“Well,” he told Kellie, “I’m beginning to wonder if I’m not quite as charming as I always thought.”
“Eye of the beholder,” she said, turning to Jack. “What do we do now?”
“I’m not sure.”
“How about walking in through the front door? Just stroll right into the city.”
“I don’t think so.”
He asked Winnie to send a report to Hutch, informing her that initial attempts at contact had been unsuccessful.
“Do you want to say that we’ll try again?”
“Yes,” he said, but Digger knew that tone. He’d decided it wasn’t a good idea.
“Having successfully completed phase one,” said Kellie, “we should turn our attention to figuring out how to plant the pickups.”
They brought up images of the cities and looked through them one by one. All had waterfront areas, and that’s where the shops tended to be. And where the population clustered. “I say we go into downtown Athens,” Digger said. “How many pickups do we have? Six?”
“Five,” said Kellie. “Including the notebooks.”
There was one other assignment: The Academy wanted information on Goompah nutrition. During the past two weeks, they’d seen the Goompahs eating a variety of fruits, vegetables, meat, and fish. (At least, that’s what it looked like through the telescopes.) Some of the fruit they’d seen hung on trees in their immediate area. Red pears, large golden melons that looked delicious, small silver apples. They picked up samples of everything.
In addition to buildings that appeared to be ordinary cabins or dwellings for housing individuals or small families, there were structures clearly intended to be living quarters, but they were big, rambling places, with wings and upper floors, large enough to provide shelter to fifty or more. And the places looked occupied and busy.
When they had seen enough, they retired to the lander to await the coming of dark.
IT DIDN’T TAKE long. A twenty-two-hour rotational period created a short day. Jack napped, while Kellie watched for intruders and Digger watched Kellie. But the woods stayed quiet, and the afternoon passed without incident. Winnie informed them that there was still occasional traffic on the highway, in case they “wanted to try again.” She sounded serious. Digger half expected that the palace guard and the local militia would arrive to put a volley of arrows into whatever the thing was that had been seen terrifying travelers along the isthmus road. But the area remained quiet, and Winnie observed nothing that looked like a militia response.
Clouds gathered, and rain began to fall. By sunset it was a steady downpour. Ideal weather for strange creatures that needed to get out and do some lurking.
When night came, it grew absolutely dark. Back-of-the-basement locked-in-the-storage-bin dark. There wasn’t a speck of light out there anywhere. There was no way to judge, of course, the quality of the locals’ ability to see at night, but they did have large eyes.
Jack, however, had a substantial advantage: night goggles. Kellie got them out of the supply locker, and ten minutes later the lander, operating in silent mode, drifted through heavy rain over Athens and its harbor.
Athens was medium-sized, compared with the other Goompah cities. It was located on the eastern side of the isthmus. Four piers jutted out into the harbor, where a few ships lay at anchor. Tumbledown storage facilities lined the waterfront. Lights flickered in one or two of them. The streets were deserted. “A part of Athens you don’t usually hear about,” said Digger.
Jack smiled in the glow of the instrument panel. “Nobody uses Doric columns to build warehouses,” he said. His tone suggested it was wisdom for the ages.
Kellie brought them down alongside one of the piers. Jack turned in his seat and looked back at Digger. “Listen, if you want, I’m willing to do this.”
Digger would have been happy to turn the job over to him. But Kellie would never have approved, would have seen it as an act of cowardice. Jack was not young, was slow afoot, and would have a difficult time if the mission went wrong. This was a rare chance for Digger to show off. And he suspected there was no real danger. Goompahs were terrified of him, so what did he have to fear? “You don’t have the build,” he said laconically. “Or the clothes.”
He stuffed the pickups and the notebooks into a bag and headed for the airlock. “Be careful,” Kellie said. She surprised him with a quick embrace.
He slipped through the hatch, looked around, saw nothing moving, and stepped out onto the pier.
The sea was high, and the wind tried to push him into the water. The e-suit kept him comfortable but he knew it was cold out there.
He signaled to Kellie, and she began to pull away. “Good luck, Champ,” she said.
Digger hurried off the pier and slipped into a narrow street. There were small wooden buildings on either side, mostly sheds. But there was noise ahead: music and loud gargling sounds and pounding like the pounding he’d heard on the road. He rounded a corner and saw an open-front café.
It was half-empty, but the Goompahs inside were drinking, eating, dancing, and having a good time. The café was located in a dreary four-story stone building. A stout wooden canopy was erected to protect daytime patrons from the sun. He stood beneath it, peering into the interior, when two Goompahs he had not seen passed behind him and wandered into the café without giving him a second look.
He strolled closer, squeezing down inside his shirt and pulling his wide-brimmed hat down over his face.
The pickups, because they were jury-rigged, were of different sizes and shapes. Each had a strip of adhesive affixed that would allow him to attach it to a flat surface.
The café was an ideal spot, and the obvious flat surface was in the juncture of cross-fitting wooden beams supporting the canopy. Digger wandered casually close to it, and was able to stay out of sight of the customers while he put one of the notebooks in place. He’d have preferred to install it higher, where it would be less visible and out of everyone’s reach. But it was reasonably well hidden, and he thought it would probably be okay for a while.
He withdrew into the shadows and away from the noise. “Jack,” he said. “I just planted number four. How’s it look?”
“Good. Perfect. One thing, we won’t have any problem hearing them.”
The area was lined with wooden stalls hung with skins. Rain poured down on them. Somewhere, down the street and around a corner, there was more noise. Another drinking establishment, obviously. He tried to look in a couple of the shops, but they were locked.
The streets were becoming a swamp. Occasionally, figures hurried along, bundled against the downpour, too intent on keeping dry to think much about strangers. One of these came out from behind a wall without warning and almost collided with Digger. The creature said something, glanced at him, and its eyes went wide. Digger smiled back and said, “Hi,” in his best falsetto.
The creature shrieked.
Digger broke into a run, turned left behind a shed, cut across a muddy expanse of open ground, and found himself in a quiet street of stone-and-brick houses. He listened for a long moment, heard sounds of commotion behind him, but there was no evidence of pursuit.
“How you doing?” asked Kellie. He jumped at the sound of the voice.
“I just crashed into one of them.”
“You’re kidding.”
“I never kid. I think the thing saw enough of me to realize I wasn’t a local.” He couldn’t altogether keep the pride out of his voice.
“Are you okay now?”
He found an alley and turned into it. “I think so.”
“If he gets too curious, just show him what you really look like.”
“Har, har.” The sounds behind him were dying down. And the street remained empty.
“Maybe you should just plant the pickups and get back here.”
“Relax,” he said. “Everything’s under control.” But something was coming. Two animals, large-jawed, trimmer than the rhinos, sort of like fat horses. Two Goomp
ahs rode them, bent against the storm. He hurried to the other end of the alley and came out on a street that was given over to more shops.
He found occasional bits of vegetable and meat or fish lying about. He recovered them and dropped them into sample bags, grateful for the Flickinger field that prevented his having to touch them. Some of the stuff looked repulsive.
He broke into a storage building, found an office, and planted one of Kellie’s pickups. He got it up on a shelf, between vases, where it seemed relatively safe. The truth was that none of these devices could really be hidden. Later, when the shipment they’d been promised from Broadside showed up, they’d be working with units not much bigger than coins.
He hid the third pickup in a tree near a meat shop. And the fourth in a park, aimed at a couple of benches.
Two blocks away, there were buildings whose architecture had been taken seriously and which were therefore probably either public or religious. Or both.
Several of them had signs outside. The signs contained some hand-drawn pictures, of Goompahs, and of a boat, and, on another, of a torch. There was writing on all of them, delicate, slender characters that reminded him of Arabic.
He took pictures, then tried a door. It opened, and he stepped into a long, high-ceilinged hallway. No lights anywhere. No sounds.
The floor might have been made of marble. The walls were dark-stained wood, and suggested that the authorities were not without resources. Several sets of large doors lined the corridor. He opened one and looked in.
It might have been a theater-in-the-round. Or possibly an auditorium. A platform stood in the center of a large room, surrounded by several hundred oversize seats.
Perfect. Digger found a column, climbed atop a seat, and attached the last pickup, the remaining notebook, as high as he could, aiming it at the platform.
They tested it on the lander, and Jack pronounced it satisfactory.
Time to go back.
THE RAIN HAD finally stopped, and Digger was within a block of the waterfront, moving through the shadows, when a pair of doors directly across the street banged open, light spilled into the night, and a crowd began to pile out. It was too late to duck, so he tried to squeeze down, to minimize his height, and kept going. But several were looking at him already. And the voices died off completely. “I’ve attracted attention, Jack.”
“You need help?”
Sure. A lot of help Jack would be. “No. Stay put. I think they they’re wondering about my size.”
“Yeah. It’s probably not de rigueur in that neighborhood.”
Digger wished he had a bigger collar to pull up. He stared at the street and kept walking, but he could feel their eyes on him until he got past them. He wanted to break into a run. He heard nothing behind him. No movement, no sound. It was eerie.
A Goompah appeared in front, coming in his direction. On the same side of the street. There was no way to get around him, no way to avoid being seen. The Goompah’s eyes reacted, in a reflex that was becoming painfully familiar. It squealed, turned, and fled. The shriek triggered the crowd, which joined in the screaming, but they were coming after him. Something sailed past his head.
That put Digger in the impossible position of seeming to chase the fleeing Goompah, whose cries must have been audible all over the waterfront.
They reached the end of the street, the Goompah barreling along in abject terror, Digger right on its heels. It turned right, the direction Dig needed to go to get to the pier where the rendezvous was to take place. But the creature, out of its mind with fear, fell down and rolled out of the way.
Digger was distancing the crowd. “Jack,” he said, “pier in three minutes.”
ALL FIVE PICKUPS passed their field tests, and they were recording that night. Digger watched and listened with satisfaction as the day’s customers haggled and pleaded, criticized and pressed their hands to the tops of their skulls in dismay. They watched a supervisor behind a desk working with subordinates and occasionally reporting to others to whom he was responsible. They watched young Goompahs romp in a park while older ones sat on benches and carried on animated conversations. And they watched a seminar of some sort conducted from the stage in the public building. Digger was surprised how easy it became to interpret substantial passages of the conversation.
Meantime a fresh transmission came in from Hutch. When Jack saw it, he ran it for all of them.
“Help is coming. The al-Jahani will have left by the time you receive this. Dave Collingdale is heading up the operation, and he needs as much information as you can get him. Particularly anything that will allow him to gain access to the language.
“Also, we’re dispatching the Cumberland from Broadside to take supplies and equipment to you. It’ll take off anybody who wants to go home. But it won’t be able to leave for a few days yet. It looks as if it’ll be about seven weeks before you’ll see it. I hate to ask this of you, but it’s essential that we keep somebody at the scene to learn whatever we can. So I need you to hang on there until it arrives. I know that’s not exactly the mission plan, and it’s an inconvenience to you. But you’ll understand this is a special circumstance.
“Also, I need to know what you want to do. We have to maintain an Academy presence until the al-Jahani gets there. But that won’t be until December. Do you want to stay on? Or do you want me to organize a relief mission? Jack, I’d prefer to have you stay, but I understand if you feel enough is enough. Let me know.
“The Cumberland will be carrying shipments of lightbenders and pickups. Plant as many of the devices as you can. It’s essential that we get the language down.
“All data relating to the Goompahs should be designated for relay by Broadside directly to the al-Jahani, and I’d appreciate it if you included me as an information addee.
“Thanks, guys. I know this doesn’t make you happy, but if it means anything, I’m grateful.”
There was a long silence when the Academy logo appeared on-screen. They looked at one another, and Kellie grinned. “The aliens are lunatics,” she said. “And the cloud is coming. Is there anyone who wants to go home?”
It wasn’t exactly what Digger had hoped to hear.
IN FACT, THERE was one. “I don’t plan to spend the next year or so of my life out here,” Winnie told Jack. “It’d be different if there were something constructive I could do. But I’m not needed. I’m ready to head out.”
So was Digger. But Kellie wouldn’t be leaving, so he wasn’t about to go anyplace. Digger let her see that he wanted to stay on, wanted to be part of a major achievement, and all that. The truth was, he wanted Kellie, and everything else was a sideshow. But with Kellie watching, he had no choice but to play the selfless hero. He knew her too well and understood clearly what would happen to her respect for him if he didn’t stand up and do his duty.
He wished, as a compromise, he could think of a way to persuade Jack to go back to Broadside while he stayed here with Kellie. Don’t worry about the details, big fella. We’ll take care of anything that comes up. You go ahead and take some time off.
LIBRARY ENTRY
“You should never talk to strangers, Shalla.”
“Why not, Boomer? Some of the nicest people I know are strangers.”
“But if you know them, they’re not strangers.”
“Oh.”
“Do you see what I mean?”
“Not really, Boomer. I mean, you were a stranger once. Should I not have spoken to you?”
“Well, that’s different.”
“How?”
“I’m a nice person.”
“But how can I find out if I don’t talk to you?”
“I’m not sure, Shalla. But I know it’s not a good idea.”
— The Goompah Show
All-Kids Network
March 19
chapter 12
On board the Jenkins, in orbit around Lookout.
Wednesday, March 19.
BILL DID AN overnight analysis of the food sampl
es and told Digger he probably wouldn’t like any of the local cuisine. They forwarded the results to Broadside and the al-Jahani.
They were having breakfast in the common room when Winnie carried her tray in. “I just saw something odd,” she said, sitting down at the table with the other three. “There’s a parade of some sort out on the road. Near where you were yesterday.”
“Really?” Jack rolled up a biscuit, dipped it into his egg yolk, and finished it off. “How do you mean, a parade?”
“Well, not really a parade. But a bunch of locals look as if they’re headed for the spot where you showed up.”
“Are you serious?” asked Digger.
“They’re coming from the north. About twenty of them. The guy in front is wearing a black robe.”
“They’re probably just going through to Athens,” said Digger.
Jack looked interested. “It’s the first black robe we’ve seen. These folks like bright colors.”
Kellie had been trying to finish her breakfast without getting caught up in the latest bout of Goompah mania. But she sighed. “You think they came to see where the critter was?”
“Maybe. There’s a bunch of wagons parked up the road a bit. We didn’t have coverage this morning because of clouds, but I think these guys rode in on them. There are still a few back there. With the wagons. Looks as if they’re waiting,”
“Bill—?” said Jack.
The screen lit up. There was indeed a Goompah in a black robe. He was approaching the spot where the avatar had appeared. Approaching in the sense, Digger thought, that he was coming up on it with great care. The crowd was trailing, but giving him plenty of room.
He carried a staff, and when he’d reached the spot on the road in closest proximity to the hill on which the avatar had stood, he stopped, planted the staff, leaned on it, and appeared to survey his surroundings. After a minute he looked behind, and one of the onlookers came forward. There was a conversation and some pointing.
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