The Shapechanger Scenario

by Simon Hawke

  Tali tried to help me find a way to wrap my mind around it. We spent a long night trying to get to know each other. Of course, being able to read my mind, she had a considerable advantage, but she was hesitant to use it unless we started having trouble communicating. It was fascinating, having a conversation with someone who could look into your mind and find out exactly what you meant, but at the same time refrain from "rifling the files," as it were, to see what else was in there. If I had the ability to do that, I don't know that I could have resisted the temptation.

  There's something about us that always seems to result in our trying to find out everything at once about the people we become involved with. Perhaps it's a function of our loneliness. We're so desperate to get close to someone that we have a tendency to rip open our shirts and bear our breasts, spill our guts in an effort to let the people we want to get close to see us as we really are in the hope that they will do the same. Tali could have easily found out everything there was to know about me in no time at all, but she was in no hurry. She didn't want to take any more than I was willing to offer.

  The memory of Kami was something she had picked up involuntarily while we were . . . well, mating, I suppose. I'd hesitate to call it making love. She was fascinated by the distinction that I drew. Nomads did not "make love." They mated. When they could "touch souls" the way they did, sexual intimacy came in a poor second. She found it interesting that human males were fertile all the time and did not require "activation" by a female in order to have the ability to mate. I explained to her that, in a certain sense, we did, merely that the "activation" wasn't quite so drastic. It did not drive us into an uncontrollable sexual frenzy-generally speaking, anyway-and it did not necessarily take any voluntary action on the part of a human female. Sometimes just looking was enough.

  What Tali found most interesting-and incomprehensible- was the fact that our human society was not structured along matriarchal lines, and that while equality was the official rule, in actual fact, the true power structure was still essentially male dominated. This puzzled her.

  "You say that human males and females are equal in power," she said, "yet the tribal leaders are all male?"

  "Mostly male, yes," I said.

  "Then how are they equal?"

  "That's something a lot of women have been asking for a very long time," I said. "I guess a lot of human males feel the need to be in control all the time."

  "Why?"

  "That's another question women have been asking for a long, long time," I said.

  "And no one answers them?"

  "Generally not, I guess."

  "Why do they allow this?"

  "I know a few who don't," I said.

  "Your mate-without-ceremony?" she said.

  "My what?"

  "The one called Kami."

  "Ah. Yes, she's one."

  "I wish to meet her."

  "That might be arranged," I said. "I think she'd like you."

  "Then I will like her, also."

  "Strange how things work out," I said. "When Coles sent us out here to bring back an ambimorph, I figured just about anything could happen, but I never expected anything like this. Or anyone like you."

  "Am-bi-morph," she said, trying on the word for size. "This is how you call the false ones?"

  "Or shapechangers," I said. "Higgins told us they were pretending to be your gods, trying to manipulate you."

  "And sometimes they pretend to be like us and stay among us," she said.

  "Only you can recognize them and they don't know that. That's the part I don't quite understand. They can read your minds and find out how you represent your gods and take that form, but they don't know that you can see through their deception and recognize them for what they really are. You understand about what Higgins calls your primary and secondary brains?"

  She nodded. "The part which speaks is that part which we let the false ones know. The part which touches souls is that part which we do not let them see."

  "Or to use the terms Higgins came up with," I said, "the ambimorphs can read your primary brain, but they cannot read your secondary, more intimate, brain, because you won't let them. I wish to know how you prevented them." I frowned. "In fact, if they don't even know your secondary brain is there, perhaps that could explain why they can't read it. They telepathically scan your primary brain, think that's all there is, and then don't bother looking any deeper. What I don't understand is if you are capable of recognizing them, no matter what shape they've taken, why do you let them get away with it?"

  "Because they have done us no harm," said Tali.

  "But they pretend to be your gods because they want to take control here."

  "Humans also wish to take control here," she said. "Not all humans. Not Higgins. Not Breck. Not you. But the others, across the desert. The humans and the false ones -the am-bimorphs-both wish to take control."

  "And you're caught right in the middle," I said, with a sigh. "I guess we're no better than the ambimorphs. In fact, we're considerably worse. At least the shapechangers don't pollute or build developments." I grimaced. "They're a lot easier on the ecology, I've got to give them that. Makes it kind of hard for me to act like I'm one of the good guys."

  She frowned with puzzlement, then her expression gave way to one of comprehension as she took a glimpse inside and saw what I meant.

  "At times," she said, "the tribes compete for territory. One tribe chooses to settle in a valley with a river flowing through it, another comes and wishes to settle there as well, but there is no room nor game enough for both. They fight. This is the way. This we can do. But we will lose if we try to fight the humans, though humans may be the greater threat to us. So Dyla has met with other tribal elders and they have decided that we shall help the humans in their fight against the false ones in exchange for humans not taking our territory. And if humans accept our help and still try to take our land, then we shall help the false ones against the humans. We have no wish to join this conflict, but with three tribes all wishing to settle in the valley, the wisest one will play the other two against each other. And, if necessary, fight the weakened winner."

  I stared at her, astonished, and I wondered once again what moron had decided that the Nomads were not as intelligent as we were. And I hoped Coles had enough sense to realize that power politics was not a game one played with the natives of Purgatory. I hoped he had enough sense to take Tali very seriously. And I hoped to God that he didn't have any funny cards tucked up his sleeve.

  As the embers of the fire died down, we curled up together and slept in each other's arms. Just before sunrise, the shapechangers tried to kill me.

  TEN

  I wasn't sure what woke me; whether it was the noise outside or the shapechanger's cry of pain as Garr's spear struck it in the back with such force that about half its length came out through the creature's chest. In the darkness, the figure of a young Nomad male came stumbling two steps into the hut and then fell sprawling face-first onto the ground about a foot away from me. I scrambled for my weapons, which I had foolishly tucked away inside my pack. My hand was on the plasma pistol when Garr stuck his face inside the hut.

  "Wait!" said Tali, stopping me just in time.

  Garr stepped inside and glanced at me, then looked down at the body on the ground. He grunted with apparent satisfaction, pulled his spear out, grabbed the corpse's foot around the ankle, and dragged it back outside.

  "What the hell?" I said, being unforgivably slow on the uptake.

  "It was a false one," said Tali. "An ambimorph. It meant to kill you."

  I got to my feet quickly, strapped on my holster, ducked down through the doorway, and went outside. The sky was gray with predawn light. Mist eddied like a tide just above the ground. Through the haze, I could make out the bodies of three Nomad males thrown in- a heap, one on top of another. Garr and several other male Nomads stood around them, leaning on their spears and talking softly among themselves.

  "Breck!" I yell
ed, alarmed.

  "No need to shout, O'Toole, I'm right here," he said, stepping out of the fog and dumping another body onto the pile.

  "What the hell is going on?"

  "Nothing, at the moment," he said. "It's all over. We're merely tidying up a bit."

  I stood there, staring at him and at the piled bodies. Tali came up beside me. I shoved my plasma pistol back into its holster.

  "It seems we had a number of infiltrators," Breck said. "It was a rather close call. Fortunately, I'm a very light sleeper."

  "I thought you said you could recognize them," I said to Tali.

  "Yes," she said.

  "Then why didn't you know about this?"

  "We knew," she said simply.

  "You knew?" I couldn't believe I'd heard right. I thought for a moment that perhaps she hadn't understood me, but of course, she had. "You knew there were ambimorphs among you and you did nothing!" I said, incredulously.

  She stared at me steadily, without saying a word. It was suddenly very quiet. Breck cleared his throat softly.

  "I don't think we're in a position to demand any explanations here, O'Toole," he said. "Besides, they did not exactly do nothing. They did save your life, at some risk to their own."

  I took a deep breath and let it out slowly to steady my nerves. "I'm sorry," I said to Tali. "I didn't mean to seem ungrateful. It's only that I ... uh ..." I trailed off lamely. Only that I'd been scared shitless. And there was no point in saying it out loud. She knew.

  Tali spoke briefly to Garr and the other males. Most of the tribe had come out to see what the commotion was all about and we had quite an audience. Garr and the other males seemed to relax and I suddenly realized how out of line I'd been. Males did not mouth off at females around here.

  "We knew that there were false ones among the young, unmated males," Tali said. "They came in the night. They did not know that we knew them for what they were. As they are curious about us, so we are curious about them. We did nothing because they had done nothing. Now they have offended. Now they are dead."

  They started to drag the bodies away when suddenly someone cried out and I turned around in time to see a long tawny form streak across the clearing and leap straight at Breck . . .

  It happened with incredible speed. Garr had his spear up in an instant, arm cocked, but Breck was even faster. His arm moved so quickly that I couldn't even follow it. Something went "hisssst” and a bright sliver of metal flew through the air like an arrow, striking the beast in midleap, embedding itself in the sandcat's skull. The creature fell like a heavy sack to the ground at Breck's feet, a gleaming nysteel dart with metallic fletching stuck right between its eyes.

  For a moment, they were all too stunned to move, then they gathered around Breck and the dead sandcat at his feet, kneeling over the huge beast and gazing with wonder at the gleaming dart. Garr tried to pull it out, but he couldn't budge it. It was stuck firmly in the bone.

  "What is it?" one of the other males said.

  "I do not know," said Garr.

  "He threw it?"

  "He had nothing in his hand! How could he have thrown it when he held nothing? Where did it come from?"

  "To kill a sandcat with a thing so small!" said one of the others.

  "It was not a sandcat," a young Nomad female said. "It was a false one."

  And suddenly, with a shock as if a bucket of ice cold water had been dashed right in my face, I realized that they were speaking in their Nomad tongue and I could understand what they were saying!

  Breck bent down and took hold of the dart firmly with his metal fingers, gave it a sharp yank and it pulled loose. He wiped it off on the sandcat's fur-the shapechanger had become "fixed" in death, as they always did-and then he ran his fingers over the metallic fletching, which retracted into the shaft of the dart and locked in place. As the Nomads watched with awe, Breck slipped the dart back into the tiny barrel built into the top of his nysteel wrist. He fitted it into the barrel, tapped it in lightly, and then made a motion as if he were contracting a forearm muscle and the dart went back up inside his arm with a sharp pneumatic hiss. The small barrel then retracted back into his wrist.

  I had never seen him use that particular device before and under other circumstances, I might have been just as impressed as the Nomads, but I was absolutely flabbergasted by my sudden, inexplicable ability to understand their speech.

  "Breck, I can understand them!" I said.

  He glanced at me, grunted and nodded.

  I stared at him, completely taken aback by his lack of reaction. "Did you hear what I just said? I can understand what they're saying!"

  "Yes, I heard you," he said. "What did they say?"

  "Well, they're amazed at the way you-what do you mean, what did they say? I understood them! I actually understood them, as if they were speaking English!"

  "Yes, I know," he said.

  "You know?"

  "It's part of your ongoing bonding experience with Tali," he explained. "As she's learning English by reading your mind, she's also teaching you her language. It apparently happens on the subconscious level. Perhaps she did it while you slept. If you try speaking to Tali in her language, I think you'll find that you'll be able to, though you may have some trouble with the pronunciation for a while."

  It was too much for me. I leaned back against a rock outcropping and rubbed the bridge of my nose. I was getting a splitting headache. Perhaps from my unusual form of sleep learning, if that's what it was. I was having a hard time assimilating all this. It all seemed so incredible. There were long tracks in the dirt where the dead bodies of the shapechangers had been dragged away moments ago and here we were, discussing telepathic language lessons. The whole thing was surreal. I looked up at Breck.

  "How the hell do you know all this?"

  "Higgins told me." He shrugged. "There was not much else for me to do last night except talk to Higgins. After all, I didn't have a date."

  "Very funny," I said. "Where is Higgins?"

  "Applying some first aid to one of the young males who was injured."

  "Why doesn't anyone tell me anything?" I said, in exasperation. "Did you know about the shapechangers being here?"

  "No, of course I didn't know," he said. "If I had known, then they would have known that I knew and they would also have known how I knew, and then they would have known that the Nomads knew, and the Nomads did not want them to know that."

  I blinked and shook my head. "Huh? You want to run that by me again?"

  "I'm not sure I could," he said, frowning slightly. "It seemed to make sense as I was saying it. In any case, the point is that I didn't know about them being here. They apparently came in last night, thinking they could slip in and pass unnoticed, only of course they were spotted right away. Unlike Chameleon, these were young ambimorphs and they weren't very experienced. Which was rather fortunate for us."

  "How do you know they were young?"

  "Educated guess, based on their relatively inexperienced behavior compared to some of the shapechangers we've run into and based on the fact that they breed not far from here."

  "Oh. I see." I did a double take. "They what?"

  "Really, O'Toole, I do wish you'd pay more attention so I wouldn't have to say everything twice. It seems the shapechangers have a breeding ground not far from here. We're going there today. Undoubtedly, that was what precipitated the attack on us. We did come here to capture one of them alive, if you'll recall. That was the point of the whole exercise. I thought we might bring Coles back a baby ambimorph."

  I was beginning to realize why they called it Purgatory. Hell was just around the corner. The idea of a breeding ground for ambimorphs conjured up an image of an entire nest of the damn things, a creche, a colony of creatures each of whom was already a colony to begin with. And Breck proposed to waltz right in and bag one like going to a pet shop and picking out a puppy. Sure, why not? No problem. Easy for a hybreed commando who was incapable of feeling fear. I, on the other hand, wa
s not only capable of being afraid, I was real good at it.

  The idea of invading the shapechangers' breeding ground didn't seem to bother the Nomads very much. After the remains of the ambimorphs had been disposed of, they held a meeting in the lodge to decide which of them would get to go on this junket and there was no shortage of volunteers. I wondered if any of them would be interested in taking my place.

  Nomads had some rough similarities to us in the sense that they fell into the life-form classification we called humanoid and, in fact, there were many parallels between them and a number of primitive human hunter-gatherer societies, but in spite of some superficial similarities, they were really very different. Their form of marriage, for example, the mating and the bonding, was nothing like any marriage in a human society, not even a communal one. It was more like a sexual-metaphysical rite of passage into an extended family defined less by mating patterns than by a sort of telepathic spirituality, with the female holding things together at the center, functioning not only as a sexual catalyst, but as an intimate telepathic link between the other males in the relationship. The Nomad word for it was "tal-ken," roughly translating as "soul-tribe."

  On one hand, the Nomads seemed to have an almost emotionless placidity about them. Yet, on the other hand, their sexual responses were frenzied and passionate beyond belief and their telepathic "soul touching" was incredibly intimate and tender. Their response to the situation that confronted them, to us and to the ambimorphs, was at the same time both coldly logical and confusingly nonsensical. They knew what the ambimorphs intended when they had infiltrated the village, and they had prepared for it, yet rather than confront the threat immediately in order to deter the attempt on our lives, they waited until the ambimorphs had made their move, as if they needed that excuse to act, to withdraw the hospitality of the tribe, which apparently required a truly serious transgression, even though it had been accepted under false pretenses.