Having refused to acknowledge that verdict from a tentacled K’eremu, Walker was not about to accept it from a dog. Not even one as articulate as George.
He was proud of the fact that he never lost control. Even in the midst of tight, last-minute competitive bidding, when the placement of an overoptimistic decimal point could cost clients tens of thousands of dollars, he prided himself on never losing his cool. It was a trademark of his success. He was the ex-football star who knew how to control his emotions, knew how to let that calculator brain of his do all the work. His steadiness under fire, as it were, was a hallmark of his success. His superiors appreciated and rewarded it, his coworkers regarded it with admiration or jealousy, depending on their respective degree of self-confidence and closeness to him, and his rivals feared it. It had always stood him in good stead. It had stood him in good stead for the weeks on board the alien vessel that had now stretched into months.
Uncharacteristically, he forgot to look at his watch on the day that he lost it. His self-control, not the watch. So afterward, he was not sure exactly when it had happened. Or how.
All he knew was that he had awakened as usual, walked with a yawning George down to the transmigrated segment of Cawley Lake to wash his face and hands, and settled down to await the arrival of the morning meal. As always, the neat circle of surface briefly subsided, only to return within a moment piled up with food bricks, food cubes, and the usual liquid trimmings. Maybe it was the water that set him off; a damp fuse to his human explosive. Maybe it was the predictability of it all. He did not know.
All he did know, or rather knew when George told him about it later, was that instead of choosing something to eat from the infuriatingly precise assortment of offerings, he straightened, drew back his right foot, and booted the mixed pyramid of alien nutrients as hard as he could in the general direction of the corridor. Several times during his college career he had been called upon to kick extra points or the occasional short field goal, and he still had a strong leg. His form was admirable, too. Food and water went flying. Impacting on the electrical barrier, a couple of food bricks penetrated nearly a foot before being crisped.
You learn something every day, he told himself wildly as the pungent burning smell of carbonized foodstuffs wafted back to him. Vilenjji food bricks, for example, were not improved by further cooking.
“Marc, that wasn’t wise.”
A slightly crazed look in his eyes, Walker peered down at the dog. “That’s okay. Neither am I. Neither are you. Frankly, sanity is beginning to bore me. I’m getting sick and tired of playing the well-mannered little pet.” Bending, he began picking up handfuls of dirt, gravel, sand, faux twig and leaf litter, and chucking them methodically at the barrier. Nothing got through. Anything organic got fried.
Visibly worried, George began backing away from his soil-flinging friend. The dog’s eyes darted repeatedly from Walker to the grand enclosure. Emerging from mutt jaws as sharp barks, the translator embedded in Walker’s head rendered the sounds as, “Please, Marc—stop it. You’re making me nervous!”
“Screw that! I’m sick of this, understand? I’m sick of all of it!” Though he began to cry, he did not stop bending, grabbing, and throwing; bending, grabbing, and throwing. “I want out! Let me out! Why don’t you take me for a walk, goddammit!”
It took a good five minutes of throwing and screaming, kicking and ranting, before the two Vilenjji showed up. George saw them first, slumping toward the little piece of Sierra Nevada from across the far side of the grand enclosure.
“Marc, stop it now!” he whined worriedly even as he backed around behind the human’s tent. “Please!”
Walker did not respond. But, bending to scoop up another double handful of dirt and gravel, he did finally see the visitors. They towered over him, staring down out of blank, mooning eyes, the knot of fringe atop their tapered skulls fluttering eerily in the absence of any breeze. Each held a small device that made double loops around their sucker-lined arm flaps. The instruments appeared to have been drop-forged out of liquid metal. A few dull yellow lights gleamed on their sides.
Now thoroughly unhinged, Walker wanted to scramble up one of those purplish, pebble-skinned backs, grab a handful of that fringe, and rip it out by its roots. Instead, he settled for throwing the debris he had gathered, deliberately and without warning, straight at the head of the nearest alien. Numbed as he was by now to both the Vilenjji’s dominance and indifference, he did not expect the action to have any effect. Surely the flung double-handful of gravel and dirt would be stopped by some invisible screen, or shattered to harmless dust by an inexplicable field of force.
The rocks and soil struck the Vilenjji square in the face, whereupon it raised both arms toward the affected area, emitted a high-pitched mewling like a cross between a band saw slicing wood and an untuned piccolo, and staggered backward on its sock-encased leg flaps, one of which showed signs of crumpling beneath the thick, heavy body. Behind the tent, George hunkered down as low as possible and whimpered.
Stumbling into a slight depression in the transplanted surface, the assaulted alien dropped the shiny, smooth-sided, double-looped device it had been holding. Without thinking and without hesitation, Walker made a dive for it. He actually had it in his grasp when his entire body turned to pins and needles. He couldn’t move and he couldn’t scratch. The sensation was not especially painful, but the tingling effect threatened to drive him to distraction.
Proof of the seriousness of the encounter took the form of three more Vilenjji—three!—who came lumbering out of the corridor at top speed. They plunged through the deactivated barrier directly into the Sierran compound. Through the agonizing needling sensation that coursed through his body, Walker felt himself being stood upright. Two of them had him, their arm flaps supporting him where his arms met his shoulders. While a pair of newcomers kept their loop weapons trained on his involuntarily twitching body, the lifters proceeded to haul him out of his compartment and back into the grand enclosure. Though all his senses were alert and he was fully aware of what was happening around him, Walker was unable to move. Nervous system frozen in overdrive, he fought to regain control of his uncooperative muscles. Still wiping dirt and grit from its face, the fifth Vilenjji brought up the rear. Other than its initial ululation, it had exhibited no further signs of distress. Though its expression, such as it was, was noticeably contorted from the usual.
Somehow, George managed to find the courage to follow. At a sensible and respectful distance, of course.
Within the grand enclosure, conversation faded. It did not matter if it was a brace of convivial Hexanutes or a bulbous Ovyr locked in soliloquy with itself: all talking ceased as groups and individuals turned to watch the procession traverse the yielding ground cover. In the lead were two stone-faced Vilenjji who between them hauled the unresisting form of a hairless biped from a place called Earth. Behind came two more of the tall, massive-bodied abductors with weapons trained on the human’s inert body. Then a single Vilenjji who occasionally dragged its left arm flap across its face and lastly, the small hirsute quadruped who similarly hailed from the third planet circling the ordinary star known to its local residents as Sol.
It was an unprecedented procession. No one among the watchers could remember seeing so many Vilenjji inside the enclosure at any one time. Here were five. What it augured not even the most perspicacious among them could say. Many wanted to query the trailing canine, but despite urgent, whispered appeals, the dog ignored them as it continued to track the quintet of Vilenjji.
The latter were oblivious to the stares and attention of their captives. Their concern was only for the biped. When its fellow oxygen breathers noticed where the Vilenjji were taking it, saw outside which enclosure they stopped, there was what amounted to a collective moan of resignation. When they tossed the human inside, there were multivoiced expressions of commiseration. Gradually, in twos and threes and groups, they returned to their prior conversations and activities. There w
as nothing they could do for the biped. There was nothing anyone could do. Not now.
Ducking behind a tree, George waited until the Vilenjji had taken their leave, crossing back over the grand enclosure with their long, slow strides to the exit area on the far side that they always employed for such purposes. Alone, he crept tentatively out from behind the misshapen blue-green growth to stealthily approach the smaller enclosed space where his friend had been dumped. As he feared, the charged barrier that was usually operating there had been reactivated after Walker had been tossed within. Equally as frustrating, it had been opaqued. These two actions would prevent anyone, such as himself, from entering or observing anything taking place on the other side. More critically it would prevent anyone, like Marcus Walker, from exiting. As did many of his fellow captives, George knew what lived, what lay, behind that charged barrier. He had mentioned it to Walker only once before, and then obliquely. If Walker was lucky, he wouldn’t remember.
Sitting back on his haunches, the dog threw back his head and began, unashamedly, to howl.
7
As control slowly returned to his muscles and his nerves stopped twanging like violins in a Mahler scherzo, Walker rose to his feet. The Vilenjji had vanished. Where the vista of the grand enclosure ought to have been there now shimmered a pleasant panorama of rolling yellow-green hills covered with ranks of what at first glance appeared to be gigantic cacti, but which on closer inspection revealed themselves to be some sort of strange, dark blue-green, nearly branchless trees. A stream flowed close by his feet. Kneeling, he scooped some up in a cupped hand and tasted of it without swallowing. His expression furrowed. It was water, all right, but so heavily mineralized as to be almost too bitter to swallow. He resolved not to drink from the stream unless he was given no options. Not all trace minerals, he knew, were good for human consumption, and his palate was not sophisticated enough to immediately distinguish between, say, selenium and arsenic.
Turning, he brushed dirt from his pants. To left and right, undulating hills rolled off into false distances. Directly in front of him was another hillside, higher than anything he had seen in the grand enclosure. It was topped by a webwork of blue-green roots that resembled fishermen’s nets, a few impenetrably dense bushes from which periodically erupted dark orange bubbles, and some exposed rocks. Slightly to his right, a small portion of the always-present ship corridor was visible. The sky overhead was more yellowish than that of home and his own enclosure, and dominated by a high, thin cloud cover.
It took only a few moments to test the depth of the illusory landscapes. All were clever projections, rich with false perspective, that were in reality manifestations located behind the usual restraining field. He could not get out of the screened-off area into which he had been dumped. Equally clearly, no one could get in. George would have tried by now, Walker knew. Despite the occasional disdain that the dog showed toward his human companion, he and George had become inseparable friends.
What was the point of transferring him to a different environment? he wondered as he explored his new surroundings. Certainly it was less accommodating than his transmigrated piece of Sierra. Here he would have no access to his tent or to his few personal possessions, the latter by now having assumed an importance out of all proportion to their actual functions.
Punishment of some kind. It had to be, he decided. A reprimand for what he had done, throwing the dirt and grit into the unsuspecting Vilenjji’s face. Thinking back on the series of events that had led to him being placed in this new ecosystem, replaying them in his mind, he was not in the least regretful. Although slightly deranged at the time, he had struck a small blow for himself and every other captive. He had managed to incapacitate a Vilenjji, however temporarily. He had given back a tiny fraction of the misery and discomfort with which they had burdened him. More than that, he told himself with growing satisfaction, he had succeeded in frightening their supposedly all-powerful captors when he had nearly managed to get hold of one of their weapons. His actions had obliged five of them to alter their daily routine just to deal with him. With one lone, trapped, defiant human.
Yes, he felt good about it as he sat down on a low hillock covered with cushioning ground cover and considered his new surroundings. At least, he did until the hillock moved.
It did not have to shuck him off because he was already withdrawing as fast as he could while it straightened. Slowly, he backed away until he felt the familiar tingle of a restraining field against his spine. He could retreat no farther in the direction he had chosen. Eyes wide, muscles tense, he watched as the hillock shook itself sleepily and turned toward him.
What he had taken for soft ground cover was in fact fur; more yellow than green, more bristle than soft. Something over nine feet tall, the blond monster had bulging, slant-pupiled eyes that emerged from both sides of its upper body on the end of thick, muscular stalks. Protruding from the center of the upper torso, a similar stalk terminated in a single fluttering, flexing nostril. Below this a vertical slit ran downward for about a yard. When it parted, like a closet opening, Walker could see that both sides of the interior were lined with startlingly white triangular teeth the size of playing cards. The teeth were precisely offset so that when closed, the vertical jaws would interlock seamlessly. There was no neck, and because of the length and position of the mouth, it was difficult to say that there was anything resembling a head. The body was one hulking, unified mass of muscle.
From within the thick mat of dirty yellow-green quills four cablelike tentacles emerged, two from each side of the barrel-like torso, below the equally long eyestalks. Four more emerged from the underside to support a body that looked as if it weighed close to a ton. The beartrap-like jaws flexed, teeth locking and unlocking with raspy clicks, like ceramic tiles being tapped against one another.
“Mmmrrrgghhh!” the monster rumbled.
As always, Walker’s efficient implanted translator did its work automatically. The bellow was speedily interpreted and replayed to Walker as “Mmmrrrgghhh!”
This was not encouraging.
Searching frantically for a place to hide and espying none, Walker recalled what George had told him about the Vilenjji acquiring captives of wildly varying degrees of intelligence. Staring silently at the specter that had risen up before him, he had no doubts as to which particular species was a likely candidate for occupying the lower end of the sentience scale. Mistaking it for a comfortable resting place, he had disturbed its sleep, or hibernation, or beauty rest, or whatever. Thus far, it had not reacted to his presence in anything that could be construed as a positive manner.
No doubt the Vilenjji were watching every minute of it. Another of their experiments in placing representatives of two highly diverse species in the same environment in order to be able to observe the consequences of their interaction. Walker wondered if the alien whose eyes had been on the receiving end of the flung double-handful of dirt and grit was among those looking on, and if so, if it was particularly looking forward to the imminent confrontation between human and a very large Something Else. Whatever this daunting creature was, he realized, it was not the missing Tripodan. George’s physical description of the latter was proof enough of that.
Would they go so far as to allow one specimen to kill another without intervening when they had the chance to prevent it? Wasn’t he equally as valuable on the open market as this thing? For the first time in his life, Walker wished he had a way to loudly trumpet his novelty value.
How intelligent was it? It wore no attire, displayed no artificial covering or adornment of any kind. That suggested an animal, plain and simple. But not all species suffered from the need to clothe themselves. Would one already covered in thick, albeit short, bristles need to do so? Had in capturing this impressive specimen the Vilenjji picked up an alien nudist?
He was speculating wildly. Trapped in the confines of the isolated ecosystem, it was about the only defense he possessed. Searching for a possible vulnerable spot on his pote
ntial adversary, he focused on the protruding eyes. As he did so, both suddenly were drawn in until they were peering out at him from the edge of the creature’s muscular flanks. The retraction rendered them far less vulnerable to a kick or punch. In contrast, any one of the four massive tentacles protruding from the blocky torso looked thick and strong enough to pull his own arms out of their sockets. Hell, all the alien had to do to finish him off was fall on top of him.
The first time he tried to say something, the words caught in his throat. A wonderful impetus was supplied by the creature itself when, flavescent bristles standing noticeably on end, it took a menacing four-tentacled step toward him.
“Hel—hello,” he gargled. Intended to be forceful but not challenging, the stuttered salutation emerged as a frightened croak.
Whether the greeting was understood, or whether the creature decided the sound by itself was sufficient, it halted. In what was possibly the equivalent of a suspicious human raising narrowed eyelids, the two basketball-size eyes slowly extended to left and right on their muscular stalks. Surely, Walker thought anxiously, the gargantuan beast was not afraid of him. It certainly did not act fearful. Suspicious, perhaps. If he was lucky and careful in his reactions, he would do nothing to upset it.
They stood like that, man and monster, regarding each other for long moments. Finally the alien must have realized that the human presented no threat. Or maybe it grew bored. Or decided that the new thing that had been inserted into its realm was not good to eat. Or a combination thereof. For whatever reason, it turned with surprising grace on its walking tentacles and returned to the resting place where Walker had mistaken it for a portion of hill. Despite his fear, observing its movements aroused in the human a degree of admiration. Never in his life had he seen anything so big—not a rhino, not an elephant—move so gracefully. It was a thing of beauty to behold. Or would have been, had he not been scared to death that those self-same movements might at any moment be again directed toward him.
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