“Who lives in there?” he finally asked one morning as he and George enjoyed a counterclockwise hike around the circumference of the grand enclosure. “Have I ever met them?”
Tellingly, the dog kept his friend between himself and this particular slice of alien ecosystem. “I don’t know, Marc. I’ve never met the occupant. All I know for sure is that it has to be an oxygen breather, like the rest of us. Come to think of it, I don’t know that I’ve ever met anyone who has met whoever lives in there. That’s assuming anything does, and that it’s not just an empty cubicle that’s been prepped and made ready in expectation of the arrival of some future unfortunate abductee.”
Having halted beside the environment in question, Walker leaned forward to squint into the depths of the permanent gloom. “If that’s the case, it sure seems like it’s been held in readiness for a long time. Leastwise, it has been for as long as I’ve been here.” Looking to his left, he nodded in the direction of the curving arc of individual living areas. “There are more than a dozen unoccupied spaces, and none of them have been given this kind of elaborate prearrival treatment. I bet somebody is living in there.” He took a step toward the invisible barrier that separated the distinct environment from the grand enclosure.
“Whoa!” George darted around to cut him off. “Where do you think you’re going?”
Walker nodded again, this time straight ahead. “If there’s nobody living in there, I’ll soon find out and there’s no harm in looking. If there is a sentient at home, maybe it’s hurt, or lonely, or otherwise incapacitated, and we can help.”
“Maybe it doesn’t want to be helped.” The dog cast a nervous glance over one shoulder. “Maybe it’s solitary and hermetic by nature. Maybe in its society it’s considered polite to take a bite out of uninvited visitors. And also, what do you mean ‘we’?”
Walker stopped, peered down at his friend. “Who was it who badgered me to be more accommodating, more understanding, of alien needs and customs? Who taught me how to make friends with something that didn’t have a hand to shake?”
“I’d met all of those folks previously,” the dog pointed out. “It was just a matter of introducing you properly, of helping you learn how to acclimatize yourself to alien customs.”
Walker started forward again. “No reason why I can’t do that with whoever’s tucked away in here. If I get in trouble, thanks to you I now know how to fawn and scrape slavishly to get out of it.” He offered his friend a lopsided grin. “If necessary, I can even flop onto my back, stick all four limbs in the air, roll my eyes, and pant with my tongue out.”
“Oh what a funny simian you are,” George growled. “Listen to me, Marc. If there is something living in there, and it never comes out, and it’s not hurt, then it must have good reason for shunning the company of other intelligences. It might not take real kindheartedly to unwarranted intrusion.”
“If it’s dangerous to others, the Vilenjji will stop me. Wouldn’t want one of their trophies to damage another.” Trying to peer through to the corridor beyond, he found that he could not penetrate the gently swirling murk to see if any of their captors happened to be present at that moment.
“Don’t count on it,” the dog warned him. “They didn’t arrive in time to keep the Tripodan from dismembering the Sesu. I’d hate to see that happen to you.”
“Why, George, what a thoughtful sentiment.”
“Sentiment, hell,” the dog growled. “Who else is going to feed me their surplus food bricks?” Stepping to one side, he skittered out of the human’s path. “Go on, then, if you’re so dim-witted that I can’t talk you out of it.”
Walker stepped past him. “Just say that I’m dogged.”
George’s tail had stopped wagging, and he made no attempt to hide his unease. “Curiosity doesn’t kill cats; only humans. Cats are smarter than that.”
With that last observation lingering in his mind, Walker stepped through the unseen divider that separated the grand enclosure from the mist-swept compartment of mystery.
Once inside, the ambient humidity hit him like a wet washcloth across the face. So did something unexpected—the chill. It was cold within the smaller enclosure. Not arctic, but frigid. At least there wasn’t much wind. Well, he was from Chicago. He could handle both the damp and the cold. Were the climatic conditions he was experiencing characteristic of this environment the year-round, or were they seasonal and subject to change? If the former, as he advanced slowly he found himself pitying any creature that had evolved in such conditions. And if they were seasonal, he realized, this might be the being’s equivalent of summer. Really bad weather on its homeworld might be far worse.
What vegetation he encountered was low-lying and tough, designed to minimize exposure to the constant moisture while maximizing its ability to gather sunlight: a difficult duality for any plant to pull off. Gritty soil had accumulated in the cracks and crevices of otherwise smooth, almost black boulders and stones. Exploring, he nearly stepped off a rocky beach and into a pool of water. Kneeling, he dipped a forefinger into the slowly surging liquid and brought it to his lips. Salty, but with less of a bite than that of a terrestrial ocean, and fresher. Different concentration of dissolved minerals, he told himself as he straightened.
He nearly jumped out of his hiking boots when something howled mournfully behind him. When he recognized the source, he wanted to yell angrily at George to keep it down. He didn’t dare. Technically, he was already violating another sentient’s private space. If the Vilenjji were watching, their curiosity to see what would happen next apparently outweighed any hesitation they might feel over one of their specimens intruding on another. Or, he told himself, it might be that they couldn’t care less, and were not even specifically monitoring the situation.
He was just about ready to give up and subscribe to the theory that the living area was indeed unoccupied when a glint of light in the midst of the mist drew him forward. As he grew nearer, he saw that it emanated from a portion of a particularly large isolated basalt boulder that had gone partly translucent. Pressing his face close to the light-emitting oval, he thought he could make out regular shapes inside. Either what he was seeing was the result of a very elaborate, very clever optical illusion, created for what purpose he could not imagine, or else the boulder was at least partially hollow.
Commencing a cautious circumnavigation of the big rock that towered over him, he arrived eventually on the side that faced the relocated portion of sea. Something scuttled out of his path to disappear beneath the surface of the water. The local equivalent of his spurious blue jay and counterfeit chipmunk, he reasoned.
There was an opening in the front of the boulder. While it was not large, he found that if he got down on hands and knees he could enter easily enough. A soft hum, rising and falling almost rhythmically, drew him onward and inward. As he crawled over the damp rocky surface beneath his hands and feet, it occurred to him that if the boulder was occupied and if anything resident did decide to take exception to his entry, he had put himself in a very poor position to defend himself against attack, or to backtrack in a hurry.
The light ahead grew brighter, allowing him as he progressed to resolve objects of obvious artificial manufacture. Slightly to his right he made out what looked like a very low table. The majority of the ambient light was directed thereon, where what at first glance appeared to be a bright red octopus seemed to be reading a large, self-illuminated picture book. At the same time, espying the intruder, it let out an earsplitting, high-pitched squeal and, utilizing four of its ten limbs, threw the book-thing at Walker’s head. He flinched.
Missing him, it struck the wall to his left, crackled with energy, and went dead. Instantly, the alien slid off the unidentifiable piece of furniture. Standing behind this, simultaneously demonstrating that any or all of its multiple limbs could be used either for digital manipulation or as legs, it gaped at Walker. Its two recessed, silvery, horizontal eyes goggled in his direction. It was about that time that he notic
ed that the ten limbs, as well as the bulbous body that rode atop them, were lavishly adorned with all manner of tiny cut gems, bits of polished metal, swirls of gaily colored cloth, beads, and less readily identifiable decorations. Visible in the gaps between this extraordinary assemblage of personal ornamentation was smooth, slick flesh tinted maroon, with suggestions of yellow mottling. As for the body, though undeniably cephalopodian in appearance, it was divided into three sections, with a distinct head on top. There was neither neck nor waist, however, and the divisions between the three body sections were not immediately obvious.
In contrast, there was no mistaking the tone of voice that emerged from the pinkish mouth tube that peeped out from among the tangle of limbs at the bottom of the garish apparition. “What by all the Ten Tintinnabulations of Tevoresan are you, and what are you doing in my place of abode?”
Thanks to the technical competence of the Vilenjji implant, Walker was able to immediately discern two things about the creature’s rejoinder. One, it was as shocked by his unexpected appearance as he was by its, and two, it bore a slight but unmistakably feminine lilt.
“Uh, my name’s Marcus Walker. I’m a captive here, like you. I’m a human, Homo sapiens, from the planet Earth, which is . . .” His response trickled away. Having no idea either where Earth was or where he was in relation to it, he could not be expected to explain it in terms that would make any sense. He took some consolation from the likelihood that the quasi-cephalopodian doubtless languished in a similar situation, astronomically speaking, and suffered from a similar sense of loss and displacement.
True or not, it did not alleviate the other’s anger. Moving cautiously on all tens while extending itself to its full height, all four feet of it came scuttling out from behind the table, or bed, or whatever it was. Its gaze, however, never left the intruder.
“Did I invite you into my lodgings, Marcus Walker of Earth?”
“No, but—”
“Did I extend a general invitation to every biped, multiped, and noped that they could encroach on my privacy whenever the whim might strike their atrophied brainpans?”
“I doubt it, but I—”
“Did I let it be known that I would welcome the presence in my residence of any smelly, warmed-over, limb-shorted, flat-faced, calcium-jointed primitives from worlds no one has ever heard of?”
“Now hold on.” Having begun by backing down the entranceway that led out of the boulder, Walker found that the stream of insults was beginning to override the initial dismay he had felt at having so visibly upset the inhabitant of the mist-laden ecosystem. “If you’ll give me half a chance, I’ll apologize.”
That finally persuaded the creature to cease its advance. Or maybe it was the dawning realization that not all of the intruder was immediately visible, and that a considerable portion of its very real bulk remained concealed by the tunnel.
“What makes you think,” it snapped in a fashion Walker could only categorize as bitchy, “that I would accept an apology from a barely cognizant creature as gross and mannerless as your own dismal, pathetic self?”
By now it had become clear to Walker that the only weapon the creature possessed was a biting tongue. Well, mouth tube, anyway. Startled and outraged as it was, if it had access to any kind of weapon it would surely have made its presence known by now. That in itself was highly unlikely, given the ever-present threat of Vilenjji oversight. Studying the occupant of the hollowed-out boulder, noting its significantly smaller size, Walker was convinced he could take the acerbic entity every four falls out of five. Whether the same thought had occurred to the creature itself he did not know. If he stopped retreating and advanced in a forceful manner, how much longer would it continue to bluster?
“Listen, I’m sorry, okay? That’s my apology, whether you accept it or not.” His curiosity about the mist-heavy environment satisfied, more than slightly discouraged by the reception he had received, he resumed backing out.
Once outside again, he grimaced as he straightened up. Mist had given way to rain. Nothing drenching—just a steady drizzle. He’d taken several steps in the direction of the grand enclosure when a voice, this time only tinged instead of dripping with sarcasm, caused him to look back.
“Human Walker.”
Turning, he saw the creature standing outside the entrance to its residence. Abode, a boulder, he mused whimsically. Was it representative of the creature’s dwellings, or had it, too, been captured along with its kind’s equivalent of a tent? Certainly the interior gave little indication as to the cephalopod’s true level of technological accomplishment.
“Why did you enter my enclosure?”
He hesitated. He had been gone long enough for George to be in a state of rising panic. But not, he noted, sufficient panic to tempt the dog into coming in after him. “My friend told me that he didn’t know if anyone lived in here. As many times as we’ve passed this opening in the course of our hikes around the grand enclosure, I found myself growing more and more curious about it. So I decided to find out. I thought that if there was anyone living in here, they might be injured and in need of assistance, or too scared to show themselves.” He eyed the creature, rock-steady on its ten flexible limbs. “You’re not too scared, are you?”
“Scared, scared. Let me see.” The creature managed to give the appearance of lapsing into deep thought. “No, I think ‘contemptuous’ is more probably the descriptive term you are searching for.”
Remember what George has told you, Walker thought, forcing himself to remain calm and composed. Be agreeable. Be understanding. Subservient, even. As for provocation—be it verbal, physical, or otherwise—when in doubt, ignore it.
“Then why don’t you come out into the large enclosure? Why don’t you show yourself?” In the absence of any further demand to leave, he remained. Beading up on his forehead and cheeks, water began to course down his neck and chest. He ignored the damp chill. “Whoever you are.”
“Because I . . . ,” the creature began sharply, its mouth tube weaving wildly. Then its motion, along with the word-sounds spilling from it, slowed. Moving to a nearby rock, it settled itself down on the slick, damp surface, its limbs splaying out around it in a not-unattractive pattern that reminded Walker of the rays of a setting sun. Muted artificial light glinted off the myriad decorations that adorned its rubbery, supple body.
“Here I am condemning you for the same egregious lack of courtesy I myself continue to display. You, of course, being the lowly primitive biped that you are, have a pretext.” Tight-lipped, Walker said nothing. “I can claim no such excuse.” It sighed, a remarkable exhibition that consisted of air inflating every bit of its body save the head and limbs. For a brief moment, Walker was afraid that the maroon-hued skin could not fully contain the impressive exhalation and that the creature would actually explode.
“I am Sequi’aranaqua’na’senemu, a female of the K’eremu. I have matriculated to four separate higher levels of erudition, am in my third stage of sexual maturity, and as a fifth-stage Sisthra’andam aspire to that exalted mental and spiritual condition known as Tiuqua’ad’adaquil.” Five limbs rose to wave sinuously in Walker’s direction. “Since it is visually as well as audibly self-evident that your kind is incapable of mature oral communication, despite the surgical addition of synthetic interlocution supplied by our misbegotten captors, I will tolerate your calling me ‘Sque.’ ” Eyes like pieces of scored steel met his own, outwardly as well as inwardly reflective.
“Now, tell me of you.”
Walker swallowed. In a way that he had not been at any time while constricted within the boulder’s confines, he found himself well and truly intimidated.
6
He could not, he decided, tell this manifestly highly intelligent creature—this female K’eremu, this fifth-stage Sisthra’andam (he didn’t have the slightest idea what that entailed, but it certainly sounded impressive), that his life consisted of trading in bulk foodstuffs, going out on Saturday nights, and watching footba
ll on Sundays with his buddies. Somehow that did not seem to stack up meaningfully against someone who had “matriculated to four separate higher levels of erudition.” At least, he felt he could not so tell her now.
Anyway, respective accomplishments and number of limbs aside, they were both in the same boat. Same boat—George!
“I’m sorry. I’ve left my friend behind. Though a representative of a different species, he’s also from my world. My absence will have him seriously worried by now.” He turned to go.
“Wait!”
Looking back, he saw the K’eremu slide in a single, unbroken motion off her rock and onto all tens. It was a graceful movement, like that of several dancers clinging tightly to one another while all advancing together. Slowly, she started toward him. Decapodal limbs notwithstanding, her manifold stride was short and tentative. He had a feeling that sprinting was not a K’eremu forte.
She halted just out of arm’s reach. Tentative hints of conviviality or not, it was clear that she still did not entirely trust him. He could understand her hesitancy. No doubt he more closely resembled a Tripodan, for example, than another K’eremu.
“You wanted to know why you, or any of the others, rarely see me outside my quarters.” A softer sigh this time, less suggestive of possible internal organ inflation. “For one thing, I much prefer the climate in here to that which prevails the majority of the time in the inaptly named ‘grand enclosure.’ ”
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