“Check it if you don’t believe me.”
“Don’t think I won’t.”
“I know what a trusting soul you are, Uxanna.”
Was he really keeping up his end? This was going to be more difficult than she had imagined. “Speaking of trust…”
“Yeah?”
“Did you know they came to Earth willingly?”
“Does it matter?”
“It should.”
“Why?”
“You want them to be on your…team, you better get to know them.”
“Getting to know them is your job.”
“You’re not interested in what they have on their minds?”
“What possible difference can it make?”
“Maybe if you knew why they left their world in the first place…”
“They left it because it’s a shit hole.”
“No, they didn’t.”
“Then why?”
“To get help.”
“Help?”
“We’re destroying their environment, and they want it to stop.”
“You’re telling me that those overgrown angleworms thought they’d have lunch with TA commissioners?”
“They hoped they could find someone, anyone, who can stop the destruction, or at least slow it down.”
Hob stared at her a moment, and then his plump lips curled into a mocking smile. He brayed an unpleasant laugh.
“You think it’s funny?” she said, burning with anger.
“Coming from someone who’s been scamming them on Cet Four for sixteen years? Yeah, I do.”
“You won’t laugh if word gets out about what’s going on here.”
“Are you threatening me, Uxanna?”
“Maybe.”
“I gave you your money,” he said with indignation. “What else do you want?”
“A little fairness would be a good start.”
“You don’t understand how things work.”
“I understand what’s happening here.”
Hob shook his head. “Uh-uh.”
“Since you’re willing to meet my price, you must think you’re going to make a lot on this deal,” she said.
“You have no idea.”
“I have an idea about how wrong it is.”
“Do I have to roll in the mud to reach your level of moral superiority?”
“It wouldn’t harm you.”
“It would ruin my suit and my shoes.”
“I wish you would listen.”
“And I wish you would do your job and leave the rest to me.”
She was about to be cut off, so now was the time to get it all out. “Hob, I’ve got something to tell you.”
“Haven’t you told me enough already?”
“This is important.”
“All right,” he said with obvious impatience. “What is it?”
Where to begin? “I know you pretty well by now, wouldn’t you say?”
Hob shrugged, waiting for her to come to the point.
“When I first came back I didn’t know anybody, and I thought it would be a good idea to trace my DNA through the generations who lived here while I was on Cet Four.”
“So?”
She took a deep breath and exhaled the truth. “You’re my great-great-grandson.”
“What?”
“I’m your ancestor, Hob.”
He stared at her without blinking.
“Are you just going to sit there without saying anything?” Uxanna said.
“Why didn’t you ever tell me this before?”
“I intended to, but when I met you it seemed like a good idea to keep it to myself.”
“You’re my great-great…?”
“Yes.”
“How can you be? You’re younger than me.”
“Tachyon transmission.”
“But it’s faster than light.”
“It still takes time, and so do all the preparations and interstitial activity. Not only that, but there are some things that just don’t add up, at least so far.”
“I’m not making any sense out of this,” he said. “Did you travel back in time?”
“No, time only goes in one direction.”
“I don’t get it.”
“Nobody does, but this is the way it is.”
“And it cost me fifteen mets to find out that I don’t know anything?”
“Plus what I’ve squeezed out of you on other jobs,” she said. “By the way, you still owe me for those.”
“I don’t know what to call you anymore.”
“Uxanna will be fine.”
“It feels funny to call you that now.”
“How about Grandma?” She laughed.
Hob grinned. “Is this the first time you’ve taken money for a job you don’t intend to do?”
“I’m hoping you’ll change your mind, Hob.”
“That’s not like me.”
“You can be reasoned with.”
“Can I?”
“You’re greedy, but you’re not a total monster.”
“Thanks, but don’t tell my business rivals.”
“Mum’s the word.” For the first time, Uxanna thought she detected a hint of something she’d never seen before in her descendant—a spark of self-awareness.
“I should have known who you are,” Hob said.
“How could you?”
“I had you checked out, but family ties weren’t what I was looking for.”
“You had no reason to suspect.”
He shook his head. “I slipped up.”
“You learned enough for your purposes.”
“I thought so, but I was wrong.”
“Well, now you know.”
“I wish my mother was alive, so she could meet you.” His dark eyes were thoughtful.
“I do, too, but I don’t know how I could justify leaving her great-grandmother in a TA ward.”
“Is that what happened?”
“Yes, that’s what happened, Hob,” she admitted. “I wasn’t capable of taking care of her properly.”
“So you gave her up.”
She nodded.
“That couldn’t have been easy.”
“It wasn’t.” As if it were yesterday, she remembered how much it hurt.
“Why did you do it?”
“I had to face the fact that my child would be better off with someone else.”
“But you couldn’t know that for sure, could you?” he said. “Not after you ran off to another goddam planet.”
She didn’t answer. Hob was right. What did she know about the life Kajuri had lived? She just knew that it was long over.
“So why did you come back after all this time?” Hob asked.
“There was no place for me on Cet anymore.”
“Why not?”
“It was getting too ugly.”
“Living in a smelly swamp with crushing gravity? Yeah, I guess that must be pretty ugly.”
“That’s not what I’m talking about.”
“What, then?”
“The beings you have in your pit are people from a dying race, Hob.”
“People?” Did she see a hint of sympathy in his eyes?
“Yes, people. People that we’re killing off as sure as if we were shooting them with chemical lasers.”
“Is it really that bad?”
“It’s worse because it’s slower than shooting them,” she said. “We’re wiping out these people on their own world.”
She was getting to him. It was all over his face.
“But we can save three of them?” he said.
“Yes, Hob, that’s what I’m hoping.”
“So
am I.”
“You are?”
“Yeah.”
“Are you joking?”
“No,” he said, smiling at her. “Remember what I told you about staying ahead of my competitors?”
“I sure do.”
“I can’t do that if my Cetians are dead, can I?”
“Of course not.”
“So it’s in my interest to keep them alive and healthy, wouldn’t you say?”
“Yes, for as long as you need them.”
“I’m going to need them for a long time,” Hob said. “And they’re better off here than in the hands of the TA.”
“What makes you think so?”
“Didn’t I tell you just to do your job and not worry?”
“Several times.”
“Okay, then, I’ll trust you, and…”
“And what?”
“I want you to trust me.”
“You haven’t given me much reason to do that so far, Hob.”
“That was before I knew you’re family.”
“Oh.”
“Deal?”
Uxanna had never known him to act like this and she wasn’t sure how to react. But what choice did she really have? “Deal.”
As Hob stood up to shake hands with her, alarms went off.
“Shit!” Hob ran to the door.
Uxanna followed him out and watched as he dashed across the basement floor toward the pit.
“It’s okay, Mr. Dancer,” Cruvayn said, his voice echoing as he came down the stairs from the street level. “They don’t have a warrant, so the screens held.”
“They won’t make that mistake twice,” Hob said. “We’ve got to get the Cetians out of here right away.”
“Where to?” Uxanna asked.
“The sewer,” Hob said.
“The sewer?” she protested. “They’ll die in the sewer.”
“No, they won’t.”
“They need nutrients in the mud,” Uxanna said. “You know their requirements, or they wouldn’t have survived in your pit.”
“There’s a branch of the sewer we’ve blocked off under this building,” Hob said. “Everything they need is down there.”
“Okay, that’s good.” Uxanna felt a grudging admiration for her descendant’s resourcefulness. “How do we get them into the sewer?”
“We use the lift.” Hob uttered a low command and the lift swung toward Uxanna.
“Hop on,” Hob commanded.
“What do you want me to do?” she asked.
“Put them on it so we can move them out.”
“Right.”
She sprang onto the lift and jumped off when it was only halfway down, splashing into the muck.
“Please,” she said, “come with me.”
The Cetians stirred, responding to her agitated presence. Not waiting for them to grow limbs, she reached down and cradled one, her fingers sliding through the thick mud to gain a purchase on its wet bulk. It must have weighed nearly as much as her, but she raised it easily and put it on the lift. She could feel its dismay.
“I’ll explain later,” she said as she lifted the second Cetian onto the lift and placed it next to its throbbing companion. There was no room for the third.
“Okay, bring ’em up!” she shouted.
The lift rose, shuddering under the weight of the two aliens. Uxanna stooped to pick up the other, the largest of the three. It slithered away from her through the mud, frightened because it had been separated from its companions. It could only go so far before it was pressed against the pit’s curved wall.
“Please,” she said, “it’s for your own good.”
The Cetian tried to bury itself, but it still showed as a slimy hump in the green glop. As Uxanna stooped to slip her arms under it, she wondered why she believed Hob’s implication that the TA could not be trusted. It was too late to doubt him now, she realized. She was in this all the way.
“You’ll all be together again in a moment,” she said, scooping up the squirming Cetian. She nearly dropped it, but managed to stumble to the lift. Fearing that her weight combined with the largest Cetian’s might put too much of a strain on the machine, she climbed out of the pit, using rungs welded into its side, as the last of the Cetians was removed.
Hob projected a decorative plasma shield over the pit.
“What are you doing?” Uxanna asked him.
“This isn’t likely to fool the TA cops,” Hob said, “but it’s all I’ve got.”
Cruvayn had the three aliens on a diamag floater, which he was guiding across the basement floor. Uxanna ran to join them, seeing Hob pull back a sheet of paneling from the wall to reveal a broad circular drain in the concrete behind it.
“In there,” Hob said.
She lifted the Cetians one by one, cooing, “It’s going to be all right, it’s going to be all right, it’s going to be all right.”
There wasn’t enough time to register their reaction as she stuffed them in and watched them slide into the darkness below.
“You better go with them,” Hob said.
“Why?”
“So you won’t have to answer any questions about what you’re doing here.”
“Okay.”
She climbed in feet first and slid down the pipe after the Cetians. The muck at the bottom exploded in all directions as she landed.
The light from above was cut off as Hob and Cruvayn replaced the panel.
“I should have asked about ventilation,” she muttered to herself, nearly gagging on the stench in the enclosed sewer section. She groped until she touched the slick hide of a Cetian, and soon drew the other two to her so that the four of them were huddling in the mud.
“I said you’d be together, didn’t I?”
The Cetians responded, their limbs popping out and stroking her back and arms, digits forming and intertwining with her fingers.
“We’ll just stay cozy down here until the light comes back,” she said. As she lay in the muck with them, she felt closer to the Cetians than ever, remembering that she was almost as much of a stranger on this world as they were.
The electrical sensation returned with a jolt.
In a few seconds the discomfort passed. The closeness and methane fumes induced a wooziness that quickly became a sort of waking sleep.
“Tell me about your assimulation,” she said, slurring her words.
In a dream-state, she relived the pertinent memories. After reassembly, they had been isolated in a way they hadn’t thought possible on such a populous world. Before the Three, as they thought of themselves, were disassembled, they had been told that they would meet with wise humans who would be sympathetic to their mission. Instead, they were rushed to a TA facility as soon as they emerged from their booths. There they were housed in a simulated Cet Four environment. Apart from a few technicians who attended to the Three’s needs, they saw no one. On rare occasions, one of their attendants waded into their tank and communicated with them. These conversations were minimal, intended only to monitor their physical needs, and yet the Three looked forward to these visits. Indeed, they lived for them, in the hope that those who spoke with them might tell others about their plight.
On such occasions, they always asked when they would meet someone to whom they could make an appeal on behalf of their people.
Each time, the Three were told to be patient.
And they had been patient, until at last they were removed from the tank. The Three were told that they were to be taken to another facility, where they would at last be given the chance to be heard.
They were placed on a diamag floater and led to a converted zip, which would take them to the new location.
Somehow they had arrived at Hob Dancer’s basement instead.
Who had made the switch? Some rebellious
TA officials, perhaps? Why would they take such a risk? Were they afraid of what would happen if they took no action? Did they want to make sure that the Three Cetians survived?
It made no sense to Uxanna that the TA would want to kill the Three.
But she’d been gone from Earth a long time and knew very little about what had happened during the intervening decades. An institution as vast and pervasive as the TA would not be the first to have been corrupted while she had twice been taken apart, put back together, and lived sixteen years on Cet Four. An awful lot must have happened.
Had she been mistaken about Hob? By his lights, he had done what was necessary to succeed in this decaying world. Without the income he had provided for her, she would have been forced to return to Cet Four.
Perhaps she hadn’t understood the assignments he had given her because they had been pieces of a larger puzzle.
If her association with Hob led to the Three being rescued, who was she to question it? He was an unlikely savior, but that didn’t mean it couldn’t work out that way. To the Cetians, Hob was their captor, but they assured her that they preferred him to the TA because he had brought Uxanna to them.
She was touched.
“If we get out of this mess,” she said, “I’m going to find a way to send you home, but only after we make people see what’s happening on your world.”
From the steadiness of their pulsations, she could tell that the Three were comforted. They believed her, perhaps because they had nowhere else to turn. She preferred to think it was because they recognized and valued her kinship.
Ever since she had first encountered Cetians in their home swamps, she had sensed that she could go farther in communicating with them. Tests had been conducted in a lab on Cet Four, the results proving that the Cetian mind was deft at creating complex mathematical models of a kind that had never been seen before. The potential was almost limitless. She had presumed Hob wanted them under his thumb for that reason, perhaps believing they could calculate odds to help him win out against his competitors.
Or maybe it was the TA who wanted their skills for less than beneficial reasons. Maybe the competition Hob referred to was the government.
The Three assured her that no one had questioned them about mathematics or anything else since they’d been in Hob’s pit. Was she the first person who had talked to them since they’d been moved from the TA facility? Yes, they confirmed that she was.
She didn’t know a soul on Earth, so Hob was well aware that there was little chance she’d tell anyone what she’d seen in his basement. Was it possible that he had planned this task for her from the beginning? After all, she had told Hob about her job on Cet Four the first time they met. He knew she could communicate with Cetians.
The Alien MEGAPACK® Page 4
