"The other Vox called you a liar," translated Mariko. "He says this is a distraction to hide your own dishonest intentions."
"Our only intention is to warn you," said Swift.
Mariko relayed what the captain had said, then translated the gold-furred Vox's next words. "If these ships are such a threat, and you are not their allies, why put yourselves in danger by coming here?"
"Friendship," said Captain Swift.
This time, the red-furred regent spoke. "Friendship? We are strangers."
"Unless proven otherwise," said Swift, "we consider all fellow beings to be friends."
The gold-furred minister chattered. "Including the pilots of this supposed fleet?"
"As I've told you, we don't yet know their intentions," said Swift. "However, given the size and armaments of their vessels, we believe it would be wise to take whatever precautions you can."
"Then you do not give all fellow beings the benefit of the doubt, after all," said the regent.
"Not when they answer our hails with weapons fire," said Swift.
When Mariko translated the captain's words, the Vox leaders fell silent.
"We can provide you with the coordinates of the ships," said Swift, "and the sensor data we have on them. I'm afraid it isn't much." Pausing, he looked at each of the Vox leaders in turn. "I only wish we could do more."
Casting his eyes upward, he gazed into the dazzling heights of the tower. "Your world is filled with beauty. I sincerely hope that the intentions of these visitors are as peaceful as our own."
Referring to the multiterpreter device, Mariko carefully pronounced the Vox version of what the captain had said. "Vox ilu aya sensay mazeesh. Swiftlo anzish u'i yayla oonlo sah sueta amisansu."
In days to come, she would reflect often upon those words. More than a few times, she would wish that she had never spoken them.
Here was a new moment for her nightmares:
For an instant, there was silence as the regent, ministers, and onlookers absorbed what she had said. Blithely unaware of what was coming, Mariko made an adjustment to the multiterpreter.
Then, all at once, the assembled Vox erupted into chaos.
The outcry was deafening. All around her, Vox were chattering, clicking, smacking, whistling, screaming. They gestured wildly, signing so fast and emphatically that their hands were blurs. Even the regent and her fellow leaders howled and flailed, diving from pillar to pillar in a frenzy.
The uproar swelled and cascaded in the vast chamber, echo building upon echo building upon echo with growing force. There must have been at least a hundred Vox in the tower, and every single one of them cried out at once.
Except one. Nalo stood quietly nearby, calmly meeting Mariko's terrified gaze.
For some reason, her eyes fell to the multiterpreter in her hands. Somehow, amid the tumult, it must have miraculously tuned in one voice among many, or many voices saying the same thing. Or maybe it was a malfunction.
One word flashed on the display, again and again. In years to come, it would flash in just the same way in her nightmares.
Death.
Death.
Death.
*****
Chapter Four
As the cacophony in the tower escalated, the Exogenesis crewmen closed ranks…not entirely of their own accord. The mob of Vox pressed in around them, forcing them more tightly together, sometimes angrily shoving them into each other.
"What's going on?" shouted Swift as he fended off the clawed Vox hands that grabbed at him.
When no one answered, Mariko realized that the question was directed at her. Unfortunately, not only did she have no idea what was going on, she was too preoccupied to try to formulate a response.
The multiterpreter slid from her fingers as a snarling Vox violently shook her by the shoulders. Her feet left the floor as the creature hoisted her away from her embattled companions.
Overcoming her initial shock, Mariko thrashed and kicked, dislodging the Vox's grip. Just as she regained her footing, two more Vox dove into the fray, each latching onto one of her arms.
Mariko brought up a knee and lashed it back, landing a kick in the lower midsection of one Vox. As the stunned creature released its grip, she swung her free arm around and planted a fist in the same section of the other Vox. That Vox, too, let go of her.
Her freedom lasted only a few seconds. As her original attacker advanced alongside new friends, Mariko felt more hands grab her from behind.
Before she could react, she was yanked backward…but her alarm switched to relief when she realized that her latest abductor was Captain Swift.
Unceremoniously, Swift deposited her in the middle of the Exogenesis group, then turned…and she found herself at the center of a protective ring. Swift, Commander Turner and Sub-Commander J'Tull faced the roiling crowd, fending off any Vox who got brave enough to rush them.
"Can somebody please tell me what the hell's going on here?" said Captain Swift.
"Perhaps your first contact technique needs work," said J'Tull. "Today's results have been discouraging."
"I feel sorry for us," said Turner, "once these folks realize just how badly they've got us outnumbered."
The tide of noise in the tower surged to a head-splitting crescendo. The chatter, screams, whoops, clicks and buzzes joined together to form a single terrible sound, a chord of sustained and unmistakable rage.
Then, something new drowned out everything else: an echoing chime crashed from wall to wall and floor to pinnacle with thunderous force, as if the entire majestic tower was one enormous bell that had been rung. It was so loud, Mariko had to cover her ears; even then, she heard it clearly and felt the vibrations throughout her body.
As the piercing chime resounded through the chamber, the uproar from the crowd reached a shrill, keening peak. As one, all the disparate chattering voices united in a high-pitched, ululating wail…then subsided.
As the blaring chime faded, the strident frenzy of moments past diminished with it. Though the assembled Vox remained restless and continued to radiate hostility, their feverish intensity seemed to break for the moment.
All eyes turned to the red-furred regent, now back on her original perch but noticeably higher. Upright and clinging to the glassy, spiraled pillar, she called out to the crowd.
As the regent's words spilled into the tower, Mariko's heart pounded…not from exertion, but panic. She could feel herself and her shipmates teetering on a razor's edge of violent death; every word from the regent's mouth could be vital to their survival.
And the multiterpreter was gone. It had slipped from her hands during the chaos.
Pushing between Swift and J'Tull, she looked down…but the surrounding Vox were so thick that she could see little of the floor. If the multiterpreter was down there, she wouldn't find it without wading into the mob.
Straightening, she closed her eyes and took a deep breath. It was time to put up or shut up, and she'd already missed some of what the regent had said.
Trying not to dwell on the possibility that something she'd missed would mean the difference between life and death, Mariko concentrated on Regent Ieria's speech.
Without the multiterpreter, she couldn't catch every word…but what she understood, she didn't like. The longer she listened, the more she wished that she could go back to not comprehending a single syllable of the Vox language.
What the regent was saying was all about her.
"Mariko?" said Swift. "What is it?"
She had made a terrible mistake. It was all her fault.
Instead of working every moment to refine her understanding of the language, she had let herself get caught up in the breathtaking sights. Nalo and the crowd that had accompanied them to the tower had never stopped talking, presenting the perfect opportunity to download and analyze linguistic structure and nuance.
And she had acted like a tourist instead of doing her job.
"Mariko?" Swift's voice was sharper this time.
All her fault.
Mariko listened for another moment before turning to the captain. "I'm so sorry," she said. "I caused this."
"How?" said Swift.
"I used a slur," said Mariko. She lowered her voice to a whisper. "Mazeesh."
"All this over a word?" said Commander Turner. "One word?"
Wincing, Mariko nodded. "I didn't know it was a slur. I heard it used in a different context with a different meaning."
"What meaning?" asked Turner.
"Beauty," said Mariko. "I thought it meant beauty."
Captain Swift looked at the red-furred Vox, still holding forth from her perch on the pillar. "Can you offer an apology?" he asked Mariko. "Explain that it was a misunderstanding?"
Grimly, Mariko shook her head. "I think the best I can hope for is to talk them out of killing you, too."
The import of her words left the Exogenesis group silent for a moment. Then, Swift looked around, scanning the mob of Vox jammed into the tower. Sighing, he reached for the communi-link in his pocket.
"Nobody dies," he said. "That is, if the teleporter doesn't kill us."
"Not the teleporter," Turner said unhappily. "Are you sure we can't fight our way out?"
Suddenly, Regent Ieria howled, triggering a roar from the crowd. It was one word, expelled in a deafening gust.
"Ruhala!"
The closer Mariko got to unreasoning panic, the faster she seemed to slide. "Death," she said.
The crowd chanted the word with bloodthirsty gusto.
"Ruhala! Ruhala!"
"It means death!" said Mariko, perilously close to spinning out of control.
"On second thought," said Turner. "Maybe the teleporter isn't such a bad idea."
Captain Swift already had the communi-link open. "Mariko," he said as he manipulated the controls. "Say something. Apologize, plead for mercy, anything. Buy us some time."
Mariko nodded, but her mind was a blank. The tide of rage rose in the tower, licking at her like heat in advance of flames; the crowd wasn't touching her yet, but she knew it was coming.
And then, all of a sudden, it came.
Before Swift could speak into the communi-link, it was swatted from his grasp. Still roaring that single, terrible word, the Vox swarmed over them, a rippling mass of fur and teeth.
Earlier, the low gravity of Vox had made Mariko feel light enough to fly. Now, she felt as if she were indeed floating, watching the scene in a detached way from above.
As clawed hands seized her, she watched her friends battle the onrushing horde of snarling Vox. With muscles developed in higher gravity environments, the humans and Hephaestan had increased strength on this world, and they put it to use…but they were too vastly outnumbered to hold out for long. For every Vox that Swift or Turner or J'Tull heaved aside, ten more lunged at them with fresh ferocity.
Vox poured over them from every direction, and Captain Swift was pulled under. Howling with rage to match that of their attackers, Commander Turner fought to retrieve him, tearing into the thrashing clutch of Vox that labored over him.
Then, in a flurry of Vox limbs, Turner was wrestled backward and disappeared. Sleek-furred elbows rose and fell like pistons as the Vox pummeled him, the results of their handiwork hidden from Mariko's sight.
Only J'Tull was left standing, but she too slipped from Mariko's view…only this time, it was because Mariko was moving. Watching the proceedings with a floating detachment, she at first didn't realize that she had actually left the floor.
Roughly, she was lifted away from her shipmates and found herself staring up at the distant peak of the tower. Her captors had hoisted her overhead, out of reach of all but a few of the Vox claws slashing at her from the mob below.
As she was carried forward, Mariko removed herself further from the mayhem, withdrawing into a dreamlike state. Everything was muffled – the booming chant, the stinging claws, the manhandling by her abductors. When the face of the red-furred regent came into view above her, Mariko saw it as through a gauzy film.
The regent rattled off a staccato chain of syllables, then spat on her.
Even in her dreamy haze, Mariko couldn't help translating the regent's words.
"Death is too good for you," the red-furred leader had said, "but at least your tongue will be silenced forever."
The crowd cheered.
So this is it, thought Mariko, strangely calm. This is how I die.
Her captors dumped her onto a platform, hard, and held her down. Peering upward, she saw Vox in the heights, watching through the transparent tower walls from every level of the surrounding see-through buildings.
A black Vox with silver markings blocked her line of sight, bending over her. He gripped a rubbery white strip with both hands and pushed it toward her.
Distant and docile until now, Mariko unexpectedly found the strength and will at that moment to put up a struggle. Twisting and wrenching around, she managed to kick a leg free and jabbed her foot into the jaw of one of her captors. She jolted one arm out from under the clawed hands that pinned it and gouged her nails into another captor's eyes.
Before she could do more damage, Vox reinforcements leaped in to subdue her errant limbs. At that point, with every muscle held in check, she knew that she was finished.
Nevertheless, as the rubbery strip descended toward her face, she jerked her head back and forth to avoid it. Another Vox had to hold her head still while the silver-marked black Vox pressed the strip onto her mouth.
When it came in contact with her lips, the rubbery substance locked into place, adhering to the flesh. It continued to squeeze until it was so uncomfortably tight that Mariko wanted to scream.
But she couldn't even open her mouth.
Once the gag was affixed, the Vox hauled her from the platform and held her up for everyone to see. The mob in the tower and all the Vox watching from surrounding buildings cheered and leaped and hugged each other.
It seemed as if the whole world wanted her dead.
There was still a single holdout, though, conspicuous by his calm amid the chaos. Through eyes misted with tears, Mariko fixed on him, projecting a silent plea across the mob.
Brown-furred Nalo appeared as unmoved by her plight as by the savage jubilation around him. Standing rigidly among the dancing revelers, he returned her gaze evenly, his silent restraint an inexplicable contrast from the talkative animation he'd demonstrated earlier.
Mariko's captors raised her high like a trophy and shook her. Everybody cheered, and spectators nearest the front hopped up and spat on her.
When they lowered her again, she looked for Nalo but couldn't find him. As they tossed her to the ground and dragged her from the chamber by her wrists, she frantically searched the jeering crowd…but he was gone.
He'd shown no compassion during her ordeal, had made no sympathetic gesture other than refraining from celebrating her abuse, but Mariko still felt like she'd lost her last friend in the world.
*****
Chapter Five
Mariko's captors hauled her through a corridor that seemed to be lined with fur and teeth. Beyond the transparent walls on either side, wild-eyed Vox swarmed and yowled, literally climbing over each other for a glimpse of the doomed offender.
Above, Vox teemed over the arching roof, gaping down at her with murderous expressions. Mariko was certain that if the polymer surface gave way and they fell upon her, she would quickly be torn to shreds in a flurry of claws.
She wondered if they would devour her.
As she slid along the floor, pulled by the wrists, her arms ached…but her mouth hurt worse. The thick gag seemed to squeeze tighter all the time, pinching so hard that it felt as if every nerve in her lips was on fire.
Worse, by sealing her mouth, the gag cut off an airway when she needed it most. Subjected to one of the most horrifying experiences of her life, undergoing extraordinary exertions, Mariko hyperventilated…and the more her breathing accelerated, the more she needed to inhale through her mouth.
Desperately sucking at the impenetrable gag, she thought she was going to suffocate.
The horde of Vox outside the corridor clattered their claws against the walls and ceiling, rapping out a rhythmic death knell. Mariko could hear the creatures chattering and screeching and chanting the one word that she knew too well.
"Ruhala!"
Mariko listened and watched…and then, even that morbid distraction was gone.
Her captors ceased their progress and released one of her wrists. Twisting around, Mariko saw the creatures open a domed hatch in the floor, revealing a circular, dark opening.
With no more care than they might afford a sack of garbage, the Vox hoisted her up and dumped her headfirst into the hole.
She dropped into a cramped, spherical pocket that was barely big enough to hold her. Even curled up into a ball, she had hardly enough room to breathe.
Then, the hatch slammed shut above her, and she was plunged into absolute blackness and silence. She strained her eyes but couldn't find a trace of light; the only sound she could hear was the pounding of her heart and the fast rasping of her breath.
It was then that her composure finally cracked all the way. Hopeless and alone in what could turn out to be her personal death chamber, she allowed tears to flood her eyes and run freely down her face.
Earlier that day, drinking in the magnificent sights of the planet Vox, she had been infinitely happy that she'd left Earth. Now, sobbing behind the painful gag, she wished only that she had never strayed from her homeworld.
When she had first set foot on the Exogenesis, Mariko had known that her new adventure might be the death of her. There had been times, confronted with strange dangers and harrowing close calls, when the possibility of an untimely demise had loomed large in her thoughts.
But she had never been so convinced that the end was near.
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