The Man-Kzin Wars 07

CHAPTER FIFTEEN

Carol and the two-headed puppeteer stood close to one another. They watched the swirling colors and strange shapes of hyperspace through the view hemisphere above them. None of what she saw made sense, even with the Dissonant Outsider enhancements for their benefit.

"I can't see a damned thing," she whispered. Carol thinned her lips in fatalism. She had seen friends die before, even lovers.

But Bruno?

"They have taken the human ship inside the Zealot main craft," observed Diplomat, necks weaving as he observed the view portal. His left head dipped into a pouch and emerged, chewing slowly.

"How do you know?" she asked. The alien grass beneath her bare feet was cool and remote. The Zealot spacecraft above her was a blurry, shifting collection of warped geometrical shapes, now close, now far away.

"I will improve the image resolution for your benefit," replied Diplomat.

If Bruno has been taken aboard the Outsider ship, he must be dead, she thought. Carol's face became hot, and the beginnings of tears stung her eyes. She fought the tide of emotions.

In the back of her mind, Carol saw Bruno's wry smile, his look of surprising innocence in his old, old eyes. Oh, my love, she thought. You were no soldier, Linked or un-Linked. How could you have done this wasteful thing?

She could feel one of Diplomat's heads looking at her curiously, but ignored it.

Through the view portal, she saw the kaleidoscopic image of the Zealot warship shift and smear, colors and shapes distorted by the bizarre topology of hyperspace around them. It was difficult to clearly see the hostile Outsider ship, but Carol's instincts jangled her nerves like an alarm.

A tiny, glittering speck seemed to merge with the collection of shapes and forms that was the Zealot spacecraft.

"Will it all be for nothing?" she asked. "I think not," the puppeteer sang in its sultry woman's voice. "The Dissonants have placed a… trap… within Mr. Takagama.”

"A trap?”

"Yes. A self-replicating pattern that will wreak havoc on the Zealot group mind. It will make more copies of itself, increasing confusion and destruction." "But what will happen to Bruno?" Carol asked, knowing the answer. As if in answer, the Zealot ship seemed to shimmer. Waves of darkness passed over it. "I think," sang the puppeteer, "that Mr. Takagama has been successful." Carol could not look away. The Zealot spacecraft suddenly seemed to have a hexagonal hole in its center. Triangular segments began to vanish along the hexagon, increasing in size. As if the Outsider ship were being eaten. "What…?" "When the force-shields are lost," sang Diplomat softly, "the matter from our space-time continuum can no longer exist in hyperspace." "Where does it go?" The little puppeteer shook his head at Carol. "Anywhere. Everywhere. Nowhere.'" The Zealot ship was a bizarre patchwork of holes and cavities. The rate of the absorption of the spacecraft by hyperspace was increasing. A thin silvery filigree of brightness shone against the blurred opalescence. Then – Nothing. The Zealot ship was gone. And Bruno Takagama with it. She turned to Diplomat. "Is it – " she began. "It is over.”

Carol did not know how to mourn the man, to remember him. Her eyes burned, yet no tears filled them. She had always been a practical woman, strong and capable. Carol knew that in her bones. But Bruno had seemed oblivious to it. He had opened her up, defused her cynicism. Carol's mind dredged up bits and pieces, fragments of the brave little man's life with her, inside the dingy corridors of the Sun-Tzu.

It all had to mean something.

Even stranded far from human space, in a spacecraft of alien manufacture moving in another dimension, Carol knew that humanity was worth something. It was more than weapons or technology or sex or fighting.

Bruno had taught her that.

She was standing in front of an alien that no human had ever seen, inside an impossible spacecraft built by aliens still stranger. She was too good a soldier to think that she would be allowed to go home. Would they dissect her, like some laboratory animal? Or break her very mind down into pieces, as they had done with poor Bruno, when first taken aboard?

Her life – all of it – had to be worth something, more than an impotent challenge to the night sky. Black entropy could not always win, not here and now.

She had fought for things she had believed in, made a difference. Had been true to the things in which she had believed. So had Bruno. Bruno Takagama would not want her to give up, no. He never had, not even when fighting against himself.

Carol remembered Bruno's love of old poetry, from the bad old days when humans had walked alone across a single world. Poetry scribbled with pigments on sheets of flattened vegetable matter. Long-dead words that had resonance after centuries.

One of them came to mind, by someone named Hunt written before the atom had yielded up its energies to mankind, and the gene her potent secrets. It had been stored on one of Bruno's recreation datachips, and had pleased her. Light and silly, but with a sting of truth to it.

Carol whispered the words aloud, ignoring the nonhumans listening to her.

"Say I'm weary, say I'm sad, Say that health and wealth have miss'd me, Say I'm growing old, but add, Jenny kissed me.”

Carol turned to the alien, and drew herself UN Space Navy straight. She wanted to do the memory of Bruno proud. He had faced his fate well; so should she. Carol prepared to speak.

"Well," a voice said into her ear from the air around her, "I must admit I have never kissed anyone named Jenny But kissing Carol Faulk is something to remember.”

Bruno's voice.

Carol's jaw dropped – then she closed it. Anger quickly formed in the pit of her stomach. "This is some kind of trick," she grated, moving without thinking toward the little two-headed alien, her fists raised like bludgeons.

Her nose banged painfully into the invisible barrier. The alien was prepared; Carol had to give him that.

Even with the protective shield between them, Diplomat had turned to run. It looked over its shoulder with one head.

"Captain Faulk," the two-headed alien sang quietly, "I can assure you that I have no intention of tricking you." The single eye in the head facing her glittered. "Can I trust you to eschew violent action?”

She lowered her shaking fists and nodded.

"I wish to offer you what you humans would call… a deal. Is that the correct idiom?" The little head that had been speaking paused, cocking to one side.

Carol said nothing, still seething. Would they make a dead man pawn to their plans, too? "No matter," Diplomat continued. "A demonstration is in order." The alien raised its voice. "Mr. Takagama?”

"Yes?" replied Bruno's voice from nothing, again. "Since Captain Faulk is… underwhelmed?… by my approach, would you please explain your presence." Carol's head whirled. "It is me, Carol. Before the Dissonants sent us against the Zealot ship with the databomb in my circuitry, they uploaded my mind into their processing core." "But that's – " "Impossible?" A tone of humor entered the familiar voice. "You have always forgotten how much of me is electronic." Still suspicious, she thought about it for a moment. There was some truth in the words, but it could be a trick; a souped-up version of the Buford Early hologram when she and Bruno had first been taken aboard the Dissonant spacecraft. "Do you want me to quote the rest of that poem?" Bruno's voice asked. "I can, you know. Leigh Hunt was one of my favorite poets. Or would you prefer Yeats? Dylan Thomas? Or how about Gulati?”

"No," she answered quickly, not wanting to believe. "Information is information. Bruno's datachip collection was in Dolittle, and could have been downloaded." For once, the little Puppeteer kept quiet while Carol said nothing. Waiting, half hoping. "I remember walking out of the Black Vault with Colonel Early and Smithly Greene, while you were walking into the building." Was there a smile in the voice? "You looked good under lunar gravity. We were just back from a roundtable on antimatter containment. Colonel Early introduced us but you looked at me like I was a bug.”

Carol smiled. The first time she had met Bruno Takagama she had thought he was a bug. "I suppose I did. But – for the sake of argument – how is this possible?" "The Outsiders do not – cannot – think as we do. They require a model of alien thought, as a translator.”

She pulled on her lip. "An electronic slave?”

"Hardly. They know how to restrict my… growth… to keep me human. They want to keep a copy of my mind as a translator." Bruno's mind, loose in any computer architecture, would mutate and change rapidly, turning into something inhuman. His reactions to extended Linkage proved that. But did the Outsiders know that much about how a human mind operated? "There is more, Captain Faulk," interjected the puppeteer.

She nodded at him to continue.

"Our hosts can build Mr. Takagama a fresh biological body. They can use what they learned when you were first taken on board, along with the autodocs on Dolittle." The weaving heads peered at Carol. "And then they can download his mind into it.”

"Impossible," she scoffed.

Diplomat pawed delicately at the turf beneath his hooves. "You seem to use that word often, Captain Faulk." Wasn't hyperspace impossible? Or how about a galactic war between creatures of flame and ice? She was certain that, even now, she was not being told even a fraction of what was truly at stake. "Carol," Bruno's voice broke in. "Please listen. Please." "If this is another trick," she reminded Diplomat almost gently, "I will find a way to get around these force-shields and wring your necks – one at a time." The weaving heads stopped. "You would do this? Truly, Captain Faulk?" "If you tell the truth," she clipped, "you have nothing to fear, do you?" The puppeteer considered her statement. "With your kind, there is always something to fear." Carol held back a smile. "Keep that in mind." A head cocked. "As you say, Captain Faulk. Though you do not improve your position with threats. But it is true that the Outsiders will download Mr. Takagama's stored mind into a rebuilt body. It would be most difficult under normal circumstances, but so much of Mr. Takagama's mind was… " "Mostly circuitry," added Bruno's voice helpfully. "Yes, electronic… so that the task would be much easier." "What is the catch?" Carol asked. "I doubt that even aliens do favors out of the goodness of their hearts." The puppeteer froze for a moment, then both heads leaped up and faced one another again. "Wonderful phrase," the three-legged alien sang.

"The catch," reminded Carol. "It is unlikely that you will be returned to human space soon. The Outsiders do not want extensive information regarding them distributed, until they are known by a new species.”

Carol finally did laugh. "Diplomat, I don't know anything about the Outsiders. And I just witnessed a battle between two factions." "Nonetheless." Again, the little alien pawed the lawn in impatience. "The Outsiders require that you and the… reconstituted Mr. Takagama stay out of human space, until such time as the Outsiders make themselves known to your race.”

"Easy to do," Carol pointed out to the puppeteer. "Our ship is useless. Do you intend to strand us somewhere?”

The puppeteer moved from hoof to hoof lightly. "Not at all, Captain Faulk. You and Mr. Takagama would assist me in my dealings with alien races." The eyes on different head held hers. "You seem relatively unfrightened of new things and I find your insights interesting. You will make useful companions and coworkers.”

"And once humans make contact with Outsiders or puppeteers?”

Diplomat's right head wobbled up and down loosely. "You would of course be returned to human space." Yeah, right, Carol thought to herself. But what choice did she have, really? There was only one more thing… "Bruno," she called. "I hear you, Carol. Will you agree to Diplomat's terms?" "If you are with me, Tacky, yes. But – even if they can do all they promise – how do I know it is you?”

The voice of Bruno Takagama sighed. "Carol, I can't answer that question. Are you the same person when you wake up as you were when you fell asleep? And can you prove it?" "This is a little different – " But the disembodied voice cut her short. "Not at all. A great deal of my mind was stored electronic data; you know that. And did you not think it was me after the EMP fried my brain?" The Bruno-voice had a point, but still… "Wait a minute," she argued. "You only have Bruno's memories up until he left for the Zealot ship." "True enough," replied the voice. "But again: You were prepared to take care of me after the EMP blast, even had I been seriously brain damaged, right?" She nodded. "Yes," she added, not knowing if Bruno's mind could see her. "How is this all that different?" She could not disagree with the voice's point. Was she doing the right thing? She was Finagle only knew how far away from Earth or Wunderland. What could she do? And she might learn something, if the little alien was not treacherous. Carol thought about a completely foreign set of stars and planets, strange aliens and odder adventures. Things no human had ever seen. And wouldn't see, if Diplomat had its way, for some time yet.

But she would. And – maybe – she would do so with Bruno by her side. "Yes," Carol said simply. "I accept." She could hear Bruno's voice sigh. "Excellent," replied Diplomat. Carol held out a hand. It couldn't have all been for nothing. "There is one more thing, Diplomat.”

"What is it, Captain Faulk?”

Carol's eyes jogged back and forth, trying to hold the gaze of the two weaving heads. "We can't leave humanity to be kzin bait.”

"We will not obliterate the kzinti," Diplomat sang firmly. "They are aggressive, but may someday be useful. You know this, surely.”

"Fine," Carol replied. "But they have too much of a technological edge. How can we humans hold our own long enough to learn to live with the ratcats?”

The two snake-heads of the puppeteer again flipped up and stared one another in the eyes. "Captain Faulk, I have an excellent idea regarding that concern of yours.”

"Do tell," Carol drawled. She would have to play this one carefully. Maybe it was possible to salvage something from this debacle, after all.

Why, sometimes I've believed as many as six impossible things before breakfast, Carol thought to herself. The phrase did, she decided, have a certain ring to it. A good antidote for her becoming too dogmatic, he had told her. Carol had always wondered where Bruno had dug up that phrase.

Perhaps she could ask him soon. In the flesh.