Beert gave me a shocked, warning hiss, but the Greatmother answered at once. "We are all one folk, Dannerman. It is, however, true that some of the ways of our cousin Horch have changed greatly in the long, long time we have been separated from them, while this nest has kept to the old ways."
"The ways of your home planet?"
"Of our particular home planet, the Two Eights. There were many planets inhabited by our species when we were taken, Dannerman, and each had its own customs. Now there are even more. The Two Eights was one of the newest and smallest at the time, with only eight sixty-fours of sixty-fours of sixty-fours of sixty-fours of inhabitants." I calculated quickly: something less than 150 million. "Most of the other Horch planets were much larger. When the Others came-But perhaps Djabeertapritch has told you all this?"
"Not all, I think."
She gave Beert that quick, reproving neck-twist. He said hastily, "I have been busy with the cousins, Greatmother, as you know."
She patted his arm affectionately. "Of course. Well, you know, Dannerman, that all through our star-going history we Horch had met many strange species, a few of them nearly sentients. Those we always treated with kindness-as, you have seen, we in this nest have treated you yourself, Dannerman. When the Others' scoutship came to our world it was the first time another species had come through space to us. The ones who came to us were not the Others themselves. The Others were too frail to come to the surface of our planet, but they sent their subject species, and those were welcomed. All that they asked was given to them. They did tell us of the Eschaton; that was one gift of the Others. It was the only one."
She looked inquiringly at Beert, who was twitching restively. "They also gave us death," he growled.
She sighed. "Yes, that is so. It is what the Others often give, and they have many ways of giving it. They alter the reaction of a star, so that it goes nova, or change the orbit of a small planetoid so that it collides with the planet they would destroy. They can bring about an emission of poisonous gases from a planet's oceans if they choose. Or they can do what they did to our Two Eights. In their laboratories the Others developed a terrible new disease made out of the proteins of our own bodies, and they spread it secretly among us, and we began to die. Many, many of the people of our planet died. Nearly all. On the Two Eights fewer than sixty-four sixty-fours survived. Those were the ones who were brought here, and we are their descendants. Or," she corrected herself somberly, "the descendants of those who survived what happened here. The Others interrogated our first generations without mercy. Many of us died here as well, usually in great pain. Even when we no longer had any information to give, we were still valuable to the Others, because we were still genetically Horch. So from time to time they seized numbers of us and carried them away, to test new diseases and weapons on them; and that is what our lives were like, Dannerman, for eights of generations-until our cousins of the Eight Plus Three came and set us free."
Abruptly the Greatmother sat straighter on her bed. Her head sprang up to mine, until her pointy, hard-skinned nose was almost touching my own.
"Now I will give a more complete answer to your question, Dannerman. The Eight Plus Threes have treated us very well; they shared everything they have with us, and they offered to take anyone who wished to a Horch planet to live. Most of my nest did go, willingly. A few of us did not. Our cousins have had a long history of struggle and warfare, which we did not share. It has changed them, as our lifetimes of captivity have changed us. We in this nest wish to make a different life for ourselves, though we do not know how.
"But we intend to try.
"What you must remember is that we are all still Horch, Dannerman. We will never do anything to harm our cousins. Djabeertapritch understands this well. You must understand it, too."
CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE
When we left the Greatmother, Beert's bubbly mood was restored. "She likes you, Dan," he said on the way down the staircase, his neck dancing with pleasure. "Now we can act. Do you remember our earlier conversation?"
My heart leaped. "The one about Pat?"
"No, not the one about Pat," he said crossly. "We have had other conversations, have we not? I am speaking about the one in which I told you that you could help another person in a great matter."
As we walked out into the open air, I tried to remember. "Oh, that," I said, disappointed. "You mean the one where you didn't tell me what it was, or what I was supposed to do. How could I forget all that?"
Irony was wasted on him. "Yes, that conversation, exactly," he said abstractedly, glancing at that bent-tree sundial. He frowned. "The person who needs your help will be here shortly, but first we must go to my laboratory, if you don't mind."
I didn't mind. Didn't have much chance to object, either, because Beert was leading me rapidly toward his pink shed. I looked around apprehensively while he was opening the door, but the Christmas trees were absent. When he touched something just inside the doorway, bright lights sprang up, and he said with pride, "This is my personal workspace."
It was certainly something special. There weren't any luminous fungi here. The lights Beert had turned on came from the glowing walls themselves, with additional spotlights that were fixed on specific items, one a workbench, with several gadgets and tools on it, a couple of larger gadgets on the floor-and one other thing.
I swallowed. The other thing stood motionless against one wall, the light sparkling from its million little needles. It was a Christmas tree.
I must have made a sound, because Beert twisted his neck around from where he was taking objects out of a cabinet and tossing them into a basket. When he saw where I was looking, he reassured me. "I have told you that you need not fear the robots. This one in particular; I have taken it apart and rebuilt it, and now it does not even have a channel to the central controls."
"Urn," I said, studying the thing. But it didn't move, so I decided to take him at his word. "Why do you bother?" I asked.
He seemed a little embarrassed, his face held low and not meeting my eyes. "I want to learn all that our cousin Horch know, Dan. It is the only way this nest can ever hope to stand on its own. And," he added, pride returning and his head lifting, "I have even been able to build some instruments for my own use. Like this."
He lifted one of the gadgets from the workbench and held it high. It was a sort of fish-shaped, flattened oval, looking rather like a metallically glittering flounder or sole. "It is a scrambler, Dan. It generates static, which interferes with the communications channels of the Others. Instruments of this sort were very valuable to the cousins when they attacked this base."
I looked at it with more respect. "Valuable" was a conservative word for it; something like it would have come in very useful when we were captives. It wasn't the only thing around, either. Beert's lab was full of high-tech alien gadgets of all kind. It was exactly what I'd been looking for to take back to the Bureau's technicians, when I'd still had hope of that.
But I didn't have that hope anymore.
Beert was still talking. "This particular device is not exactly like theirs; I built it in a different shape, to serve the purposes it is planned for, and had to waterproof it to protect its power." That reminded me. "And it's self-powered?" He stared at me. "Of course. Why would it not be?" "Well," I said, "I've been wondering about that. I've looked at some of your other gadgets, and I don't see any wires."
He made a hissing noise of exasperation. "There are no wires. Each device draws its energy from-"
That wasn't the end of his sentence, it was just the point at which it turned into gibberish and I couldn't understand it anymore. I asked, "What?"
"I said it draws its energy from the garble of the garble garble which is present in the garblegarblegarble."
That was no improvement. I shook my head apologetically. "I guess this translator thing doesn't work as well as I thought," I said, touching the thing behind my ear. "I didn't understand any of that."
He sighed, wriggling his
neck regretfully. I said, "If you could just try to explain a little-"
"I did try," he said testily. "You simply do not have the background to understand the words, and I do not have time to teach you just now. The person I wish to help will be waiting for us." He put the scrambler in the basket with the other things and closed the lid, gesturing for us to leave the lab.
Outside, Beert slammed the door behind us and grabbed my arm. I let him lead me toward the stream that went through the grounds of the nest, and there, standing by one of those round little bridges, I saw the person Beert wanted me to help.
It was no friend of mine. The thing was a Wet One, one of the amphibians who had killed Patrice.
I didn't say anything to Beert. Well, maybe that's not true. I think I probably did say something like, "Screw this," under my breath, but I doubt that Beert heard me. I wrenched my arm free from his grip, turned around and walked away, not looking back… for no more than three or four meters.
Then I stopped.
Beert was a funny-looking little dinosaur, and his unpredictably fluctuating moods-his often childish moods-sometimes made that particular little dinosaur difficult to live with. But he had done his best to befriend me. Had, in fact, saved my life, just for starters. And if he was now asking me to help him, even to help him do something for a species I hated-didn't I owe him something?
"Oh, hell," I said, this time out loud, and turned around. Beert was peering after me.
I retraced my steps to the stream bank. "Exactly what is it that you want me to do?" I asked.
CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR
I don't know if Beert had any idea of why I had walked away. He didn't comment. Maybe he figured it was just another bit of Earth-human queerness. He simply said, as though nothing had happened, "I will show you," and began pulling things out of his little basket and carefully setting them on the ground next to the Wet One.
Who was studying me intently with those bulging hippopotamus eyes that were set on the top of his head. I didn't speak. Neither did he. I did see that the tentacular electric organs that sprouted from his face were writhing restlessly. That didn't seem to be a friendly sign. It crossed my mind that Beert might have misjudged the situation, and I instinctively began looking around for something that might work as a weapon if the thing suddenly jumped me.
Beert's tap on my shoulder distracted me and I looked around. "Are you paying attention?" he asked crossly. "See, this is how the scrambler fits on the Wet One's body." He had it in his other hand, and began carefully to place it on the amphibian's gross belly, just behind its tiny mid-arms. I wondered what he was going to use for glue to make it stick to the Wet One's hide, but he didn't have to do that. He had something more effective than glue. A metal socket was actually embedded in the amphibian's flesh; the creature had evidently allowed someone to fasten the socket to his body surgically, right through the skin. There were two similar sockets flanking the one with the scrambler, and the next thing Beert did was to attach a couple of stout leather pouches to them.
Then he pulled the last of the basket's contents out.
It was a pair of handguns. My handguns. Two of the twenty-shot, Bureau-issued guns that had been my basic carry weapon ever since I became an agent.
I nearly lost it one more time, as the anger I had managed to push back out of sight boiled over again. If anybody was going to have my guns, it damn well ought to be me. I made a grab for them, snarling, "Hey! Those are mine!"
The amphibian slithered a half step away toward the stream, grunting a protest, but it didn't try to stop me. It didn't have to. Beert was fast as well as strong; he dropped the weapons, and his two rubbery arms clamped quick and hard around my wrists. He didn't raise his voice. "Actually," he said, "these two projectile weapons are for the Wet One. If you have a requirement for one, it can be copied for you, but I do not see any such necessity."
I wrenched free of his grip. He let me go, but his arms stayed near mine and his face danced before me. "They belong to me!" I complained. "That thing is a killer. How do I know he isn't going to shoot me with them?"
Beert said patiently, "He has no such intention."
That was when the amphibian spoke up, surprising me. He wasn't easy to understand. He spoke that same Horch language- naturally enough; I could see that he was wearing an implant of his own, tucked under his jaw. But he didn't have the same sort of vocal cords as I did, or even as the Horch did. The sounds he made were more like a hoarse, unpleasant kind of roaring than conversation, and I had to strain to make them out: "That is true. Shall I now speak of unfortunate past events?"
I guess the question was rhetorical, because the Wet One went right on talking. "The lethal pulsing of your female person should not have happened," he stated. "The sharp-object stabbing of our persons by yours should not have happened as well. The reason for these wrong happenings may be that my party was in Other Water, where we did not know its tastes. In Home Water," he explained, "where our females stay and the pups are reared, we know which tastes are persons and which are prey and which do not matter. In Other Water we may not know all the tastes. Yours were strange to us, and then your persons attacked us, so they were wrongly pulsed." He regarded me for a second with those knobbed eyes, then finished. "There is nothing else to speak on this matter."
I listened to his little speech impatiently, and turned to Beert. "What's he talking about?"
"He is telling you that the death of your friend was an accident," Beert said irritably. "As obviously it was. It is time you put this anger out of your mind."
I considered that for a moment, but damn him, Beert was right. I didn't much like being taught right from wrong by a snaky-headed monster from outer space, but I gave in. "But what the hell does he need my guns for?"
Beert gave me his approving neck-twist. "That is better, Dan. The reason to arm this person is that the Greatmothers have given permission to return him to his home planet, where he is going to resist the rule of the Others."
Resist the rule of the Others? That changed things.
It didn't necessarily make us friends. The first feeling that flooded my mind was simple, burning envy. This creature was going to go home, while I was stuck helplessly here. I was suddenly more jealous than I have ever felt in my life.
But the facts were plain. If I couldn't do anything to help my own human race, at least I might be able to do something to harm the damn Others. It was only revenge. But it was better than nothing.
Beert was picking one of the guns off the ground. He held it out to me gingerly. "It is for these that we need your help, Dan. The Wet One will be in grave danger when he arrives at his home planet. He needs a weapon. His ability to stun or kill other organisms with electrical shocks works only underwater and at close range. That is not good enough."
"Sure," I said, perplexed, "but why do you need one of my guns? Seems to me those Horch fighting machines had plenty of firepower."
Beert gave me that negative neck-wave. "He cannot use the energy weapons of our cousins. They would interfere with his electrical senses. These projectile things of yours might work, but we are not well sure of how to use them. Look, I have made these containers for them." He pulled one of those flexible sacks off its clamp, and I realized they were intended to be holsters for the guns. "Unfortunately," he said sadly, "the containers do network well. Can you help?"
That put me right in familiar territory, so I grinned at him. "If there's one thing I'm good at," I said, "it's guns. Show me the problem."
He did. Actually, there wasn't a single problem, there were a lot of them. The first one was that Beert had put the holsters in on the wrong sides. I had heard that the flashier cowboy gunmen of the Old West-their TV versions, anyway-wore their guns like that, performing a lightning cross-draw when they had to kill some bad guy. That wouldn't work for the Wet One, because his anatomy wasn't up to the job. His short, skinny mid-arms were as conspicuously inadequate as the arms of a Tyrannosaur. They wouldn't stretch that far.
When Beert reversed the holsters, we put the guns into them-after I made sure the safeties were well and truly on-and had the amphibian practice draws.
That was an improvement, but it suggested something else to me. "When he actually shoots a gun, he should fire with his arm straight out, otherwise he may get a broken bone. These twenty-shots don't have much recoil, but he doesn't have much arm." The Wet One, who was listening intently, immediately began trying that out. I sighed as I watched him. "Practice as much as you can before you go," I advised. "Another thing.
Where do you think you might be doing this shooting, in the water or out of it?"
Beert swirled his head at me in alarm. "Will immersion in water harm the weapon?"
"Oh, no, they're waterproof, all right. What about it?"
I was looking at the amphibian, who answered for himself. "In most cases, I think, in air."
"That's good. I'm worried about shooting the gun underwater. It's not made for that, and with the resistance of the water, it might blow up in your hand. Try not to do that. Now"-I crossed my fingers-"let's see how good a shot you are."
Unsurprisingly, he wasn't good at all.
The Horch had nothing like a firing range, but Beert produced a wad of some kind of packing material out of the basket; I wadded up some of it and tossed it in the stream for a target. When the amphibian reared up on his front flippers he had just enough clearance to draw the guns and fire them, his tentacles nervously elevated out of the line of fire.
Beert was taking notes, skipping nimbly out of the way when the amphibian's shots went wildest. Then, when the Wet One reached the point of being maybe able to hit the side of a barn if he were locked inside, I decided he was about as good as he was going to get. I told Beert, "The holster clasp is too tight; you'll have to ease it up a little. He'll need reloads, too. Have you got more ammunition?"
It took a moment to make Beert understand that the weapon did not produce its own endless supply of bullets, but then he gave me the head-twist. "We can copy as much as needed."
Eschaton 03 Far Shore of Time Page 10