‘Well,’ Kitty commented, bravely moving a little closer to the corpse of the supposed Eschiff, ‘let’s see if she really is wearing a disguise.’ She reached out with her hand and then hesitated, perhaps hoping someone would take over this grisly task or perhaps just regretting suggesting that someone do this in the first place. No one offered to do it for her and she found herself having to do it.
February had considered stepping in, but decided to ignore her friend’s squeamishness. She really needed to learn to handle corpses anyway, especially if she was going to survive in Herbaht society. Instead she started to look around for a mirror so she could check her makeup and touch it up where needed. This was a laboratory with pot plants and even soft toys on the shelves; there had to be a mirror here somewhere, even if only a handheld one.
‘This isn’t a disguise,’ Kitty called. Obviously she had finally built up enough courage to actually touch the corpse. She was still crouched by the corpse but seemed to be visibly cringing from what she had just done.
‘Are you sure?’ Myajes replied, and he was kneeling by her side within a few seconds, checking for himself. ‘This does feel like her own skin. I guess perhaps she was herd after all. But where did she get these gadgets from?’
‘You mean she’s not a supernatural entity after all?’ February replied sarcastically. She had found a mirror, but it had been on the desk that had toppled over and had been smashed under the weight of the computer monitor falling on it. The search continued.
‘I don’t know,’ Myajes commented doubtfully. ‘Our religion is passed from mouth to mouth rather than written down in any great detail anywhere. Maybe they became striped through our stories to make them less scary. I’m pretty sure that the herd doesn’t have this sort of technology. If they did we would have seen it long before now.’
‘Maybe the gateway thing is a holographic mock-up,’ February commented simply. ‘All it would take is a little bit of imagination and the herd could have us falling over ourselves thinking that these Eschiff things had come for us.’
‘Could be.’ Myajes seemed doubtful, and he walked over to examine the frame. ‘I wonder how she would have faked getting me through it, though.’ He reached an arm into the gateway and it found no resistance. His arm seemed to have become part of the room. He pulled it out quickly. ‘If this is a fake, it’s been very cleverly done.’
February, still having failed to find a whole mirror, walked over to where Myajes was standing and looked at the gateway. She seemed a little worried as she spoke. ‘If it’s real, where do you think the other end is?’
‘Not far away,’ Myajes responded simply, ‘assuming we can trust the religion on that aspect and that the range hasn’t been improved since. The gateways are only supposed to have the range of about a planet, far enough for a friend to visit a friend, but not enough to hop across half the galaxy.’
February shook her head. ‘You realize you’re talking about a teleport system. Scientists have long since dismissed teleportation as a dead-end technology. The only way something like that would work would be by use of an energy source greater than the sun, and even then anything alive that was sent would be divided into its component atoms and would arrive at its target location dead.’
‘You’re sure?’ Myajes commented. He turned to look at her for a moment and then looked back at the gateway as if to suggest that this was proof enough that teleport could work.
‘You try cutting your head off and then reattaching it and see how long you live,’ February replied simply.
‘It doesn’t work like that.’ Kitty had been listening in and decided to offer her thoughts on the subject. ‘Myajes already hazarded his arm through the gate. At no time was it broken down into its component parts, nor did it even leave his body. This gate doesn’t move things through space; it removes the space. That room appears to be right next to us, because it is right next to us. So long as you step through the gate rather than try to check behind it, the space in between there and here simply no longer exists.’
‘That’s a good thought,’ Myajes commented, not looking round but examining the actual frame of the gateway.
‘I still think it’s a clever mock-up of some kind,’ February replied, but she gave her friend a reassuring smile to show that she wasn’t disagreeing out of spite. And then she stated her reason for not wanting to believe Kitty’s suggestion: ‘Otherwise we may have to come to terms with the idea that the demons from your religion have come to Earth to haunt us. Forgive me if I’m not willing to do that yet.’
‘Where do you suppose it leads?’ Kitty asked innocently.
‘Nowhere,’ February replied quickly. ‘It’s a mock-up.’
‘Somewhere local but not Earth or Mars or the moon,’ Myajes explained. ‘There are too many people on Earth, and it would be pretty impossible for them to arrive on Mars or the moon either without someone noticing them.’
‘It wouldn’t be Pluto; it was destroyed recently…one of the moons of Jupiter perhaps?’ Kitty offered.
Against her better judgment, February uttered, ‘The moon.’
Myajes glanced at her. ‘Well, no. Like I said, the moon has a colony; there’s no way they could appear there and someone not know they were there.’
‘What if they were getting help from the governments of Earth?’ February suggested. ‘You see, I don’t know how long you’ve been a prisoner of the authorities.’
‘Me either,’ Myajes offered. ‘They kept me drugged most of the time. I think they were scared of me. They only stopped that practice when I was brought to Mars, and even then they still filled me with other drugs to get the information they wanted.’
February nodded. ‘Well, while you’ve been a guest of various institutions, the moon colony has been closed down to all newcomers. Except, that is, for a number of world leaders who are supposedly holding top level talks there.’
‘With the Eschiff?’ Myajes commented.
‘Perhaps,’ February commented doubtfully.
‘And that would have been about the time they ordered all domesticated cats to be handed in,’ Kitty suggested.
Myajes and February both gave her a dirty look at her use of the word cat. February was the first to soften. ‘That would make a lot of sense.’
‘The Eschiff are getting the governments of the world to help them finish the job they started however many years ago,’ Myajes added; his face also softened again.
‘So what do we do?’ Kitty commented.
‘I need to get back to Earth; I need to warn the Matriarch that the Eschiff are here and…’ He hesitated before continuing, ‘I need confirmation. I can’t just go to the Matriarch and tell her I believe the Eschiff might be here; I need to prove it’s them. I need numbers, and I need a location.’
‘Well,’ February offered, ‘good luck with that.’
‘I also need clothes, makeup, and a shuttle ticket back to Earth.’ Myajes added more to himself than for the others.
February looked around. ‘I can help you with the makeup, although I’m not sure that I have enough to disguise you properly. As for clothes, well, there are a few bodies here; I’m sure you can get something together. One of the bodies has only lost half its head; perhaps you’ll be lucky and find it’s your size.’
‘You shouldn’t try to get past the sniffer dogs on Earth, though,’ Kitty told him. ‘We got past them with the help of some chemical, but I’m afraid we haven’t any left we can give you.’
‘Hmm,’ Myajes responded, ‘they were working on scents here, trying to make one good enough to fool me. It didn’t work, but they told me that it was an idea they were working on because of an equivalent scent they had found designed to confuse sniffer dogs. I wonder if they have any of that about this lab.’
‘There are a couple of lockers in the corner over there,’ Kitty told him and pointed back towards the door. They were on the far side of the first desk that she and February had used for cover. There were four lockers, one fo
r each of the scientists that had been working here. ‘And all sorts of test tubes on the shelves.’
Myajes took the offered makeup jar and made his way over to the nearest of the bodies. ‘Will you be all right, getting back to your apartment without repairing your own makeup?’
‘I don’t think it’s too bad, though I’d like to find a mirror to be sure,’ February replied simply. ‘I can always wait until it gets late before I make my way back, just in case. They never turn the corridor lights off, but activity in the busiest areas does die down during the nighttime hours. Then I’ll just find an elevator to our floor and sneak carefully home. I should be all right, especially if Kitty will help and keep an eye out for me as we go.’
‘Sure I will,’ Kitty replied happily. ‘I’d be more than happy to.’ She turned her attention back to the frame and the room beyond. ‘Still think it’s a mock-up?’
‘I don’t know,’ February confided. ‘I’m a little scared that it isn’t. Perhaps I’m just a pessimist, but I have trouble believing our race can stand against the herd in this latest attempt of theirs to remove us. If we have to fight these Eschiff creatures as well, I don’t see any way we’ll be the victors.’
Kitty’s face fell as if a shadow had passed across. Then almost too keenly she suggested, ‘Well, we could check it out quickly for him while he’s searching about for clothing and scents and the like.’ Perhaps she needed to prove for herself that the Eschiff weren’t involved.
‘I don’t think that’s a good idea,’ February replied simply. ‘Leave it to the expert.’ She pointed towards Myajes.
Kitty followed February’s hand to where she was pointing and then imploringly added, ‘All we have to do is have a quick look round and then come back.’
‘What did you tell me about curiosity?’ February replied with a smile.
Kitty nodded sadly and said, ‘But if we were helping the Matriarch…’
‘The Matriarch has never done anything for us,’ February replied sharply. Mentioning of the Matriarch like that could sometimes make February angry, especially when someone was trying to guilt her into doing something.
‘The cause, then,’ Kitty insisted, ‘the cat people.’
February gave Kitty another dirty look, and Kitty shrank before her friend.
‘Please,’ Kitty implored, ‘all we have to do is check whether they are the Eschiff or not, then find a window or something and confirm whether they’re on the moon or not. How hard can that be? Wouldn’t you like to prove that they aren’t the demons from the Herbaht religion?’
February sighed. She didn’t like the idea because she didn’t want to venture into the unknown. However, she was a hunter and no stranger to a little bit of danger. ‘Okay then,’ she said eventually, ‘but we better be quick. Myajes is going to want to take the gateway to Earth with him, and I don’t think it’ll work when it’s off the wall and in his hand luggage. Even if it did, it would be very uncomfortable. Besides, after all the effort it took to get here I have no desire to return back to Earth so soon.’
‘Okay,’ agreed Kitty happily.
February shook her head sadly. ‘It could be very dangerous over there; you must do everything I say and always let me lead the way. I know how to use my nose. You don’t. Speak only in whispers if you have to speak at all. I want to get in and out without them even realizing we were ever there.’
‘Agreed,’ Kitty told her in a whisper.
February then reached into the room with her arm in much the same way as Myajes had earlier, only instead of pulling it out again she moved it around as if confirming for herself that it was still working. Then she chanced her leg and repeated much the same checks. Then, moving very slowly as she built up the courage, she closed her eyes and stepped through the gateway into the room beyond.
Well, she seemed to still be alive, and she seemed to be in the room they had seen through the gateway. So far so good. Without taking much of a look at the room she turned back to face the gateway. Myajes was near the back of the room; he had stood up and was looking her way in surprise. It was obvious he could still see her, and indeed she could see him as if there were no more than a few feet between them.
Then Kitty stepped into the room and likewise turned round. She waved happily to the figure of Myajes in the room she had just left.
Myajes approached the gateway and cautioned them, ‘If you’re sure you want to do this, then be very, very careful. If it is the Eschiff and they catch you, it’s unlikely they’ll give you any better treatment than the herd would.’
‘We’re going to find a window to confirm where we are, and we’ll check we’re dealing with Eschiff,’ February told him. ‘If possible we’ll bring a prisoner back with us,’ she added, though she thought this last was unlikely. ‘Give us half an hour, though we could possibly do this in five minutes if luck is with us.’
‘Just be careful,’ Myajes replied simply, ‘and remember that if they are Eschiff we know very little about them and their capabilities, but there’s a good chance that their sense of smell is as good as ours and they’ll sense you long before they see you.’
‘I hadn’t thought of that,’ February commented. ‘Maybe we should call the idea off.’
‘I’ll give you an hour before I leave this room. If the gateway is off your side when you get back to it, then wait in the room you’re in. I think it belonged to our erstwhile friend here, so I don’t think you’ll be disturbed. You’ll be able to get out as soon as I reactivate the gate back on Earth.’
‘I really don’t want to return to Earth,’ February told him, ‘so we’ll be back as soon as we can.’
‘Good luck then,’ Myajes offered, and then he returned to his looting of the corpses.
With Myajes no longer the center of her attention, she noticed that the frame on this side of the gateway seemed to be permanently fixed to the wall. There was a small panel beside it that housed twelve buttons; each button had a different symbol on it. February had never seen those symbols before and couldn’t begin to guess what they meant, but she assumed that as a whole it was some sort of device for programming where the gateway went. This suggested that there were two types of frame, those that were fixed in place, like this one, and which by the look of it could be programmable, and those like the one she had stepped through on Mars, a lot more mobile and potentially more versatile.
The room had looked reasonably large when looking into it from the surface of Mars, but now that she was actually in the room, with Kitty by her side she felt a little bit cramped. It was only about five feet across, although it was maybe twelve feet long. There were alcoves on either side of the gateway. On each of the narrow walls on either side of the room was a door, looking much as any Earth door might, complete with handles and hinges. One of these doors was made of a bland-looking metal and appeared to be the main door that led out beyond the room. The other door was made of a gentle blonde wood and actually looked out of place in this room. Neither door had any visible lock, no card scanning machine, no fingerprint panel, no eye retina scanning device, nothing.
There was no bed as such; what there was had been hidden in one of the alcoves to the side of the gateway frame and resembled a hammock. It was pinned from the far corner of the room to the edge of the protruding wall that held the gateway frame and even so looked too small for the figure that February had so recently fought on Mars to use as a bed. There was a small plaque attached to the wall just above the hammock. Its color was similar to brass and was probably something very similar. The writing on it was black, and there was no doubt in February’s mind that it was in the same tongue as that on the panel beside the gateway.
Underneath the hammock was a small table with a few oddities. One of these was a holographic picture showing a country scene filled with exotic trees and plants and two supposed Eschiff posing in the foreground. So that was what an Eschiff looked like! Only the top half of the two figures were visible in the holograph, so February was unable to com
pare their tails to her own, but they wore clothing similar to that which February herself might have purchased at any Earth-based clothing store. This of course only added to her doubt that what she was looking at was in any way genuine. But if it was a fake, then why hide it? The figures in the holograph were striped, much as the Herbaht were, although their stripes were at a slightly different angle and of a slightly different pattern than those February was used to seeing. It was a subtle difference, but a difference nevertheless, but then again, it was quite possible that a Herbaht could be born with stripes such as these. It was about the faces of the figures that the differences between their races were the most pronounced. The Eschiff had a small split in their top lip, and their faces were generally more elongated than those of the Herbaht. The noses appeared to be almost flat and lionesque, whereas the Herbaht nose was almost human in appearance; likewise, the Herbaht had humanoid ears on the sides of their heads, whereas the figures in the holograph showed them growing out the top of the head and again pointy and very feline in appearance. Whereas February and Kitty and every other Herbaht had yellow eyes, one of those in the image had blue eyes. Each of the two figures seemed to be covered in a very short, very plush fur. And to cap it all, the image seemed to be of a male and a female, but both of them were sporting small moustaches.
February had spent most of her life being referred to by herd as a cat as if she was somehow some sort of anthropomorph. Now she held in her hands an image of a race that was supposedly related to them in some way, if only through their religious stories. And the images on the picture were far more feline than anyone of her own race she had ever met. To say that she found the image disturbing would have been an understatement.
Indeed, she was unwilling to even consider that the picture might be real. As she thought about it, holographs were easy to play around with, and just because she had a picture of two supposed Eschiff didn’t mean she was convinced that there really were any such creatures. She could create a similar mock-up herself if it came to it, better even.
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