Melin's Scout Ships were guarding the planet. We, the Captains, had discussed the percentage we needed aboard and settled on 66% off at one time to rotate on a weekly basis. But what were the troops going to do. We needed a Social Service department. Have to ask Maria. DONE. Oh well, next problem. I had a feeling the Gods weren't going to smile on us and allow much vacation.
Stopped motion my bulb told me, stationary orbit, best to get up and grab my duffle. The FO had it from here for two weeks. Two weeks where I could pretend to be a civilian.
In my office Lenh still sat at the console. I said, "Fabricate a remote access, you're with me."
"I'm the access. I've transmitted through Marvin my findings to Mr. Gato. We'll visit him tomorrow to say hello, and welcome him back to this side of the Universe."
"Back?"
"Oh, he's been here many times before, been useful, and failed many times. I don't see where the failing has been his fault, but if you're superstitious I'll ask him to 'haul ass' as they say in some circles."
"We'll see. You have a bag?"
"Over there, didn't you see it?"
"Don't be a smarty pants."
"Sorry."
The Landing Craft pilot said he had coordinates to the City. What City? He didn't know, but we were going there. Lenh smiled on both sides of her face, smarty pants.
The pilot circled the City, only built by spacers, cargo containers made into multi-story multi-level quadrangles were cut into hill sides, up and down a broad valley. Stairways went up to the little flat spaces where they sat. On the flat part where all of the trees had been removed sat Square Trading Posts, the pilot informed us. Evidently he had been in contact with the previous pilot. He sat down on a pad, the walls-ramps went down, and the passengers were gone, except for Lenh and me. He'd motioned us to remain in place.
"Going to take you up to Officers Territory."
On the top of the ridge, which had been leveled off, a double Trading Post sat beside a landing pad.
"Your stop Sirs; tell them to save a room for WO Bennigen, if you would please?"
"I'll do that. Buy you a drink later. I heard Betty put local berries in the latest batch. He and I laughed, while Lenh looked at us like we'd lost our minds.
Inside the Post at the desk a clerk said, "Sign the book. We have a special combined corner room. Looks out on the best view. Second floor; the first floor is all taken with older folks, diplomats most of them."
We listened, we signed, we reserved a room for Bennigen, we went up stairs to the room, and he spoke truth. We could see up valley from one room; and down valley from the other, too many structures to even approximate a number, if we could have seen around the valley's bend there were probably more. Chairs were placed on the balconies which bent around the corner. We were going to be happy here.
We unpacked in our separate rooms and put seats in the sun side of the balcony while we figured out the next move. She looked tiny in furniture scaled for ten foot bodies. The fourteen foot bodies had another valley we'd overheard.
"You'll have to stick beside me," I said. "To not get stomped upon by accident."
"That absolutely won't do, defiantly not. Watch."
She jumped off her lounger and stood beside it, short blond hair, delicate features with thin lips, about five and a half feet tall. As I watched she shimmered and moved her body in a wave fashion. I jumped up alarmed she'd explode, but I didn't go near. She grew before my eyes, not much wider, but much taller, until her mischievous eyes were looking slightly down into mine. The waving and shimmering ceased and she said, "That should do it. You never get a second chance to make a first impression. No one will remember me as small, if you keep it zipped, promise?"
"Well hell yeah. But you could have stopped five inches ago."
"That, my dear, is a lesson. Never again go according to size. The further out we go the more important that lesson becomes, you'll see."
She settled back onto the lounger, pulling her dress (which had grown with her) up to uncover her legs. She crossed them, muscles rippling their entire length. Her chest had become disproportionately fuller, along with her lips. She would bring a lot of people to attention I thought.
She smiled and said, "You will learn a Universal lesson from me, 'when men, or women, think with their nether regions, they don't, can't, think with their heads, there is only so much blood to pump around. If they can think with their heads no matter what they see, they are automatons, and are to be carefully watched in their decisions. You watch for this, you'll see."
"I am but a youngster in your world. I hear and learn, most revered master."
"Done that, gets old after a million years. Lesson two; don't tie yourself to long habitual response patterns. Leads to early death from mistaking zigs for zags."
"Yes master, I'm going to close my eyes for ten minutes, then get up and shower and change to a fresh uniform. Then we'll go forth and see how much life we can cause, deal?"
"Deal, I'll give you a few extra ergs to go with the fresh uniform. But don't forget, we have to wow them at HQ tomorrow."
"May never come."
"Already here, snooze away."
Later she ate, in the restaurant downstairs, and I watched enviously. Though I did have my memories of that roast beef and the good company on the beach. My larger cousins there treated me well. Marvin said I could go back, when I left, and he wouldn't say anymore about it.
After the restaurant we worked our way up river stopping at every place that had music. We found that some places had predominantly one group, maybe Rangers, or Dragon Riders, or earth humans, or Brenesi, and some places were a mix. Neither one of us made out why.
No matter which place we went into the dance turned out to be the same, they wanted to separate us and take Lenh to their lairs. We thought of borrowing handcuffs from the four-person racially mixed Military Police patrols we met, and tying ourselves together, most of the time we just left.
By the time we made it the whole way up stream, crossed and worked our way downstream to where we were across from our Post, the sky began to show traces of light. Deciding we would probably live another day, to do the rest, we crossed over and went to our Post and up to our rooms. Both of us went in through my door and I stopped by the bottom of my bed. I had felt light headed all evening, from alcohol fumes, I thought. Lenh kissed me on my bulb and pushed me back onto my bed. Then she took off my boots and disappeared, or I fainted.
My wrist chromo said 1030 when I regained consciousness. We didn't have any set time to be at HQ so the late hour didn't matter. I showered, making enough noise to wake the Devil down below. Finally she banged on a wall to let me know I'd succeeded in waking her. She appeared in my balcony door in a two piece uniform cut leisure suit. The pants and jacket, had the expected six pockets, but the material appeared so light and billowy that it said, 'I'm not a uniform.' Plus she had on only half boots instead of the usual high top ones. She had thought long and hard to send so many contradictory messages.
"Thank you," she said. "I'm glad you appreciate the effort."
"I met a seamstress who would like to talk with you. We'll go see her when business is done."
"Fine, let's get there. I hear they have a restaurant on site."
At the runabout pool a sign said, "What, you wanted a driver too, and gold tooth fillings, do it yourself, like punch the button."
"Smart ass, "Lenh said. "We have a lot of them, must come with the elevation."
We got in the runabout and punched the HQ button and sat back to enjoy the ride, generally South East. Three high ridges and three valleys with much activity later we landed in the Intel HQ parking area. I shut the motors off and the auto pilot command function. It wouldn't go away on us.
In the Planetarium the Admiral couldn't be approached. I waved and saluted. He held up his arm and made a circular motion around his chromo. We'd get to him later. I hugged Maria and introduced her to Lenh. They looked at each other for a long time, and then smi
led and hugged, who knew."
"We have two new attractions from when you were here last, Nerre'. A smaller display like this is tracking behind the front espionage events. Also the Worker Engineers and Gato built another room like this, only larger, to show the rear areas in more detail. Walter got religion about Nukes and decided to add to the anti ANNU KI minefield in a big way. Thelma sent him ARKs II and III and he is going away from this area collecting Nukes from everybody. They balk, Frigates come in, leaders go away, next batch, or second next batch agrees. Then he reinforces the nuclear mine field out in the Void from the Universe ARK. It's going to be a hell of a field. You can see that in the new Planetarium at the end of the tunnel."
"We'll go see after the espionage one. Could you tell my other three Captains where I'm staying if they haven't found quarters yet?"
"I'll do that. See you two for supper? I'll drag the Admiral away from his preoccupations."
Lenh said, "That would be kind of you."
We walked into the smaller espionage facility and up to the person directing events. He heard us coming and turned.
He looked at Lenh and said, "Finally decided to come out of the wood work have we?"
"Just in time, Mr. Gato, to watch over another of your defeats. How many does this make?"
"Nine, and I deserved that, but I won't see number ten, will you?"
"Not me personally, what do you have going here?"
He waved to pairs sitting about attached to headsets from which wires ran into a central computer. Another computer sat off to one side, active and processing.
"The pairs are extracting stored data. It's correlated and fed in bursts to the analyzing computer which runs the projector. Not turned on now."
Lenh asked, "How big a download can your system handle?"
"From you?"
"Yes."
"Don't know. If you start from the present back we can stop if it overloads."
"Starting now, pay attention."
I started to say, "We could sit down.", but kept my peace, remembering essences didn't have muscles that needed rested.
All ten feet of the console had lights of different colors flashing, didn't tell me anything. Evidently it meant something to my companions. After eleven minutes, according to my internal clock, Lenh said, "It's developing resistance. We'll wait twenty four to continue. I got almost a billion years in. We'll see what coincides with your data."
"It's not all my personal date. It's from various sources. I've tried to assign a weighted indexing according to source."
Lenh said, "I know all that Mr. Gato. I know you're just talking to keep Nerre' in the loop. Nerre', do you want to add your lifetime observations to the data base?'
"I doubt it will make a difference, but that's fine with me. Maybe Marvin would want to help?"
Gato said, "He did, earlier, I think that's why we're encountering resistance."
Lenh asked, "Could you use technical help?"
"Yes, if they can work under my direction. Somebody has to be in charge."
"True, I'll call down five Techs."
She turned to look at the entrance and in walked three women and two men who weren't copies of Lenh, but certainly cousins.
They walked up to us and the man said, "I'm Wekst. I'll speak for us. If you'll open your mind to allow the computer system design to be seen Mr. Gato, we'll be able to see what the problem is."
The six of them walked toward the console.
Lenh said, "We're surplus. Let's go see who doesn't want to part with their Nukes."
We walked into the middle of the Universe. If Moneslakia hadn't been blinking it would have taken me long moments to orient myself.
Lenh exclaimed, "This is glorious. They put it on automatic, brown orange are the ones who have given up their Nukes. Light blue are the ones where removal is taking place. And blue is yet to be approached. There are certainly a lot of blue worlds, maybe sixty seven percent of the whole. Our Walter and his men aren't going to get the job done in any resemblance of right now. I'll make a call."
"What are your four ships going to add, Lenh? Negotiation takes time."
"We don't negotiate. We'll just take the damn things. Look at your chromo Nerre'. For every tick a hundred ships are being launched. I just have to find out now where to place the nukes and who to give the trigger to. Just a moment--done. We'll start in the farthest reaches from here, and work toward here. Look here on the heavens, it's happening already."
I viewed the farthest fringes away from us. Blue worlds were changing as I looked. I asked, "Won't they just make more Nukes?"
"Good for us. We go back and collect them too, just for general principals."
"Oh, look here, Nerre', someone else has came out of hiding and is collecting too. Let me see who?"
I walked around the planetarium as she communicated, three and a half miles around the outside. We needed, I needed, to become better acquainted with these Workers. I had a suspicion they weren't in the same time the rest non- essences were in. Thelma always said, "If you can't trust your inner mind, just go shoot yourself and save lots of misery." Her advice had worked for me often. I missed the old days when the opponent could be counted on two fingers, death, and Irkilon, two equal conditions.
Lenh waited by the door. "Memory lane, be glad of your few years yet. The other people are from the First Federation too. Our HQs are communicating."
We stuck our heads in Gato's room. Two Techs were on the floor under his computer. That didn't bode well. We made a left turn in the direction of nice smells. Lenh loaded a tray while I rinsed and refilled my canteens at the ever present barrels.
As we took our seats Helga, Heidi, and Tina walked into the room. I waved, they saw us, and joined us. I made the introductions and Tina observed, "I see a slight family resemblance, two arms, two legs and a head."
Lenh said, "Kick your ass good, weak one."
We four got a good laugh out of that. Lenh gradually smiled.
Helga said, "We got caught up in Betty doing a lecture about her pet ANNU KI. At times she almost hinted that it gave off peaceful intentions."
"Next stop," Lenh said. "All of us, we'll ask Betty first, of course."
WHAT THE HELL. BE MY GUESTS. BE WARNED IF HIS POWER LEVEL GOES UP THE RAIL GUN WILL FIRE. I'LL TELL THEM TO ALLOW FOR YOUR PERSONAL ENERGY LENH. LET ME KNOW IF YOU CONCLUDE ANYTHING.
Lenh continued, "That's it. I'll be done in a moment. Maybe it would like pastries. Somebody go get a big basket of them, won't you, and then we'll go."
So we walked the 'X' path into its lab, which would have won a good housekeeping award, and called, "Tgthr, visitors, we bring pastries."
He came out from behind a machine and approached us, towering over us. I felt nothing, probably because I'd turned my emotions off before entering. His face reflected age, or resignation, same thing I guess.
"You, Captain Nerre' guess right. Came to prod the caged animal, have you? Sit, prod away."
I gave him the basket of pastries. He lifted the napkin and took a few out. I suppose he might have thought of poison.
"Can not be poisoned. Betty made this body a good prison, and I thanked her at one time. But she took my friends away."
Lenh interrupted, "Cut the bullshit, Tgthr. You never had a friend. And if you were ever to have one you would kill him."
"Oh, you with your short life time think you know ANNU KI? Of course what you say is correct. Have you ever considered why? Have you considered what anything becomes in the Void? No, you did not. To survive, at all, we had to join one another. To keep sane we killed all who joined us. We became what we had to become to survive. You do the same every day. You will never add up to enough resolve to kill us, or enough strength, or even enough attention over space. You can not even think of attention over space, with your puny slavery to the movements of planets. You just can not see it."
Lenh commented, "You, the great scientist, put a concept before us and say our minds are too puny. What is p
uny is your ability to impart knowledge. If that were not true your 'friends' would become intelligent."
He sat there watching Lenh with hatred in his eyes, eating pastries. Then he said, with strength in his voice, "You may be right. All of you can perceive. I will explain what I said until you understand; if you will give me a pair of my 'friends' back. What say you Betty?"
DEAL.
He had no time, or physical limitations. Lenh had none either. We four Volunteers did, and we broke for the fresher, at times. His voice carried there so we didn't miss anything. I know we were reinforced from somewhere; because four days, at the highest mental level didn't happen to us, and not bother anyone.
In the fifth continuous day, I began to not care about time. I sat, or stood without remarking to myself about my location. I just felt centered and nothing could be done to me, nothing could get to me, because I held no position in relation to anything which could ever harm me. I floated, or not, mentally, and if needed, I had certainty of being able to float physically. I made bouncing steps around the room to test the concept. I could, gravity didn't exist where I did.
I said, "He's made a believer out of me. He can have his 'friends' as far as I'm concerned. What about the rest of you?"
Lenh agreed, "He has earned them, selfish bastard that he is."
Tina said, "I'm going to miss sleeping. I've got it, Helga, Heidi?"
They both said they had it too.
THEY WILL BE BACK TODAY, TGTHR. IF YOU EVEN SHOW TWO PERCENT DEVIATION YOU WILL BE FIRED UPON, AND OUR INSTRUMENTS HAVE A PLUS-MINUS ONE DEGREE VARIATION FACTOR.
We left. Not the same as we came; or maybe Lenh hadn't been affected. Who knew, maybe not even herself. Back at Med Bay, in the complex, Betty did a complete scan on all of us. Everybody passed, despite us not being in synch with her, or anything else, unless we decided we were and anchored ourselves.
The four of us and Lenh sat around a table in the restaurant. I waited for fatigue to set in. It didn't. The rest looked bright eyed.
Lenh said, "While you were getting prodded I asked questions. Not every effort is being put behind this push."
Greener Green III: Let Light Reign Page 26