Eschaton 02 The Siege of Eternity

by Frederik Pohl

  The Doc showed no such intention. He too had his own program. As soon as he was inside the Starlab he headed down one of the corridors at high speed-startling Hilda; the creature was making faint mewing sounds, the first she had ever heard from him. Clearly he was practiced at getting around in the microgravity environment. Equally clearly he knew just where he wanted to go.

  Which wasn't where the colonel wanted him. "Halt!" Colonel du-Valier commanded, flailing after him with his gun drawn. The alien paid no attention. He didn't stop until he reached a green-glowing panel. He clutched it for support with one huge arm, reached out with a smaller one to touch on its surface. The panel sprang open, revealing a cubicle filled with racks of what looked like plant matter and smelled faintly peppery. Mewing in excitement, the Doc pulled out a clutch of the stuff and thrust it into his great mouth.

  General Delasquez was amused. "The creature is hungry, of course," he reminded the colonel. The colonel was not amused at all. He took a moment to scowl blackly at Delasquez, then returned to muttering angrily at the Doc in a mixture of English and French.

  If the Doc understood either, he showed no sign. He chewed energetically, cramming new fistfuls of the stuff into his mouth before the last batch was quite processed. He was a messy eater, too, for little sprigs of greenery fell off the clumps he was shoving in; some clung to the froth of white around his mouth.

  He seemed to be more than merely hungry. Hilda had never thought she could detect any emotion on the face of either of the Docs, but now there were signs that had to be some kind of strain. He was actually sweating, and the great eyes were darting about as though in distress.

  Then he pulled a couple of additional clumps of food from the locker and, clutching them in two of his extra arms, abruptly gathered his stubby legs under him and kicked himself down the hall for a dozen meters.

  Colonel duValier was taken by surprise. He barely got out of the Doc's way in time, then clumsily followed after. "Wait!" he ordered. "Come back!" The Doc paid no attention. Munching as he went, he paused in front of a blue-green mirror. Whatever he did Hilda could not quite see, but the mirror vanished, and where it had been was a sort of tool rack. The Doc selected a couple of items, then, still ignoring Colonel duValier, hurried agitatedly back along the corridor until it came to a luminous golden hemisphere. The mewing noises were louder now; they sounded distressed. Agitatedly the Doc slid one of the tools under the edge of the dome. The glow winked out. The dome retracted silently, and a jumble of incomprehensible alien objects appeared behind it.

  Alarm bells went off in Hilda's mind. Were these things weapons? DuValier was having the same thoughts, because he was flailing around, trying to get his body in position to aim his gun at the Doc.

  If the Doc knew he was in danger he showed no sign. All his attention was concentrated on his task. He thumbed through the gadgets agitatedly, large arms holding him in place, smaller ones sorting feverishly through the array, until he found a length of what looked like woven cloth of gold. Hurriedly he wrapped it around his head, as though in pain.

  Colonel duValier slowly lowered his gun and began talking on his radio to the LuftBuran, watching suspiciously as the Doc relaxed.

  The eyes closed. The expression on the broad, pale face turned peaceful. He hung there in silence for a moment, then opened his eyes, turned to Colonel duValier and touched him on the shoulder- was it meant as a pat of reassurance? The Doc tugged at the shawl over his head, awkwardly twisting the ends of it to secure them under his chin. Then he found another square of the brassy fabric, tucked it under one of his smaller arms and stepped back.

  Joining the Hundred-Mile-High Club?

  Private Eyes gaze is on the LuftBuran that's on its way to the Starlab orbiter. Who have we got here? There's the American spook, Hilda ("Hot Pants") Morrisey, who has never explained what she was doing in a makeout bar not long ago. There's the Chinese James ("My-Grandfather-Could-Do-It-Better") Lin, with his little ancestral book of positions and procedures-will he be adding new chapters in zero-G? There are the two French pilots, II and Elle, and you know the French, not to mention the big zombie from space. Sounds like a first-rate rave to us!

  – Private Eye, London

  He gestured encouragingly at the collection of objects and pantomimed carrying them into the LuftBuran. Hilda began to breathe again; whatever had been on the creature's mind, it seemed he was now finally ready to go to work.

  The Doc looked consideringly at a brightly gleaming trapezoid and a pale blue rhombus, but finally began to dissect a purplish pyramid. When he had loosened it from its attachment to the wall he gestured to the colonel to take it away, and immediately began doing the same to a grapefruit-sized blister of orange nearby.

  Colonel duValier whispered to himself in words that might have been French or may have been English, but were certainly profane. Then he turned to the others. "The beast is at last doing as he was ordered," he said. "We can start loading these things into the spacecraft."

  Although the machineries of the Scarecrows weighed nothing at all in the orbiting Starlab, they still had mass; it was sweaty work to try to maneuver them down the narrow corridors of the satellite and through the port-careful not to smash them into the walls, the other machines, the fixtures of the LuftBuran.

  That kind of grunt labor was primarily reserved to the humans aboard. The Doc was the specialist now, fully occupied in dismantling bits of machinery, pausing only to collect another fistful of the aromatic food. It wasn't light labor, either. Hilda had not done this much physical work in a long time; in her normal existence that sort of thing was what she directed others to do. Even after the machines were inside the lander the work wasn't over. The things had to be stowed with care-with very great care, Hilda thought, imagining one of those bulky objects breaking loose in the shuddery violence of reentry and crashing down on her unprotected head.

  The exertion and the well-used air inside Starlab were having their effect on her, too. She wasn't at the point of throwing up, quite. But the queasiness did not go away, and at last she was forced to make her way to the ancient microgravity toilet.

  The training she had received at Kourou was not adequate to her present needs. It took her forever to close the lid on her wastes and then manage the stiff levers that noisily disposed of it. And when she came out the Doc had declared a halt. He was demonstrating to Colonel duValier that the other machines of any interest were simply too big to fit through the docking port.

  The colonel surrendered. He ordered everyone inside and grouchily sealed the ports. While the French female astronaut checked the stowage of the goods, the colonel himself strapped down the un-protesting Doc, who still had the one scrap of metal cloth bound oddly around his head, the other clutched firmly in one minor arm. Hilda, busy with her own seat fastenings, was paying little attention until a yelp from the colonel made her turn swiftly.

  But General Delasquez was laughing. "You should not attempt to take that thing away from him," he said. "Naturally he resisted."

  Colonel duValier sucked his wrist, where the Doc had thrust him away-not violently, but enough to hurt. "We will see," he snarled, "if the creature continues to resist when we are back at Kourou." But he left the Doc alone and pulled himself back to the control deck. A moment later he called, "Check your restraints. Are we all secured?"

  When the crew, one by one, reported themselves strapped in, he said crisply: "Disengage."

  The copilot touched something; there was a gentle lurch. The nausea that Hilda had quelled came back. She inhaled deeply and managed to repress it once again, bracing herself for the thrust that would start them back to Earth.

  It didn't come. They weren't moving, except to drift slowly away from Starlab. Craning her neck, Hilda saw that the colonel was speaking into a microphone while the copilot was scanning the interior of the LuftBuran with a handheld camera. He was speaking softly and in French; Hilda could catch only a few words, but it sounded as though he was complaining about
the Doc and demanding armed guards to meet them on landing.

  Stupid, she thought… but then something new caught Hilda's attention. She wrinkled her nose and craned her neck to look back at the Doc.

  All that food had had its inevitable result. The Doc had relieved himself again, and the stench was one thing too many for Hilda Morrisey to bear. She barely got die spacesick bag to her face before everything came up at once.

  CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO

  When the new orders came in over the command channel Lieutenant Colonel Priam Makalanos saw no particular problem. Immediately on off-loading the object will be airlifted to Camp Smolley for study and biological analysis. If suitable, limited amounts of the contents may be included in rations for the extraterrestrials.

  Curiously it was signed D.S. Fennell, Vice Deputy Director, rather than by the deputy director himself, but that was only a small puzzle that undoubtedly would be clarified in time. Makalanos glanced up at the wall screen, which for some time had been displaying the object in question. The thing from space was lashed to the deck of a Navy tug steaming toward Hampton Roads. Two destroyers, three Coast Guard corvettes and half a dozen smaller vessels were patrolling the perimeter around the tug, keeping the ships of other nationals away from what, after all, was something that had been found in American territorial waters. Makalanos grinned at the thought of all the indignant diplomatic protests that would be storming on the American State Department over this episode, but that wasn't his problem. All Makalanos had to do was to get Camp Smelly ready to receive the cargo.

  Actually, he thought, Dr. ben Jayya and his old biowar staff would be glad for something to do that was more along their lines of expertises; but while he was alerting the laboratory chiefs a breathless corporal rapped on his office door. "There's some kind of trouble with the turkey, sir," he panted. "Dr. Adcock thinks you ought to come."

  Even before Makalanos got to the isolation room he could hear Dopey's excited yammering. Pat One was waiting for him at the door. "He's been like this," she managed to get out before the little creature turned to him, great fan almost glowing with passion.

  "Lieutenant Colonel Makalanos! What have you done with my bearer? Is he dead?"

  Makalanos glanced at Pat One for help, but she only shook her head worriedly. He tried his best. He said, trying to be placating, "If you mean the one at Walter Reed-"

  "I do not mean the one at Walter Reed! I mean the one I agreed to let you take to your Starlab for the purpose of obtaining food, which it appears we no longer need, and devices for your study, which I now believe I should never have permitted. What have you allowed to happen to him?"

  Puzzled, Makalanos did his best. "As far as I know, nothing has happened to him."

  "As far as you know!" Dopey sneered.

  "Which is pretty far, actually," Makalanos said levelly, "but it's always possible something has happened I don't know about. If you'll try to calm down, I'll go to my office and check." Turning, he gave Dannerman a curt nod. "You come with me."

  In his office, he turned on the agent. "All right. What happened?"

  Dannerman shook his head. "Beats the hell out of me, Colonel. We told him about his food package coming-your order, Colonel."

  "I know what my order was. What did he do?"

  "He seemed pleased, that's all."

  "Pleased? Not surprised?"

  "Just pleased. Then he complained for a while about the food he's been getting, as usual, and then, all of a sudden, he went ape. He said we'd killed his bearer."

  Makalanos scowled. "Just like that?"

  "Just like that. There wasn't any warning, just one minute he was pissing and moaning as usual, then all of a sudden he was having fits. I tried to tell him that killing the Doc was the last thing we wanted to do, because we needed him, but he wasn't listening. Shaking all over. Screeching. As close to hysterical as I've ever seen him. We couldn't calm him down, even though we kept telling him the Doc was all right." He paused there, and then asked, "He is all right, isn't he?"

  Was the creature all right? The obvious way to find out was to query headquarters. What was wrong with that was that Makalanos felt a little foolish about asking that sort of question on nothing more substantial than the unsubstantiated conjecture-or hunch, or suspicion-of the bizarre little beast from space. Colonel Makalanos didn't like to feel foolish.

  He liked it even less when the Bureau duty officer assured him that of course the Doc was all right, the Starlab party was busily loading Scarecrow materiel into the LuftBuran at that very moment. "Anyway," she added, "when they're through there'll be a report, so why don't you just watch your news screen?"

  Nettled, Makalanos sent Dannerman back to give Dopey the word and do his best to keep him quiet. Then he considered what he should do next. Was it worth reporting Dopey's hysterics to the deputy director?

  It probably was, he thought-but when he tried to get through he found the D.D. was not taking calls-was getting ready to head for Kourou himself, to be there when the LuftBuran landed with its cargo.

  He swore to himself. Colonel Makalanos was as good at following orders as at giving them, but what orders was he to give to deal with Dopey? And who was to tell him what to do, with Brigadier Morrisey off somewhere in orbit and the deputy director too busy even to answer his phone?

  D. S. Fennell, that was who; the one who had signed his latest orders. Makalanos put in a call to her on the coded line, and found her impatient, harried, annoyed at being bothered-but willing to talk. She listened briefly, then shook her head. "Did you tell him the Bundles for Beasties were on the way? And that didn't cheer him up? Well, just do the best you can, Priam."

  "I wish I knew more of what was going on," he complained.

  "Don't we all? But what's to tell? There was a Chinese submarine shadowing the tug with the capsule, but be warned them off from territorial waters and now they're headed south. To Kourou, I guess. And there were a couple of Mexican frigates that got too close and had to be chased away-and, naturally, a lot of diplomatic complaints, but screw them. So everything's under control… I hope. Now can I get back to dealing with all this crap, please?"

  "I guess," Makalanos said reluctantly. "Daisy? What are you doing with this Starlab stuff? I thought you were assigned to head up all the rest of the Bureau's business?"

  Unwarranted Exclusion of Peaceful Shipping

  Federal officials in the Costa Rican Naval Department have announced that Costa Rican fishing and pleasure vessels have been driven out of international waters in the vicinity of the recent landing of the spacecraft from the "Scarecrows." Our ambassador in Washington has asked for an appointment with the American State Department in order to file a protest against this high-handed act.

  – Tico Times, San Juan, Costa Rica

  She gave him a wry look. "What other business? Haven't you been paying attention? There isn't any. It looks like all the subversives are* pulling their heads in. Right now this Scarecrow stuff is about the only action around."

  Agent Dannerman knocked and came in while Makalanos was channel-surfing the civilian news. "Dopey wants to talk to you, so Pat's going to bring him along," he reported.

  "Talk about what?" Makalanos asked, glancing away from a late-breaking story about the English Prime Minister's hurried visit to Cardiff, in Wales.

  "About this idea he has that something's happened to his Doc. He's quieted down some, so it ought to be all right." He was looking past Makalanos, at the news screen. "I guess that's part of this Welsh thing," he offered. And, when Makalanos looked perplexed, he added: "It was scuttlebutt going around in Arlington. The way I heard it, the Welsh nationalists were negotiating with MI 5 for a truce, and this Dawid ap Llewellyn guy? He was supposed to be surrendering to the police in Brownsville."

  "I hadn't heard," Makalanos admitted.

  "It's getting to be an epidemic. The Ukrainians, the Tamils in Sri Lanka, the Shining Path in, where is it, Peru? Even the Cambodian rebels and the Irish. I haven't heard anyth
ing like that about our own nut groups, but all over the world there are these revolutionaries packing it in. Makes you wonder-ah, there he is."

  Dopey had waddled in, Pat One right behind him, as they were talking. The little alien seemed subdued-worried, Makalanos thought, although he had not learned how to read Dopey's feelings from any expression on the cat face or hues of the great fantail. As Pat One lifted him onto a chair and began to work the controls of the screen, Dopey commented, "It is a common thing."

  Makalanos looked at him. "What is?"

  "This submerging of differences. Many affiliated races have behaved so, in that time of fear and confusion before they came to accept the Beloved Leaders."

  "Or didn't," Dannerman said sharply.

  "Oh, yes, Agent Dannerman, that is true. Some did not. With inevitably tragic results." The thought seemed to cheer him up. He added politely, "One hopes your species will not necessitate extreme measures, but your actions must not give provocation. It is my bearer I am concerned with!"

  From her position crouched beside the screen, Pat One interrupted. "Fight later, guys. I've got something."

  The news screen she had been working over now showed the face of Colonel Hugues duValier, clutching a bracket to keep himself from floating around, and proudly informing the world that he, Colonel duValier, had successfully completed his mission and they were preparing to return to the Kourou base as soon as they were in position for the reentry.

  Then the camera panned around the ship. Makalanos saw Hilda's face, peering into the camera, and the German astronauts, and the baffling bits and pieces of alien technology, and the giant, silent figure of the Doc, curiously wearing a sort of metal babushka, but obviously alive and well.

  There was a startled shriek from Dopey.

  Makalanos turned to him. "What's the matter? He isn't dead, is he? He's all right-"