* * * *
Kate rubbed her eyes and leaned back in her chair, staring thoughtfully at a point near the ceiling of her lab while she went back over the data she'd collected on the Sirian beasts over the past year. There was something fundamentally wrong with her conclusions. Deep down, she knew there was, and it made her uneasy-and not just because she'd been pressured to produce a conclusion when she'd known she wasn't ready, that she hadn't studied the creatures nearly long enough to arrive at scientifically accurate conclusions. She just couldn't figure out what, exactly, it was that she'd missed or even pinpoint why she felt so uneasy or, more importantly, the odd sense of urgency that had been nagging at her ever since the Eden convoy had left for Sirius with the first load of colonists.
Leaning forward again, she propped her elbows on her console and cupped her hands together to rest her chin, examining the collection of images that she'd selected from the thousands they'd taken over the past year documenting the growth and behavior of the 'Sirian Sasquatch'.
They hadn't been able to come up with a name for the beasts because it was just about impossible to pin down a genus they seemed to match-they had class characteristics of so many!-but as they'd grown to maturity, someone in the lab had called them Sasquatch and it had stuck not only because, outwardly, they seemed closer to that beast than anything else but also because they'd gotten really big, really fast.
That wasn't the source of her uneasiness, though. It was actually a relief that they seemed to follow the typical maturing process of medium sized earth mammals when they didn't 'fit' anything else. They seemed to be, at least primarily, mammals, so the similarity of their maturing process to earth primates was almost hailed as a break-through discovery.
Shaking her head after a moment, she got up from her chair, stretched the kinks out and moved to the door of the habitat that they'd designed for their aliens. She'd already disengaged the lock and grasped the handle when a sudden thought struck her.
Frowning, she released the handle and moved back to the console, searching the data bank again for the image that had popped into her mind. She found nearly a dozen similar images, taken at different times before she found the one she'd been looking for. The uneasiness deepened as she studied it and the other images. After a few moments, she was on the search again. An hour later she had pulled up enough images to completely fill her holographic monitor and spread them out in the sequence they'd been taken.
A chill began to seep into her as she carefully studied each image and verified the camera that had taken it.
She was actually surprised to see that they'd managed to catch so many-considering their 'beasts'
obviously knew exactly where the cameras were and what they were for.
It occurred to her directly behind that realization that she'd unlocked the door leading to the habit. She'd designed and built it in the hope that they'd be able to observe the Sirian beasts under more natural conditions and thus get a better understanding of their behavior in their natural habitat.
She wondered if they'd found that amusing or insulting, but the certainty had settled in her that they weren't dealing with beasts at all. The Sirian Sasquatch was no animal-it was an intelligent species. She was certain of it.
Whether she could convince anyone else was a matter of debate, but she was a believer.
Even as she surged up from her seat and headed to the entrance to the habitat, however, Sissy flew the door of her lab and skidded to a breathless halt. Kate, already unnerved by the direction of her thoughts, whipped around instinctively at the sudden intrusion. Sissy's hair was askew from her rush, her eyes as wide as saucers and her face pale. "They're going to terminate the project! They're on their way down here now!"
"What?" Kate exclaimed in disbelief.
Sissy gulped. "Warner said he had the order from headquarters and it was out of his hands. I tried everything I could think of to convince him we hadn't studied the Sirian Sasquatch nearly enough, but he wouldn't listen. What are we going to do?"
Kate was so blank with absolute shock for several moments that she could only stare at Sissy. "They can't do that!"
Sissy was ringing her hands. "They can! We can't stop them! He called security-they're on their way down here now!"
Fear swept through Kate, completing her descent into complete disorder. "You mean terminate as in …
kill? They're going to destroy them?" she gasped in disbelief.
"That's what I've been trying to tell you!"
"Like hell!" Kate snapped, surging toward the door. "I'll talk to him, make him see reason! They're an important species! They can't do this!"
Sissy followed her as she surged out of her office. They hadn't made it to the end of the corridor when the tone sounded on the lift and the door opened. When it did, a half dozen armed security officers stepped out.
Kate and Sissy braked to a halt.
"Just hold on right there!" Kate said a little hoarsely. "I'm going to talk to Warner. Don't you dare do anything before I've had the chance to talk to him!"
The officer in charge glared at her. "You don't have the authority to countermand Warner's orders-and he was clear."
"Then I'll go over his head and talk to high command!"
"The order came from high command, from General Hart himself!" he retorted. "Step aside!"
"No!" Kate said stubbornly. "You can't do this, damn it! They aren't animals! They're an intelligent species! We need to understand them better! We've got colonists on the way to Sirius now. We don't have any idea what they might be up against!"
The officer studied her grimly and finally nodded his head at one of the other officers. "Take her into custody-both of them."
"You can't just shoot them down like animals!" Kate gasped as the security guard advanced on her and tried to subdue her, wrestling with the man to keep him from capturing her wrists. It was a short battle and she lost. Even as the guard secured her wrists, though, she suddenly remembered she'd left the containment door unlocked and Sissy had distracted her when she'd gone to secure it. A mixture of guilt, hope, and fear flooded her as her mind leapt to the possibility that the Sirians might have escaped when she and Sissy had abruptly abandoned the lab. She didn't think they'd been fooled by the habitat for one moment, despite her efforts to carefully construct it from the images they had of the surface of Sirius.
Even as she watched the security team hurry down the corridor, however, she realized that there hadn't been enough time for the Sirians to escape even if they'd heard anything and been able to understand, and she doubted that. The guilt switched poles from her fear that she might have released a potentially dangerous species to guilt that she was the one who'd fought to have them brought back to start with and she was ultimately responsible for their deaths. She began struggling again against the man restraining her. "Don't do it!
They're peaceful! They haven't hurt anyone or even tried, damn it! You don't need to do this! We could just send them back to Sirius with the next shipment of colonists!" she shouted after the security team.
The team leader paused at the door to her lab and hope sprang into her that she'd swayed him. Instead, he sent another man back to help the first. "Take the two of them down to lock up until Warner decides whether he wants charges brought against them or not."
Kate gaped at the man in disbelief. The comment took the fight out of her, however, not the anger and resentment, not the sense of guilt that she was responsible for the creatures' deaths, and not the nausea that followed that thought. She saw that struggling was useless, however.
As she and Sissy were hauled into the lift, though, she wished fervently that she'd had enough sense to lock the doors and change the codes. That would've held them off a little while ….
Not that it would do the Sirians any good, she realized in dismay. They were trapped, regardless, defenseless against the armed team of well trained security officers.
* * * *
They are coming. They have their weapons set to kill, Dae said grimly.
Noo didn't answer. He was studying their habitat for the best vantage point to launch an offensive attack.
They will split into two teams as soon as they enter. We may not have to kill them. If we can catch three together, we can use their weapons to stun them, hide them, and take their forms. It may give us the time we need to escape. Let us take up positions near the entrance. They will only become more agitated if they must search for us.
We do not know how long they will be stunned! Noo pointed out. If we only stun them we run the risk that they will escape and sound the alarm before we can escape!
If we kill them they will certainly retaliate in kind, Noo said tightly. They communicate with one another through those things they carry. We cannot allow them to alert the others and if we attack we cannot be certain that we can take them all down before one of them manages to sound the alarm.
They mean to kill us now! Rak retorted. You think that they will be more determined to kill us if we kill three of theirs?
I think that if they find out that we have killed three of theirs that they will lock down the space station and make it harder for us to escape!
If that is true, then it seems to me that we must kill all of them. We can take the forms, but they know one another. They will know we are not those whose forms we have stolen.
Noo considered that while they were settling into the positions they had chosen. We will kill them if we must. I did not say that you could not if you find it necessary. I said not to kill them unless it is. But Dae is right.
I think we must take them all out. They will know that we are not their team mates when we can only assume their forms. We will use that, however, to, hopefully, take out the other half of the team once we have secured the first half.
No one was more surprised than Noo when his plan worked so smoothly that it was almost as if the humans had planned it themselves. On the other hand, the humans had no idea that they could change forms because the humans not only could not, but they had not observed them changing forms. They merely blended with their surroundings, waited until the moment was right and managed to seize the first three and shoot them with their weapons before they could do more than to begin to struggle. It was unfortunate, for them, that they had set their weapons to kill, but since their own survival depended upon making certain the humans were not able to sound an alarm Noo did not waste a lot of time agonizing over it or suffer any qualms once done.
After studying his own kill carefully for several moments, he mimicked it as closely as he could and then carefully hid the body. When Dae and Rak had completed their own transformation and hidden the other two guards, they sought the remainder of the team out. Guided by their thoughts, they had no trouble locating them even with the distracting scents that surrounded them.
They discovered one had been left to stand guard at the entrance. That one was nearly their undoing since they had not figured out, yet, how to make the sounds that the humans made. More accurately, they had studied them very carefully and understood their communications, but they had not had any opportunity to practice it themselves. He had not considered it safe to do so when they were so closely monitored. Fortunately, although the guard was almost immediately suspicious when they did not respond to his verbal hail, they still managed to prevent him from sounding an alarm.
As exhilarated as he was to finally achieve freedom and to have escaped the fate intended for them, he was disgusted that they had not been able to manage it without killing. He had begun to understand the species and whether Dae or Rak agreed with his assessment or not, he knew that the humans would be far more alarmed and frantic to hunt them down and kill them when they discovered the bodies. Not killing the guards would not have prevented a hunt. The humans would still have hunted them, but they might have done so with the intention of merely recapturing them otherwise. Now, they would be determined to kill them on sight.
That thought put him in mind of the devices they used to record them and he took the time to destroy the machine they used to make their recordings. He was not happy about the necessity. It would have been far better if they had had time to merely disable the devices for recording that were inside the habitat, but they had not had enough time to do that once they discovered the intent of the humans.
Now they risked the possibility that the humans would realize why they had destroyed their machine, but that was still better than removing all doubt. Destroying the machine might make them suspect they were more intelligent that they had been given credit, but it would still prevent the humans from learning about their ability to change forms and that was their best weapon at this point. The humans would be looking for the forms they were familiar with.
What do we do now? Dae asked. They are bound to realize before long that six went in and only three came out.
I know, Noo responded grimly, and when and if they decide to investigate and find the bodies they will lock down the space station. We need to discover a way off before that. I would not worry about that if we could mimic their sounds, but I am not confident that we could do so convincingly when we have not had a chance to practice. I know the sounds and, I believe, most of the meanings. I feel that I could imitate them, but I do not know that I could do so closely enough to fool them.
He did not like the idea of leaving Kate, however. He had decided long since that she suited him as a mate. He had only been waiting for the opportunity to present itself to breed her, for he had reached the maturity to do so months before and it was next to impossible, he discovered now, to focus on finding a way to abandon her when that was as important to him as his survival.
There will be others on her world, Dae told him sharply. Survival must take precedence or there will be no opportunity for breeding.
Anger flickered through Noo, partly because Dae had dismissed Kate as if she was not the most ideal breeder when he was convinced that no other would do and partly because he had been so distracted that Dae had read his thoughts. His lips tightened. You two go and see if you can discover a way off of the space station that will take us to their world. I will go and see if I can discover a way to take Kate with us.
Dae looked as if he might argue with him but finally merely shook his head, motioned for Rak to follow him, and left.
Kate's scent lingered in the corridor, so delicate and masked by the scent of others that it was almost undetectable. It was marked with fear and anger and hardly recognizable as Kate's at that. He thought if he had not come to know her as he had that he might not have recognized it, but he had memorized everything about her in the time since he had been brought to her world.
He followed it to the pod they called a lift and stepped inside when it opened for him.
The machine recognized him as being a human and he felt a flicker of relief that he had mimicked the form well enough to pass that test. The form he had taken was only an exterior façade. Without taking the essence of a human into himself, he could not fully transform, would not be able to align himself closely enough to breed with Kate, but he had not dared risk an attempt to acquire what he needed for that final and total transition.
In any case, he wanted Kate's essence to take that step. He had no need or any desire to make a full transformation except to breed her for he would be giving as well as taking. The sharing would form a bond between them, a very tentative one, granted, but still a link that he had no wish to form with another human.
He was not nearly as impressed with them as a species as he had been when he had arrived for he had been little more than a hatchling then and far more impressionable. Captivity had changed that. He had begun to think that they would take him apart piece by tiny, painful piece with their collection of 'samples' to study.
There was no growing accustomed to such things, but he had come to understand that as long as they held him he could expect it to continue and it went beyond discomfort even though it fell shy of actual torture.
He had learned much about them while they were trying to learn about him, though, and it was easy to see that, despite their intelligence, they were weak, fragile beings. They had made themselves that way as far as he could see. They depended upon their ability to make things to protect them. Without their 'things' they would not survive long for they had very little strength to oppose threats, no gifts beyond their intelligence, and no physical shielding against the harshness of nature. Sheva's light and heat would bake the flesh from their bodies.
Mother Ra would freeze it when she turned her face away from Sheva and Ne would tear their breath from their lungs when she blew the rain and wind across Mother Ra's surface.
He had, in fact, considered discarding the notion of breeding upon one, begun to question whether adding their gifts to his clan would actually be beneficial. Beyond their intelligence, their form, as fragile as it was, was an adaptation that would be of benefit, though, he decided. True, it had been adapted for making things so that they could conform their world to their needs instead of conforming themselves to their world as his clan had, but he thought it would be good to have that ability if they ever had need. The gods could be unpredictable and harsh. There had been times in the past when they had conspired together to make survival for his clan very difficult, when so many had perished that their numbers had dwindled to little more than a handful. The gifts of this species, he thought, just might make the difference between surviving or not if and when the time came again that the gods decided to test them.
He was brought from his thoughts when the lift halted and more humans climbed on. He tensed when they glanced at him but relaxed again when they merely presented their backs to him and spoke to the wall. It took him several moments to realize that they were commanding their machine to take them to various places, for the pod/lift would stop, it would open to show a corridor that only differed by the symbol on the wall in front of the opening and then it would close and move again.
He sifted through the thoughts that he had captured from the security team and finally settled on their name for the place where they had taken Kate. He had to travel up and down many times before he had the lift pod to himself again and had the opportunity to test his ability to mimic the sounds he needed. "Z-cur-ty lok."
The pod remained stationary and irritation and uneasiness flickered through him, even a touch of panic as it dawned on him that he might be trapped in the lift/pod if he could not verbalize. Ignoring the uneasiness, he tried again. "Sss-cur-ty lok-p."
"Holding for prisoners is on level 2. Is this destination correct?"
Noo searched his mind. "Ye-sss."
The pod/lift, to his relief, began to move again. In a moment, the doors opened. This time when they opened, he saw a human like those who had come to kill them stride past the opening. Tension instantly tightened every muscle, making it difficult to fight his instincts to transform for protection, but he ground his teeth and stepped off when he caught a stronger taste of Kate's scent and, very faintly, the chatter of her mind.
Ignoring his survival instincts, he moved along the narrow corridor, testing the air for Kate's scent and searching for a stronger connection with her mind until he reached an area where her thoughts were clear enough he could understand them. She was close. He knew she must be for the humans did not have the ability to project their thoughts and the knowledge that he was close to her made it difficult to fight the urge to find her at once.
He had to assess the situation before he could free her, however, and he found a place where he could not be seen by the other humans and could still hear Kate, a small, dark pod that contained all sorts of things he had no idea of what their use was.
She was worried about them, he discovered, feeling a strange mixture of pleasure that he was in her thoughts and indignation that she thought they were incapable of defending themselves. It was difficult to follow her undisciplined mind for her thoughts leapt from one thing to another and back again at almost dizzying speed. It was the same with the other female, Sissy-except worse. It was easier to follow the thoughts of the males, but he had never had much interest in their thoughts-which only seemed to alternate between mating and whatever their business was at any given moment.
Images flickered through Kate's mind of him and his pod mates cowering in a corner while the security team blasted them with their fire sticks and then a new image took the place of that where they were running and beams of fire were tracking their paths. Then that image was replaced with them leaping upon the humans and tearing at them with their teeth and hands.
Those images were insulting in another way entirely, but they disturbed him on another level, as well.
She still perceived them as beasts, even though he knew that she had realized that they were not. Despite the great care they had taken to prevent the human's 'eyes' from recording anything that might give them away, Kate had seen images on her machine that did. He had 'heard' her thoughts. She knew they were not mindless beasts!
Why was it that she still imagined them as such?
Not that he was above using whatever weapon he had at his disposal to protect himself. He could not use