“Watch out!” somebody yelled. “It may be a weapon.”
“I don't think so,” Jameson said. “I think it's a key.”
Triad dragged herself over to the gate. The humans made way for her. She clamped the gold bangle on the thick disk that contained the lock mechanism. The curves matched, and the wheels fit into a pair of grooves that ran around the outer rim.
She whistled, a complex roulade of chromatic phrases, and the section of bracelet crept along the grooves under its own power, or power provided from within the lock mechanism. It disappeared under the edge of the disk, and the whole wagon-wheel-sized assembly lifted. The gate slid open smoothly.
Jameson reached underneath and retrieved the device. “For opening cages from the inside,” he said. “The animals could never figure out how to use it.”
Everybody had shrunk away from the opening as if it were dangerous. Nobody seemed anxious to leave. Jameson turned to Dmitri. “Put it down. Gently.”
Dmitri set the squamous little creature down on the floor of the cage. It humped its broad back. The sucking tube that was its head waved from side to side, seeking. It homed in on Triad and pulled itself along on its feeble legs, like an injured beetle.
Ruiz spoke up for the first time. Under the bandaged head, some color had returned to his lined face. “They couldn't reproduce at their one-gravity acceleration, could they? No population growth until their ships are coasting or parked.”
Jameson nodded at him. “No. And if we ever get back home, we can tell them the Cygnans won't be interested in settling on Earth, either.”
The tiny male had reached Triad. It crawled blindly over the surface of her body. Her hide twitched. As Jameson watched, the tightly wrapped petals of the structure that looked like her tail parted and unpeeled. They spread all the way open like a blooming orchid. The little parasite crept inside like a bee looking for nectar, squeezing past the inward-pointing spines that, like a lobster trap, would prevent it from ever leaving again.
Cygnans did mate for life. Even when their inamorata was dead.
The petals of the tail closed tight again. There was only a drop of thin orange serum trembling at the tip. The rippling contractions of Triad's tubular body died away and stopped. The rings of muscle relaxed. She lay limp and unmoving.
Jameson rubbed his knuckles over his eyes. He felt tired. It had been a long day for everybody.
“Some of you pick her up and get her out of sight in one of those tents,” he said. “Go easy with her. And I'll want a detail to get the body of the other Cygnan out of sight. I don't know how long it will be before other Cygnans come to check, but if they don't see anything obvious, it may buy us some time.”
Captain Hsieh drafted some volunteers and got Tetrachord's headless body inside the compound. They wrapped it in one of the precious blankets and covered it with rubble.
Jameson looked up at the winding observation tubes, frosty in the subdued light. In not too many hours, they would be filled with sightseeing Cygnans.
He turned to face the others. “All right,” he said. “Who's going with me?”
Chapter 26
“Here's all the food I could get together,” Liz Becque said apologetically. “And there's about three gallons of drinking water in those cans and jugs. You couldn't carry much more than that. You'll have to depend on finding water along the way.”
Jameson examined the supplies spread out across the pokes that Liz had improvised from squares of sheeting. It included all the canned and packaged food that Klein had overlooked, and some pressed bars of a fish-and-wingbean pemmican that she'd made from the leftover supper rations.
“You may not get fed in the morning,” he warned. “Triad won't be in any shape to get the zoo routine back to normal.”
“It's all right. We'll go hungry tomorrow. It's the least we can do.”
Jameson began to tie up the bundles. He became aware of Omar Tuttle standing nearby, shuffling his big feet.
“I'm sorry, Tod,” Omar said. “I'd go with you, but I'd better stay and look after Liz. The baby could come any time.” He avoided meeting Jameson's eyes.
“Okay,” Jameson said. “Don't worry about it.” He went on tying up the bundles, and after awhile Omar went away.
He couldn't blame Omar. He'd told them all himself that there was little chance of catching up with Klein before the alerted Cygnans intercepted him, or of doing anything useful if he did. Klein had a small army with him. Armed.
“Don't go, then,” Beth Oliver had said reasonably. “Let the Cygnans catch them. You'll only make things worse for us.”
Pierce had said: “All you'll accomplish is to be brought back here anyway, and that's if you're lucky. Nobody shoots zoo animals. But you shoot mad dogs that are running around loose.”
Janet Lemieux had said: “We need you here, Tod, Captain Boyle's going to need somebody to back him up. Otherwise the Chinese will control things. And you're the only one who can talk to the Cygnans.”
What it all boiled down to was that everybody had an excuse for not going. Pierce, sheepishly displaying the arm broken during capture. Liz with her indisputable pregnancy. Omar, with his surrogate pregnancy. Janet, who was needed by Boyle and who soon would be needed by Liz...
But dammit, he could have used some help!
None of the Chinese, of course, would even consider going along. Chia had made herself unquestioned authority of the Chinese contingent for as long as she was aboard the Cygnan ship. Bring her back, and you'd committed an act of lèse majesté for which you'd suffer when she started running things again. And back here at the zoo, two factions were already shaping up: Captain Hsieh's followers and the regrouped forces of Tu Juechen. Neither of the principals would willingly leave the field to the other, and none of the followers would desert the standard; it was important to be on the winning side early in the game.
For that matter, if Klein were brought back alive there could be a clash about constituted authority among the Americans. Klein carried the baton of the Reliability Board, and all of them, Jameson included, to some degree had been conditioned to its touch.
Except perhaps Ruiz.
Jameson looked across to where Ruiz was waiting for him. The old man was standing straight and tall, too proud to let anyone see him leaning against the wall. The bandage around his head was already askew where he had been fooling with it. His fierce hawklike profile was turned away. He'd bullied Janet into giving him the stimulants he'd need to keep him going.
“Medical supplies are short, Dr. Ruiz,” she had told him.
“Boyle and I are your only patients at the moment, and Boyle doesn't need them.”
Janet had bit her lip. “You ought not to be doing anything strenuous. You certainly have a concussion, and you may even have a fracture under that cut scalp.”
In the end she'd given in. Then it had been Jameson's turn.
“You'll slow me up, Doctor,” he said bluntly.
“I'll keep up with you. If I don't, you can leave me behind. You'll be no worse off.”
“How long do you think you can keep going on those things Janet gave you?”
“Long enough.”
“All right. I need all the help I can get. But you'll kill yourself.”
“Commander,” Ruiz said, his eyes bright with speed, “that madman took Maybury with him because of me! Estúpido! I had to make speeches! Why didn't I just go along quietly and try to slow him down?” He shook his head and immediately winced with pain.
So Ruiz was Jameson's first recruit.
Dmitri was his second. The young biologist had impulsively followed Ruiz's example. He admired the old man. And perhaps he wanted to prove to Jameson that he was a man of action. Jameson hid his misgivings and thanked him.
Then Maggie had thrown her arms around him and announced that she was going too.
“I thought you were trying to talk me out of it, like Janet.”
“That was before I knew you were really going! You'
re not going to leave me behind!”
“Good girl, but—”
“I won't stay behind with all those sheep!” she said fiercely.
That hadn't endeared her to the others. But Jameson had to admire her independent spirit. He felt a little ashamed of himself. He'd been one of the sheep himself, for too long. It was Maggie's example, with her rebellious heritage from the New England Secessionists, that had opened his eyes and given him the resolve to resist the Kleins and the authority they represented.
He finished tying up the bundles and handed them out, giving the lightest one to Ruiz. “Just a moment,” he said. “I just want to say good-bye to Boyle.”
Boyle was breathing deeply and rhythmically. He looked somehow shrunken between the two blankets. There was a makeshift screen around him: sheets hung from ropes that were strung between the abstract branches of the iron trees.
“He doesn't know you're here,” Janet said. “I put him under.”
“When are you going to operate?”
“Soon. I'm boiling the instruments now. I'll have to make do with what was in the medical bag.” She laughed uneasily. “I've never performed an amputation before. In fact, I haven't practiced medicine since my internship. Just administrative psychiatry. Qing-yi's going to help me. Did you-know that she was a chijiao yisheng—what they call a barefoot doctor—in Kweichow Province before she qualified for the space program? She doesn't have a medical degree, but she's performed more operations than I have.”
“Is he going to be all right?”
“He'll be fine. He has the constitution of an ox. And lots of willpower; he'll make himself a crutch and be hopping around in no time. Maybe some day...” She hesitated. “The Cygnans must know about regeneration—you saw that assistant. If we can get a dialogue going with them ... Tod, won't you stay?”
“Chances are, I'll be back before you know it. If not...” He shrugged. “Look, you can't depend on one man with absolute pitch. We humans are ingenious creatures. It can be done with computer-generated sound and translating interfaces. There are some good electronics people here, and if you can actively enlist the Cygnan's interest ... Do it for the captain, Janet. And for your children.”
He turned toward Boyle. “So long, Skipper,” he said. “Good luck.”
Incredibly, from some iron resource of will, Boyle's eyes flicked open. Jameson sensed that he was fighting the drug. “Good luck, boy,” he whispered. “It's up to you.” His eyes closed, and he was breathing deeply again.
“He didn't know what he was saying,” Janet said.
“Yes he did,” said Jameson, and walked away quickly. Ruiz, Dmitri, and Maggie picked up their bundles when they saw him coming. Jameson shouldered his own parcel, slipping one arm through the loop at the knot, and moved past the clustered people at the gate without looking at their faces.
A dozen yards past the thick bars, he paused to look back. They were already pushing at the gate, sliding it shut. It fell into place with a solid thunk. The animals had locked themselves back in their cage.
“Wait a minute,” Dmitri called.
“Come on!” Jameson said. “There isn't time for you to stop and look at specimens.”
“They're trying to attract our attention,” Dmitri said.
Ruiz looked at the cage behind the wire mesh barrier. “He's right,” he said. “Those creatures are intelligent.”
Jameson turned around and went up to the barrier for a closer look. It was the cage that held the feathery humanoids. The pixieish little creatures were swarming frantically over the bars, making urgent gestures with their delicate four-fingered hands.
“They're cute,” Maggie said.
“They're carnivores,” Dmitri said. “Look at those little pointed teeth.”
“Like a kitten's!” Maggie responded indignantly.
“We're carnivores too,” Ruiz said. “Gives us something in common with them.”
Jameson looked the creatures over. They were fluffy and flamingo-pink, with huge round violet eyes that gave them an astonished expression, like a tarsier. They had button noses and dainty underslung jaws that, head on, gave them an appealingly chinless appearance, like pink teddy bears. They sported tufted tails, which they kept winding around their waists or necks like feather boas.
And they had stacked a little pile of artifacts against the bars for demonstration purposes. A pair of little felt boots, too short for their feet until you noticed the four holes for toes to protrude through and rest on the projecting sole. A filigreed cup that could not have held anything, and seemed to have no purpose except to be beautiful. A miniature rake that was obviously a grooming comb.
“They had those ready to show us,” Ruiz said. “They were waiting.”
As if on cue, the two elfin beings went through a swift and well-organized pantomime. They became Klein murdering Tetrachord, and Triad streaking for the safety of the human compound. Then they took turns becoming Jameson and his three companions emerging, imitating posture and body language with amazing accuracy despite the differences in body structure. Finally, with unmistakable gestures, they begged to be taken along.
Jameson looked sorrowfully at the sheet of clear, almost invisible glass that sealed off the cage, between mesh and bars. There was no telling what kind of atmosphere the creatures breathed.
Feeling clumsy by comparison, he made a series of gestures to tell them that it would be fatal for them to breathe the Cygnan air.
The fuzzy little beings gestured back, more urgently, pantomiming the idea that they could breathe outside the glass case.
“What do you think?” Jameson said.
“They're bright,” Ruiz said. “Bright and quick. They want out, and they seem to know what they're doing. I feel sorry for them. Too bad we can't help them.”
Jameson made up his mind. “I have a hunch they'll be useful,” he said. “They've been prisoners of the Cygnans a lot longer than we have. They may know a thing or two.”
Ruiz was doing arithmetic in his head. He nodded agreement. “They've been on this ship a minimum of ten years subjective time, even assuming that the Cygnans picked them up on their last stop. And that their last stop was during the mid-twentieth century, when Cygnus X-1 was discovered—and the Cygnans would have been detected as well, if Cyg X-1 weren't masking the final leg of their approach.”
Dmitri was looking worriedly at the extra gate and the glass. “The security precautions are extraordinary,” he said. “The Cygnans must consider them to be dangerous beasts.”
“They're intelligent beings,” Jameson said, “who wear shoes and who while away the time while they're locked up by carving ornamental cups.”
He pried at the wire mesh with his bare hands. The mesh was a warning, not a barrier, and it was intended for the one-third-g strength of Cygnans, not human muscles. With Ruiz and Dmitri helping him, he was able to tear an opening wide enough to squeeze through.
The glass was unbreakable. After a moment's examination of its perimeter, Jameson found the round opening of a Cygnan keyhole. He fished in his pocket for the cylindrical key he'd taken from one of Triad's pouches.
“Tod,!” Maggie said quickly, “that glass is there for a reason. What if they're not oxygen breathers? You'll kill them.”
“It's their decision,” Jameson said. “They say no.”
He pushed the cylinder into the hole. It twanged and jumped back into his hand. The glass panel slid aside.
They all held their breath, half expecting the smell of ammonia or methane. The two feathery humanoids regarded them gravely through the bars, unharmed. Jameson took a cautious sniff. There was a spicy smell, like cloves or cinnamon, but the cage seemed to contain the basic Cygnan atmosphere. There wasn't even a pressure differential.
Why had they been glassed in?
“Germs,” Maggie said suddenly.
“Too late to worry about that now,” Jameson said. He found the lock, and the bars retreated into overhead sockets.
Before he
knew it, two gossamer sprites were crowding round him, looking up at him with enormous violet eyes and jabbering at him in squeaky voices. They were no taller than twelve-year-olds. The spicy scent was stronger and rather nice.
“They're thanking you,” Maggie said.
Up close, the rosy plumage turned out to be a silky nap of cobweb-fine hairs, that split and branched at the tips, like dandelion down. There was an almost irresistible impulse to plunge your hands into it and feel the softness. It was the down that fluffed them out to give an illusion of even moderate bulk. Underneath there was nothing to them—just a pliant, willowy frame with hardly any flesh on it. Wherever the fairy silk rippled and parted in response to stray air currents, they were all skin and fine bones and tendon. On Earth they wouldn't have weighed more than fifty pounds apiece.
They bounded ahead like mischievous children, then stopped and looked back to see if the humans were following. Jameson grinned and picked up his bundle.
“Nocturnal species,” Dmitri said. “Notice the eyes? And it gets cold at night where they come from. The divaricated follicles of their coats provide good insulation, with a layer of trapped air next to the skin. I wouldn't be surprised if the tips open and close to regulate temperature—much more efficient than the erectile follicles of terrestrial mammals.”
“They look so human!” Maggie squealed. “Like little elves!”
“Only superficially,” Dmitri said, watching the two beings scamper ahead of them. “See those butterfly hips? And the articulation of the shoulder joints? And they're not mammals.”
“Even so,’ Jameson said, “their resemblance to people is amazing. A coincidence...”
“Not amazing,” Dmitri said. “And no coincidence. There's a limited number of efficient forms available to quadrupeds who become bipeds. The Cygnans must have collected thousands of life forms. They probably lumped their handful of humanoids together.”
He nodded toward the cage they were passing. The squat green troll within, with its knee-length beard and arms hanging to the ground, was obviously not intelligent. As it caught sight of them, the top of its head lifted like a lid and emitted a bellow; then it scampered away, upright but on all fours.
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