Eye of the Gazelle

by Marcia Tucker

  “Polly” drew himself up proudly, ignoring their shocked gasps. “In a moment, my dear Velcor Rentclifv. Now for a more important matter... Crater!”

  The twins and the equally surprised cybernism took note that the creature had used the generic class name rather than the name Vekta had given the 0002. “Velcor... Vestor...?” Prater queried in concern. They hadn't been able to get it to use their nicknames. It persisted in avoiding referring to itself in the first person.

  “You heard that, right? Long story, Prater,” Cory muttered to the Crater 0002 cybernism. “This thing may have been sent by Bapa or at least know what's going on at Gozgazel. It's from Hendor Universe... you'd call it Gamma.”

  The cybernism did not respond to her. Though it was alarmed at the abrupt mattportation of the twins and this strange creature, as the children's body language did not seem to indicate a problem and the creature seemed harmless, it did not alert anyone of any situation. It chose not to reserve judgment though it was baffled by the creature's claim that it was from an alternate universe.

  It might be noted that Prater did not make any attempt to search databases to determine what sort of creature this was — neither that it was a muddie nor to inquire how such a creature could be telepathic. At this point in the cybernism's development, it was still dependent upon receiving orders from Humans. Activated only a couple months, Prater's HAGE had not developed the way that the original Crater's had, something Vekta Rentclifv had not as yet had time to study. Or perhaps Prater had chosen not to go the way of its insatiably curious predecessor.

  Story turned qer attention to the muddie. “Polly, we want you to tell us now exactly what kind of danger Bapa is in.”

  The creature looked unhappily up at qer. When Polly spoke, they could emread the tension in him. “Not here. We have to go somewhere else. But I suppose I could tell you a small part of it. Won't you sit down?”

  Cory and Story uneasily took chairs while the muddie sat down on his haunches in front of them. “Okay, tell,” Cory muttered.

  Polluxanvega sighed with exaggeration. “This is rather minor, but it is a small danger and an ever present irritation to your father. It's Scorpa.” He found it amusing to refer to his partner with the descriptive name the children's father had given his erstwhile companion.

  When he stopped, the twins scowled at him. “Go on,” Cory urged, impatient. “What's a Scorpa?”

  “Scorpa is another creature from Gamma... ah, I mean Hendor Universe, but not at all like me, nor as nice, either.” He was lying, of course; Scorpa was not even from Gamma Universe, whereas “Polly” was from yet another dimension.

  Nice? The twins collectively thought. What's nice about suddenly mattporting us here? Cory thought, biting her lip.

  “You can't see him because he's only made of energy,” Polluxanvega continued; they noted the creature had chosen to use the same pronouns they'd decided to give him. “Hardly deserves a name... he's not a he either, but I suppose it's too callous, even for Scorpa, to call him an it.”

  The twins exchanged glances; wasn't the Hendorian mostly talking to himself now?

  “He hangs around where I live normally, a bother if I ever came across one. On the way out to Gozgazel, the Andromedea...” He blinked several times. “That's your father's ship.”

  “WE KNOW,” the children said together, anxious for him to continue.

  “Yes! Enroute to Gozgazel, the Andromedea was passing through that same area between Pollux and Vega, in that Starlock mode of course... therefore in Hendor Universe. Anyway, Scorpa was lurking around and took it into his head — though he hasn't got one — to sneak aboard the Andromedea and stir up trouble.”

  “What sort of trouble?” Story asked, wishing this thing would get to the point sooner.

  “Oh, well, he had this bad habit of surprising people in the corridors of the ship and stinging them. No, he doesn't have a stinger but I guess that's what you could call it. They got quite ill and were paralyzed for a while. Mentally, too. The people there haven't been able to catch him — as if they could catch something made only of energy!”

  He chortled at the thought, making a strange gurgling sound from the throat of his muddie form, but soon caught himself as he sensed his blatant lies weren't going down too well with the children. “But don't worry; your father the Colonel has figured out how to detect him and I think they have him contained, if not caught. I followed the Andromedea, you see, realizing what a pest Scorpa was going to be.” Of course he'd completely twisted the facts, but the children didn't need to know that.

  While the creature's words caused them to relax minutely, they both noted a queer sort of light coming into Polluxanvega's big eyes. “You know,” he went on to himself, “I have been thinking about that word, Andromedea. When I was last on Terra, only then nobody called it Terra because it was the only planet Humans lived on and they didn't have to call it anything, but the last time I was there, I got rather handy with words. Your Englang tongue is still quite a bit like its parent language, English, you know. I collected a few interesting words which I don't suppose are all used anymore. Like Andromedea. Now there's a word! Do either of you know what it means?”

  In truth the Hendorian had neither been to Terra nor had any real experience with either the dominant language from the time Humans went into space and the current one now, Englang. Of the latter, he'd taken from the Andromedea's databases and the omniPanx Nexus over the Sixtheye only what he wanted to take, what interested him. Just enough to trick the children of Vekta Rentclifv. And if he was implying that he'd been around Terra in Alpha Universe in the past, well, how could that hurt anything?

  Story fixed a wary eye on the little creature, certain that he was seriously demented, though qe was shaken to hear that the Hendorian could have been around Humans in the past as well. Isn't he the real trickster? qe wondered, worried. But it still seemed logical to keep playing along for the moment. Polly had, after all, told them something about what had been happening on the Andromedea and undoubtedly knew more.

  “It's the name of a galaxy as well as a constellation of stars from Terra's perspective — Andromeda, that is,” the qild replied patiently. “We don't use constellation names anymore except for starship names sometimes. The arrangement of stars differs from star system to star system, of course. Like how Pollux was once called Beta Geminorum.” Astronomy had been a favorite subject in qer studies. “The name of the Andromedea is based on the galaxy's name, just spelled a little differently.”

  “Well, yes, we all know that,” Polly agreed indulgently. “But do you know what the word meant?”

  “Do you?” Cory challenged the Hendorian. He hadn't answered nearly enough questions for the girl, who was growing alarmed.

  “Why, yes, I believe so,” Polly said reflectively, and one could emread that he was quite pleased with his knowledge. “Andromedea...” He savored the name. “Yes, that's a Terran creature with a big hump on its back, a long neck, and an ugly face.”

  The twins exchanged another glance, baffled. Prater, too, was confused, and for once chose to access the Sixtheye to tap into the exhaustive database stores of all extant languages from the omniPanx Nexus as well as the ancient ones of Terra. The cybernism spoke up tactfully once it located a probable reference. “You are mistaking an ancient Greek goddess for a dromedary, also called a camel. It was a beast of burden in desert lands.”

  “A Greek goddess, really?” Cory asked, delighted, and made a mental note to read up on Greek mythology after finishing her current project on Babylonia.

  Prater brought up the reference. “Yes, Velcor,” it murmured, then read from the database. “Andromeda was the daughter of the King and Queen of Ethiopia. Her mother angered the god Poseidon by claiming to be more beautiful than the Nereids, who were sea nymphs. Poseidon sent floods and a devouring monster in his wrath. Zeus, the King of the Olympian gods, ordained that the only thing that could get rid of the floods was to chain the
Queen of Ethiopia's daughter, Andromeda, to a cliff so the monster would devour her. But Zeus's son, Perseus, rescued Andromeda then married her. That's the same Perseus that our arm of the Lactavia Galaxy is named for.”

  “That's marvelous,” Cory declared dreamily, for she loved the old stories of ancient mythologies, especially when a god married a mortal. Story gave her a sharp nudge in the ribs to remind her of the dangerous game they were playing.

  Polluxanvega, realizing he was no longer the center of attention, spoke up quickly. “Now isn't that the oddest thing! A camel. Now, Crater, surely you are in the wrong this time, for I clearly remember that camel was a name for brown sticky candy that you goo all over a red fruit called an apple.”

  “Caramel,” Prater said dully after cross referencing “candy” and “apple,” suspecting that this word challenge was going to get worse before it got better. “And this unit's name is Prater, not Crater.”

  “But... but...” Polly worriedly continued, his fur getting a bit darker about the nose — a sign of stress? “Isn't caramel a kind of jelly for toasted bread, often made from oranges, isn't it?”

  Prater cross-referenced “jelly” and “oranges.” “MARMALADE,” the cybernism said with a bit more emphasis. The twins could now detect an edge in its voice.

  “No, no, I'm sure you had it wrong,” the muddie persisted. His black nose was now ringed in a smokey gray. Cory nodded at her qother to draw qer attention to it. “Marmalade was an ancient medical treatment,” Polluxanvega explained for their benefit and gain in knowledge. “A patch of filmy material with goo on it to be taped over a wound. A brand-name, I believe.”

  The twins looked expectantly at the cybernism's viewport. Prater remained silent, busy searching databases. It had to try different combinations of keywords to get something that might remotely sound like “marmalade.” It considered that because of the words used so far, “caramel” and “marmalade,” Polluxanvega referenced words from English back about a thousand years ago. Had the Hendorian had a previous encounter with Terra?

  Finally Prater found something. “You mean, a Band-aid,” it replied calmly, though it was feeling some of the vexation of the twins by now, a hint of danger in its voice.

  Polly must have caught the hint, coughing abruptly. “Yes, yes, well, so it is, it is. One cannot be correct every single time.”

  There was an audible groan from the cybernism which brought inadvertent giggles from the children. But abruptly they were both serious again. “You're wasting our time!” Cory challenged the muddie, jumping to her feet. She put her weight on one foot and crossed arms in front of her, narrowing her eyes at the creature. Story, too, rose to qer feet to confront the creature.

  “Ah, forgive me... yes, we must be off!” Polluxanvega began hastily. “But first, your computer. Now, qild, do you think you can make a mental link with Crater?”

  Story's eyes got wide, then qe glanced at qer sister who looked equally shocked. “Mental link?”

  Prater wondered about the twins' reaction, then realized they likely had not known about the potential for the Link. “It is possible to coach you through it, Vestor,” it told them. “Your father has done this with this unit a few times.”

  Up to now, Prater had carefully noted that the children were not afraid of this strange creature, being more irritated with it instead. That alone had kept the cybernism from activating its connection with its supervisor, Starguard Litzer. And its lack of experience, which the Hendorian had been counting on, prevented Prater from realizing that such a creature was highly likely to be a threat.

  “Really?” Story blinked, astonished. “You mean I can connect to your mind somehow, telepathically?”

  “Indeed, Vestor,” Prater replied. “The Crater-class cybernism is only a telepathic receiver, but you can Link in with it to read surface thoughts while your menttranmissions are received.” There was much more to the Link than that, though the very new cybernism could not sense it.

  The qild grinned in delight, though all the while it never occurred to qer to ask why this linkup was necessary. “Do it!” Story said.

  “Close your eyes,” Prater instructed. Story did so. “Start to read surface thoughts, only go deeper...”

  Story folded qer arms and complied, concentrating. Qe focused on first sensing the cybernetic mind of the cybernism, then focused on mentreading. At first qe was astounded by the activity of Prater's mind, attending to the tasks Vekta had given it of maintaining the environment of the apartment and keeping abreast with the constant stream of news data available from all worlds of the United Star Communities via the omniPanx Nexus.

  Then, pressing deeper, Story was able to cept the core of the cybernism's mind, the HAGE. This was literally Prater's core in that it enabled it to be self-aware and feel emotions apart from the extensive information retrieval and processing systems. Story took the HAGE into qer own mind, and was immediately staggered by the immensity and strangeness of a thinking, aware, emoting mind that was never organic. Soon Story found, to qer relief, that qe didn't have to pay attention to everything that was going on in that colossal mind. Qe was quite pleased with qerself. Hi, Prater! qe thought, then frowned.

  There was no response nor recognition from the cybernetic mind. “Er, didn't we do it?” Story asked it aloud.

  “It is unknown what Dr. Rentclifv does to engage the Link,” Prater confessed. “A Crater has no telepathic senses, remember.”

  “Well, just... you know... connect!” Polly insisted, the fur around his nose darkened to black.

  “Is it like merging?” Cory asked her twin shyly. Starguard Litzer had mentioned such a thing but they hadn't dared to try it yet.

  “Let me try again,” Story murmured. This time, qe paid more attention to the HAGE itself. The Link, therefore, wasn't simply a matter of cepting within the cybernism's mind. Qe had to connect with that mind, though it couldn't be a true merge.

  The HAGE module was a dense arrangement of hexagonal “cells” arranged in Fermat or parabolic spirals in a criss-crossing, left/right sequence of successive Fibonacci numbers. The arrangement existed in nature on many planets, particularly in composite flowers and coniferous seed heads. The natural pattern was considered beautiful to the aesthetics of all Humans because of the perfection and the “golden angle” of 137 degrees from cell to cell.

  At the core of this arrangement was the “mother” cell, the A1A. It was this that drew Story's attention as qe examined it more closely. Curious, qe reached out to mentally touch it — and abruptly SOMETHING fell into place within qer mind.

  Cory, watching, widened her eyes as her twin froze, staring at nothing. “Story?”

  You made contact of some sort with the A1A cell of the HAGE, Prater thought, wondering if the Link had been made. Are you there, Vestor?

  Story gulped. “I'm here... and I'm actually connected to your mind as if it's my own. Wow!” qe thought back, stunned because qe really wasn't menttransing. “So this is the Link! This is... this is... so ultra...”

  You did very well, Prater responded, still emotionless. It is to be hoped that whatever this backsliding philologist has in mind will be beneficial to helping your father. Though the sincerity of his words is clearly to be mistrusted.

  “What's a philologist?”

  Someone who is supposed to know a lot about words and where they came from, a talent in which our friend is dreadfully lacking.

  Polluxanvega, by now, was agitated, rocking from paw to paw. “No time to fight now, though I'm going to make you take that back, computer,” he snapped, easily reading their exchange in the Link. “But at least you made the Link, kid. Now we can get going. Here we go, we're off!”

  9: No Where

  “Off” did not turn out to be a planet, the twins immediately found to their dismay and shock as they were once again mattported to... well, it appeared that “off” was no where. Not “nowhere” but an awful, barren no “where” in a sea of starless b
lack. Just Cory and Story, weightless in space but not in a vacuum, for they could breathe normally. And, strangely, Prater whose thinking and emoting portion of his mind had been retained in Story's.

  Because there was utterly no light, they could not see one another. Automatically they reached for each other and thankfully made contact, clasping hands which had the effect of producing a soft, musical tinkling. Story called out to qer twin in astonishment, but accompanying qer voice were dimly illuminated swirls of red and brown, the first thing they’d seen here. “Cory?”

  They exchanged a glance at one another, remembering what their father had told them about the Andromedea's initial journey using the Starlock to enter an alternate universe where the speed of light was much faster than their own “Alpha” universe. Hendor? Story thought immediately. But he was strangely unable to share that with his twin.

  It seems so, from the data that the Crater Zero Zero Zero One shared with this unit, Prater solemnly commented from within Story's mind. Dr. Rentclifv apparently thought this information was needed. In truth, the Crater 0002 wouldn't have understood that it was Crater himself who had taken it upon himself to provide the information through the Sixtheye to his fellow cybernism. The 0001 had sought to correct his creator's oversight in backing up this critical mission information to the other existing cybernism who was under the same security protocols as he was.

  Prater! Story exclaimed, aware instantly that somehow the cybernetic mind was still Linked to qers. How is this even possible? For of course the physical components of the Crater 0002 cybernism had not been transported as well. Then, as it was obviously possible, the qild accepted the startling fact for the moment, although qer father would have been shocked. Prater was still inexplicably Linked after a dimensional shift.

  This does make sense, Prater reported. The information received from the Crater Zero Zero Zero One indicated that if this is another universe, then the Link should have broken. Wherever this is... this should not be possible.