The Man-Kzin Wars 07

CHAPTER FIVE

Carol's eyes opened, gummy and blurred. Above, blue sky. She didn't believe it. Carol sat up, rubbed her eyes. The view did not change. She and Bruno were lying on a flat open area, on some thick ground cover. Like grass, though greener than any Terran grass. An unnatural green. Purplish blue sky stretched above them, speckled with delicate gossamer clouds. Carol stared in amazement, wordless. The air smelled fresh and antiseptic, with a clean tang of ozone. A breeze touched her arms like the delicate brush of soothing fingers. It was so quiet that Carol could hear her heart beat.

No signs of the weird aliens, kzinti, or even of the fact that they had been locked in battle just a few moments before. All Carol could remember was losing the suit commlink with Bruno in a snarl of static. Then nothing until she woke up here. Carol turned her head, stretching.

Somehow, behind them, the main airlock to Dolittle hung in midair. The rest of the ship was not there, however. One more impossibility They seemed to be alone. Carol rose easily to her feet. Too easily, she realized. She felt better than she had in many months, in years. She walked over to Bruno, and checked over his vital signs. He appeared to be sleeping deeply She shook him gently awake.

"What?" Bruno began, shaking his head, then stopped in surprise as his eyes opened. He looked around, confused. Then he recognized Carol and wrapped his arms tightly around her. "I thought I was dead," he whispered. "So did I." His confused frown deepened as Carol helped him to his feet.

"Don't ask me," she told him as he looked around. "Unless you believe in heaven?" Bruno stooped down and pulled up a small tuft of the dark green ground cover. He showed her the ten-lobed leaflets, and the crimson roots that moved gently while she watched.

"I doubt," Bruno said softly, "that heaven is sowed with extraterrestrial species of plant life." "How nice that you are so sure." Carol followed Bruno as he walked toward the magically suspended main airlock of Dolittle. He patted the empty air above and to either side of the metal door, and snorted in satisfaction.

"Try it," he invited.

Carol found that the airlock door seemed to be set in an invisible wall. The wall didn't feel hot or cold, like metal or plastic or stone. It was a hard, sharply defined barrier that they merely could not see. Except for the fact that heat conduction seemed perfect, it might have been optical diamond. The grassy plains beyond the wall were doubtless illusory, intended to give the impression of greater open space within their… cage.

Working together, she and Bruno quickly determined that their… yard was in fact about two hundred meters across, bounded by curving walls of invisible material. Dolittle clearly abutted it, with only the main airlock permitted to penetrate the force-wall.

The airlock opened normally, and they found Dolittle complete inside. Intact, though none of the sensory net or computer systems responded to commands. There were plenty of supplies still. They both noticed and commented on the one thing out of place: Dolittle was spotless, not as they had left it.

Carol stepped outside the spacecraft, back onto the too-green lawn. Soon Bruno joined her. They watched the ersatz clouds for a time, enjoying the quiet despite themselves.

It was good to breathe what smelled and felt like fresh air, especially after years of recycler stink.

"So," Bruno said finally, "I guess we just wait. Like before.”

Carol was considering suggesting to Bruno an interesting way to just wait when she heard someone clearing his throat behind them. They both leaped to their feet and whirled around.

It was then that Carol rethought her joke about religion, and decided that she didn't have a sense of humor after all.

Before them stood Colonel Buford Early.

Carol froze. Early looked precisely as she remembered him from their last briefing. His teeth were gleaming white, clearly prosthetic in his seamed and ageless face; his uniform was spotless. There was even the familiar arrogant twinkle in the old, old eyes.

"Bruno, son," Early said in an upbeat tone that was bizarrely inappropriate to their present circumstances. "And the lovely Captain Faulk. The pleasure is mine, entirely.”

She looked over at Bruno, who stood there, mouth open. Carol knew that Bruno saw Early as something of a father figure. She elbowed him hard to snap him out of it.

"Colonel Early," Carol said evenly, "could you please tell us how you came to be here?" She paused, then added more plaintively than she had intended, "And precisely where 'here' is?”

Early's expression did not change. His smile was fixed, mindlessly benevolent. His words came out strangely, in bursts. "It is important to relax, to take things one step at a time. To think. Proper channels of communication are necessary. So many errors are made through hasty conclusions. Too much information often leads to confusion, and ill action. Would you not agree, Bruno?" Each sentence fragment sounded subtly different in tone from the last.

"Carol?" Bruno whispered. Carol was glad to see that Bruno saw the simulacrum for what it was.

"Humor it," she murmured back.

Bruno straightened his shoulders. "Quite right, Colonel Early. But how goes the war against the kzin?”

Again, Early's face did not change. The relentlessly upbeat grin stayed in place.

"War is an evil. Yet sometimes an evil is necessary to preserve a greater good. Death is tragedy. Kzin are scream-and-leaping ratcats. Their strategies are improving." Carol scowled. "That isn't even a good imitation Early," she whispered as the figure in front of them continued to mix and match platitudes.

"Loud and clear," Bruno replied. "Those are just comments and speeches of Early's, cobbled together in response to questions we are asking." "Are you now calm?" the Early-thing asked them brightly, "Calmness is the first requirement for debriefing.”

Carol casually pulled a stylus from her coverall pocket, and tossed it underhand at the replica of Buford Early. The figure made no effort to catch it. The stylus passed through and landed on the grass behind. A distortion band started at the bottom of the figure's boots, and shimmied up and through its body. "A lack of trust is deplorable," the perfect replica of Early said with the same unchanging smile.

"Misunderstandings abound. Trust is fundamental." "A hologram. Good, too," Bruno said. Carol nodded, then walked directly through the projected figure and picked up her stylus, replacing it in her coverall pocket. She walked back through the hologram to return to Bruno's side. The replica of Buford Early vanished. Carol looked up into the purple false sty, and spoke calmly. "Show yourself, or speak to us." A voice spoke from all around them, still in Early's tones.

Sorrow mine.

"Excuse me?" Carol asked, confused. "I think that they're apologizing," Bruno whispered in her ear.

Bruno-entity correct. I/We intend null upset, null confusion. Attempt calm failure. Accept.

It was very strange to hear such odd words in Early's familiar voice. "Why do you use Buford Early as a model?" Bruno asked the air around them.

Question One. Curiosity/Innovation valuable. Bruno-entity internal patterns acquired. Electrons flow interestingly. Patterns clearer than Carol-entity. Projection intended as communication-enabler.

"They accessed your interface and read your mind?" Carol asked Bruno, studying his pinched expression and thinned lips.

Discomfort sensed, source Bruno-entity. Sorrow. Pattern acquisition necessary. Knowledge of Bruno-entity and Carol-entity required. Provisions for continuance. Accept.

"They needed to know how to keep us alive," Carol commented to Bruno. He still looked a little uncomfortable.

"Are you the… um, entities that analyzed our spacecraft?" Bruno asked.

Truth. One.

Carol smiled a little. "What should we call you? Does your race have a name?”

Humor. I/We not as you/they. No one entity-title. Many in one node-location. One node-location in many. I/We outside knowledge Bruno/Carol/other-entity. Patterns different. Outside knowledge.

"What if we call you Outsiders?" Carol raised an eyebrow at Bruno, who nodded.

Accept. One.

"Why did you capture us?" she asked, hoping that the Outsiders could understand speech better than they could produce it.

Entity-not-Bruno-not-Carol. Interrogatory. Concept difficulty. Queries. Aggression. Disruption. Inefficient. Patterns unclear. Issues complex.

There was a long pause.

Protection.

Bruno looked over at Carol. "Do they want to protect us, or us to protect them?" "We'll sort it out later – though I would hate to meet whatever they need protection from." Carol took a deep breath, then continued. "Outsiders, there are many things we do not understand. Will you help us to learn more?”

Laudable but possible not. Warm/Cold mix not all. Warm/Warm mix not often; Bruno-and-Carol entities with other-entity. Some Warm/Warm mix. Help yes/no. Understand not. Observe. Learn.

"Observe what?" she muttered, frustrated. "Carol, look!" To their right in the grassy false distance hung a circular window into another such 'park'. Through it they saw the blunt ovoid shape of a kzin singleship, and a huge orange-furred lump lying near it Wisps of white feathery material led from the dark lawn into a network surrounding the prone kzin. Carol felt sure it was the ratcat that had been attacking Dolittle.

Nature altercation. Intentions. Interrogatory. Coding similar, not-mixing understand one-not. Entity aggression Hot/Cold/Warm. One-not. Interrogatory.

"I don't understand," Carol and Bruno chorused.

One. Time necessary. Solution short-duration.

She ignored the odd words and looked again at the stretched-out kzin. "Is it dead?" she asked.

Negative. Aggression high. One-not. Acquisition difficult. Damage severe. Repairs completed soon.

"Is there any way that we can help you?" Carol inquired of the open air.

Not I/We. One-not. Entities not-Bruno/Carol, not-other entity. One interrogatory. Arrive present. Speak wish interrogatory. Fortune better; Warm/Warm focus increase Warm/Cold. Speak wish interrogatory.

Bruno whistled. Carol, clueless, urged him to speak his piece.

"I think I understand. The Outsiders have another type of alien waiting to speak with us, another warm-temperature type, but not human and not kzin.”

Truth. Bruno-entity. One.

Carol nodded. "Outsiders, we wish to talk to these other life-forms.”

Accept. One. Observe. Interact.

Another bubble-window appeared in the force-walled enclosure, very close to where they stood.

"What the… " Bruno said softly.

Carol felt dizzy with the strangeness, shaking her head. Too much change in too little time, she thought wildly, and stood a little straighter.

Two aliens stood ten meters away. They both had three legs ending in tiny hooves. Each of them had two flat, single-eyed heads at the ends of long waving necks. They wore clothing and what looked like tools. The larger one appeared to wear armor studded with spikes and sharp edges, and one head hovered over what seemed to be a holster containing a pistol-like object. It never moved. The hair under the two necks of the smaller alien was elegantly coifed and glittered. Its heads waved gracefully, one held high and the other low.

A long silence.

"Take me to your leader," Bruno muttered. Carol wanted to kick him in the shin.

The smaller of the two beings cocked a head suddenly and looked from Carol to Bruno, bird-swift. "Mr. Takagama," it sang in a woman's contralto, low and sexy, as Carol's jaw dropped in surprise, "I hardly think that such inappropriate levity is called for under the present serious circumstances.”

The smaller of the two creatures then turned its other head to Carol, who slowly closed her mouth.

"We intend no disrespect to you, Captain Faulk," crooned the alien from the second single-eyed loose-lipped head, in an identical voice. "In fact, we are quite aware of primate protocols. However, may we speak frankly with one another? There is not a great deal of time for sociobiological niceties.”