by Jane Palmer
***
‘I think I prefer being a boulder after all. Just how do Torrans manage to cope with these infernal tails?’ complained Reniola.
‘They’ve got bones inside them attached to a nervous system you’re supposed to operate,’ Dax told her. You’re not meant to keep treading on it, and if you do, it’s supposed to hurt.’
‘Can’t get the hang of nervous systems either. It’s difficult to believe we developed from creatures that had them. Do you think we could swing from a branch with one of these appendages?’
‘I doubt it. The Torrans only evolved tails as a form of ornament and some of the bushier ones are grafted on after the originals have been worn out.’
‘There is something strangely distracting about the thought that I’m wearing somebody else’s tail that has had more than two owners.’
‘While you’re developing a complex about your rear appendage, you might like to give some thought as to how you intend to rectify Moosevan’s accretion equipment.’
Reniola wasn’t enthusiastic about the reminder. ‘Why can’t I be Dax now? This Reniola creature’s anatomy doesn’t suit me at all.’
‘Why don’t you make your mind up?’ snapped Dax in exasperation. ‘It’s too late now anyway. I’ve processed all her memory and reflexes so nothing would know me from the real thing.’
‘Until you hit them with a nuclear punch.’
‘That is something neither of us will use until it becomes absolutely necessary.’
‘With these ears I wouldn’t look forward to it either. They’d probably disintegrate before the rest of us.’
‘We can always reassemble if that happens.’ Dax stopped suddenly. ‘Wait.’
‘What’s the matter?’
‘Somebody else has arrived.’
‘What? Another one? I thought this galaxy was supposed to be running down.’
‘It wasn’t from this galaxy.’
‘Oh no,’ Reniola groaned. ‘What is Moosevan up to? She’s treating the gate like a plaything.’
‘Moosevan only feels, doesn’t see as we can. She has no mechanical knowledge so therefore doesn’t understand things that concern us. Her sensations are all; she exists through them.’
‘Well, I hope she has a sensation telling her to put whoever it is back before those Olmuke operate the net. Otherwise we’ll have to deal with that as well.’
‘Moosevan and her kind have strange ways, but they wouldn’t knowingly cause the death of anything living. We must deal with what we’re here for first. There’ll be time enough to check afterwards.’
‘You speak for yourself,’ complained Reniola. ‘I’ve got to make a safe planet for her. I don’t know why the confounded contraption should have stuck. It was only installed a thousand million years ago.’
They stopped their long strides to peer over a ridge at three suited figures below.
‘Now what are they up to?’ Reniola said.
‘They’re looking for the other new arrival. I’d better get down there and cut them off.’
‘No chance on these clumsy leg things. You might be able to lure them away, but don’t those creatures kill anything on sight and wonder what it was afterwards?’
‘It’d be too inconvenient to transmute now. I’ll have to make a run for it. You find the control point.’ Without further ado Dax leapt away at a speed the duplicate owner of her body would have found fur raising.
Reniola scratched the unfamiliar muzzle that projected before her eyes and sloped off with a less energetic pace in the opposite direction.