Eschaton 3 - THE FAR SHORE OF TIME

CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO

I don't know if Beert had slept, either. When I got to where the Wet One was, Beert was there, too, painstakingly reattaching all the amphibian's gear to his body, but he didn't speak to me.

He didn't speak on the way back to the transit-machine chamber, either. The trip seemed shorter than it had coming the other way, maybe because my mind wasn't on what we were doing. What my mind was occupied with was wondering what Beert's mind was. I knew he was feeling guilty. I didn't know what he would do about it. If duty overcame friendship, he only had to speak a couple of words and my hopes of ever getting back to Earth would be right down the tube. Or if he dithered indecisively for very long, that would be nearly as bad. What I wanted was to be on my way before it occurred to anybody to put in a call to the Eight Plus Threes.

A couple of the Christmas trees were waiting for us at the transit machine. So was a living Horch-a very young Horch, I thought, because he was no more than half Beert's size, but handsomely decked out in a scaled-down version of his Greatmother's body armor. "I am Kofeeshtetch," he said-or something like that. He was talking to Beert, but his neck was swaying toward me and the Wet One. "I am the Greatmother's least grandson. Can these organisms talk?"

Kofeeshtetch turned out to be pretty nearly the best thing that had happened to me in a while. He was a pampered, and fairly well spoiled, youngster, and that was very good for us lower organisms. He wasn't just interested in us, he was fascinated. He was even more fascinated-no, the right word is "thrilled," thrilled enough to be peeing his pants if he'd had any-at what we two aborigines were planning to do. Invade strongholds of the Others! Do it single-handed! "When I myself am grown," he boasted breathlessly, "I too will command forces to capture stations and worlds from the Others, just as my parents did in this installation! But I will not, of course, be foolish enough to attempt it alone. Do you imagine that you have any hope of succeeding at all?"

I wasn't sure whether he was asking the Wet One or me, but I wanted to be the one who answered. "With the generous help of you Horch, yes!" I said.

Beert gave me a disapproving look, translated as Shut up, you 've made enough trouble. "It is kind of you to take an interest, Kofeeshtetch," he said, doing his best to be polite to a grandson of a Greatmother, "but we have urgent business. This Wet One is most uncomfortable in this dry and weightless environment. He should begin his mission without delay."

The youth shrugged impatiently. "Of course, but first I wish to hear his plans in detail. Speak to me if you can, Wet One."

The amphibian's little electric whiskers were twisting about. For a moment I thought the Greatmother's least grandson was going to get a cattle-prod shock to hurry him along, but courtesy, and prudence, won out. The Wet One began telling his plans in his thick, slobbery voice.

Kofeeshtetch listened with a lot less courtesy, his neck drawn back from the Wet One in repugnance. "I can hardly understand this one," he remarked to Beert. "He speaks very poorly, as do you. I am disappointed." He turned to the nearest Christmas tree. "At least display for me what his planet looks like, also"-shooting one arm in my direction-"the planet of this one."

"We have not yet identified the other organism's home," the machine apologized.

"Do so! Meanwhile, the display!"

There was no doubt that Kofeeshtetch was used to having his orders obeyed. They were. Another of the Christmas trees, the one hovering by the transit machine, quickly swung itself to a TV bowl in the wall and made adjustments.

As a picture sprang up in the bowl, the amphibian caught his breath in a sort of loud, abbreviated snore. To me, the picture was just a planet, and not a particularly interesting one. None of its few land masses looked anything like Earth, but it meant something to the amphibian. He croaked, "That is it! I believe that is my true Home Water!"

One of his shocking tendrils was resting on the image, touching a wide bay that looked like any other wide bay to me. It didn't seem to mean much to Kofeeshtetch, either. As he pulled himself closer, one of those mean-looking fighting machines got in his way, but he shoved it rudely aside. Then he made a sound of disgust. "This is a very tedious object, Wet One," he told the amphibian. "There is too much water. But if you wish to go there, then do so."

And he waved to the Christmas tree, who opened the door of the transit machine.

The amphibian crawled in, attachments and all, and the other robot tossed his ammunition boxes after him.

The door closed.

Kofeeshtetch made a gesture of dismissal. "I do not think that Wet One will survive for long," he remarked, and that was all there was to it.

After a moment Beert sighed. "I would have liked to wish him well on his venture," he said meditatively. "In any case, thank you for your help, Kofeeshtetch, but now I am quite tired. I think I will go to my chamber and rest before the banquet. Are you coming, Dan?"

I looked at the young Horch. He seemed poutily disappointed in the entertainment, but he hadn't left.

"You go ahead, Beert," I said. "I think Kofeeshtetch still has some questions for me, so I'll stay a bit."

It took me about thirty seconds to get the kid juiced up again-he was, after all, a kid. All I had to do was to ask him if he would please grant me the favor of telling me how his ancestors had captured this installation. That did it. He was off, and then all I had to do was make the appropriate thrilled noises from time to time.

His story was full of Horch names that I didn't retain, and matters of who took precedence over whom that I didn't understand in the first place. Most of it, though, was blow-by-blow descriptions of how his parents' technicians had managed to insert their fighting forces into the Others' channel. And how the first wave of Horch fighting machines had been destroyed in a few moments. And how the Horch had sneaked a second wave in through a different transit machine while the defenders were distracted by what was happening at the first one. And-

And on and on. Kofeeshtetch loved the subject. He acted it out, with limbs and neck flying in all directions. It was interesting to me, too, as an insight into how the Horch did their fighting… but, at that moment, not very. I wanted to get on to my own problem, but I didn't want to interrupt.

When Kofeeshtetch got to the point where their Horch robots were mopping up the rags and tags of flesh that was all there was left of the Others' warriors, I began to hope for an ending. "The Greatmother has told me," he was saying proudly, "of how vile the stench of those decomposing corpses was, so that for a time it was difficult to breathe, even more difficult to eat without vomiting. To carry on the work of this installation was very hard."

Carry on? I did interrupt him then. "But this was an Others' installation. Why would you want to carry on their work?"

He gave me a scornful hiss, thrusting his head in my face. His breath was not nearly as inoffensive as Beert's. "Of course it had been operated by the Others. What of it? The Others are filthy vermin, but there are some few objectives we share in common. Do you want to hear the story of my parents or do you not?"

I wanted to hear what those common objectives were, but I wanted even more to get to my own desires. "Your parents were very, very brave," I said with admiration. "I only hope that I can be as brave, and as successful, when I too fight against the Others."

Kofeeshtetch swayed his neck indecisively back and forth for a moment. I could see that he was reluctant to give up his favorite subject, but he was torn.

I understood his dilemma. When my uncle Max Adcock, the not-very-successful buccaneer capitalist, told me about the next great stock raid or franchise operation that was going to make him rich at last, if only Uncle Cubby would help him out with a little seed capital, I always listened. To the ten-year-old I was at the time, it was exciting. I don't mean that I liked Uncle Max. Apart from the fact that he was my cousin Pat's father, I didn't have much use for the man. Kofeeshtetch didn't have a lot of use for lower organisms like me, either, but he had the same yearning to hear about exciting adventures. "Tell me your plan," he said sulkily.

Actually, the word "plan" was a lot more dignified than my hazy notions deserved, but I did my best. I said, "A scout ship of the Others is somewhere near my home planet. With your Greatmother's gracious permission, and assuming the proper channels can be accessed, I am going to invade it and kill everyone aboard."

"Hum," he said-actually, it was more like an approving growl. But he looked puzzled. "What do you mean by a 'scout ship'?"

It was my turn to be puzzled. Neither Beert nor Pirraghiz had had any difficulty knowing what I was talking about, so why did he? I floundered. "In order to discover civilizations like mine, the Others send out exploring vessels which travel slower than light speed. When they find one-"

"Yes, yes," he said, sounding impatient. "But such vessels come in many varieties, both for us Horch and the Others. Which kind do you mean?"

I winced. It had never occurred to me that there might be different kinds. But I said staunchly, "Whatever kind is there. It doesn't matter. I will slip aboard and start shooting. Only," I added, "there is a problem. I won't be able to do any of that unless I have weapons and a scrambler to disrupt their communications, like those the Wet One had. Now those are gone-"

Kofeeshtetch was waving his arms reprovingly. "You are so ignorant," he complained. "All such patterns are stored in the transit machine. It would be quite simple to make copies if there were any point to it, but is there? I am not satisfied that your plan is good."

He meditated for a moment, then gave a decisive neck-swirl. "I wish to see this scout ship for myself." He turned his head to the nearest Christmas tree and barked, "I am waiting! Haven't you found that planet for me yet?"

You wouldn't think a Christmas tree could look embarrassed, but this one's branches and twiglets hung low. "We have not yet made a positive identification."

That bugged me. "Of course you can do it! You've been relaying data from it for months!"

The robot didn't extend even one tiny spring in my direction. To Kofeeshtetch it said, "Relays occur automatically. We have traced all such, but there are two eights of planets transmitting this sort of data. Can this organism say whether his people use radio?"

I resisted an impulse to laugh. "Oh, yes. All the time," I said.

Still to the Horch: "That eliminates some. Then how many moons does this planet have?"

"One big one."

"Then, Kofeeshtetch," the robot said, shooting out a sprig of needles to touch the controls of the screen, "it is likely that this is the planet you seek."

And when the picture had formed in the bowl, it was.

I could see the dagger of India stabbing down into the Indian Ocean, with the little island of Sri Lanka dripping off its tip. As the planet slowly spun I could see Africa emerge, and the beginnings of Europe. There was something strange about the image, though. Tiny dots of reddish light that I had never seen before were sprinkled around the globe. But there was no doubt what I was looking at. I swallowed. "That's the Earth," I said, suddenly homesick.

Kofeeshtetch was not sentimental. "Not the planet!" he snapped at the robot. "Isn't there a survey vessel of the Others nearby?"

"We have identified one, yes. Here is a plot of its transit machines-"

Three or four of those reddish lights appeared, close together, against a background of stars. It was the stars, more than those little lights, that made me catch my breath. This was none of that awful intergalactic black, nor all those multicolored headlights of the globular cluster. These were my own stars, the very constellations you can see from Earth. I recognized at least one of them, the seven stars in a cup-and-handle pattern that every child knows as the Big Dipper.

Kofeeshtetch wasn't interested in stargazing. "So many transit machines," he muttered. "Can we see the ship itself?"

At once stars and ruddy lights vanished and we were looking at another set of children's Tinkertoys. "We have no view of the specific craft, but it is probable that it is this model," the robot said.

It looked to be smaller than the nexus itself, or at least a little less complicated, but it impressed Kofeeshtetch. "But this is no mere robot scout! It must be in fact a major vessel of the Others." He swung his head to face mine. "You could not possibly succeed in attacking it single-handed! It will be staffed with many, many warriors of the Others, all better armed than you. Such a venture would require a full-scale assault, almost as large as the one with which our nest stormed this place."

That was not at all what I wanted to hear. I think I'm more or less brave, but I'm not stupid. A one-man suicide venture against impossible odds didn't sound attractive-at least, unless there was nothing better on offer. I took a chance. "I don't suppose you could interest your Greatmother in, well, in launching such an attack?"

Kofeeshtetch laughed in my face, little raucous puffs of bad breath. He didn't say anything. He didn't have to. His laughter made it quite clear that the Horch were not going to launch a major battle to please a lower organism like me, especially over a pissant little planet like Earth.

What he did say was, "Your plan is not worth pursuing. Perhaps you should return to the Eight Plus Threes. I will leave you now to prepare for the feast the Greatmother is providing for Djabeertapritch."

He looked like he was getting ready to do it, too. I could feel my dreams collapsing around me, but one faint hope of an idea was percolating through my mind.

"Wait a minute," I begged. "Can I see the planet Earth again?"

I had nearly lost him. He was just a child, after all. If I wasn't about to pursue the feats of derring-do that fired up his kid imagination, he had no further use for me. He hung indecisively from his cable for a moment, then said petulantly, "Oh, very well, but do it quickly."

Quickly was how the robot did it. The planet had revolved a little more. Now we were looking at the Atlantic Ocean, South America bulging out into it and the East Coast of the United States just visible on the periphery. I peered at that unfamiliar scattering of red spots, clustered mostly along the shorelines. I pointed. "What are those?"

Kofeeshtetch gestured, and then the robot answered me. "We have no definite identification. They appear to be satellite installations, but we do not know their purpose."

"But they're smaller, and they're right on the surface of the Earth."

"That is not precisely accurate," the machine corrected me. "If you will observe, they are all in the water regions of the planet, close to the land masses but not on them."

"But still-" I began to argue.

I didn't finish. Kofeeshtetch waved me to silence. He was beginning to catch the spirit. "That might be a workable plan," he said thoughtfully. "A smaller installation. Only one transit machine each. Perhaps only operated by machines, certainly with a much smaller complement than the ship in space-yes! This may be worth considering. I will think on this, and perhaps seek advice from the Greatmother."

When I got back to my room, as jubilant as I dared be, Pirraghiz was waiting for me. She listened, but didn't comment, as I told her what had happened. "Where's Beert?" I asked. "I must tell him!"

"Djabeertapritch is sleeping, Dannerman. This has been exhausting for him."

She didn't sound excited at all, and she was bringing me down with her. "But he will want to hear all this!" I insisted.

She gave me one of those six-limbed shrugs. "You can speak to him when he wakes, Dannerman," she said firmly. "He has some important decisions to make, and he has ordered me to let him rest. It is better if you rest, also. Would you like to eat first?"