“Uh-oh. Friday night at the fights,” mumbled Seeth as he and his friends joined most of the war room staff in running for opposite corners. The Prufillian and Oomemian fleets could have swept down on them together now, but no one cared enough to so much as glance in the direction of the battle sphere.
The Astarach had traded his attenuated poles for a pair of intersecting black rectangles shot through with silver sparks. Kerwin held his breath. He had plenty of company.
One of the globes extended its tentacles toward Izmir.
“Amazing how we can hear them like that,” Kerwin whispered.
“C’mon, man, use your head,” Seeth said loudly. “They ain’t talking to us. We’re just picking up loose broadcasts. We’re just ants to them. The only thing on this boat worth noticing is old Izmir there.”
As he finished, the first Isotat wrapped several tentacles around Izmir and pulled. They could tell it was pulling because you could see the strain in the muscular pink limbs. Izmir continued to hover in place, unmoved.
After several minutes of this, the second Isotat joined the first. Their joint exertions were insufficient to budge the Astarach, who simply observed them silently out of his single bright blue eye. As they pulled he hummed to himself. Kerwin thought it a distinct melody, but didn’t dare suggest the heresy to anyone within hearing range.
Eventually the Isotat gave up and released him, having failed to move him an inch. They hung close to one another and a low whine became audible in the room. High-speed communication, or something else?
“Why doesn’t Ganun do something instead of just watching?” Kerwin spoke to Rail, who by this time had fully recovered from the trauma of his examination by the aliens.
“Do what? These are the Isotat. No one has ever seen one before. Only their vessels, remember? It is a measure of the importance they must accord Izmir for them to appear in person for the first time in recorded history.”
“They’re not all that impressive, really.”
“They don’t have to be.” The Prufillian indicated the viewport, where the rest of the cosmos was obscured by the gigantic bulk of the Isotat ship. “They have that to be impressive for them.”
“We still ought to be doing something.”
“What would you wish like Ganun to do? Have them arrested? They teleported aboard, or were projected by mechanical means we cannot imagine. They could depart as easily. You can’t threaten creatures who can teleport. Would you threaten them with weapons? I don’t know about you, my friend, but for myself I’ve not the slightest doubt that all they’d have to do is look at you and you’d turn into a pile of dust. Besides, Ganun is doing something.”
Kerwin looked toward the command chair. Ganun was drinking steadily and heavily from a long, green container. When in doubt, apparently, get drunk.
Well, he certainly was going to keep his faculties about him. He was the first human being to see such wonders and he didn’t want to forget any of it, even if no one was going to believe him when he got back home. He’d keep these events frozen in his memory—assuming the Isotat didn’t decide to clear them out like so many bugs infesting an instrument tray.
They were still too involved with Izmir to bother with the insignificant organic lifeforms who filled the war room. A glance at the battle sphere showed the Prufillian and Oomemian fleets hovering just within the sphere’s boundaries, closely grouped around their respective flagships. He thought it unlikely either would actually attack. About all they could do was stay near and wait to see what the Isotat intended to do.
At the moment those inscrutable creatures were approaching Izmir anew. The Astarach had assumed the shape of an inverted black pyramid. Red and purple light flared from his sides and base.
One of the globes extended a long tentacle. Kerwin thought it was the same one that had been used to examine Seeth, but he couldn’t be sure. As for his brother, he didn’t seem to have suffered any ill effects from the brief alien intrusion, but then, after years of pharmacological experimentation and constant subjection to hundred-forty-decibel rock music, it would have been difficult to tell.
Somewhat to everyone’s surprise, the Isotat managed to insert the tentacle an inch into Izmir’s surface. There followed a tremendous flash of light, which temporarily blinded everyone in the war room. The other Isotat shrank back, coiling its tentacles tightly up against its underside as it retreated as far as the viewport. Everyone else tried to duck behind the nearest solid object. The war room was rank with the sharp stink of ozone and another odor Kerwin couldn’t identify. It was as if the world’s largest flashbulb had suddenly gone off soundlessly in their midst.
He’d flung himself behind a console. He and Rail rose together, blinking spots from their eyes. Izmir hung in place, apparently unaffected.
Of the probing Isotat, all that remained was a smoking pile of tentacles, supporting what looked like a deflated doughnut. You could hear the remains sizzling from anywhere in the war room. The alien had been fried like a cheese crisp. The peculiar second aroma that Kerwin had been unable to recognize was the burning of alien flesh.
Izmir turned himself into a series of connected rings, the eye moving easily from one ring to another as the rings twisted in the air to finally form a single, rotating, pipelike shape that unexpectedly sprouted a half-dozen blue wings. They flapped in slow motion, moving Izmir neither forward nor back.
Everyone held his breath as the surviving Isotat drifted across the room to hover close to its annihilated companion. It moved a lot more slowly this time, Kerwin noted.
Not only were they the first people to see an Isotat in the flesh, they had become the first to view a dead one.
“Do you think they can bring it back?” Kerwin whispered.
“Not unless they’re capable of full-scale resurrection.” Rail stared as the intact Isotat carefully picked up the still smoking corpse of its companion in its tentacles.
“They won’t blame us for what happened, will they? I mean, we didn’t have anything to do with it.”
“Obviously not.” Rail was as nervous as his human friend. “But who knows how the Isotat think?”
“You think they know on the big ship what’s happened here?”
“If they can communicate telepathically and teleport themselves, I find it hard difficult to believe they haven’t been in constant contact with their fellows all along. They must be deciding what to do even as we speak.”
“Captain?” A new voice, hesitant but determined.
Ganun glanced sharply at his navigator. “What is it, Irana?”
The navigator was staring not at his instruments but at the viewport. “Captain, the Isotat ship—look!”
Ganun complied. So did everyone else.
Something was happening to the exterior of the monster vessel. Portions of its gray skin were developing silvery blisters. Then someone let out a yell and pointed wildly at the battle sphere.
Objects were intruding from the eastern side. They looked like a handful of metal toothpicks. Kerwin counted eight when another flash lit the war room. This time it occurred outside the ship, and the viewport compensators automatically dampened the flare so that everyone inside wasn’t permanently blinded by the tremendous discharge of energy. The surviving Isotat rotated sharply, still clinging to the body of its companion.
Something like a Mons Olympia volcano erupted on the far side of the Isotat craft, flinging into space a globe of energy thirty miles across. Looking back at the battle sphere, Kerwin could see similar dots of light being flung from the other five Isotat vessels in the direction of the approaching toothpicks. As if that wasn’t enough, a moan made him look behind him.
Unshakable, unperturbable, indifferent Miranda was sitting next to a chair. She was surrounded by half-open packages, her exotic gown drooping across her slumping body, and she was crying.
“I wanna go home. I’m—I’m scaaaared. I want Mummy!”
“We all want our mummys,” Kerwin
told her gently, “but Mummy is halfway across the galaxy. We can’t even see our star from here.” Something shook the ship and everyone reached for a handhold as the deck rang like a gong. The lights flickered.
“I don’t care!” She rose and stomped angrily at the deck. “I’m tired of all this! I’m tired of shopping, I’m tired of putting up with you two twerps and I’m tired of all these funny-looking people! I want you all to go away.”
For just an instant, considering the succession of impossibilities they’d endured the past several days, Kerwin wouldn’t have been a bit surprised if everything in the universe except Miranda had suddenly vanished. However, while clearly possessed of a cosmic sense of humor, the universe apparently wasn’t ready to collaborate on quite so all-encompassing a joke. Everyone and everything stayed intact.
“Listen sugar,” Seeth told her in his usual no-nonsense tone, “we’ve all got our butts in the wringer here together, see? Nobody’s got time to feel sorry for you. What was that stupid poem you used to torture me with, Kerwin? ‘Olympus Decried’ or something asinine like that? That’s what we got here.”
The ship shuddered. Ganun put his drink aside and shouted, “Damage control!”
“All minor, Captain,” came a report from across the room. “They’re not firing at us.”
“I can see that, you incompetent twit! Gracious, if they were firing at us we wouldn’t be sitting here discussing the situation. But who are they firing at? Not the Prufillians or Oomemians, surely.”
“No sir. We have unidentified vessels in four-bee quadrant. They are attacking the Isotat craft and the Isotat are replying.”
“And we’re stuck in the middle of their formation. Delightful.” He took another long swig of his drink.
At about the same time, navigation reported that they were moving. This was of more than casual interest, since the ship’s drive had been shut down when they’d been englobed by the Isotat. Ganun remarked on the phenomenon without anticipating anything like a reply. He received one anyway.
They all heard: “You are moving. You are traveling within our transportation field and thus are moving on the same course and at the same speed as we are.”
Kerwin stared at the globe with its pale pink lines lacing the creamy surface. The voice had sounded, as before, inside their heads. It was the first time the Isotat had responded to them.
“Look, my friends and I,” and he indicated Seeth and Miranda, “we don’t belong here. We’re just primitive types. We got sucked up in this conflict accidentally, understand? We don’t even have space travel yet. We’ve only been to our moon a couple of times and our little chemical rockets still blow up all the time and we don’t really understand what this is all about. We don’t want any part of it. We don’t want any trouble. We just want to go home.”
“Understandable honest primitive reaction,” the Isotat responded. “Tough. You are in possession of that.” The tentacle not holding the fried Isotat gestured in Izmir’s direction. The Astarach had transformed himself into a perfectly serviceable couch, which no one rushed to sit upon.
“A forced relationship between unequals will obtain until we can find a way to transfer that from your vessel to one of ours. Only then can we leave you in peace.”
The ship shook again. This time the lights went out until the backups could be brought on line.
“Who’s shooting at us?” Kerwin asked unsteadily. “What’s going on?”
“The Sikan,” said the Isotat. “Apparently they too have discovered the existence of that. You call it by name. Izmir. Interesting. They have come to take him. This must be prevented at all costs. You will find the Sikan are not nearly as compassionate as the Isotat. We wish only to take your Izmir with us for study. The Sikan will take him and destroy everything else: us, our ships, you, your ship, those of the other small organic lifeforms who unwisely remain in the vicinity trying to decide what to do next—everything. They can do this because they know that in any battle Izmir will survive for them to examine, even if everything including this ship is obliterated.”
“They—they’re not going to succeed, are they?” Rail stammered.
The Isotat’s reply betrayed no emotion. “For the moment the battle proceeds on equal terms. They have come with more ships. Ours are slightly more powerful.”
“I don’t want to seem impertinent,” Rail continued, “but while we know of the Isotat, I don’t think I’ve ever heard of these Sikan before.”
“The Sikan are alien. Truly alien. They are as alien to us as we are to you. You have not heard of them because they come from,” and here Kerwin had the feeling the Isotat was looking at him, “the region your people refer to as the Magellanic Clouds.
“They must have been traveling for some time. Even at the considerable velocity their vessels can attain, it takes a while to cross an intergalactic gulf. We have been searching for your Izmir for hundreds of years only. They must have been tracking him for thousands. It is clear they have not come this great distance only to return without the object of their search.”
A glance at the battle sphere revealed that both the Oomemian and Prufillian fleets had had the great good sense to depart from the field of combat. It had been bad enough when the ships of those two competing powers had appeared, Kerwin mused exhaustedly. Then the legendary, omnipotent Isotat had come, not with one great vessel but with half a dozen. Now came the Sikan, whose ships were nearly as impressive as those of the Isotat, and who had accomplished the seemingly impossible feat of crossing from one galaxy to another.
Hardly surprising that the Oomemian and Prufillian commanders had chosen rapid retreat. As the Isotat and Sikan warred across open space, they were discharging enough destructive energy to destroy entire worlds. Any mere Oomemian or Prufillian craft unlucky enough to encounter a burst from the unimaginable weapons being employed would vanish like an ice cube dumped in a cauldron of molten iron. Obviously only the Isotat’s extended defensive field had prevented Captain Ganun’s ship from suffering such a fate.
“We’re sorry about your companion.” Kerwin nodded toward the extinguished Isotat.
“Someone had to probe. Only so much can be inferred from instruments.” The Isotat rocked gently in the air. “We first attempted to transfer Izmir from your vessel to ours when we arrived. This failed. Such a transfer has never failed before. We then came across ourselves to try transfer with physical contact. This also failed.”
“He moves freely in a dropshoot field,” Rail told it. “He can even slip in and out of the ship at will.”
“We have some inkling of what he represents. I assure you we have already brought to bear forces many times an order of magnitude of anything he has been subjected to while in your company. The order of magnitude does not seem to matter. Nothing affects him. You are aware of the pulse-field he generates erratically?” Rail nodded. “Unfortunately, so are the Sikan.”
Just his luck, Kerwin thought. They couldn’t have waited another hundred years? Or come a hundred years before he’d been born? No, they had to be here now. He glared at his younger brother.
“It’s all your fault, dammit.”
Seeth growled back at him. “My fault? What do you mean it’s my fault?”
“If you’d left me alone in that stupid bowling alley, none of this would be happening. We’d be safe back in Albuquerque. I’d be taking my mid-terms. You’d be happily wasting your life away. We wouldn’t be involved in this. We’d be ignorant of everything that’s going on.”
“You’re ignorant of everything anyway, pinhead.”
Insults were swapped between siblings until they attracted even the Isotat’s attention.
“We have been monitoring the development of other sentient races throughout the galaxy ever since we gained the ability to travel through space. We have seen whole civilizations destroy themselves before they were able to leave their home world, and watched while others created great empires only to have them fall of their own de
generate weight after thousands of years of sloth and immorality. We have observed new species struggling to rise above physical or mental limitations in order to reach the stars, seen others mature until they were almost worth talking to as equals.
“Some we have helped. Some we have hindered. Most we have ignored. But in the millions of years we Isotat have been monitoring such development, never before have we encountered a race that in such a brief span of time has managed to do so much fighting among themselves without obliterating themselves entirely from the frame of existence as a consequence.”
“I know,” agreed Rail readily. “It’s their sole claim to uniqueness. It’s not much to boast about. I don’t think they’re very proud of it themselves. All that wasted energy. If only they could learn how to control it, channel it.”
“Perhaps some day they will,” said the Isotat. “If there is to be another day. You must realize that the fate of many worlds hinges on the success of our study.”
“Is there anything we can do to help?” Ganun asked it.
“All the weapons you and your people could bring to bear would scarcely tickle the Sikan’s detectors. You can do nothing.”
“Not true.” Ganun waved his queer flask. “I can get roaring drunk, goodness knows.”
“Oblivion is a poor refuge,” the Isotat observed absently. It continued talking, almost as if it was enjoying the companionship of manifestly inferior creatures.
It occurred to Kerwin, when he and Seeth finally stopped arguing, that because of the energy requirements of defensive screens and offensive weaponry, the Isotat might not be able to transfer back to its ship. It might be marooned here. It might even be lonely.
He took a couple of steps toward the hovering globe. “I’m really sorry the way things have turned out. I guess we’re kinda in this together, huh? We, you, everybody. Us against the Sikan, right?”
There was a flash of light. Kerwin felt heat on his face and stumbled backward.
“Wrong. Do not presume too much, you disgusting little carbon composite.”
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