Oomoing drank in the sight. The transmissions she had received on the way here still hadn’t done the creature justice. It was long and lanky – a thin torso, small head topped by a short, fuzzy mane of dark brown hair, four feeble limbs; all part of a stretched body much taller than the colonel or any other male, though only a head or so above Oomoing’s own height. Its skin was pale pink and looked clammy to the touch.
The eyes were recognizable – at least, Oomoing assumed that was what they were, though she had to remind herself to take nothing for granted. Still, they were in roughly the same place as a Kin’s own eyes, and as the eye had evolved independently on Homeworld in a multitude of species, she didn’t see why extraterrestrials shouldn’t have something similar. She wondered how much of the spectrum they could take in. Between them was something else sticking out from the face – she presumed it was some kind of extraterrestrial organ and reserved judgement for the time being on what it might be for. Long was wearing two garments – one covering the haunches, with its legs sticking out below, and one wrapped round its torso with its arms and head sticking out of their respective holes at the upper end of the body.
Its limbs were drawn up together and it was rubbing itself. There was a very thin pelt on the arms and the legs, and the hairs there – but not on the head, for some reason – were standing upright. Oomoing could understand perfectly: it was hardly wearing anything, and it was very cold in here.
‘The Learned Mother wants to see you, so move over here,’ Stormer shouted, but Oomoing was already moving towards it. She looked into Long’s eyes; each had a white background, a blue circle and a dark pupil within it. She wanted to feel the creature, see if the skin really was as clammy as it looked, learn the texture of that fuzz on the top of the head, so she reached out.
Long’s pupils dilated and with an incoherent shout –
Where from? Which organ did it use for speech?
– it leapt across the room. It came to a rest with its back against the wall, the other side of the chamber.
‘Stand to!’ Stormer shouted, though his guards at the entrance to the chamber already had their guns at the ready.
‘Don’t worry,’ Oomoing said. ‘It knows better than to argue.’ She looked at Long in fascination. That stance, that reaction reminded her of . . . yes, she had it. She studied Long with her stalker senses; amplified vision, smell, hearing. She could hear a fast-thumping heart beat. The smell of extraterrestrial was suddenly stronger. Its respiration was right up . . .
‘I think it’s frightened,’ she said. ‘Even terrified.’
‘Frightened?’ Stormer said scornfully. ‘You think it’s just an animal?’
‘I didn’t say that. Maybe its species kept the fear sense when they became sentient.’
Stormer plainly thought her on-the-fly theory was evolutionist nonsense, but he wasn’t going to say so. ‘What would it have to be frightened of, Learned Mother?’ he said. ‘We’re not going to eat it.’
‘Maybe it doesn’t know that.’ Oomoing decided to content herself with a visual inspection for the time being. ‘Anyway, this is all speculation. Colonel, if you want to supervize this procedure, I suggest you get your gun out. Fleet, you’ve got the camera?’ Fleet held up the device he had brought over from the ship. ‘Then let’s go. Are you recording? Good.’ She looked into the lens. ‘I am Oomoing of the Forensic Institute, present with me are Third Son of the Family Barabadar and . . .?’ She looked at Stormer.
‘Stormer, First Son of the Family Dadoi,’ Stormer said.
‘. . . and two other males acting as armed guards,’ said Oomoing. ‘I am about to release the tall extraterrestrial captured during the recent engagement . . .’
Joel studied the five XCs. The wall of the chamber was against his back and he was still poised for futile flight.
‘Idiot,’ he muttered to himself, but he hadn’t been able to help it. Those taloned hands reaching out to him; those beady, calculating eyes . . . He had long ago worked out that if the XCs wanted him dead then that was what he would be. But maybe this newcomer had just fancied a bite to eat, or it had been time to start the inevitable torture session that would lead to him spilling the beans on every aspect of Commonwealth technology that he knew about, or . . .
Well, he just didn’t know. He ran through what little he knew of XC culture for the thousandth time. The soldiers, the guards, the one who had until now seemed to be in charge would all be males. But this big newcomer, who seemed to be giving orders, would almost certainly be female. Maybe even a mother, which made her most senior of all. He didn’t really see having babies as being a sound basis for constitutional government, but it seemed to work for the XCs. So, she would be the one to make decisions. Perhaps he and Boon Round had been held pending the arrival of just this female. Maybe they were under sentence of death, and now was the time to carry it out.
But the XCs were standing back. Even the guards by the entrance had moved aside. One of the males had what looked like some kind of recording equipment held up to his face, and the female . . .
The female was actually gesturing at him, then at the door. He didn’t understand the chirps and tones and percussive blows that were XC conversation, but the gestures seemed clear. They wanted him to move, of his own volition.
‘Right . . .’ he said. He glanced at Boon Round in his hammock, then back at the door. Then he kicked off from the wall and over to the Rustie.
Boon Round hardly twitched. Joel was getting worried about his companion. All the electronic equipment on them had been confiscated, which meant no translator unit, which meant he and Boon Round couldn’t even exchange a few words. And he had seen how the loss of his pride had affected the Rustie; a shock no doubt exacerbated by the XCs’ choice of prison. They were in the Commune Place, where the pride would come to meet, to gather together, to rub bodies and smell scents and bond. Or, in human terms, just to hang. It meant so much more to the First Breed.
Nor did it help now that Boon Round was almost starved. Humans and First Breed could both drink water, but Rusties didn’t like chocolate bars and neither did Joel any more, after the first fifteen or so. He had had to start starving himself, or risk severely overtaxing the chemical toilet the XCs had thoughtfully provided.
So . . . He looked at the door again, then at the female in charge. Was that what was going through her mind? We don’t know how to look after you, so show us?
‘Only one way to find out,’ he said, and kicked off again.
Joel made his way through the dim passages of SkySpy with his retinue of XCs. They seemed to be giving him his head, so he would use the opportunity and see how far he was allowed to go.
Priorities were food and equipment. Anything else? He looked down at himself; grubby underwear and the need for a shower. OK, that was another objective. And if he was feeling naked, what must Boon Round be feeling? Yet another contributing factor to the Rustie’s decline would be the loss of his harness, his decorations – yet more ties with the pride. Well, he knew where they were – the last place Boon Round had left them.
Joel had his first destination.
He didn’t know how much of the base had been repressurized, so this was also an intelligence-gathering mission of his own. He pulled himself along, to a murmured narration from the female. He glanced back at the guards: they were plainly ill at ease, fingers itchy over their triggers, but they weren’t interfering.
Conscious that every move could be his last if it was misconstrued, he reached the main airlock area.
‘We’ll go in here,’ he said, and slipped into the changing room. He shivered at the sight of the rows and rows of lockers in the emergency red light, each belonging to a dead Rustie or human. ‘God, it’s like being surrounded by ghosts.’
Rustie lockers were arranged in First Breed alphabetical order, which Joel had never mastered, so he had to study the bilingual label on each door before he found Boon Round’s. He tugged it open and grinned. There was the harness and – ta da! – a translator unit. Joel reached out.
With a roar, the senior male leapt forward. One of his lower hands snatched the unit and one of his upper clubbed Joel in the chest and sent him spinning across the room. Joel crashed into the wall with a force that knocked the breath out of him. XCs were small, but strong. The reaction bounced him back and he caught himself against a locker to steady his movement. The armed guards had brought their guns to bear on him.
This is it!
He shut his eyes and gritted his teeth. Joel Gilmore, born June 2130, Armstrong, Luna; died June 2153 in a changing room in a faraway solar system, the last sound in his ears the melodic chimes of arguing XCs.
Arguing? He opened one eye. The female had snatched the unit away from the male with her lower hands and they were definitely exchanging views. The one with the camera was still recording him and the armed guards still had him covered. Maybe they were just waiting for orders to open fire.
The male subsided while the female studied the unit. Then she tucked it away inside her tunic and gestured from Joel to the locker. She pushed herself back and the guards lowered their guns.
Joel cautiously moved forward and reached out for the harness. When he took it out of the locker, the female grabbed hold of his wrist and Joel’s heart almost stopped, but she just wanted to study the gear. She must have worked out that there was nothing electronic or technological about it because she let Joel’s wrist go again. Without taking his eyes off her, Joel wrapped the harness around himself and kicked off for his own locker.
Home sweet home! He grinned again at the sight of his dark blue shipsuit, two gold stripes on each shoulder, the insignia of his new rank that had cost him so much. And his aide, of course: even with his uniform back on, he would feel naked without that small box of electronics. He wasn’t going to leave that behind.
‘Um, I need that too,’ he said. Sign language seemed to be in vogue so he looked at the female, then pointed at the aide. She moved cautiously forward, then had a brief discussion with the senior male. Finally she picked it up and tucked it away with the unit.
‘I know,’ Joel said. ‘You think I’ll use it to set off the demolition charges or something, don’t you? Well, it’s a start. Now . . .’ He unfurled the shipsuit, then looked down at himself and wrinkled his nose. He put the shipsuit back in the locker together with the harness, retrieved a clean pair of shorts and kicked off for the showers.
There had never been any flowing water on SkySpy even when power was on: it was too precious a resource. Washing was done with jets of germicidal, perfumed powder, but even that wouldn’t be possible without power. He had to use the next best thing – dry pads impregnated with the same stuff. Self-conscious under the watchful eyes of the XCs and that bloody camera, he swabbed himself down all over. Then he rubbed it into his hair, grateful that he had always kept it short and that he had had his facial hair follicles permanently zapped. At last, scrubbed clean, sweet-smelling and with fresh underwear, he felt capable of putting the uniform on again, and the familiar feel of the fabric against his skin was bliss. He was enclosed, he was comfortable, he could be warm once more. He zipped the shipsuit up the front and presented himself to the camera.
‘004972 Gilmore, Joel, Lieutenant, Commonwealth Navy,’ he said. ‘Not that you lot have ever heard of the Geneva Convention, but I thought I’d mention it. And now I think we’ll do the canteen. Why not?’
‘Come on, Boon Round, let’s be having you.’
Joel unzipped the Rustie’s hammock and pulled Boon Round out. The Rustie didn’t react.
‘Look what I got you. You’re a whole Rustie again,’ Joel said. He unwrapped the harness from around himself, then paused. How the hell did you put one of these on a Rustie? It wasn’t something he’d ever done before. He was pretty sure
this
bit went at the end;
this
bit wrapped round the body . . .
But whenever he tried to hold Boon Round steady, the slightest knock would send the Rustie tumbling in mid-air. Joel swore as Boon Round began to rotate for the third time.
But then Boon Round suddenly steadied. The XC male who had been handling the camera had come forward and was holding him still. Joel stared at him, then turned back to the female who must have given the order.
‘Thank you,’ he said, and finished putting the harness on. Rustie clothing wasn’t the same as human clothing – it gave no protection, offered no modesty, but it did show rank and designation and all the other little things that gave a Rustie identity. A few straps, a few badges here and there, and Boon Round was complete.
Almost.
Joel turned back to the female. ‘I need the translator unit, please,’ he said. He unzipped the front of his shipsuit and mimed taking something out, then clipping that something under Boon Round’s throat. ‘Remember?’
The female paused, then reached into her tunic and retrieved the unit. The aide stayed where it was. The senior male expressed something forcefully again, but was obviously overruled.
‘Don’t worry,’ Joel said. ‘No funny business.’ He made himself smile at the female and took the unit, then attached it to Boon Round’s harness. One of these controls must be the on-switch . . .
A small light came on, and Joel hoped that was it. ‘Boon Round, can you hear me?’
The unit would be sending vibrations direct to the Rustie’s cochlea-equivalent. Mouthtalk only, not the fulltalk that was so important to Rusties, but much better than nothing.
A pause . . .
‘Joel Gilmore? At last.’
The voice was flat, impersonal, but it was a voice and communication had been re-established.
‘Yes!’ Joel shouted. ‘Boon Round, it’s OK. You rest there. Look, I brought something for you to eat.’
They had brought back two boxes from the canteen, one full of food concentrates for humans and the other for Rusties. Joel calculated that if they ate sparingly, they should last about a week and then – hopefully – he would be allowed to go back for more.