The Light-Years Beneath My Feet

by Alan Dean Foster

  “We’re very grateful, of course,” he assured her as the transport inclined slightly to the right, turning north at high speed. “But you could have told me what you did.”

  “Not necessary.” Radiant yellow-gold eyes enveloped him. “Would have made you feel better to know?” Amidst the aural gravel, a flicker of concern emerged.

  “Of course I . . .” He hesitated. Would he have felt better knowing that some kind of alien tracking fluid was coursing through his circulatory system? Did he feel better for knowing it now? It wasn’t as if she was somehow taking advantage of him.

  As was sometimes the case, George was able to better articulate his friend’s feelings than Walker was himself. “Makes you feel a little like property, does it? Remind you somehow of a previous situation?”

  Walker glanced over at the dog, who was sitting up now and watching their Niyyuu employer intently. “This is nothing like our previous situation, George. We were prisoners of the Vilenjji: captives. Viyv-pym is hiring us. There’s a vast difference in that.”

  “Difference, okay,” the dog conceded as he scratched at one shoulder. “‘Vast,’ I’m not so sure.”

  As soon as she digested the full import of the dog’s comments, Viyv-pym grew visibly annoyed. “Captives? Prisoners? What kind insult this? I take yous Kojn-umm because of respect yous’ abilities!” One hand pointed at Walker as the tips of her slender ears quivered and her tails lashed the sides of her seat. “Unique being exhibits unique talent. That only reason I extend offer to bring yous all Niyu. You think is nothing for me to do so? Cost involved goes beyond simple hiring. I have personal reputation to maintain!”

  She was truly beautiful when she was angry, Walker could not help thinking. If only she wouldn’t yell quite so much. The normal Niyyuu tone of voice was discordant enough.

  “Okay, okay.” Grumbling but far from mollified by her ear-bending outburst, George finished scratching and stretched back out on the seat. “Don’t sprain your tongue—if you’ve got one.” He glanced up at the man seated next to him. “Touchy bitch, isn’t she?”

  Walker held his breath, but evidently the Vilenjji implant translated the dog’s comment in a way that was consistent with good manners. At least, Viyv-pym did not respond as a human female might have. Behind them, Braouk was reciting the eighth quatrain of the Kerelon Soliloquy. In order to squeeze inside, the Tuuqalian had to lie flat on the empty deck at the rear of the transport. Lost in melancholy reminiscence, he paid little attention to the conversation forward.

  Once Viyv-pym had calmed down, Walker was able to reflect more dispassionately on George’s comments. Had the dog been out of line, or was he onto something Walker was too excited or blinded to see? Had he advanced their cause of traveling nearer to their homes, or had he simply entered into an agreement that was little different from the one the Vilenjji had intended for them all along? Ostensibly, he and his companions were free agents, able to enter into an employment contract of their own choosing. Could they also exit it if and when they wished? They would be on Niyu—not sophisticated, highly civilized Sessrimathe—dealing with a species that, beyond their obvious physical attractiveness, neither he nor his companions knew anything about. How would Viyv-pym react, for example, if after arriving and performing his demonstrations for a few weeks he announced that he and his friends wished to leave?

  Maybe he hadn’t made such a smart call after all, he found himself worrying. Worse still, he had inveigled his only friends into going along with it.

  Something lightly touched his shoulder. Turning, he found himself staring into black, horizontal pupils set in eyes of silver. A two-foot-long tendril was coiled lightly against his clavicle while the pinkish mouth tube that emerged from the nest of tentacles fluttered in his direction.

  “I cannot read thoughts. Evolved as we are, my kind has not yet advanced to that degree. But in the time we have spent forced to endure one another’s company I have become somewhat sensitive to your moods and expressions. You fear the consequences of the decision you have made.”

  There was a time when such close proximity face-to-face with a creature like Sque would have sent Walker reeling in shock. It was a measure of how much he had adapted that he did not even flinch from the rubbery cephalopodian visage.

  “Yes, I do.” A glance in George’s direction showed that the dog had laid his head down on crossed forepaws and was ignoring them both. “George always knows how to stir up my uncertainties.”

  “A psychological device that should not be cavalierly employed by species unsophisticated in its use. Think a moment, Marcus Walker. If a self-evidently superior being like myself did not believe that there was more to be gained by accepting the offer of these Niyyuu than by declining it, would I have agreed to come along?”

  Coming as it did straight from the K’eremu, the realization boosted his spirits. “No. No, you wouldn’t have. You would have stayed on Seremathenn no matter how much I urged you to come.”

  “Precisely. Your oafish pleadings would have had no effect on me whatsoever.” The tendril withdrew. “I am here only because I believe it truly does afford me the best opportunity to journey a bit nearer my homeworld that I have been offered since our arrival on Seremathenn, however meager it may eventually turn out to be. My decision has nothing to do with any perceived affection you believe I may hold toward your quaintly primitive individual person.”

  Walker was more relieved than he would have thought possible. “Thanks, Sque. I needed that reassurance.”

  “It is unintended,” the K’eremu concluded, withdrawing backward to her perch atop the seat behind Walker’s own.

  Sque’s indifference to his situation made her affirmation of his choice of action that much more heartening. Paradoxically, the fact that she could have cared less about how he felt showed how firmly she countenanced what they had done. He settled back into his seat, duly reassured in mind.

  Now all he had to do was hope that primitive human and superior K’eremu were not equally misguided in their mutual decision.

  In its perversely consistent fashion, it was comforting to discover in the course of the long voyage to Niyu that Viyv-pym was no more brusque of manner or grating of voice than any other representative of her kind. In fact, when confronted in close quarters with more than two or three Niyyuu conversing at once, Walker often had to manufacture an excuse to flee the location lest the pain from the sound of their overlapping voices lead to the kind of stabbing migraine he had not suffered since quitting football. He suspected that with time he would get used to the jarring, rasping, scratchy vocalizations. He would have to.

  Their new hosts’ irritating voices did not trouble the affable George nearly as much, barking being a less than mellifluous method of communication to begin with. As for Braouk, the massive Tuuqalian was not bothered by them at all, while Sque regarded all forms of non-K’eremu modulated communication as unworthy of serious evaluation anyway.

  So Walker was left to listen in solitary discomfort to the queries and musings of the crew and the other passengers, struggling as best he was able to avoid cringing every time he was subjected to a particularly screechy turn of Niyyuuan phrase. His Vilenjji implant did its usual excellent job of rendering otherwise unintelligible alien conversation comprehensible, but it could do nothing to mute the actual sound of their speech.

  Weeks into the journey saw him gradually becoming inured to the effect, rather like someone who has been bitten numerous times by a poisonous snake and has consequently developed a certain immunity to the toxin. Or maybe, he decided, his outraged ears had been damaged to the point of being unable to discriminate between Niyyuuan vocalizations and any other kind.

  Whether by accident or subconscious design, he found himself spending a lot of time in Viyv-pym’s company. He did not worry about relaxing too much. For one thing, she never missed an opportunity to remind him that the only relationship they had was that between employer and employee—though she was not engaging him person
ally. She was only acting as an agent for her government. Additionally, while her appearance and attitude was that of a beauteous alien apparition, her behavior was more akin to that of a crude visitant from some backward region of civilized space. Not that she was in any way boorish or ignorant, he determined. A lot of it had to do with the unfortunate manner of Niyyuu speech.

  While he learned much from her about the physical nature of her homeworld, she was oddly reticent to discuss social mores and attitudes. “Yous find out after arriving,” she would always tell him. He got the impression she was being tentative rather than deliberately evasive.

  George was less convinced. “She’s keeping something from us. Not necessarily concealing. Just skipping around certain subjects.”

  Sitting in the room they shared, dog and Walker exchanged a glance. The Niyyuuan sleeping platform on which he was lying was almost seven feet long but so narrow that he had to be careful not to fall onto the floor whenever he turned over during the chosen sleep period. George had no such difficulty with his platform. It could have easily accommodated a dozen Georges.

  “Why would she want to hide anything?” Walker wondered how Braouk was handling the journey. While he could bend low enough to clear the ceilings within the Niyyuuan vessel, the Tuuqalian could only fit through a few exceptionally wide corridors, and then only by turning sideways. As a result, for the duration of the trip he was largely confined to the single storage area that had been converted for his use. While his comparative isolation was unavoidable, Sque’s was voluntary. Unless it was obligatory, the K’eremu saw no reason to mix with lower life-forms on a social basis. This was not a problem, as the more they learned about Sque and the more often she was encountered, the more her self-imposed isolation suited the Niyyuu as much as it did the K’eremu.

  “If we knew that,” the dog was saying in response to Walker’s question, “we’d probably have some idea what she was hiding. Maybe I’m way off base here, Marc. I have to keep reminding myself that we’re not captives on a Vilenjji collecting craft and that we’re here of our own free will.”

  “It’ll be better once we get there. You’ll see.” Rolling over, he leaned across the narrow divide that separated their respective sleeping platforms and began to scratch the dog’s back.

  George’s eyes half closed, and an expression of pleasure crossed his bushy face. “Farther down. Farther.” The dog’s eyes shut completely. “That’s it—both hip bones.” Walker continued scratching until his friend settled down on his stomach. “Thanks. Every once in a while it’s useful for me to be reminded why I keep you around.”

  Walker grinned. “Because if we happen to stumble across a pile of dog food, you’ll need somebody to operate the can opener?”

  “Sque’s right. You’re learning.” More seriously he added, “I may be paranoid, but paranoia’s kept me alive more than once. You keep an eye on that Viyv-pym specimen. And not the kind of eye you’ve been using.”

  Walker feigned shock. “George, she’s an alien. She’s not even mammalian, in the scientific sense.”

  “It’s not scientific sense that worries me here.” The dog eyed him evenly, cocking his head to one side, ears flopping. “It’s another one.”

  “Look, I won’t deny that I find her attractive. But that’s all. It’s purely a matter of dispassionate aesthetics. The same’s true for every Niyyuu. They’re just a physically striking species, if verbally irritating.” He was very earnest.

  The dog nodded tersely. “Let’s hope the irritation is confined to the verbal.”

  “If my spending time trying to learn about her world and her people is worrying you that much,” Walker suggested, “why not ask Sque’s opinion?”

  George snorted softly. “I said I was concerned, not daft. I don’t need to go looking for insults. I can find plenty without having to search for them.” With that, he rolled over onto his back, thrust his legs into the air, and gave every indication of embarking on a quick nap.

  Walker let the matter drop. He was bemused by Viyv-pym, perhaps even beguiled, but he was not worried. She was too direct to be duplicitous. If he hadn’t felt that he could trust her, he would never have agreed to undertake the current journey.

  Or would he? Had he been blinded by the chance to travel—hopefully—a little closer to home? Was there some aspect of her personality, of Niyyuuan nature, that his enthusiasm for the opportunity had caused him to overlook? He didn’t think so. A part of him almost wished his friends had not agreed to come with him, though. Because they had, and because it was his idea, he felt responsible for them. Braouk would have shrugged off the notion with verse, while Sque would have considered it beneath debate. Only the ever-ready George would have dumped a dutiful dollop of guilt on his fellow Chicagoan.

  That settled it, Walker decided with a small smile. In some earlier incarnation, George must have been a Jewish or Italian grandmother.

  4

  When word came down from ship command that arrival at Niyu was imminent, Walker’s wonderfully durable cheap watch informed him it had been nearly a month since they had left Seremathenn. Knowing nothing of the particulars of transpatial travel except that it was all relative, Walker could not assess if the journey had been swift or slow, or if it would be considered long or short. It was left to Sque to enlighten him as they prepared themselves and their few personal belongings for incipient disembarkation.

  “Everything depends on the comparative velocity a container achieves while traversing that singular portion of space-time that makes interstellar travel possible.”

  She elucidated while clinging to the crest of Braouk’s upper body, her tendrils securely entwined in the yellow-green bristles that covered him. One Tuuqalian eyestalk curled up to monitor her position while the other remained level and drawn in, taking the measure of the path ahead of them. Though Braouk was only giving her a ride, the incongruous temporary coupling made it appear as if the Tuuqalian had unexpectedly grown a small, rubbery head while the K’eremu had developed a truly enormous lower body.

  “I don’t need a detailed explanation.” Heading down a ramp, Walker was careful not to bump into George as the dog trotted alongside him.

  “That is sensible, since you would not understand it anyway.” The K’eremu considered briefly. “Devoid of the necessary technical input and basing my remarks, you understand, on the most casual and infrequent observation of the stellar neighborhood through which we have recently passed, I should say that unless for some unknown and unimaginable reason our hosts were compelled to take a circuitous route in returning to their homeworld we have traveled a considerable distance.”

  Walker’s tone would have done Sque herself proud. “Oh good—thanks so much for pinning it down for me.” He and George turned a corner, following a male Niyyuuan’s lead.

  Tendrils fluttered as the K’eremu shifted her position slightly atop the Tuuqalian’s crest. “Do not be impertinent. Do you expect one, even one such as myself, to be able to accurately estimate the distances involved in interstellar travel by simply eyeballing the view outside an optical port? It is not like pacing off the feluuls on a beach, you know. Besides, the direction we have traveled is far more important than the distance.”

  “What direction might that be?” George inquired, glancing back and up at her.

  “The right one, we must hope.” The K’eremu went silent. They were approaching an exit.

  Viyv-pym was waiting for them there. The change in her demeanor was evident even to her non-Niyyuu charges. Her movements were more erratic, her manner of speaking even sharper than usual, while neck frill and multiple tails were in constant motion instead of rising and falling only when necessary to emphasize a point. Walker could not be sure of his friends’ reaction, but to him their hostess looked decidedly nervous. So much so that as she shepherded them through customs checkpoints that were far less elaborate than those they had encountered on Seremathenn, Walker was moved to comment.

  “Of course I edge-be
ing,” she snapped sharply in response to his query. “Do you not listen my talking on Seremathenn, on ship? This very important engaging I have made done with you all.” As she spoke, her remarkable eyes were scanning the far end of the hallway.

  Wondering as to its purpose, Walker was guided through an archway. Somewhere out of his range of vision, something beeped minutely. It must have been a favorable beep, because he was waved on. One by one, his friends followed—all except Braouk, who was too big to pass through. A trio of gray- and blue-clad Niyyuu armed with portable instruments promptly descended on him and proceeded to pass the business ends of the devices they carried over his body. The Tuuqalian tolerated the intimate inspection for as long as he could stand it. Then he lumbered forward to rejoin his companions. Apparently deciding that their inspection had been sufficient, none of the three Niyyuuan officials chose to challenge his departure, their collective inaction thereby reasserting their species’ claim to higher intelligence.

  “What’s wrong?” Walker finally felt compelled to ask as they continued down the hallway. “Something’s wrong, isn’t it?” Whatever it was, he prayed it had nothing to do with their presence.

  She turned on him so abruptly that he flinched. “Fool of a provisional decision! Is not clear you? I expend much in bringing yous to Niyu. Much more I invest in bringing yous onward to Kojn-umm.” When he didn’t reply she added, her exasperation unbounded, “Here, home, I am become just like you, pale-skin Marc. I am employee too!”

  So that was it, he realized as he strode along beside her. On Seremathenn she might have been dominant and in complete control of her fellow Niyyuu, but here she was subordinate to others. It made sense. In her defense, she had never claimed to be anything more than a posh procurer. But it was still strange to see the one on whom he had come to rely totally frill-flashing with unease at the thought she might have made a mistake.