by R. M. Meluch
Donner looked astonished.
(“I sense a direct hit, Mr. Holmes,”) Farragut commented to his Roman Intelligence Officer in English.
Donner exclaimed, “You have been to Origin!”
Farragut shook his head, then remembered that the gesture did not translate. Spoke, “No. It’s all deduction. From what you are, he can figure back to where you must have come. He is particularly gifted that way.”
“May I have him?”
Refusing a request for a gift was always a dicey thing. Farragut demurred, “Actually, he is on loan to me. He is not mine to give.”
Donner beckoned the captain closer, advised softly, “Then you should give him back. He bears you no good.”
Farragut nodded. Very astute observation from an alien species. But then one would not expect the Archon to be the dimmest star in the cluster.
“Can you tell me, then, where Origin is?” Donner challenged.
Before the captain could answer, a large, collared animal trotted into the chamber. A boxy-headed, muscular dog-thing. It looked up at its adored master, Donner, then veered to the line of Marines along the wall.
The husky dog-thing raised its hackles and growled at Colonel Steele.
The Archon pointed at Steele. “That one bears me ill.” The Archon’s guards stiffened, and the Marines stiffened in response.
“No,” Farragut tried to tell him.
“Oh, he does,” Donner insisted, knowing.
“He does,” Colonel Steele confirmed for him.
And on second look, Farragut agreed that gentle lies were probably a bad approach here. He explained, “My ship tripped a minefield at the perimeter of your Myriad. Colonel Steele lost a man.”
“The minefield was not meant for you,” said Donner. “You must not take it as hostility, Captain Farragut.” Donner offered no apology to Steele.
“Who were the mines meant for?” Farragut asked.
“Not for you.”
His dog-thing growled.
“Oh, sit down!” the Archon commanded.
The dog-thing squared itself like a gargoyle opposite Colonel Steele, sat.
The Arran women tittered behind long, graceful hands, an infectious sound, and in a moment the Earth Marines lost the fight to contain their sniggers. Donner scowled at the women, and Farragut stared at his Marines in confusion. (“What is it?”)
At that, the Marines sputtered, and the Arran women bubbled with giggles.
Flight Sergeant Cole blurted in English, (“They look like bookends, sir!”)
Kerry Blue yelped, stifled a laugh with a whimper. The Arran women tittered, not understanding the words, but the pitch of the voices translated well enough.
“Bookends,” Augustus translated, and the Arran women squealed. The Arran guards’ lips unstiffened, perilously close to cracking their stony faces.
The Archon stalked to the lieutenant colonel, had to look up to study Steele’s dour face—his white-blond hair buzzed flat across the top of his squarish head; his eyes of vivid, piercing blue; his brawny shoulders set straight across.
Donner turned then to his growling, blocky, muscular dog-thing. “I see it.”
The women’s laughter sparkled.
“What happened to him?” Donner asked Farragut.
Farragut puzzled a moment. Donner’s question seemed to refer to Colonel Steele. “Nothing. What do you see that you think is wrong with him?”
“His color.”
Farragut was a loss of how to explain Steele’s fairness. “That is just his color.”
“He has hideous eyes. Yours are merely ugly. His eyes are creepy.”
“The women don’t think so,” Augustus said.
The Archon jerked up short. Partly that the furniture was talking again, and partly from what the furniture said. Donner turned sourly to his women, demanded doubtfully, “Is this so?”
The sylphs dissolved into high, musical Geisha giggles.
The Archon turned away, miffed and mystified. “Well. Blue eyes. Who could have guessed women liked blue eyes?” Donner returned to Colonel Steele, pointed to the black bars bracketing the outer corners of Steele’s eye sockets. “What are those?”
Farragut hesitated, answered, “Cameras.”
“And what more?”
The hesitation had not escaped notice. Donner heard the missing “and.” Surprising, the nuances that the alien could detect.
Bluntness was apparently the wisest course. “And gun sights,” Farragut let the other shoe drop.
“Ah. Is this a gun?” The Archon reached, but Steele’s hand clapped over his side arm first.
The Archon’s guards bridled, but Donner backed them down, and Steele barked his Marines into line.
Farragut maintained a calm, friendly manner. “Yes, those are guns. Colonel Steele, indulge our host.”
Steele briskly unsnapped the flap, unholstered the side arm, and flipped it around, butt end out.
The Archon fit his small hand around the fat grip. “How does this work?”
“It doesn’t,” said Farragut. “It is coded to its issuant. In your hand, it’s a lump of metal.”
Of course, the Archon would have to try it. Testing the truth as much as the weapon, the Archon pointed the weapon at Steele, pulled the trigger.
Nothing happened.
Donner smiled. Steele had not blinked.
“What an excellent idea. You must tell me how it is done.” He was speaking to Farragut. He relinquished the weapon to Colonel Steele. Donner then pointed to Captain Farragut’s sword. “Ceremonial?”
“Actually not. We use them.”
The Archon gave a disbelieving cough. Then guessed, “So that you do not poke holes in your spaceship?”
“Oh, I have put holes in my ship,” Farragut admitted merrily. “The force field keeps the vacuum out. I am more worried about hitting one of my own guys on the other side of the bulk. This is a useful antique, like Morse code.”
“Like . . . ?” Morse code did not translate.
“Don’t ever throw out your old technology, Donner.” Farragut probably ought not advise a new contact, but he had made an instant primitive connection with this alien leader. “Swords are useful.” That and John Farragut liked ’em.
Kerry Blue, standing at attention, lost track of the conversation, distracted by a tickle on the back of her neck. She knew there was a white ledge lined with plants high behind her head. The tickle felt like a leaf from a hanging vine touching her neck hairs. She edged discreetly forward. The touch returned, grazed her cap.
Finally she cranked her head back and up to look at the plants.
The plants looked at her.
Under thick coats of iguana green, nictitating membranes flicked over saurian eyes. A very long sticky tongue flicked experimentally to Kerry’s cheek.
With wooden slowness, Kerry returned to face forward, adamantly ignoring the lizard plants.
The Archon and the Arran women were chuckling at something the captain had just said.
The Archon explained that no one had used that expression in at least ten years. Augustus had made these language modules when the ship was still ten light-years from Arra, so the slang was a little stale.
A plant stepped down and perched on Kerry’s shoulder. Kerry straightened, rigid. Hissed between her teeth: (“Colonel!”)
The tongue flicked into her ear. She shut her eyes. (“Colonel Steele!”)
The Marine nearest Steele nudged the colonel and cocked a head sideways to direct the CO’s attention Kerryward.
The plant hunkered down on Kerry’s shoulder and crooned.
Steele strode out of line, pulled the plant from Kerry’s shoulder, and tossed it back up to its ledge.
(“Thank you, sir,”) Kerry whispered.
The Archon broke off his conversation with the captain and looked quite cross. Kerry assumed that the side chatter had offended him. But Donner’s onyx glare was not for the visitors.
“Why are my plants walk
ing?” The soft anger in the Archon’s voice promised someone would catch hell later.
Cowed servants scurried to fill shallow white bowls on the ledges with water. There followed the soft lapping of froglike tongues.
The contented plants hunched down into their places and turned their green leaves to the starlight. The servants vanished.
And Kerry’s pet dropped back down to her shoulder. Put a webby foot on her cheek. Crooned.
The Archon broke off again and stalked toward her.
The plant squeaked and dived down the back of Kerry’s impeccable white uniform.
The Archon’s jewel-black eyes bored into hers. Kerry scoured her language module for words. “I—I got a plant down my back. Sir.”
The Archon looked her up and down hard. The fugitive plant, huddling against Kerry’s back, pulled her jacket tight across her chest. The Archon’s gaze paused at the suggestion of breasts beneath the dress whites.
Donner turned back to Captain Farragut, hesitated, as if fearing he was about to say something incredibly ignorant, “Is this . . . is this a female?”
“Yes, Flight Sergeant Blue is female.”
“She is pregnant,” Donner surmised.
Kerry blurted earnestly to Steele, to Farragut, (“No, sirs! I’m not!”)
The willowy Arran females looked to be rather flat chested, from what one could see of their figures under all that drapery. Perhaps they only developed breasts when they were pregnant.
Donner looked amazed. “May I have her?”
“No,” said Colonel Steele.
Donner darted Steele a nettled glare. “Captain Farragut, is this one permitted to speak for you?”
“Colonel Steele may answer for his Marines,” said Farragut.
The Archon puzzled over this lack of absolute authority, when suddenly, the soldier nearest to the soaring arches clutched his weapon to the ready, dropped into a crouch facing the terrace, and yelled: (“Hive! Hive! Hive! Hive!”)
All the Marines drew and turned. The Archon’s guards also drew their weapons but did not know which way to point. They saw the aliens brandishing weapons out toward their peaceful lake garden.
Kerry’s plant must have sensed her alarm as she dashed out to take a position on the terrace, because it wrapped its tendrils around her waist and flattened itself to her back, quivering.
Captain Farragut touched his dog collar, spoke into the link, (“Hive sign planetside. Report, Merrimack. Calli, what do you have?”)
Sensors in the planetside landing disks showed the exec aboard Merrimack not just a full view of the Archon’s reception hall, but also the temperature, atmospheric content, and composition of the furnishings. But apparently no view outside, because Calli answered, (“Merrimack, aye. What do you see, John? Tell me where to look. We’re quiet up here. Shipboard telltales are not, repeat NOT, showing Hive sign.”
(“We’ve got a swarm of insects.”)
(“Do you want me to shoot the flare? Come back.”)
(“Negative. Do not resonate. Do NOT resonate. Stand by.”)
(“Merrimack standing by.”)
The Arrans milled about, mildly perplexed, slightly alarmed but only by the aliens’ behavior. The Arran females giggled tentatively.
Farragut turned to the Archon. “Donner, is that swarming normal behavior for those—” Farragut could not locate the Myriadian word, finished in English, (“Butterflies?”)
The Archon said dubiously, “You are afraid of a swarm of iffretiet?” Donner gestured out toward the fluttering swarm across the lake.
“Do they usually swarm like that?” Farragut asked.
“Yes. Is it not well?”
Farragut touched his collar. (“Merrimack. Farragut. False alarm. Mr. Carmel, pretend it’s not. We have native species mimicking Hive sign. Run it down anyway. Assume the Hive has found a way to fox our shipboard early warning.”)
(“Aye, sir.”)
Captain Farragut turned to the Archon. “We will return to our ship now.”
“Because of a cloud of, how did you say it, ‘butterflies’?”
“Before we make ourselves look any more ridiculous.”
The Archon paused, absorbing the words, then laughed out loud, surprised. Still, a guarded look lingered in his alien eyes, as he reflected how strong one needed to be to admit such weakness. “I shall address my people. You must stand with me and give your message of peace.”
Augustus warned in a murmur, (“If you appear on camera with him, you validate his authority.”)
Farragut sidestepped the Archon’s demand without a direct refusal. “We will talk again.”
Donner was about to insist they stay, then seemed to catch sight of the pit into which his authority was about to fall. The Archon could not afford to insist and be refused. He stopped, smiled, commanded his visitors to go. “Your ship needs you. You shall go quickly. You shall come back.”
Captain Farragut nodded, then remembered to interpret his nod for the aliens, “Yes.” And to his party: (“Fall in. Disks all. Blue, lose the plant.”)
Donner pointed to Kerry Blue. “I want her to stay.”
Objection blazed in Colonel Steele’s icy-blue eyes. But I want from the Archon had the force of an imperative. Refusal was hazardous.
Captain Farragut answered, “Flight Sergeant Blue is on duty. She may accept an invitation when she gets off duty. She is allowed to refuse and I cannot make her go. That is our way.”
Donner’s eyes rounded. No telling whether the concept of asking a female or the captain’s inability to contravene her answer was the more shocking.
(“The plant, Blue.”)
(“Tryin’, sir.”) The lizard plant wriggled within Kerry’s jacket. This after she and Reg and Twitch had put so much effort into making her uniform look honor-guard crisp, too. (“Whoa, darlin’. That really tickles. Help!”)
Jose Maria Cordillera came to her rescue, fishing out the plant with a clinical grope. It emerged keening, leaves bristling, bulgy eyes soulful, wide-splayed toes reaching for Kerry.
The eyes, the pitiable sounds melted Kerry’s heart. (“Can I keep it?”)
Cordillera frowned kindly. (“Kerry, look at the light here. And this is what they call dark. It will not like the ship. Let us put your friend back with his mates, shall we?”)
(“Is it a boy?”)
Cordillera hoisted the leafy tail for a quick look. (“I have not the foggiest clue.”) Tail down. (“Come on. Send him home.”) He bundled the plant into her hands.
Kerry had been crying for days. She thought she was done with that, but a tear stole down her cheek. A froggy tongue licked her face.
She gently replaced the creature up on its ledge. It hurt, putting away something that liked her. Kerry Blue felt in sore need of liking.
She took her place on her LD. She just knew Colonel Steele was never going to let her out of the can again.
At the captain’s signal to the ship, the starry, starry sky, the soaring white columns, the reflecting pool, the bright swarming butterflies vanished around her. She did not hear her own parting thunderclap.
4
MERRIMACK’S COMPRESSION CHAMBER formed around the landing party. Chill. Dry.
No sooner had they arrived, and the captain was pulling off his dog collar. “Right. Anyone tell me what I drank down there?” He flipped his landing disk up with his foot, caught it.
“Ever consider to be thinking of asking that question before you are swallowing the alien substance?” Dr. Shah asked through the chamber’s com. “More circumspection concerning what you are ingesting is being in order, I am thinking.”
“ ‘Excuse me while I see if your gift is any good’ doesn’t make for fast friends. Anyway, what can it hurt, Mo? Arran germs are all right-handed. And Donner’s an interstellar colonist, so he knows that, too.”
Earth’s basic genetic code was not universal. The pre-Star Age fear of alien infection had been much ado about nothing. The molecular structure of the Myria
dian proteins did not even share an orientation—a handedness—with human proteins, much less a base code.
“Arsenic has no hands,” said Mo Shah.
“You told me these boys were lightweights, Mo. I can hold anything they can. Anyway, I didn’t taste anything bitter. I tasted alcohol.” Robust even among humans, John Farragut ought to be able to drink any Myriadian under the table.
“I am only using arsenic as an example,” said Dr. Shah through the com. “You are assuming your drink was being the same as the Archon’s drink. The Myriadians are being expert poisoners.”
Xenobiologist Dr. Weng added over the intercom, “The Myriadians have some nasty inorganic poisons. Particularly something they call yellow gas. It’s yellow—”
A muttered growl from Dr. Sidowski sounded in the background: “Gee, I wonder why they call it yellow gas.”
As Weng continued: “—and the smell, well, no one knows what it smells like. If you smell it, it’s too late. It enters through the mucus membranes and does serious nerve damage—”
Ski, talking over Weng: “A total brain fry.”
Weng: “—just like that.”
Ski, with an audible finger snap: “Just like that.”
Weng: “Yellow gas is lethal in parts per trillion.”
John Farragut cut the xenos off equably, “I was rather counting on Donner wanting me alive and friendly.” He turned to his IO in the decompression chamber with him. “Augustus, what was that remark you made about my validating the Archon’s authority? Is his authority in question?”
“Opposition must exist,” said Augustus.
Dr. Patrick Hamilton was outside the compression chamber, but you could sense him bristling against the Roman’s all-knowing attitude as he announced with great authority over the com, “We have detected absolutely no evidence of any political dissension, or anything like an opposition party, any civil discontent whatsoever in Myriadian society.”