True, two violations of the Concession boundary in as many days was unusual. Still, there was nothing to distinguish the antics of this particular group from any other, nor to ascribe hidden purposes to their arrival. They were nothing as extraordinary as the single crazy human who’d sauntered in deliberately the other day, as though he owned the place. What Tivven and the others couldn’t understand was why the Commander hadn’t ordered the arrogant primate dressed and potted immediately.
So here he was, stuck with an obnoxious Terran female, an impatient, gaudily dressed Tolian, and a stolid Terran male of dull aspect and rather formidable size and strength.
The Terran female had been rambling non-stop for a good twenty time-parts now.
“ . . . and rest assured that once the governor hears my complaint, this is going to be brought to the attention of the highest authorities . . .!”
“Madame, silence!” Tivven tried to substitute belligerence for boredom, partially succeeded. “I shall explain one more time. You are guilty of territorial incursion into a restricted area. As such, by law you are now in Imperial Territory. This places you under my jurisdiction: not that of this planet, not that of the Commonwealth. Whatsoever I decide should be done with you, will be done.”
The female threw him a sharp expression. Tivven was good at primate expressions. He could recognize a sneer. It suggested several things, among them that his threats had been somewhat less than intimidating.
“Confine them to their vessel and secure them for the usual day-period.” Those were the suggestions of Colonel Korpt. “And issue the standard protest to the governor via our representative in the capitol. Yolk, it’s damp in here! Now get out.”
A check with Commander Parquit had produced similar action. “Do whatever Korpt says. I’ll sign the orders later—whenever. I’m busy now. Oh, and make certain, Lieutenant, that they stay on board their craft . . . I assume they came by hoveraft?”
“Yes, Excellency.”
“I don’t want them wandering around. They sound like a typical tourist bunch, and so I don’t expect otherwise from them. But if one is found strolling about loose, front canines will be lost. Understand?”
Tivven understood.
He looked up at the group, tired.
“You are hereby confined to your ship until further notice . . .”
“Just who do you think you are, ordering us around, mister luggage-covers?” piped the Tolian. His whiskers bristled angrily. “Such an insulting attitude is here perpetrated! By a scaly underling, no less, who . . .!”
“ . . . where you will be placed under guard. You are not to leave the vessel under any circumstances under penalty of a swift death,” Tivven concluded doggedly. He gestured to the guard at the door.
“Escort them back to their vessel, sergeant, and post guard on it. They are not to depart until ordered. If ordered.”
The sergeant, who had played this game before, saluted snappily—he was a fifteen-year veteran of this egg-forsaken post. He gestured towards the door with his stun-gun.
Tivven could hear the shrill voice of the Terran female echoing back up the corridor long after the three had departed. Swiveling in his chair, he activated the autolog and commenced dictating the ponderous official report. He wondered if anyone ever read the things. He doubted it. This particular time he would be right. But not for the reasons he suspected.
The guard, like all guards since the beginning of time assigned to boring, monotonous, unrelieved, insipid night duty when most sensible beings were asleep, was wishing he was. Perhaps the wishes were effective. More likely it was just coincidence. Certainly, if he’d been questioned about it later, it wasn’t likely he’d recall the small sting at the back of his neck immediately prior to his lapsing into a period of extended sleep.
He probably would have wished to observe the being responsible for inviting Morpheus. Likely, though, he would have argued the method.
Kitten approached quietly after spotting the all-well signal from Porsupah. The Tolian stood by the body, searching the surrounding darkness. She ran lightly over to him. Her goggles picked up and intensified the starlight to the point where it seemed bright as day. Porsupah didn’t wear them. He didn’t need any.
She joined him in scanning the grounds, paying special attention to the three big crates stacked on the pier. That was one of their prearranged ambush points. She bent over the inert reptile, felt for its pulse. The tiny puncture made by the drug-carrying dart had already closed. There was practically no blood. After a moment’s consideration she put a second dart next to the first, just to the left of the armored spine.
A larger, blocky figure joined the two.
“Other one’s taken care of,” Mal murmured. “No sign of activity from the building we were herded out of. I’m a bit surprised its been so easy.”
“They weren’t exactly expecting it,” she replied.
“Witherest fly we now, and how, princess?”
“If that’s poetry, it’s execrable.”
“No, as a matter of fact, it’s Whalen.”
“Buffon. I thought you were the one afraid of being soup.”
“I still am,” he whispered tightly. “So I make jokes. So get your ass moving and I’ll follow quietly.”
“I could use a little more information first.”
“Why don’t you ask our somnolent companion here.” Mal nudged the sleeping guard, who didn’t stir.
“You’re the one who did the map plotting on the creature. Didn’t you pinpoint it?”
“At that range? With a library ‘puter?”
The first moon was climbing rapidly. In a while the second would be in the sky, brightening the island considerably. Kitten turned and scanned the area again. A few lights glimmered in buildings half-glimpsed through thick vegetation. Nothing moved but branches.
“I wouldn’t bet it was close inshore. It can’t be all that enormous—the island certainly isn’t. I’d think the AAnn would have noticed it if it were close in.”
“Maybe we’re not on top of it, but it is close to shore. Could be the AAnn are myopic from so much moisture. My calculations weren’t that far off.”
“Still, if we can spot it,” added Porsupah, “you’d think the AAnn would have.”
“Yes, you would,” said Kitten thoughtfully. “Still, they’ve no reason to suspect its presence, as we have.”
“Could be it has a way of evading alarms similar to the one we tripped coming in,” said Mal. “Why it would want to hang around a populated, armed area like this one beats me, though.”
“Maybe to study,” replied Kitten, shuddering slightly.
“Too many imponderables,” chipped in Porsupah. “Let’s circle the island. We might not spot the thing itself, but we’ll be looking for signs of its presence, whereas the AAnn wouldn’t be. If you two just want to argue about it, go back to the raft.”
The two humans said nothing. They followed the small alien at a comfortable trot up the pebbled beach. Neither of the two humans could still believe that the AAnn hadn’t spotted the creature. But then it was hard to believe the creature, too.
They’d been jogging along the curving shoreline for perhaps five minutes when Porsupah halted them. He was staring out to sea.
“Well, what have you spotted? At this point I’m not too choosy,” Mal said. They’d already had to put out two more AAnn and avoid or inconvenience several elaborate alarm systems. At this rate they’d never cover a tenth of the island’s perimeter. Assuming they weren’t shot or blown ship-high first. But Kitten and Porsupah seemed to recognize the concealed triggers as though they’d set them themselves. Mal hadn’t noticed a one.
The question of what such an extensive network of alarms was doing in a supposedly innocuous area was another problem that defied logic.
What they needed, dammit, was a few answers!
Porsupah had knelt and was examining the sand. He took up a small pawful, rubbed the grains between his fingers, sniffed at it
. Abruptly he turned and walked back about ten meters along their route. He performed a similar ritual there, then returned. To their questioning stares he replied, “This section of beach and forest wasn’t arranged by nature. Not only is the sand different—taken up from a respectable depth, I think—but the rocks and overall landscape have an unnatural feel to them that I can’t explain in terranglo or symbo-speech. Everything is just a little bit cockeyed.”
Mal took a long look at the sloping beach, the thick semi-jungle. “I can’t detect anything out of the ordinary.”
“Nor I,” said Kitten, the landscape glowing eerily in her goggles. “But I believe you, Pors.”
“There is only one structure visible, too.” The Tolian pointed.
A long, low building, set back in the trees. It ran perpendicular to the beach and was a little over a story high. As they walked towards the windowless structure, Mal noticed that an occasional tree—not all, by any means—was tilted at an angle that deviated sufficiently from the norm to be noticeable. If you happened to be looking for such things. There was no question about it now. This section of Replerian real estate had been rebuilt, delicately rebuilt, to suit some specific purpose. Moreover, it had been done recently, according to Pors. This suggested hurry, which in turn suggested a need for secrecy. And it had been rearranged to look like it hadn’t been rearranged, which hinted at a deal more.
The building proved to be unguarded. It was painted, almost enameled, a dark gray-green. A dull roaring sound emanated from somewhere inside. Kitten put a hand against the wall. It vibrated slightly.
“Look for a door,” Porsupah suggested. “I’m going to check something else.”
The Tolian disappeared into the jungled darkness. The door turned up almost immediately, recessed in the side they were on.
“Interesting,” murmured Mal. He was staring at the AAnn lettering on the airlock-type portal. “It says—”
“I can read AAnnish,” said Kitten.
Porsupah returned a moment later, puffing out short, whistling breaths.
“Where’ve you been?” asked Kitten.
“Up a tree. Whoof! I wanted a quick look at the top of this thing, and we didn’t truck along a ladder.”
“See anything?” asked Mal.
“The building runs I couldn’t say how far back into these trees. Top of it is all ventilators. Big ones. You can see the fans from high enough. They’re well screened and you’d never notice them from the air, but this close—no mistaking them.”
“Well now, this is interesting,” said Kitten, staring at the door. “This inscription here declares solemnly that anyone who enters without six kinds of ultra-top-high-security passes is assured all sorts of lengthy and painful deaths.”
“Ultra-secret ventilator complex pulling lots of air someplace, combined with a thoroughly dug up and replanted section of beach and forest. Need one say more?” the Tolian announced.
Kitten was already examining the lock.
“It doesn’t take an expert to tell this whole setup was put together recently,” said Mal. He ran a hand over the gleaming guard rail. “Practically factory fresh.”
They’d been descending helical steps for what seemed a small part of a year. They’d found an elevator inside but after some discussion had passed it up for fear of not pushing the proper button and setting off hidden alarms. Not to mention the possibility of meeting someone unpleasant at the end of the shaft. The stairwell seemed a better bet. The only place it registered a power drain was in the back of Kitten’s legs.
“The construction is solid, but still far from well integrated,” Mal continued. “Place was built in a hurry, for sure.”
With Porsupah in the lead, they reached the end of the stairway. It terminated in a small room filled with tools and boxes of unknown content. The Tolian started off down a long, dimly lit tunnel. Their goggles made it as bright as the main terminus in Terraport. The direction led out under the sea.
The tunnel opened abruptly onto a brightly lit corridor lined with doors and hastily thrown-together decorative tiles. A surprised shout in a guttural voice sounded just ahead.
Kitten pulled her tiny pistol, dropped to her right knee and fired, all in one motion. The AAnn technic crumpled after taking two steps away from them.
They dragged the still body a few meters into the dark of the tunnel, reemerged cautiously into the light of the corridor.
“We can’t keep this up indefinitely, you know,” said Mal, trying to look fourteen ways at once. “They’re going to start finding these bodies eventually.”
“Eventually is not immediately,” whispered Kitten, panting slightly. The technic had been heavy for an AAnn. “It will be assumed for some time yet that those we put under are asleep or elsewhere. Hopefully, even if one or two are discovered by accident, no one will think to connect them up until we’ve departed. Anyway, the AAnn hate to be out at night and do so only when ordered. They certainly need their beauty sleep.”
“It won’t be assumed they fell asleep if some casual passerby spots a couple of those darts sticking out of his friend’s neck.”
Kitten answered between breaths as they jogged around another corner. “The darts themselves are made from a specially constituted gelatin. It dissolves untraceably into the bloodstream. It also contains a coagulating agent to halt bleeding around the wound. Thirty seconds after impact, it would take careful chemical analysis of the blood to tell that a target’s been drugged, much less shot.”
Mal examined his own pistol with renewed interest as they swung to their left. A trade item with excellent possibilities. True, it might not be for sale by the Church, but still . . .
“Here’s one that says ‘Life-Systems Monitoring,’ ” said Kitten. “It’s the first one I’ve seen with that blue danger seal on it. Let’s try it.”
The latch lifted easily to Porsupah’s soft touch and he slipped inside, Kitten following close behind and Mal covering.
There were three AAnn in the room. All wore similar expressions of surprise and bewilderment at the nocturnal alien invasion. One soldier and two scientist-types, judging by the toga-chainmail of the intellectual elite the others wore.
The soldier’s hand got about halfway to the ugly pistol strapped to his haunch before he collapsed on his snout, unconscious. The younger of the two scientists continued to stare in disbelief until he was sent sleepward. The oldster, however, made a dive for something at the far end of the big central console. He didn’t reach it. Singeing Porsupah’s left shoulder, Kitten caught the scientist in the midsection. He doubled up in midair and she shot him again, to make sure.
Mal took a fast glance up and down the corridor, then closed the door. Kitten was replacing the gas cartridge and dart cluster in her pistol. At the same time she was examining the section of console the scientist had been trying to reach. Mal looked at her questioningly and she indicated a clearly marked azure button.
“General alarm. Close.”
Porsupah was rubbing his shoulder where the hot gas from her pistol had singed him. “Good! If it were anything less, soft-and-round, I’d mark you.”
“They’re all quite alive, if not kicking,” she said, turning over the last of the three. Mal and Porsupah had moved to a wide glassite panel and were staring unmoving into it. She put hands on hips. “Well, aren’t you even interested?”
“Come and take a look at this,” whispered Porsupah without turning from the glass.
“What could fascinate you cretins so . . .” She caught sight of what lay beyond the panel and stopped talking.
A Brobdingnagian chamber showed on the other side. It was brightly, almost painfully, illuminated. Small silver-suited figures of what were clearly AAnn technics clustered in groups about the wall to their left. Most of the chamber was filled with a gigantic spheroid of nightmare black. It quivered slightly here and there, like jelly. The fur at the back of Porsupah’s neck stood on end.
There was a sharp crackling sound, audible thro
ugh a speaker set above one cabinet of instruments. A small bolt of electricity jumped from a far device to the ebony mountain. Ponderously, the massive bulk shifted away from the generator. It flowed/crawled towards them. Another crackling followed and the second bolt drove the thing back to the center of the chamber. It halted just short of three silver-suited figures.
“Well, that explains a lot,” Kitten murmured. “The AAnn have some peculiar tastes, all right. Can’t say I care for their style in pets.”
“That winds down the ‘invincible alien’ theory of our resurrected friend,” said Mal grimly. “Our bescaled neighbors seem to have managed to keep it in hand.”
“Directing it, too,” put in Porsupah thoughtfully. “Moving it from place to place via electrical stimulation. Conditioning.”
“Could be Peot overestimated its powers. Just sizewise, though, it’s plenty big enough to do a lot of damage, improperly directed,” said Kitten.
“Direction depends on your point of view,” said Mal.
“You’re always looking for an angle, aren’t you, throwback? That’s the sort of evaluation I’d expect from one of them.” She pointed at a cluster of techs.
“Listen, I’ve had just about—”
“Surely,” Porsupah put in hastily, “it is of sufficient mass to destroy a good-sized village. And it may be an especially tough organism. Such a creature could indeed prove a formidable threat on a world as undeveloped as Repler.”
“We’ve no assurance they plan anything along those lines,” said Kitten. Mal snorted. “Still, I think it’s time we concluded our temporary circumvention of the official policy on non-intrusion into Concession territory. Let’s get back to the raft.” She headed for the door, Mal and Porsupah following.
“Do I detect the advocation of violence in your words?” asked Porsupah. “It would amount to an act of war.”
“You think the AAnn would risk a full-scale confrontation over violation of territory on this tiny base?”
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