her without missing a
beat. “I’ve seen disturbed men and women, people who have suffered a severe mental shock, try to dig their way into the floor or climb through the walls. This is the first time I’ve seen one try to crawl into himself.” Behind the three officers, the commander’s orderly stood mesmerized by the doctor’s tale.

  “As soon as I saw that there was a very real chance of him hurting himself, I stopped where I was. Trying to make eye contact, I just started talking to him. Anything I could think of, whatever came to mind, so he would hear a familiar, nonthreatening, hopefully soothing human voice. My object was to get him to relax, to slow his heart rate, which I supposed might be dangerously high, and to get him to trust me.”

  “And did you?” With one ear Lahtehoja was straining to hear sounds from the recovery chamber, but the only audible noise besides that of their own voices were the soft beeps and hums of efficient, indifferent instruments.

  “Long enough to stick him with an osmotic hypo that pumped him full of tranquilizer. I was ready to jump him, to call for help, or to flee back out the doorway depending on his reaction. Funny—all he did was slip quietly into unconsciousness. Never uttered a sound. We squeezed him back through the door, off that claustrophobic Unathian ship and onto one of ours. He’s been sleeping soundly until about an hour ago, when he woke up.”

  “Woke up?” Vaan Leuderwolk blinked. “I thought you said he was comatose.”

  “All right, maybe ‘woke up’ is an overstatement. He opened his eyes and he’s breathing on his own. Other than that, there’s nothing there. Severe trauma.” He spread his hands helplessly. “Not much I can do here. Sure, we’re trained and equipped to deal with a whole range of combat psychoses, but wherever this guy has retreated to, he’s gone deep. I could try to pull him out—”

  “Why don’t you?” Lahtehoja prompted him.

  “Like I said. Because if I make a mistake, I could drive him down deeper into the pit. Deep enough so that he might never come out. I’m not prepared to take that responsibility.”