To rise a level, Lahks had to stretch almost into a thread. At one time she felt as if the weight of body trailing behind her would snap her in two. She was tempted again to try a mist form, but again she feared the air currents would disperse her particles too widely. Obviously, she had not learned all the Changelings knew. It would definitely be necessary to take lessons from them too.
Another level up. Lahks was grateful for the high oxygen concentration in the air duct. Gasping for breath with lungs extended into threads (if she had lungs) would have been a problem. Finally a grating. Lahks moved her eyes to the most forward part of her and peered through.
The ship, as Stoat had predicted, was old and mostly not automatic. A man sat at the com console, another at the helm, a third at internal control, and a fourth at armament. For a mercy, the Captain was in the command chair. Lahks had wondered, if he was not there, how she would recognize him. Not that knowing her man did her much good. With five of them in the room, it would be impossible to deal with the Captain there. Helmsman and weaponeer were turned toward the com and con consoles, and the Captain was frowning.
“What do you mean, it disappeared?” he snarled. “Nothing that size can disappear.”
The drom, Lahks thought, that idiot drom! The Power alone knew what it would do next—if it had enough mind for the Power to read. She did not take her eyes from the Captain, however, and her attention was rewarded. As the com officer spoke urgently into his instrument, the Captain cast his eyes around the room in an exasperated search for a spark of reason. Promptly Lahks extruded a delightfully feminine finger through the grate and beckoned enticingly.
The Captain’s eyes fixed; his mouth opened. Lahks beckoned again, then withdrew her finger. The Captain stared, transfixed. He knew there was no woman in that duct. In fact, aside from a snake, it was impossible for any moderate-sized creature to be in there. He withdrew his eyes with determination and listened to the report his com officer was making on the search for the escaped prisoners. Nothing needing his attention had come up, however, and his eyes irresistibly returned to the duct.
This time Lahks extruded two fingers under his fascinated gaze. First she beckoned, and then she made the sign used in Transit bases by whores to solicit trade. The Captain’s head jerked away. Then he rose suddenly and walked over to the air duct. Surprised, the men turned to watch, but Lahks had withdrawn her fingers as soon as the other men turned.
“Give me a light,” the Captain commanded harshly.
Puzzlement showed on all faces as the weaponeer proffered a handlight. The expression deepened as the Captain rose on tiptoes and pressed the light against the grid. Lahks flattened herself and produced a skin with a dull metallic sheen so that, aside from a slight constriction, the duct looked just as usual.
“Something wrong, Captain?” the com officer asked uneasily, aware that the air system had previously shown a red malfunction flicker. It had been so brief and had corrected itself so quickly that, in view of all the other things happening, the com officer had not mentioned it. The scowl the Captain turned on him did not encourage him to confess, particularly as the system showed green now.
The moment the Captain’s head turned, Lahks tickled his cheek and whispered, “I like you. Come be with me,” in her most dulcet tones.
Captains of Guild ships—especially those who consider betraying the Guild—are not timid men. The consciousness of intended betrayal tenses the nerves, however, and the incomprehensible antics of droms are scarcely a calming influence. When a man under severe tension begins to hear and see things that he knows are not there, he may be pardoned for suspecting that something is wrong with him.
The Captain backed away from the air duct, controlling his expression with an effort. He made an obscene comment about the living cargo his Cargomaster had seen fit to infest his ship with, added that he could be contacted in his quarters any time some helpful information turned up, and left the Control room.
Lahks had departed as soon as he stated his destination. Down was easy, and the path through the ducts was not long. She had oozed through the grating, resumed her normal form, and was behind the door when he entered his room. A dose of hypnotics turned him into an obedient mummy. Lahks sighed with relief—unfortunately a bit prematurely, because no sooner did she get the door closed than the com unit announced that one of the prisoners remaining in the brig was stirring and asked for instructions.
Had Lahks been given to temper tantrums, she would have thrown herself on the floor and roared. She dared not give the Captain the antidote, camouflage herself, and let him answer the com call, because in the temper he was in there was a chance he might order Fanny and Shom to be killed. It was not very likely, but it was possible. Moreover, what was most likely was that he would order them to be “questioned.” She had intended to fix a hypnotic suggestion into his mind that the Captain must come alone to Hydroponics and leave it to him to explain why if he met anyone. She herself intended to return by the way she had come.
Now she could not leave him on his own at all. The hypnotic suggestion would probably be strong enough to get him to Hydroponics before he went anywhere else, but he would certainly give instructions about Fanny and Shom as soon as he heard the com call. She would have to change into a crewman, which was easy enough, but without a stitch of clothing. . . Lahks spared herself an exasperated thought as to why adjustable clothing could not be developed, then thought of the forms she had been taking recently and grinned.
Then the com repeated the message and requested, a little anxiously, that the Captain reply. There was no longer a moment to spare. The men in Control would know the Captain must have reached his quarters by now. Already alerted by what they felt was odd behavior, they would send someone to look for him if he did not soon reply. Lahks took on Stoat’s face, enlarged herself to the Captain’s size, dragged coveralls from his wardrobe, and slipped into them while giving her instructions. She could only hope that with the insignia-bearing collar turned under and the sleeves rolled up, no one would realize she was wearing the Captain’s clothes.
One advantage Lahks was counting upon was the Captain’s bad temper. She assumed that the ordinary ship’s grapevine had already spread the word and that crewmen or officers would not take a chance on probing the somewhat wooden scowl she had fixed on his features. She had chosen Stoat’s face because the crew, being small, would all know each other. A stranger who appeared on the ship in the midst of this turmoil would be an immediate target for suspicion, if not direct attack. As a final precaution, she had the Captain draw his weapon so that she/he would appear to be a prisoner.
The precautions Lahks had taken were certainly in order. The antics of the drom and the escape of two prisoners had stirred the crew like sticks poking into a hornet’s nest. Everyone off watch seemed to be running around the corridors, and most of those on watch were peering out of the opened doors of their stations. The com plaintively repeated its information and requested that the Captain reply.
They were no sooner out the door than a young crewman running down the corridor skidded to a halt. “Captain. . .” he began.
“Later,” the Captain said, sounding to Lahks horribly like a recording of her own voice. “Tell com to shut up.”
That was undoubtedly not the usual procedure. The young crewman looked confused, glancing from the weapon to Stoat/Lahks to the Captain, but the scowl cowed him enough to make him back off down the corridor. He turned at the corner and ran, probably to seek advice from a higher authority, but fortunately the distance to Hydroponics was short enough so that they were not accosted again. Nonetheless, if they were not out of Ponics in a very few amin indeed, the entire crew would soon be in there with them. Lahks concentrated on compressing her instructions into the fewest possible words and readied the antidote.
The trick was to condition the Captain to forget that Stoat had used the Master’s code after they had left the ship. Lahks was by no means sure that the hypnotic she had could be used in that fashion, particularly when she did not have sufficient time to reinforce the conditioning by repetition. If it did not work, all four of them were as good as dead, because the entire resources of the Guild would be turned upon them—and the resources of the Guild as a whole made even those of the Guardians insignificant.
As they came through the door, Lahks told the Captain to holster the weapon and told him he was incapable of using it for five amin. Then she began her brainwashing spiel. Her time sense ticked away the secs. At three-amin-fifty, she signaled Stoat. Without the rustle of a leaf, he was there. She held up a hand, hit the Captain with the antidote, dropped her hand, and inside her head pushed a red button.
To all intents and purposes Lahks was now a datarec. She had no power of speech, movement, reason, or feeling, no physical senses or sensations beyond those necessary to record forever the sights, sounds, and personality of whomever spoke. The red button was dangerous, dangerous. What she saw and heard would be impressed indelibly far deeper than any mental process, down below the ego onto the id itself. If something damaging should happen, Lahks would wither and die— Changeling or no Changeling. Her safety valve was the black button, which had a timed relationship and a data relationship to the red. At a pause in the flow of data, the black button would go down automatically and release the red; the same would happen if data flowed for longer than a certain short time period.
The Captain, free of his mental paralysis, was reaching for his holstered weapon. The mnemonic code, a series of nonsense syllables, slid from Stoat’s lips. His eyes glazed, and he then produced a series of sounds that Lahks could have sworn were impossible to human vocal chords. The Captain stiffened into momentary paralysis again. For a moment naked hate showed in his face, but the compulsion was too strong. He could not act against Stoat.
“You will keep your Deal,” Stoat said. “My companions and I will keep ours—and perhaps you will achieve your original object, anyway. Think about it. You can make your private profit and still stay clear of the vengeance of the Guild.”
The indweller had released the red button as soon as the noises stopped coming from Stoat. Lahks melted away, leaving the Captain’s coveralls lying empty on the floor. Now she reappeared rather noisily, wearing her own face and clothing. The Captain swung nervously toward the sound, his hand again going to his holster.
“My companions—all of them—are under my protection,” Stoat said sharply.
But the Captain had relaxed as soon as he saw Lahks, even before Stoat spoke. It was not she he was arming himself against.
“And the beast?” he asked. “It is also yours?”
Stoat and Lahks laughed in chorus. “It is its own,” Stoat replied. “We do not know why it is here, but it will do no harm.”
“The ship is well provided, but where will we find food and water for a creature that size?”
“I do not think it eats or drinks,” Lahks said slowly.
“On Wumeera it took those compressed protein pellets,” Stoat remarked doubtfully. He had seen it “recharging,” of course, but it might need more than energy to survive.
“Perhaps it was just being polite,” Lahks suggested. “Anyway . . .”
“Polite!” the Captain gasped in an outraged voice, and then he made a wordless gurgle compounded of alarm and exasperation.
Lahks and Stoat swung around so they could see what his bulging eyes had fastened upon. They were not surprised to find a grinning reptilian head with bobbing eyes nodding benignly at them from between the Ponics growth. Both laughed aloud.
“Do you realize,” the Captain said with strained reserve, “that if it eats what grows in here, we will all die?” Then as the drom came forward to be closer, he gasped again. “How did it get up here?” he cried. “There is no shaft, no companionway it could pass through.”
“We do not know!” Lahks and Stoat exclaimed in chorus.
With a twinkle in her eyes, Lahks continued, “Perhaps it oozes through the air ducts. It can change its shape.”
Rage leaped anew into the Captain’s eyes. He ground his teeth. “And it whispers lewd invitations in a woman’s voice?” he grated.
Lahks lowered her lashes demurely over her dancing eyes. “I have never heard it make any sound, but it is obviously most attracted to you, Captain. Who knows what it can do when sufficiently inspired?”
There was a short silence, although Lahks and Stoat could imagine they heard a sizzling noise as the Captain damped down his erupting temper.
“Go ahead,” Stoat remarked, grinning so that all his sharp teeth showed. “Go kick it if you like. It won’t mind. It might lick you to show its appreciation of the notice you have taken of it. I have several broken toes I got that way, having spent some years on Wumeera.”
Aside from clenching his fists, the Captain did not move. “You can have passenger cabins two and four,” he said at last, in a voice markedly reminiscent of a man being garroted. “You may hope my conditioning will hold, if your hint of profit is not true, Master, but you can buy surety.”
He waited, as if expecting Stoat to come up with two heartstones. “It will hold,” Stoat said quietly but grimly. “Reward follows performance.” Without another word the Captain turned and left Ponics. Stoat cocked an appraising eye at Lahks and “tsk-tsked.” “Lewd invitations,” he said. “I am shocked.”
Lahks giggled, but her attention was fixed on the drom. “I wonder how it does get from place to place.”
“Teleports? How did the droms get into the middle of that desert when we needed them?”
“I have no idea, but if so, why did it take them a full day? Why weren’t they there when we started to move the flyer?”
Staring at the grinning creature, they both sighed. This was one problem that was not going to elucidate itself—at least not until the drom wanted it elucidated, if ever. Meanwhile, they had better get Shom and Fanny moved to more comfortable quarters and recover their weapons and baggage.