“Listen to him,” said Seeth sardonically. “And they think they’re advanced! He probably thinks Bon Jovi is a Country-Western group.”
“Look, we’re discussing the history of the entire human race here,” Kerwin told him. “Couldn’t we leave rock and roll out of it for a minute?”
“Hey, Jack, no way can you discuss the human race and leave out rock and roll.”
“How much is this?” Miranda was pointing to a glittering bauble that was intended for a much larger neck than her own, or for a portion of an alien anatomy that bore no relation to a neck. It glistened and glittered. As she pointed, Izmir drifted close and promptly turned into a perfect if far larger duplicate of the necklace.
“Most extraordinary.” Yirunta was staring at Izmir. “What else can it imitate?”
“Just about anything,” Rail told him. “Leastwise, we’ve seen no suggestion of limitation as yet. He can also levitate freely in all directions, including within a dropshoot. The strength and direction of the field seems to be irrelevant. I am certain he also has properties and characteristics that we haven’t begun to explore. My facilities, as I’ve told my human friends, are limited.”
Yirunta was nodding. “I begin to see why the Oomemians valued him so highly. Perhaps they’ve no idea of his capabilities or potential, either.”
“They must suspect.” Rail ran fingers through his green fuzz. “If they did not, they wouldn’t be pursuing me so intently. One problem with Izmir is that he appears quite indifferent to the activity surrounding him. He will drift off with whoever beckons to him. I don’t know what his name means or if it’s some kind of Oomemian code.”
“What’s in a name?” Yirunta murmured. “Well, I’ve no love for the Oomemians. They’re a rude, uncouth lot. And I do owe you a favor or two. So we’ll help. As for my distant cousins,” and he surveyed the three humans in his shop, “never let it be said that we didn’t look after poor relations.”
“Thanks, I guess.” Kerwin stepped up to the counter and extended a hand. Yirunta took a step backward and waved lightly.
“Nothing personal,” he insisted, trying not to sniff ostentatiously, “it’s only that your body odor is, well, different.”
“Hey, brother ape,” Seeth said, “we all stink together.”
“He must mean you,” Kerwin put in. “When’s the last time you had a bath, little brother?”
“Don’t call me little brother, man. Don’t call me brother at all. I’ve been trying to live down the relationship since before I was born. Besides, what makes you think it’s me? Maybe I smell to you but not to him.”
“You all smell more or less equally.” Yirunta was telling the truth as much as he was trying to make peace. He looked over at Miranda. “That’s forty-six yora, plus tax.”
Miranda had draped the necklace around her neck. “Is that a lot?”
Yirunta forced himself to hide a smile. “Not a proper question to ask a bartering businessman.”
“What the hell’s a few yora?” Seeth dug into a pocket and dumped a handful of marbles, spools, glowing sticks and cubes on the counter.
Yirunta’s brows lifted. “So much cash obviously locally acquired. Have the Cro-Magnon advanced more than I’ve been led to believe?”
“Some of us are more adaptable than others.” Seeth pushed the collection toward him.
Yirunta chose a pair of cubes from the assortment of currency, took them apart and returned the outermost shells. “Your change.”
“You mean that’s all there is to it?” Miranda smiled at Seeth. “Thanks.”
He shoved the rest of the money back into his pocket. “No thanks required, honeyskin. The bucks belong to you, too. You did the dancing.”
“Sure, but it was, like, you know, your idea. The music bit.”
An uncomfortable Kerwin was starting to feel left out. “We all contributed. That’s only right. We’re all in this together.”
“Ooooo, profound!” Seeth bugged his eyes in mock astonishment.
“I’d like to run some tests on this Izmir,” Yirunta said to Rail.
The Prufillian became suspicious. “What kind of tests?”
“Easy, old friend. Nothing damaging.”
“I’m not sure you could damage him if you tried, but I don’t want him altered in any way.”
“I give my solemn promise. Bring him into the back.”
While Yirunta, Rail, and Izmir disappeared through a rear portal and the giraffe-thing attended to business, the three humans continued their inspection of the store and its contents. Eventually they wandered back to see what was going on. A few of the devices that Yirunta was applying to Izmir looked awfully sophisticated to Kerwin, sufficiently so that he found himself wondering if the Neanderthal might be something more than just part-owner of a low-level pawnshop. After he concluded his hour of testing, they had to wait again while he chatted into something unrecognizable to persons unseen and unknown. When he’d had enough conversation, he rejoined them.
“You’ve got a deal, Arthwit. We’ll help you get off Nedsplen with this Izmir and your Cro-Magnons without attracting the Oomemians’ attention.”
“Thank you. I wasn’t entirely sure you had access to such resources any more, old friend.”
“You’d be surprised at the kind of resources I still have access to.” He was staring past Rail at Izmir. “Extremely interesting, your Izmir. I just took some readings, you know. I can’t interpret them. Not my specialty. But I relayed them to some people who could understand the numbers and they are very, very interested in conducting a much more exhaustive examination.”
“Oh, oh, this sounds familiar. Am I correct in assuming that your intention isn’t to take us straight back to Prufillia?”
Yirunta put a hand on the skinny shoulder, spoke quietly. “Now look here, old friend. Without our help you haven’t a chance of getting within a thousand light years of Prufillia and you know it. By now the Oomemians have scrambled everything they can get into space, short of putting themselves on a full-scale war footing. You couldn’t smuggle in a toothpick to Prufillia or any of its satellite worlds without the transaction coming under intense scrutiny. Your people, I understand, are yelling, but since no actual hostilities are involved, everyone’s just waiting for it to die down and go away.”
“I don’t know,” Rail sounded dubious. “This wasn’t the kind of deal I had in mind.”
“You wouldn’t be taken to House.” Yirunta was trying to soothe his friend’s obvious anxieties. “If the Oomemians spotted you going in, or even found out what was going on, then we’d be in formal violation of our treaty of neutrality with both Prufillia and Oomemia. But there’s another place where you can be safe from them, where some of our own people can, shall we say, assist you in learning of Izmir’s possibilities without outside interference.”
“I’m going to have to think on this a minute,” Rail told him bluntly. “My whole purpose has been to get him to Prufillia.”
“Not entirely. From all that you have told me, your primary intention was to deny the Oomemians access to him. That you have done, and that we shall continue to help you to do.”
“Hey, what about us? Remember us?” Kerwin said plaintively.
The two aliens ignored him as they continued with their discussion. Kerwin didn’t mind being called primitive, but extraneous was something else.
9
“Take it easy, buddy boy.” Seeth had come over to chat. Yirunta and Rail were still arguing, still bargaining. Kerwin had begun to grow bored listening and had returned to examining the contents of the shop. “Can’t you see we don’t matter here? We’re just excess baggage. Hey, they might even forget about us and we’d be stuck here.” He looked thoughtful.
“You know, I don’t think I’d mind that. I mean, Alvin sure as hell’s a lot more interesting than Albuquerque. I might be able to get a real gig somewhere, form a side band from some locals. We could start a new trend. I bet in a place like this, where
everybody has access to everything, a new idea, new music, new anything would be worth its weight in cubes and marbles. I might do better here than in New York, even. This could be my big break!”
“Are you totally out of your mind?” Kerwin looked at him askance. “This isn’t home. This isn’t even Earth. Suppose you stay here? What happens when you want a chocolate shake or TV?”
“First off, man, these food synthesizers can probably do chocolate like anything else. As for the other, you don’t really think I spend my valuable time watching the bozo box, do you? I bet the entertainment systems here are a lot slicker.” He looked past Kerwin to Miranda. “How about you, sugarhips? Wanna be in my band?”
She put a finger to her perfect lips. “I don’t know. It sounds like it might be fun, but Mom and Dad might worry about where I am.”
“No way. We’d get a letter to ‘em or something. Whatever the local version of Fed Express is. You don’t have to tell ‘em exactly where you are. Just say you’ve switched to another school in another town and that everything’s going swell. If we hit it big here, we could probably make enough of this garbage,” he jiggled the currency weighing down one pocket, “to hire a ship to take you home for a visit. Same way our buddy Rail’s been doing it.”
“I still don’t know. Like, I mean, I’ll have to think about it. But the shopping here is neat. I’m sure there are stores I can’t imagine that carry clothes like nobody’s seen. Of course, clothes aren’t any fun unless you’ve got other people around to admire them.”
“Gee, that’s strange,” Kerwin muttered. “I thought their function was to keep you warm and out of the elements.”
“Don’t be silly,” she chided him. “That’s why we have air conditioning and central heating.”
“Yeah. Get with it, dummo.”
Kerwin glared at Seeth. “I’ve had just about enough of you for one day, little brother.”
Seeth’s expression hardened. “I told you not to call me that, man.”
An instant later they were rolling around on the floor again, flailing away and doing more damage to their own hands than to each other. Yirunta glanced down briefly and shook his head.
“The Isotat certainly knew what they were doing.” He raised his eyes to Rail once more. “You’ve had time enough to think things over, goodness knows.”
The Prufillian let out a resigned sigh. “Then it is agreed.”
“Don’t look so disappointed. It’s really the best thing for you at this point. No one will challenge a neutral ship departing Nedsplen. You will have succeeded in denying Izmir to the Oomemians, which was your main concern, and you’ll travel in comfort and with the protection of an armed ship. Your friends,” he added as an afterthought, “will be properly cared for and returned to their own backward world as soon as possible.”
“It’s not that. All the arrangements sound satisfactory okay. It is just that I was rather hoping that, patriotic duty aside, I might be able to clear a few thousand on this trip. After all, I’ve hardly had time to sleep, have nearly had my head shot off on numerous occasions times, and—“
“I understand.” Yirunta smiled knowingly. “That problem has already been addressed. My people assure me that they will draw up a formal contract for the use of Izmir just as soon as they can settle on a proper definition for what’s being done, not to mention a definition for Izmir himself. If and when research discovers a practical use for him, you’ll share in any profits. Keep in mind that were you to take him straight back to Prufillia you’d likely receive nothing except effusive thanks and maybe a medal you could hock.”
Rail brightened visibly. “True enough. Applause is all very nice, but it’s better to receive something more concrete for one’s efforts than an expression of appreciation.”
“That’s settled, then.” Yirunta clapped him on the shoulder, his huge hand nearly spanning the narrow clavicle. He nodded at Izmir. The Astarach had molded himself to the door frame. Brilliant lights all crimson and gold were running around the door’s circumference, a whirlpool of color that surged freely around the single blue eye above the frame. “How do we move it?”
“Like I have said, Izmir’s mood seems to vary from the cooperative to the indifferent. He’s nothing if not docile. He will follow me as he has in the past. As to how he will react once your scientists begin experimenting with him, that is not my concern. Once I’ve turned him over to you officially, my involvement is ended.”
Yirunta was nodding appraisingly. “Fair enough.” He looked back down at the floor. “Now, if you would be so good as to assist me, we’ll separate the two animals and utilize the simplest possible terms to explain things to them.”
Yirunta chose Kerwin, since he was the larger of the pair, lifting him easily off the ground and pinning his arms at his sides. Rail had a little more trouble with the hyperkinetic if smaller Seeth.
“Just keep him away from me, that’s all!” Kerwin glared furiously at his brother as Yirunta gently let him go. “Keep him away from me and everything will be all right.”
“Yeah, everything’s cool, man.” Seeth slipped out of Rail’s grasp, tugged his jacket into place and brushed at his disheveled Mohawk. “But if he calls me ‘little brother’ one more time I’m gonna kick him down a shaft where the field’s been turned off.”
“I wish you wouldn’t fight.” Miranda pursed her lips and smiled warmly at both of them. Warmly enough to melt stainless steel, Kerwin thought.
“We’ll try,” he told her. “I’m sorry if we upset you.”
“Oh, you didn’t upset me,” she said brightly. “It’s just that you were making a scene, and I don’t like being embarrassed in front of people no matter what they look like.”
“Details?” Rail asked Yirunta.
The Neanderthal leaned over the counter. “You will remain here for the rest of the night and on through tomorrow. You’ll be safe here, goodness knows, and you can rest and recover your strength. Tomorrow night some of my friends will come for you. They will take you to a ship, not at the main port, goodness knows. Too many Oomemians and their lackeys about. You’ll travel via subsurface transport from Alvin to Nophia, one of the capital’s satellite cities. The port there is just big enough to accommodate interstellar shipping.
“If we can get all of you off-world before they realize what’s happened, they’ll continue concentrating their search here for several days at least. By that time you’ll have made enough slipspace slides to lose them completely.”
“I wish I could be as confident. It sounds good, but you don’t know the Oomemians as I do. They could track through Chaos itself.”
Yirunta was nodding. “They are a determined folk, I agree, but I still think we can slip you out unnoticed.”
“I thought I’d done that a dozen times this past year.”
“Yes, and each time they tracked you down. Haven’t you ever wondered how?”
Rail looked baffled. “I thought they had good search patrols after me.”
“I’m sure they do. Gracious, you mean it never occurred to you that they might be tracking Izmir instead of your ship?”
Rail just stared, then turned his triple gaze on the Izmir-doorway. “Tracking him? I thought the radiation he puts out was strictly localized.”
“Radiation? Oh, gross.” Miranda made a face.
“It’s not the kind that can be accurately measured with the portable instrumentation I have here in the shop,” Yirunta told them, “but he’s definitely generating a field of some kind.”
“Then how come I never picked it up?” Disbelief colored Rail’s query. “If it’s strong enough to be tracked over spatial distances, I sure as moodals should have detected it inside my ship.”
“For one thing, he doesn’t seem to put it out consistently. It comes and goes. For another, he projects it. It rolls around unconstantly. If it was a steady-state kind of thing the Oomemians would have caught you a year ago. You wouldn’t have been able to hide at all.”
“What kind of field?” Kerwin asked him. “What kind of radiation?”
“Oh, you wouldn’t understand, I’m afraid.” Yirunta tried not to come off as condescending, but failed. “Don’t let it concern you because I don’t pretend to understand it either. It’s a subnormal field, not in slipspace but something else.”
“What else is there besides normal space and slipspace?” Seeth wondered. “And if it ain’t in either of those, how can you detect it?”
“There are secondary field manifestations. Extrapolating from these, one can hypothesize the existence of the other. As I said, you wouldn’t understand. The physics are very complicated. What is most interesting is that the field is evenly dispersed. It appears to maintain its strength over considerable distances. It isn’t strong but neither does it fade.”
“What kind of distances?” Rail asked him.
“Oh, as near as I can calculate, each pulse spreads out in a sphere approximately thirty thousand light years in diameter.”
Kerwin swallowed. “That’s pretty big, isn’t it?” He looked over at Izmir with a newly appreciative eye.
“That’s enough to cover half the galaxy. How can he generate that kind of energy?”
Yirunta shrugged. “Beats me. As I said, I’m doing a lot of hypothesizing here. We’re dealing with unknown dimensions, impossibilities, another spacetime that may be larger than our own.”
“Zen physics,” Kerwin murmured.
“What?” Seeth made a face at him.
“Zen physics. Measurements of what shouldn’t be but is.” He looked at Yirunta. “How much larger?”
“I have no idea, cousin. My instruments aren’t calibrated for near-infinities. All I have is portable equipment. We’re talking an area at least ten to the eighty-third par-secs across. That’s where my calculating unit just sort of gave up.”
All of them stared silently at Izmir. Except Miranda, who’d found the earrings.
“Look at that thing.” Yirunta was pointing toward the doorway where Izmir held sway. “You don’t know what it’s made of, it defies dropshoot fields, it changes its shape at will, levitates silently, and seems to enjoy duplicating sculpture and doorways and jewelry. No wonder the Oomemians want him back.”
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