His satisfaction was multiplied by the fact that the once all-powerful Vilenjji had been reduced to such a state by beings far smaller than themselves. As everywhere else on their enormous ship, active, efficient Sessrimathe were everywhere: quietly but firmly directing the detainees toward one of several distant portals, urging the occasional laggard onward, gesturing with Sessrimathe-sized weapons that Walker had no doubt could wreak destructive havoc entirely out of proportion to their unpretentious size. The more he saw of the Sessrimathe, the more he liked and admired them, and not only because they were responsible for liberating him and his friends from the Vilenjji. In contrast to the latter they were, as even Sque might grudgingly be forced to admit, an altogether civilized people.
As they passed in involuntary review, only one or two of the Vilenjji bothered to look up at those who had taken them into custody. Supercilious as ever, it was possible they had not yet fully come to terms with their forcibly altered status. One alien happened to let his glance fall upon the four former inventory. George shrank from that morbidly implacable gaze, while Walker and Braouk were of one mind, eager to respond with violence. Only Sque was unmoved, rendered immune to that unblinking stare by her own incorrigible sense of self-importance.
When the Vilenjji addressed them, it was with an understated confidence that chilled Walker’s blood far more thoroughly than any overt display of anger or aggression would have.
“I, Pret-Klob, note a setback that will result in a regrettable downward projection of profits for the forthcoming fiscal period. The association will be forced to modify its most recent fiduciary forecast. A temporary setback only, as are all such for the Vilenjji. It is not unknown for Sessrimathe zeal to be misplaced. This is one such instance. Be assured that in the realness of time, the natural order of things will be restored.” The owlish alien eyes seemed almost apologetic. “It is only business.”
Emboldened by the alien’s restraints, George stepped forward. “Yeah, well, we’re free and you’re walking around with your forepaws glued to your ribs. Chew on that bone for a while!”
Infuriatingly, the Vilenjji did not deign to reply to the small barking creature that was so clearly beneath it both physically and mentally. Escorted by armed Sessrimathe, Pret-Klob was led out of the receiving area in the company of the rest of his intractable association members. When the last of them had vanished through a far portal, Walker turned to Tzharoustatam.
“What’s going to happen to them now?”
Patches and stripes of intense blue and pink shimmered against the white background of the Sessrimathe’s immaculate attire. “They will be delivered to the nearest world capable of hearing the charges against them. There they will be prosecuted according to the principles of general civilized law. Their vessel has been impounded and is in the process of being thoroughly searched, both to free any additional abductees who may be held elsewhere and to accumulate evidence against your captors. You need no longer fear them.”
Leaning forward, Braouk extended all four massive upper appendages in the Sessrimathe’s direction. “Hardly we know, how thanks to give, our liberators.”
Tzharoustatam responded with a gesture making use of all three arms that was as graceful as it was self-effacing. “Civilization stands on the willingness of those who back up its principles with more than words. What we did was done not expressly to release you and the others but to uphold those values. You may regard your restored freedom as an ancillary benefit.”
Walker did not give a damn about Sessrimathe motivations. What mattered were the consequences. The Vilenjji were under arrest, and he and his friends were free. Free to return home. In the course of his work as a commodities trader he had encountered and utilized more than his share of four-letter terminology, but none more appealing than that one. Home. Never in his life had he ever imagined so small a word capable of encompassing so great a multitude of meanings, so vast a universe of expectation.
Invigorated by the prospect, buoyed by the sight of the arrested Vilenjji, he did not hesitate to put into words the obvious request—one that surely needed only to be spoken to be fulfilled, and to set the relevant course of action in motion. If it wasn’t already.
“So, Tzharoustatam—I’m assuming your people may want to talk to us some more, might have some additional questions regarding our former unhappy situation, but I’m sure you don’t mind my asking—when can we go home?” He felt his companions close around him, waiting expectantly for the Sessrimathe’s answer.
Tzharoustatam considered each of their attentive faces in turn. His tripartite gaze enabled him to do so quickly. “Yes, there will be additional queries. But they should be perfunctory. After that, you may go home whenever you wish.”
Unable to stand the happiness, a giddy George began running circles around his companions. Struggling to suppress his emotions, Braouk launched into a murmured recitation of the glorious central stanza from the Epic of Klavanja. Looking for someone to high-five, Walker was forced to stay his hand, since there were none to meet it. Only Sque exhibited no elation, restrained by a natural reticence and . . . something else.
“It is good to hear you say that.” She had to raise her voice in order to be heard above the ongoing celebration. “Naturally, the return of those so boorishly removed from their homes will start with those adversely impacted individuals who represent the most highly developed species.” Without a trace of embarrassment she added humbly, “That would be me.”
Whatever Tzharoustatam thought of this assertive display of alien ego he kept to himself. Before any of the K’eremu’s companions could object, voice their outrage, or laugh out loud, the Sessrimathe responded.
“There may be moderating issues of distance and location involved. Astrophysics is not my realm, and I am not qualified to comment on such. However, I am certain the wishes of all will be fulfilled. All you have to do is provide Navigation with the necessary coordinates.”
George’s woolly brows furrowed sharply. “Coordinates?”
“Of your homeworlds.” All three of the kindly Tzharoustatam’s oculars inclined toward the dog. “Obviously, we cannot make arrangements for your return home until you show us where your homes lie.”
Walker swallowed uneasily. Having been exposed to the immensity of the Sessrimathe ship, having been witness to the efficiency with which they had taken control of the Vilenjji vessel and its crew, he had automatically assumed it would be no problem for such a sophisticated and technologically advanced species to convey him and his friends back to their birth-worlds. To Earth. It was now apparent that there was one small hitch.
They did not know the way.
“Records,” Sque was saying. “Implacably efficient, the Vilenjji would have recorded the location of every world they visited, whether they carried out an abduction there or not. The requisite spatial coordinates will be contained within their instrumentalities.”
Of course, a relieved Walker realized. Abductees such as himself and his companions constituted the equivalent of stick pins on a map somewhere within the depths of Vilenjji records. It was only a matter of looking them up.
If only.
“Unfortunately,” a regretful Tzharoustatam had to tell them, “the Vilenjji are indeed as efficient as you say. They have apparently been meticulous in their wiping of every relevant record relating to their illicit activities. The preliminary search, at least, of their onboard storage facilities has produced nothing but an emptiness as all-embracing as the vacuum outside this ship. Not only are there no coordinates that could point the way to the worlds they have visited, there are no records of even the most basic shipboard activities. Nothing. From the standpoint of available records, the Vilenjji craft gives all the appearance of having been operating in a void.” Concerned and compassionate citizen of a wide-ranging civilization that he was, the Sessrimathe tried to offer some hope.
“None of you has any notion of where your world might lie within the galactic plane?”
&
nbsp; The group silence that ensued showed that they did not. Not even the erudite K’eremu could be more specific than to suggest that her homeworld lay within the inner half of one galactic arm. The K’eremu name for that arm, of course, meant nothing to the Sessrimathe.
“There are only two main arms.” Tzharoustatam was trying to put the best possible light on the increasingly unpromising situation. “It would help considerably if we knew in which one your homeworld resided.”
“I am not a spacer,” Sque was forced to admit. “Perhaps if I could see an image showing our current location I might be able to recognize whether the arm where we are at present is the same one that holds cherished K’erem.”
When Tzharoustatam’s three hands came together at the fore point of his body, all nine fingers interlocked in an entwining that was as complex as it was elegant. “I am afraid that our present location is not situated in either of the main galactic arms. Much of civilization, including Seremathenn, lies closer to the galactic center, in the vast mass of stellar systems that wheel around the great gravity well at the center of our star cluster. As the Vilenjji would not dare to commit their outrages in its immediate vicinity, it must be assumed that your homes lie somewhere on the galactic outskirts, relatively speaking. From our present position you would be fortunate indeed to select the correct arm.”
“What if we could do that?” Walker found himself wishing he had paid more attention to the fragmentary bit of astronomy to which he had been exposed in school. But he’d had none in college, and in high school had been too busy memorizing defensive assignments for upcoming games to be bothered with trying to remember the locations of stars.
“Why then,” Sque informed him dryly, “we could eliminate all those suns that obviously do not correspond to our own, and then among those that do, all scannable systems devoid of planets, thereby leaving us with only a few million star systems to research to find our own.”
“Oh.” Walker was crestfallen.
Tzharoustatam continued with his encouragement. “It would not be quite so challenging. There exist instrumentalities that can further eliminate those systems containing worlds that are clearly not habitable, and that can seek out and identify communications adrift between the stars. If the correct arm is chosen for exploration and a general idea of location—inner, central, or outer region—is selected, it should be possible to reduce the number of potential locations to a few hundred systems.”
“A few hundred. If we are lucky.” Braouk was noticeably more depressed than usual. “Even at interstellar velocities, it could take more than several lifetimes to find far distant Tuuqa.”
“My people would be even more difficult to locate,” Sque commented. “We are not active travelers, or talkers, preferring as we do the company of our own individual selves.”
Or maybe nobody else can stand you, a downcast Walker thought unkindly. “Then if we can’t go home, what’s going to happen to us?”
“Seremathenn!” their host told them cheerfully. “Seremathenn is going to happen to you. It is my home, the home of my kind, and a nexus of civilization for a substantial portion of this part of the galaxy. I must warn you that in arriving there you will all be subject to a certain degree of culture shock—”
“Speak for the others,” Sque whistled tersely.
“—to which I am confident you will all adapt. That you have survived in Vilenjji captivity for so long and in such good physical condition is a sign of your ability to accustom yourselves to new and unique circumstances. You will have the benefit of empathetic assistance from private as well as governmental sources. I am sure you will adjust positively.”
“But,” Walker began plaintively, “while we’re grateful in advance for any hospitality that might be extended to us, what we really want is to go home.”
“Yes yes.” Tzharoustatam was nothing if not understanding. “But there is the small problem of choosing a direction, and securing the means, and affecting the proper timing. Not something, I regret, that falls within my sphere of responsibility. In order to pursue the matter further you must in any event control your impatience and your desires until we reach Seremathenn. At that time you will, I am certain, be put in contact with those authorities who are best positioned to look after your wishes.”
These consoling words were all efficiently translated by the Vilenjji implant. No doubt accurately, with careful regard being paid to colloquialisms, slang, and inflection. Walker had only one problem with it. The problem was that he felt he had heard it before, in the course of doing business back home, and on more than one occasion.
Though courteous and even politely affectionate, it felt all too much as if their host was delivering unto them that ominous business benediction widely known back in inconceivably distant Chicago as the brush-off.
16
Seremathenn was a beautiful world, not unlike Earth, the vision of which in the viewer was dominated by streaks of cloud as white as the Sessrimathe starship and a single large, heartbreakingly symbolic ocean. Walker did not have much time to contemplate the rapidly swelling image because he and his companions were instructed to prepare themselves for landing in a manner as respectful as it was distinctive.
These Sessrimathe, they admire us, he found himself thinking as he struggled to comply with the instructions for arrival. For what we have endured, for what we have survived. For what we tried to do in our attempt to escape from the Vilenjji ship. They just don’t admire us enough to get us home.
Maybe he was being unfair, he told himself. Maybe Tzharoustatam had been entirely honest when he had told them there was no practical way of finding their homeworlds. Maybe he, Walker, was refusing to believe it because to accept the facts as stated would be to admit to himself that he would never see anything familiar ever again—not his friends, not his condo, not Mr. and Mrs. Sonderberg’s corner deli, not his world. All the things he had followed so closely for so many years—shifts in the market, the Bears and the Bulls (in their sporting as well as financial manifestations), movies, music, television, all the cares and cries and consolations of Earth—meant nothing now. He was being obliged not only to put aside his former life, but his former existence as a human being. Abduction had forcibly transformed him. Deprived of everything he had once known, what was he now? What was to become of Marcus Walker, B.A., M.B.A. University of Michigan, starting outside linebacker his junior and senior years, Phi Beta Delta, late a shining light of the firm of Travis, Hartmann, and Davis, Inc.? They were landing.
He would soon find out.
They thought they had prepared themselves. Walker was sure their previous months spent in captivity aboard the Vilenjji vessel, coupled with their extended escape attempt and subsequent rescue by the Sessrimathe, had primed him for almost anything. George was of similar mind. Both anticipated Seremathenn to be something like Chicago, only on a . . . well, on a galactic scale.
As ever, the only things shared by imagining and experiencing were their suffixes.
The great conurbation of Autheth had not been built; it had been grown. To Walker and George the description of its manner of fabrication sounded more like magic than science; to Braouk it smacked of ancient alchemy; and to Sque—while acknowledging its beauty and marvels, the K’eremu dismissed the technique with an airy wave of several appendages.
“We amuse ourselves with similar construction modi on K’erem, though admittedly to a lesser degree. Having no need to congregate in such preposterous numbers, our analogous efforts are focused more on aesthetic refinement than vulgarities of scale.”
Leaning over quite far, spearpoint-sized teeth very close to the human’s shoulder, Braouk whispered tartly, “Unable to handle, each other in kind, self-loathing.”
“What’d friend monster say?” a curious George asked his human. Walker lowered his voice so that Sque, clinging firmly to a forward viewport, could not overhear.
“He said the K’eremu don’t build like this because they can’t stand each other’s
company.”
Panting as he relaxed comfortably in Walker’s lap, the dog nodded knowingly.
Though the towering, arching structures that formed the colorful artificial canyons through which they were presently soaring had been designed to serve practical purposes, that in no way mitigated their beauty or the admiration they extorted from the visitors. In addition to the companionable foursome, the silent transportation vehicle carried another dozen of their fellow abductees. Other craft, Walker and his friends had been assured, were taking equally good care of the remaining captives. Reminiscing fondly about the gentle Sesu and the beautiful Aulaanites, he hoped they were coping adequately.
Since the prospect of having to sex every Sessrimathe they met presented him with an awkward challenge, Walker gladly accepted the testimonial of their recently assigned guide Cheloradabh that she was female. Certainly her attire yielded no clues as to her gender. Physically, she seemed little different from the male Tzharoustatam or the neuter Choralavta. Walker decided that he could survive indefinitely without the need to be made personally conversant with the details of the germane distinctions.
“How do you ‘grow’ buildings like these?” he inquired as they dipped and wove a path through the soaring structures without so much as threatening any of the other vehicles utilizing nearby airspace.
“Applied biophysics,” she informed him. Or at least, that’s how the implant in his head interpreted her words. He suspected there were technical refinements that could not easily be translated. “It would take more time and expertise than I possess to explain it to you in detail.”
“He would not understand anyway.” That was Sque, ever helpful. “I would be interested in hearing some of the specifics myself, at some future date and time. For now it is enough to know that biophysics are involved.” She remained fixed to her chosen port. Walker experienced a sudden desire to shove her head down into her body until both were as squashed together as her tentacles. It was an urge he had learned to resist, having had many opportunities during the preceding months to practice such restraint.
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