3xT

by Harry Turtledove

  Jennifer started to ask if there was any way for her to check that, then held her tongue. If the Great Ones wanted to cheat, they could; how was she supposed to thread her way through their data storage system? Besides, questioning Solut Mek Kem was liable to make him angry, and at the moment he was about as well disposed as a Foitan could be toward members of another species.

  Instead of complaining to him, she turned to Greenberg. "I suppose the kindest thing we can do for these poor people is stun them and put them out of their sensory overload before they scare themselves to death." She wasn't sure she was exaggerating; half-remembered tales of primitive humans said they might do just that.

  The translator carried her words to Solut Mek Kem. "I will take care of it for you," the Great One said. He rapped on the wall behind him to expose a cavity. From it he took a weapon smaller than the one the Foitani guard carried. He started to point it at the two reconstituted humans.

  "Wait," Jennifer said quickly. She didn't know whether the Great Ones used the same stun beam as modern Foitani, but if they did, the CroMagnons wouldn't like waking up from it. She drew her own stunner from a coverall pocket, turned it on the man and woman from out of time. They slumped bonelessly to the floor.

  "Let's take them back to the ship and get them into cold sleep," Greenberg said. "I don't want them awake in there and bouncing off the walls."

  "Sounds good to me," Jennifer said. She spoke for the first time to the guard. "Honored Great One, could you please carry these humans to our ship? With your great size and strength, you can easily take them both at once."

  Flattery got her nowhere. The guard said one word: "No."

  She appealed to Solut Mek Kem. She got four words from him: "No. Carry your own."

  She and Greenberg went over to the CroMagnon couple. Whatever had kept them in their corner of the room didn't keep the traders out. Greenberg grabbed the unconscious man by his shoulders. Jennifer took hold of his ankles. He was hairy, scarred, flea-bitten, and smelly. He seemed to weigh a ton, and Jennifer was sure he would only get heavier as she toted him.

  "Let's go," Greenberg grunted. Neither of them had much practice at hauling what was in essence deadweight. Having the Foitani guard alongside watching did nothing to make matters easier. Getting the limp CroMagnon into and through the cramped air lock of the Harold Meeker was a separate wrestling match in itself. Breathing hard, Greenberg said, "Give him another dose, Jennifer. We want to make sure he's out until we can bring his mate back."

  "Right," Jennifer said. Thinking of all the trouble a primitive who woke up too soon could get into on a starship was enough to make her blood run cold and then some.

  After the man was sent into deeper unconsciousness, she and Greenberg went back for the woman. She was just as dirty and smelly and flea-bitten as her companion, but, fortunately, a good deal lighter. Greenberg once again handled the head end. "You know," he said, looking down at his burden, "clean her up a little—well, a lot—and she might be pretty."

  "Maybe," Jennifer said. "So what?"

  "It makes life easier." After a few steps, Greenberg noticed Jennifer hadn't answered. "Doesn't it?" he asked.

  "A lot of the time, all it does is make things more complicated," she said. She thought about it for a few more steps, then added, "This one, though, will need all the help she can get. For her, I suppose, being pretty really is going to be an asset instead of a nuisance."

  The woman was starting to wiggle and moan by the time they got to the Harold Meeker. Greenberg stunned her again before he and Jennifer hauled her through the air lock. He said, "Let's put them into cold sleep as fast as we can, before they start getting frisky again."

  The cold-sleep process was designed to go fast, so it could be activated in case of sudden emergency aboard ship. As Jennifer hooked the male of the pair up to the system, she said, "What are they going to do when we get them back to human space? Nobody's had to deal with human primitives for hundreds of years; it must be a lost art."

  "I haven't the slightest idea what they'll do," Greenberg answered. "I'm not going to worry about it, either. Whatever it is, it has to be better than life as experimental animals for the Foitani."

  "You're right about that," Jennifer said. Just as she was connecting the nerve-retarder net, the communicator buzzed. "No, damn it, not now," she shouted at it. "We're not even screwing!"

  The communicator ignored her. The words that came from it were more like snarls than speech. The translator turned them into flat Spanglish. "Answer me, you pestilential sub-Foitani creatures. When Voskop W Wurd deigns to speak with you, you are to take it as a privilege."

  "Oh, shut up for a minute," Jennifer said, enjoying the license given her by a good many thousand kilometers of empty space between herself and the Rof Golani warleader. When the CroMagnons' pod retreated into its storage bay, she decided to notice the communicator again. "Now, what is it you want, Voskop W Wurd?"

  "Whatever documents you have passed on to the Oderna and the kwopillot," Voskop W Wurd answered.

  "Oh," Jennifer said. "Yes, I can do that. I would have done it sooner, but it never occurred to me that you might want them, Voskop W Wurd. You hadn't shown much use for humans, you know." You haven't shown much use for anything, you know, she added mentally.

  The warleader said, "If my potential allies and my enemies have these data, I should be privy to them as well. Explain to me why the Oderna and kwopillot are interested in these long effusions by sub-Foitani."

  "I love you, too, Voskop W Wurd," Jennifer said sweetly. But the more minds trying to find avoid a new round of Suicide Wars, the better, so she did explain to the warleader the concept of science fiction and its potential application here. Voskop W Wurd was vicious, but not stupid. Jennifer finished, "The books and stories are examples intended to turn your thinking in the appropriate direction."

  Voskop W Wurd remained silent for some time after she was through. At last, he said, "This new concept will have to be analyzed. We on Rof Golan write and declaim sagas of great warriors of the past, but have nothing to do with the set of organized lies you term fiction, still less with using it as if it were fact."

  "Let me know what you think when you've looked at the documents," Jennifer said. "You might also want to talk to Aissur Aissur Rus. He comes fairly close to being able to grasp another race's point of view."

  Voskop W Wurd switched off without replying—typical Foitani manners, Jennifer thought. But she remained more cheerful than otherwise. The Rof Golani hadn't dismissed the concept of trying SF techniques to extrapolate ways in which kwopillot and vodranet could live together in the same galaxy. From him, that was an excellent sign.

  Greenberg said, "The primitives are down and freezing. Assuming we ever get to leave—and assuming we don't run into any more leftover weapons from the Suicide Wars—we shouldn't have any trouble getting them back to Saugus."

  "Saugus? Why Saugus?" Jennifer said.

  "For one thing, it's the planet you live on these days. For another, I assume the university where you're teaching is a good one." He waited for her to nod, then went on, "It ought to have some good anthropologists, then. I can't think of any people better suited to helping show our unwilling passengers how the world has changed since they were last around to look at it."

  "Makes sense," Jennifer said.

  "Saugus also ought to have a merchants' guild hall." Again, Greenberg waited for a nod before continuing. "In that case, I can do a couple of things. First, I can recommend you for master status." He held up a hand to forestall whatever she might say. "You've earned it, you ought to have it, and you're going to get it. If we do manage to get out of this mess, it'll be thanks to your expertise. And we'll show a profit, and a good-sized one. You qualify."

  "All right." The only thing Jennifer really wanted was to get back to teaching and research, but she'd learned that having something else to fell back on could come in handy. She said, "That's one thing. What turns it into a couple?"

&nb
sp; Greenberg hesitated before he answered. "The other thing I was thinking of was transferring my base of operations to Saugus. That is, if you want to turn us into a couple once we're back."

  "Oh." She felt her face twist into a new expression as the implications of that sank in. The expression was an enormous grin. "Sure!" She hugged him.

  "I don't want you to leap into this, you know," he said seriously. "I'm not going to stop trading, which means we may be apart big stretches of time. And I know you'd sooner stay at the university."

  She shrugged. "We'll do the best we can for as long as we can. That's all we can do—that's all anyone can do. Right now, I don't want to worry about complications, except the ones that are keeping us stuck in Foitani space."

  "Sounds sensible to me," he said. "People who borrow trouble usually end up repaying it at high interest." He yawned. "I wouldn't mind going into cold sleep myself. I'm far enough behind on the regular sort that I guess that's the only way I'm likely to catch up. Shall we try to gain on what we can?"

  "When going to sleep sounds like a better idea than going to bed, does that mean the romance is starting to fade?" Jennifer asked. Greenberg had just pulled his shirt off over his head. He bunched it up and threw it at her. She tossed it aside, undressed, and settled down on her foam pad. She didn't care about romance right this second, only about how tired she was. Greenberg told the computer to turn down the lights. Sleep hit her like a club.

  * * *

  The communicator hauled Jennifer and Greenberg back to life after about five hours of sleep—just enough to leave them both painfully aware they needed more. A Foitani voice roared from the speaker. "Answer, humans," the translator supplied.

  "What is it now, Voskop W Wurd?" Jennifer asked, rubbing her eyes and thinking wistfully of coffee.

  "This is not Voskop W Wurd. This is Yulvot L Reat. The warleader ordered me to evaluate your concept of scientific lying."

  Jennifer wondered whether the translator was hiccuping or whether Voskop W Wurd had given that name to the Middle English literature as he assigned it to his subordinate. That didn't really matter. "What do you think of it, Yulvot W Reat?"

  "To my surprise, I find myself quite impressed," the Rof Golani Foitan answered. "It serves to make extrapolation palatable, and by extension even speculates logically about the consequences of propositions known to be false, something I had not imagined possible."

  ""Then you think it might let you find a way to live with the kwopillot aboard the Vengeance?" Jennifer asked hopefully.

  "It might let us look for a way," Yulvot L Reat said. "I take that for progress. So will the warleader Voskop W Wurd, since we never imagined—"

  Yulvot L Reat's voice vanished from the speaker. A moment later, that of a different Foitan replaced it. "Humans, this is Solut Mek Kem. We have detected ships emerging from hyperdrive in this system. Your presence compromises Vengeance's defenses, to say nothing of the fact that your drive energies could be used as a suicide weapon against us. You will leave immediately."

  "Of course, Solut Mek Kem," Greenberg said. "I'll order the computer to—"

  "Look in the viewscreen," Jennifer said. Greenberg did. His eyes got wide. There was the Vengeance, some kilometers away and visibly shrinking. When Solut Mek Kem said immediately, he didn't fool around.

  "One of these days, I'll see if our instruments picked up any clue of how they just did that," Greenberg said. "Right now, though, I think the smartest thing to do is put as much distance between us and the Vengeance as we can."

  Jennifer did not argue with him. The Vengeance, at the moment, was the biggest target in the Gilver system. No, the second biggest—Gilver itself was still down there. "Can we monitor traffic between the ship and the ground?" she asked.

  "Good idea," Greenberg said.

  The first signal the Harold Meeker picked up was almost strong enough to overload its receiver. "Solut Mek Kem aboard Vengeance, calling the base on Gilver. We will act for our own defense only for a period of two rotations of Gilver, in which time you are to persuade your newly arrived ships to break off combat so that we and your leaders may extrapolate ways in which we need not destroy each other. If they continue to attack thereafter, we shall fight as we see fit. Be informed and be warned."

  "We did it!" Jennifer exclaimed.

  "We may have done it," Greenberg said, less optimistically. "Let's see what Pawasar Pawasar Ras thinks of the offer."

  The answer was not long in coming. "Incoming Foitani fleet, hold your fire," Pawasar Pawasar Ras said. "This is Pawasar Pawasar Ras on Gilver. I speak without coercion of any sort. Know that the Suicide Wars arose out of conflict between our sort of Foitani and kwopillot. Know also that if we and they fail to come to terms now, the Suicide Wars will return; earthgrip will hold sway over us all, and it shall be as if our race had never existed. Let us talk and explore other ways before we fight."

  A louder, shriller voice followed that of Pawasar Pawasar Ras. "I, Voskop W Wurd, Warleader of Rof Golan, declare the time for fighting is not yet—and who would dare coerce a warleader? Hear me and obey, my brethren of Rof Golan!"

  "Do you think they'll listen?" Jennifer asked.

  "I don't know." Greenberg glanced toward the radar. So did Jennifer. The screen was full of ships. All of them were headed straight toward Gilver, or rather toward the Vengeance, which hung above the planet in a synchronous orbit that held it right above the precinct of the Great Unknown—and the Foitani research station. He looked at the radar plot again and shook his head. "I don't intend to wait around and find out, either. Computer, initiate hyperdrive acceleration sequence, vector exactly opposite that of those approaching ships."

  "Initiating," the computer said.

  If Greenberg had hoped to sneak out of the brewing fight while no one was paying attention to the Harold Meeker, that hope lasted less than a minute. A Foitani voice came from the communicator. "Human ship, this is Solut Mek Kem. Why are you abandoning this solar system? Answer immediately or face the consequences."

  When a Foitan said face the consequences, he meant dig your grave and jump in. Greenberg said, "When you pushed us away from your ship, Solut Mek Kem, you left us sitting right next door to you as the modern Foitani head in on an attack run. We can't defend ourselves; this is a trader, not a warship. This isn't our war, anyhow. If you were in our position, what would you do?"

  "Extrapolate, please," Jennifer added, knowing the only way Foitani usually put on other people's shoes was after those other people had no further use for them.

  No answer came from Solut Mek Kem. Jennifer found she was grinding her teeth, made herself stop, then found she was grinding them again. Vengeance could swat the Harold Meeker out of the sky like a man swatting a gnat.

  "Weapon homing!" the computer shrieked.

  "It's not the Vengeance," Greenberg said after a quick look at the radar tank. "It's from one of the ships that just came into the system."

  "Can we get into hyperdrive before it catches us?" Jennifer asked:

  "No," he and the computer replied at the same time.

  Jennifer went over to the radar tank and watched the missile close. Others trailed it, but they did not count; the Harold Meeker would hit hyperdrive kick-in velocity before they reached it. That first one, though . . . some Foitani pilot, not knowing what the fleeing ship was, had been fast on the trigger—too fast.

  Then, without warning, the missile ceased to be. Greenberg shouted and pounded his fist against his thigh. "Human ship Harold Meeker to Vengeance," Jennifer said. "Thank you." Still no answer came. Less than half a minute later, the Harold Meeker flashed into hyperdrive.

  * * *

  Snow clung to the ground wherever there was shadow. The distant mountains were cloaked in white halfway down from their peaks; a glacier came forth from them onto the nearer plains like a frozen tongue sticking out. Musk oxen and the larger dots that were mammoths moved slowly across those plains.

  Jennifer shivered. The synthetic furs an
d hides she was wearing were not as warm as the real things. Her arms were bare; gooseflesh prickled up on them as she watched. Her breath came smoky from her nostrils. "They'd better hurry up, before I freeze to death," she said, making a miniature fogbank around her head with the words.

  "Maybe there's such a thing as too much realism," Greenberg agreed through chattering teeth.

  On the ground a few paces away from them lay the two humans they had brought back from the Foitani sphere. The CroMagnons were just on the point of coming out of cold sleep. The anthropologists at Saugus Central University had gone to a good deal of effort to make them as homelike an environment as possible in which to awaken. Putting the temperature somewhere below freezing struck Jennifer as excessive. Still, in trying to bridge the gap between Pleistocene and starship, who could say what detail might prove crucial?

  The woman stirred. A few seconds later, so did the man. "Here we go," one of the anthropologists radioed into the little ear speakers Jennifer and Greenberg were wearing. "Remember, you people are the link between this familiar—we hope—place and what they've gone through. When they see you here, they ought to get the idea that they aren't really home, or not exactly, anyway."

  "We'll see soon," Jennifer answered. Getting through to the primitives was going to be as hard as any first contact with an alien race. They'd have to learn a new language from scratch; not even theoretically reconstructed Ur-Indo-European went back even as far as a quarter of the way to their time.

  The man sat up first. His eyes, at first, were only on the woman. When she opened her eyes and also managed to sit, his face glowed with relief. Then he noticed Jennifer and Greenberg. He rattled off something in his extinct speech.

  "Hello. We're peaceful. We hope you are, too," Greenberg said in Spanglish. He held his hands out before him, palms up, to show they were empty. That was about as old a pacific gesture as humanity knew. Nobody could be sure, though, whether it went back to the Paleolithic. Everything the CroMagnons did taught researchers something.