Reunion

by Alan Dean Foster

  When one of the crew pointed out the wounded Dysseen as the overseer of the occupying force, Mahnahmi took care to see that he was preserved. They found him trying to transmit details of the uprising to the Sstakoun. Though Mahnahmi could speak passable AAnn, for the benefit of her crew she addressed the officer in Terranglo.

  “Your efforts are futile. I had my engineering staff insert a cycling static pattern in the communications system before we came up here. Anyone on your ship trying to contact you would assume you were experiencing a simple malfunction and wait for it to clear before considering the possibility that something more serious had occurred. Any further attempts to report on the resurgence of my crew will meet with a quick end.”

  Tottering slightly from the wound beneath his fourteenth rib, Dysseen rose. “Who are you, and where did you come from? I have not sseen you before. Were you hiding ssomewhere on thiss sship?”

  Her expression did not change, nor did the tenor of her voice. “This is my ship. I am the owner, and I just arrived back.”

  “Jusst arrived . . . ?” Dysseen gawked at the young human female. “You came on the transsport module! But it wass reported to me that the ssingle occupant wass dead!”

  “I was. It’s a little skill I’ve refined over the past couple of years. I find that with time and practice I can perform progressively more interesting parlor tricks. Some of them, like playing dead, really dead, turn out to have unforeseen uses. Here’s another trick.”

  An appalling pain struck Dysseen’s skull, as if someone had taken his brain in a giant fist and squeezed. When the lights of torment had begun to fade from in front of his eyes, he was able to stare at the unprepossessing female in horror.

  “How—how did you accomplissh that?”

  “You mean, it worked?” Mahnahmi was delighted. “That’s only the second time I’ve tried that. The other time it was on another human, and nothing happened. How about if I try it again?”

  “No, psshassta, no!” A frantic Dysseen executed a desperate gesture of first-degree supplication underscored by first-degree anxiety. “I beg the death of an honorable sservant of the Emperor.”

  “Why beg for death? Cooperate, and I’ll see you put off in the same service module that brought me here. Once we’re safely on our way outsystem, your people can pick you up.”

  Dysseen’s tail flicked uneasily from side to side. “I can trusst you to do that?”

  Mahnahmi shrugged. “You’re welcome to choose any of your other options.” She nodded meaningfully to a grim-faced crew member, who responded by raising the muzzle of the AAnn rifle he was carrying. “If it’s death you prefer, I promise that you won’t have to beg for it.”

  It took less than a minute for the suffering officer to weigh his choices. If picked up by the Sstakoun, he could commend himself to the mercy of the appropriate Imperial court. Rank might be degraded, but he would still be alive.

  “What iss it you want from me?”

  “As you know, we’ll need to move several planetary diameters out before we can initiate changeover. In order for us to have the time we require, you’ll have to explain our movements to your counterparts on the warship. Once we’re far enough out to activate the KK-drive, I’ll kick you out of the lock in the module. If you’re unfamiliar with human instrumentation I’ll even have one of my techs show you how to set and activate its homing beacon.”

  Dysseen did not need to ponder any longer on the offer. “I am agreed. But your triumph will be ssmall. You will be detected trying to leave Imperial sspace, and confronted before you can enter changeover.”

  “I don’t think so—not if you do your job well. And, of course, no one’s going to hunt us down once we’re in space-plus.” Her cool countenance loomed resolute before him. “Not only will we decamp safely to the Commonwealth, we’ll find a way to return and take control of our rightful discovery before squabbling Imperial bureaucrats can decide what to do about it. In any case, I guarantee that you won’t have to worry about it.” Stepping forward, she and the Crotase’s chief communications tech positioned themselves before the relevant ship’s systems.

  “Pay attention to what I want you to say.” The sidearm she held rose symbolically. “And don’t try to so much as improperly inflect a syllable. I speak excellent AAnn.” She proceeded to demonstrate the pertinent skill to a degree where Dysseen was suitably impressed. “Your people will wonder why you are contacting them with audio only. Explain that it is a collateral problem with the preceding static cycle that your techs are working to resolve.”

  Dysseen was calm, effective, and quietly eloquent. Mahnahmi was quite pleased. The Sstakoun’s position remained fixed as the human vessel began to adjust and modify its own, nor did the warship’s weapons veer to track the Crotase’s movements. Despite the crew’s anxieties, all maneuvers were executed progressively and without haste so as not to raise suspicions on the AAnn craft.

  Mahnahmi was as good as her word. As soon as her ship had moved the requisite five planetary diameters out from the methane dwarf around which the artificial, gas-shrouded moon orbited, the AAnn officer was assisted into the compact transport module and its distress beacon activated. While he drifted clear of the Crotase, Dysseen was able to watch as a deep purplish red radiance took shape in front of the Commonwealth vessel’s KK-drive projection dish. As the posigravity field deepened and intensified, the former prize ship slowly but with rapidly increasing speed began to move outsystem. By the time the Sstakoun, homing in on the module’s electronic lament, began to fill his field of view, the humans’ craft had long since vanished into the impenetrable depths of space-plus.

  Dysseen hissed in relief. It took him a moment to realize that though his hissing had ceased, the sound itself had not. A quick glance at the vehicle’s minimal instrumentation revealed the onset of an alarmingly rapid fall in atmospheric pressure. Frantically, he attempted to decipher the humanoid readouts in a frenzied attempt to discover the source of the problem. When he finally isolated it, the explanation was as elegant as the realization of what had taken place.

  The outflow had not been programmed to activate until the Sstakoun acknowledged his position.

  As he raged in silent desperation, trapped in the coffinlike transport module, a number of words the remorseless human female had spoken came back to him. She was right—he would not have to worry about what happened to the Commonwealth vessel, just as he would not have to beg for death. As a species with a highly developed sense of irony, the AAnn officer could appreciate the situation better than many others. His appreciation would have been even greater had he not been the focus of it.

  He was probably still alive when those aboard the Sstakoun, getting no reply from the module, used grapplers to draw the tiny craft into the air lock. By the time the compartment had been properly pressurized and medical personnel were able to reach and force an opening into the vehicle, however, the honored officer was no longer able to respond. Unlike the human female, he did not possess the ability to feign his own death.

  He could only limn it for real.

  Moving as fast as he could, a weary Flinx penetrated farther and farther into the artifact. It did not seem to matter which way he turned or what twists he deigned to take: The proximity of pitiless AAnn emotions remained constant in his mind. The well-trained, well-conditioned soldiers recently relieved from boredom were not going to give up until they ran their quarry down. Plainly, their detection and tracking equipment was as efficient and relentless as the technicians operating it.

  His heart threatened to thump a hole through his chest. Weak from fatigue, he halted and bent over, resting his hands on his knees as he fought to catch his breath. Pip fluttered solicitously in front of his face, doggedly trying to encourage her friend and companion to resume his headlong flight. He found himself wishing he could somehow borrow a portion of the minidrag’s seemingly inexhaustible energy. Sensing that the AAnn closing in on him were not resting, unable to see any other course of action but
refusing to yield either to them or to his fatigued body, he straightened and staggered onward.

  Worst of all was the realization that he could no longer sense the emotional presence of his deceitful sister. Somehow, Mahnahmi had managed to flee from his ken. As he stumbled ever deeper into the limitless relic, he found himself wondering how much to believe of what she had told him. Without access to the sybfile she possessed, how could he really know what was true and what she had invented about his history? Was she really his legitimate sister, as seemed to be the case? Or was she just a clever adapter of information gleaned from the syb she had appropriated? Mockery seemed to be the order of the day.

  Of all the people in the galaxy, she was the only one in possession of the erudition that could validate or invalidate her claims. She was the only one with access to the information he wanted and needed, the irreplaceable personal knowledge that had been explosively excised from the Terran Shell. There were others—others who were interested in him, others who were curious about his origins and abilities, perhaps even a few who knew enough to fear him. But among them one and all, as far as he knew, only she was consumed with hatred.

  What he would do when his spent body would not carry him any farther he did not know. Perhaps the same mysterious, inexplicable aptitude that had previously rescued him in desperate situations would once more manifest itself. He was not comforted by the idea. A sufficiency of inscrutability seemed an inadequate recourse to rely upon.

  He had been tottering down a comparatively narrow corridor when he suddenly emerged into a large room. An explosion of conduits and conductors radiated from its center. There were thin panels of self-supporting reflective material, several ornate laceworks of spun metallic glass whose functions dwelled in a land beyond elusive, and a number of free-floating geometric shapes that appeared to pulse steadily in and out of existence. In the approximate center of this farrago of strange devices a single horizontal slab that appeared to have been poured from a cauldron of molten ceramic or plastic protruded from the floor. It lodged beneath a transparent dome containing a second smaller dome that was too large to be a helmet, too small to be a body capsule.

  Gaping, Flinx stumbled to a halt, his lower jaw hanging slack. Pip hovered about his head, her agitation unabated. He sensed that the pursuing AAnn were very close now. What was startling, even shocking, about the deceptively simple-looking slab-and-dome creation was neither its appearance nor its design nor its location.

  It was the fact that he recognized it.

  Chapter 19

  Bewildered, the strength in his legs gone, he approached the gleaming dome-covered slab as if in a waking dream. Everything was as he remembered it: the color of the slab, the sleekness of its slightly concave surface, the faint luminosity of the outer dome, the beckoning arc of the curving interior transparency that was neither glass nor plastic nor any material known to Commonwealth science. Even as he recognized it, he knew it was not the one he had seen before, some six years ago. That would have constituted an even graver, greater impossibility. This was a different one, perhaps slightly larger, but of almost identical design and construction. In identifying it, he also knew what it was. Because he had, those selfsame six years earlier, activated one just like it—or nearly so.

  It was a Tar-Aiym control platform.

  Memories came flooding in unbidden: Of a jovial but resolute merchant named Malaika. Of his pilot Atha Moon, who was well-nigh as comely as her name. Of two longtime acquaintances who became his friends and mentors; one human, one thranx. Of a towering monolith on a world far, far away in a place of sterility and mystery humans called the Blight. Of himself, concerned for an unexpectedly cataleptic Pip, entering a dome identical to the one that now rose before him. Dizziness ensuing, followed by pain, confusion, resistance. Then acquiescence, an overwhelming brightness, and a kind of numbing enlightenment, as if a smothering had been cleared from his mind. Since that time, that moment, he had never been quite the same.

  Alien phrases reached his ears: rising, sibilating voices fraught with anticipation, coming closer. He had felt the deaths of at least two AAnn together with that of the self-sacrificing Qwarm Briony. As was the case with any feeling sentients, the reptiloids did not take kindly to those who killed while fleeing. Under such circumstances it was reasonable to assume that his interrogation would be harsh and his future unpromising.

  If he entered into the dome, there was an excellent chance nothing whatsoever would happen. Should that be the case, then he would lose nothing by the trying. If, on the other hand, anything transpired, however unobtrusive, it might be enough to cause the AAnn to pause and reconsider, or even to decide that the apprehension of a single human was not worth challenging the unknown. He remembered the seemingly innocuous iridescent film that had forcefully assimilated nearly all the members of Mahnahmi’s exploration party. The same fate or worse might await him beneath the glistening dome. Could it be worse than being taken prisoner by the AAnn? If nothing else, it was certain to be quicker.

  Poised on the brink of discovery was not a bad place to perish. As shouts of expectation reached him, he came to a final decision and strode forward. Reaching the dome, he took a deep breath as if preparing to duck underwater, stepped inside, and lay down flat on the slab. It was cool against his back and designed to accommodate a body far more massive than that of any human. Above him, the partial inner and more complete outer domes displayed a confusion of incomprehensible schematics sculpted solid and multidimensional from alien materials. Puzzled and a little disconcerted, Pip folded her wings and landed on his shoulder.

  Nothing happened. The domes remained as he had first seen them from a distance, the lighting in the chamber ample but subdued. He could hear clearly the voices of the pursuing AAnn as they entered the room. This was a waste of time, a useless exercise, he decided. His legs felt a little better. He determined to make an attempt to resume running, to delay his capture until the last possible moment. Grimacing slightly at a mild cramp in one thigh, he started to rise from the slab. As he did so, something moved against him.

  Curled into a tight, fetal ball of coiled muscle, Pip was twitching to an unheard rhythm. Her trembling was steadfast and regular, as if something more than her breathing pattern had changed. As he stared, something danced past his face less than a meter in front of his eyes. It was a ball of red-gold energy that pulsed like a live thing. Captivated by its silent beauty, he watched it drift sideways until it made contact with the wall of the outer dome. There it was promptly absorbed, its light and substance dissipating into the photoporous material like water into a sponge. Tilting back his head, his gaze fell on the interior surface of the inner dome.

  Like lavender fireflies, a thousand lights were dancing within the curving transparency.

  Shivering slightly, he closed his eyes and lay back down. The coiled weight of Pip, his companion since childhood, was unreasonably reassuring against his neck and shoulder. An inner peace slipped over him like a blanket. He was entering a place he had been before, related yet different. And this time, unlike the first, there was no pain.

  Weapons at the ready, Voocim and her soldiers rounded a bend in the corridor along which they had been racing. Leading the way, the techs operating the life-form sensors were the first to enter the chamber. So sharply did they pull up, their sandaled feet catching against the slightly ribbed decking, that they were nearly run over by those soldiers following chose behind. Like her troops, the commander was forced to raise a clawed hand to shield her eyes.

  Dominating the center of the chamber they had entered was a slightly elevated dais upon which rested a kind of couch or bench. This was covered with an outer dome of some glassy material that presently was ablaze with integrated green-and-gold fire. Occasional upheavals of coruscating cobalt blue detonated in the depths of the prismatic tempest like thunderbolts within a storm cloud. From the surface of the profound turbulence, globes and streaks of dynamic energy leaped in all directions, as if escapin
g from the concentrated inner uproar.

  Subofficer Amuruun raised a hand and pointed. “The human iss there, Honored Commander!”

  “I ssee it!” Voocim hesitated. “It appearss to have activated ssome kind of localized energy field.”

  “But how . . . ?” The subofficer gestured fifth-degree uncertainty while his expression revealed the first inkling of fear.

  Voocim saw she would have to act quickly. “An automatic reaction on the part of the artifact, no different from the activating of lightss along the corridorss we have been ussing or the operation of the large air lock when confronted by an arriving sship. The human iss operating nothing, becausse there iss nothing here a human can operate. Or an AAnn, or anyone elsse. It iss a dessperation act on the part of the fugitive. It iss also an inssufficient one.” Casually raising a hand, she executed the appropriate gesture.

  “As you know, I would prefer to have the human alive. Corpssess are notorioussly unressponsive to quesstioning.” The attempt at humor had a calming effect on Amuruun and the rest of the troopers. “Fire a warning sshot at the lower end of the sstructure. That sshould rouse the human and alsso put an end to thiss dramatic but harmless dissplay.”

  Obediently, the subofficer stepped forward and took careful aim with his own rifle. A graceful weapon designed to be carried easily, it threw a shell whose diminutive size belied its striking power. The almost imperceptible flash that was lost in the glare from the domes was accompanied by a brief but violent exhalation from the side of the weapon.