A sudden firefight receded as Terry's escorts made for safety. A Warrior's grenade opened a wall to space. War rats blew past them toward the stars. Warriors picked off the few in stolen suits.
Victoria was back. "Ozma has told the Chief, but—" She saw the screen. "That's better. Your friend was inside too many walls. Ozma has also summoned a hybrid who might help your friend, an interbreeding of Doctor and Master. We only have one."
Freddy nodded and said appropriate things. Glenda Ruth only watched. The camera didn't seem to be pointing at anything interesting anymore.
3
Chocolate
And there're a
hun-dred-mil-lion-oth-ers, like
all of you successfully if
delicately gelded (or spaded)
gentlemen (and ladies)
—e. e. cummings
When the Doctor-Master arrived, Freddy had anticipated him. He had library medical tapes already running. The long-fingered almost-Master watched for a few minutes, looked the three humans over, decided Freddy was the male, peeled him, and began comparing him to what he was seeing on the screen. The Anglic commentary ran at low volume while Victoria spoke a running translation into the fleshy trumpet of the Doctor's ear. She was frequently baffled.
The Doctor was a young male, Victoria told them. "Doctor Doolittle," Glenda Ruth named him, and saw Jennifer smile. Freddy's face remained a rictus of discomfort.
Glenda Ruth wondered why Captor Fleet had chosen to feed such a peculiarity when they were so obviously short of resources. As if they had known aliens were coming . . . known ten years ago. Where the hell was Terry?
Terry was alive, technically, when they brought him in nearly two hours later. A misshapen Warrior was pumping his rib cage, breathing for him. Glenda Ruth looked at him and gave up hope.
Doctor Doolittle spoke rapidly.
The Warrior slashed the front of Terry's suit and pulled him out. A pair of Watchmakers pulled a black pressure balloon open and fished out transparent tubes and a canister. The little Doctor-Master wrapped itself around Terry's head and shoulders, planted his ear on Terry's torso, and listened. Then it pulled his head far back and fed the tube into his nose.
Terry thrashed weakly. Red flowed down the tube. The Motie watched for a few minutes, then spoke. The Warrior had gone back to breathing for Terry, flexing his chest, on and on, without fatigue. The Watchmakers fished out a squeezebulb of clear fluid.
Glenda Ruth stopped watching. She couldn't stand it.
Freddy pulled his shorts on and left it at that; the Motie Doctor might need to compare again. He caught her eye as she turned away, and she knew another moment of dread.
"Glenda Ruth—"
She turned away as the strange doctor spoke softly to the Warriors.
Captor Fleet was at work beyond Cerberus's windows. From all they could see, the War Rats and Watchmakers were no longer to be feared. Larger ships had moved in. Altered troopships and tinier ships yet moved in a cloud around Pandemonium. An Engineer with a crew of Watchmakers worked on one of the damaged troopships. Large Moties from time to time came out of the ruins with— things. Broken machinery. Tankage. Plastic bags.
Jennifer said, "Remember the battle? Just before we were captured? Just lasers, no projectiles. In Pandemonium the Warriors used bullets, but only inside walls. But the rats and brownies were shooting everywhere."
"Your point?"
"Well, Victoria keeps calling them animals. She especially likes the word vermin. Maybe because they don't care how much stuff they throw away, even if it can be recycled. That's what all those little ships are doing, chasing down stuff that got loose during the fight."
Glenda Ruth nodded. "Yeah. How's Terry?"
"Breathing on his own. I want a human doctor."
"Hang in there. Terry's tough."
Silence.
"I couldn't watch."
"I noticed," Jennifer said.
"You think he's not feeling anything, and you're almost right, he won't remember how bad it is. But his body, his nerves, he's hurt, Jennifer, and I can feel it. Oh, hell, don't you leave me, too!"
"Too?"
"Freddy saw me! He saw me turning away from Terry. Squeamish. I'm going to lose him, Jennifer!"
"Not if he watches you save our asses. But you're juggling priceless eggs in variable gravity, girl."
Glenda Ruth only nodded. She couldn't answer that at least they were right on schedule.
* * *
"I hope you're not overly tired, sir," Chris Blaine said.
"Not yet, not in this gravity," Bury said. He looked across the room to Omar, who once again held Ali Baba. "Against all reason I find myself attracted to the pu—to Ali Baba. An unexpected pleasure. But I fear we are away from the comforts of Sinbad to no great purpose. Except, of course, to reassure our hosts." It was an awkward situation, made more so because no one wanted to talk about it. It was the one thing East India and Medina Traders agreed to completely: neither would allow the other to talk to Horace Bury alone. "They cling to me as to a talisman," Bury said.
"Or a credit card," Blaine said, and Bury glared.
The outer door opened and a thin, spidery shape entered. The Motie went to Omar and waited patiently as Omar and Eudoxus gathered around it, then chattered excitedly.
"Something important," Blaine said. He thumbed the microphone of his communicator. "Captain, an East India messenger just came in. Whatever it's saying has got both the Mediators listening hard."
"Could it be about Hecate?" Renner's voice asked.
"I don't—"
"Stand by one," Renner said.
"What?" Joyce demanded. "What's happening?" She edged closer to the Moties, pickup camera whirring softly.
"Rawlins has spotted a fleet," Renner said. "A big one, coming from in-system. Hyperbolic orbit, accelerating like they've got lots of power."
"Warships," Blaine said.
"Sure sounds like it," Renner said. "Don't know whose, but they're heading this way."
"Excellency, we have news," Omar said.
"Thank you."
"Excellency, the humans are all safe. One, the ship's engineer, was injured in a way that I do not quite understand, but I am assured it was through no fault of the Crimean Tartars, who have been persuaded of the value of their guests. One of my apprentices, very young and inexperienced but fluent in Anglic, has been accepted by the Tartars and will presently be allowed to speak with the humans." Omar beamed. "He will, of course, be pleased to invite a representative of our Medina Allies, as soon as one arrives."
"This is splendid news," Bury said. "We are in your debt. I wonder if we might prevail upon Medina's hospitality for one more favor."
"You have but to ask, presuming it is possible," Eudoxus said.
"A message," Bury said. "It would be well for all concerned if Lord Blaine were informed that his offspring are safe."
Eudoxus and Omar looked at each other. Ali Baba's attention remained fixed on Bury. "An interesting notion," Eudoxus said. "But one that presents considerable technical difficulties. Neither East India nor Medina controls Crazy Eddie's Sister. Nor do the Crimean Tartars. The Khanate now holds that point and even now gathers more warships to consolidate their hold. Their own, and others. We fear they have created a formidable alliance, one which may even now be growing."
"A combined action of Medina and East India might suffice to escort one ship to the Sister," Omar said. "But as East India has more ships in that area, our losses would be the greater. We would require compensation."
"I had in mind something simpler," Bury said. "Send a message through the Crazy Eddie point to Murcheson's Eye. Take one of your flimsy token ships. Wrap a transmitter in a thick layer of suitably ablative material with a mechanical device to turn it on once through. Let it broadcast its location. Message cubes inside should survive long enough to be retrieved."
"Simple mechanical device," Omar said.
"Jump shock is an experience previously
described to us, which I have now twice experienced," Eudoxus said. "It is—formidable. Excellency, I need hardly point out that the contents of a message to your blockade battle fleet will be of great interest to all of us. Will you summon that fleet here?"
"I think not," Bury said. "But surely it would be to our advantage to have those not inconsiderable resources at our disposal?" He looked significantly at the Motie Warriors. "And of course we will continue to enjoy your gracious hospitality as we negotiate."
Eudoxus and Omar exchanged looks, then Eudoxus began to speak, slowly and carefully, in the glottal language the Moties had been using to speak to their Masters. Both Masters replied, each to a Mediator, never to each other. The messenger was sent out. Two came back; they delivered messages to each of the Mediators. The Masters spoke quickly and curtly, the Mediators at greater length. The discussion continued for a long time as Joyce's pickup whirred.
Bury waited with a look of serene calm. Ali Baba aped his look, a study of serious concentration. Blaine reported developments to Sinbad and Renner.
Finally Eudoxus spoke. "It seems you are correct, Excellency. We may have need of your fleet. We count five fleets probably converging on us. One is from Byzantium. We have reports that the Masters of the Mote Beta moons, the group we have called the Persian Empire, are gathering a fleet. The Khanate has summoned allies to their aid in holding the Sister. There comes another large group from sunward."
"In other words, everyone who has warships is becoming involved," Joyce Trujillo said.
"Just so," Omar said. "And thus our Masters are agreed. The partnership between Medina and East India shall be renewed. When that is accomplished, it would be well to summon whatever resources your Empire can bring."
"Before they kill us all," Joyce said.
Omar bowed. "Just so."
* * *
Engineers had erected a screen around the area where Dr. Doolittle and his aides worked on Terry. Freddy was back there for ten hours, while Jennifer and Glenda Ruth waited alone. Finally he came out.
"I'll have to go back presently," he said. "They want my opinions. Mostly I don't know, but I can work the data retrieval system for Dr. Doolittle. It's mostly in charts. Some of it I have to read to him, with gestures. He learns fast, numbers he understands already. Got any coffee?"
Jennifer handed him a bulb. "I should heat that."
"Heat the next one. I'll drink this."
"All right." Jennifer put a bulb in the microwave and started it. "Freddy, I haven't heard Victoria back there?"
"She's been gone for hours. One of the others, I think the Engineer that's been . . . improving Hecate, came and got her, and that was the last I saw of her. Sometimes I talk into a mike and Dr. Doolittle listens to what has to be a translation, but I don't know who's on the other end." Freddy sipped the lukewarm coffee. "Good stuff. Thanks."
"When can I see him?" Jennifer's cry was more nearly a wail.
Freddy looked to Glenda Ruth.
Glenda Ruth dropped her pensive look and shuddered. "I think you should wait to be asked. Something odd is happening."
"I'm scared," Jennifer said. "We talked about—he grew up on Tanith, you know. Freddy, he will be all right!"
"If the Moties can manage it, he will be," Freddy said. "They're going all out. They have some instrument the size of a spat ball racket that puts a three-D image of Terry's insides on our tri-vee screen. They've got him stabilized. Blood pressure has been the same for hours now."
* * *
It had not been instantly obvious: the looming bulk of the Mosque had been a block of water ice permeated by tunnels when Sinbad docked. But Engineers had been at work, carving rooms out of the ice, insulating, decorating.
The lounge, located just outside Sinbad's airlock, had been growing during the negotiations. Now there was a small kitchen, a wardrobe, and a half-completed mini-gym besides the conversation pit with Motie and human chairs and couches. Chris feared it would be the size of Serpens City before they accomplished anything.
Eudoxus spoke long and earnestly to the Master called Admiral Mustapha Pasha. From time to time Omar spoke to the East India Master in the guttural language Chris Blaine had learned to recognize as the Motie trade koine. Ali Baba moved from Bury to Omar and back, but his attention was always on Bury.
Messengers went to and fro like big-headed, lopsided spider monkeys, beautiful only in their agility. Mediators and Masters took frequent rest periods and returned always together, sometimes with Motie pups. The Mediators were talking now, briskly, as if it hadn't all been talked to death long since.
Chris watched and listened and presently offered to speak for Joyce's pickup camera. Joyce tried to find an excuse to refuse and gave up almost instantly. "Thank you, Lieutenant Blaine," she said most courteously, and posed him in a corner of the new lounge.
So: scholar's pose, no sexual signals, and give her his best. "A pidgin is needed to bridge two languages because shadings and nuances and background assumptions don't work. You need it whenever nuances don't work. But Motie language is inflections and body language and even scent, and any of that might have to be dropped for a telephone, or pressure suits, or video with a bad connection. The weird thing is just how easily these Moties use what they can and drop everything else. It isn't just the flexibility of the trade language. They generally have to create a trade language on the spot." Chris saw goblin ears focused on him and wondered how much they would understand. How much he understood.
"We're watching a parallel here. Ali Baba, not yet at the age of reason, clearly understands the concept called Fyunch(click) in the Mote Prime language. We're watching him learn both Anglic and the new pidgin simultaneously, and in hours he has learned what a bright human child might pick up in days or weeks. Biological specialization at work. And of course we've seen that in the other specialties.
"We're learning a lot about Moties, and that's important."
"Can you say more about that, Lieutenant?" Joyce asked. Her tone was richly professional.
"We've no choice, this time," Chris said. "Blockades just aren't going to work. We'll have to learn to get along with the Moties—"
"One way or another," Joyce said, but her own pickup mike wasn't on. "Lieutenant—" She stopped.
Here came the paired messengers again. Chris watched them scamper along the chamber's multicolored rock, breaking stride and zigging into channels and depressions. He'd watched them several times, and this time he was sure: their fur changed color to match the rock. Piloerection was doing that, exposing different layers, but the effect hid them like chameleons. They reached their respective Masters, clung to their fur, and whispered briefly.
The Masters had one final exchange with their Mediators, and all four Mediators came to the human group.
"Excellency," Omar said. "I am pleased to inform you that Medina and East India are agreed, in principle and in all essential details." He bowed; his feet left the rock and returned when he straightened.
"This is pleasing," Bury said.
Eudoxus bowed, too. Nobody laughed. "We have agreed on our status and domains, but more important is that we have agreed about you. We tell you nothing new when we say our choices are limited, and our greatest asset is your friendship."
Bury nodded. "More pleasing still. We are honored to be your friends."
"Thank you," Omar said. "We perceive that even if we watch you compose the message you will send to your colleagues in the Crazy Eddie Squadron, we must still trust you to tell us its meaning. Before you send this message you will naturally wish to speak with crew aboard your ship, and it is pointless to detain you here. When your message is complete, East India will deliver it. A suitable ship is being readied."
This time Bury's smile was warm and genuine. "Our thanks. Your hospitality has been admirable, but perhaps my friends would be more comfortable aboard our own ship."
"There is one matter," Omar said. "My colleague at the Crimean Tartar fleet reports his own observation t
hat all the humans aboard Hecate are alive, and only the engineer-warrior has been injured; but for reasons that the Crimean Tartar Mediator will neither explain nor discuss, he has not been permitted to speak with them. We have been promised that this will change soon.
Bury acknowledged with a nod.
Damned odd, Chris thought. Something has changed, something happened that the Tartars don't want us to know. What? But Eudoxus and Omar knew that as well as he did.
"Do you wish to return to your ship now?" Eudoxus asked.
Bury nodded gravely. "It would be convenient."
"Medina and East India have come to another agreement. Excellency," Omar said. "But one which requires your consent. With your permission, Ali Baba will become your companion. An apprentice. Of course he will spend only part of his time with you, as he must learn our languages and customs as well."
Bury bowed slightly. "I am flattered. I find him an agreeable companion. However, you will understand, there will be times when I must be alone with my friends."
"Of course, Excellency."
"Meanwhile, this is satisfactory. We go now to draft our messages. We will, of course, read and explain to you any message we compose."
"Thank you. We will provide you with an escort," Eudoxus said. "Joyce, your viewers may be interested in this base. If you would care to see more of it, I am available to conduct you on a tour. We'll have you back on Sinbad in, say, two hours?"
"Perhaps another time," Chris Blaine said. What did they have in mind? Nuances here, subtle, ominous.
Eudoxus spread her hands slightly. "There may be no other time when we are both free, but of course it will be as you wish."
"No, I want to go," Joyce said. "You can tell me about
the message later when we finish the interview. Eudoxus, I'd love to see the rest of your base."
"Very good. Join us when you can, Joyce," Bury said affably.
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