“But, if that’s so, what’s he doing being picked up?”
“Well, after several years of being a double agent, somebody caught on. They decoyed him onto a liner, where he thought — or was led to think — some highly sensitive information on Bromgrev fleet movements would be passed to him. They caught him; but, he’s a rather imposing sort of fellow and he broke free, got to a lifeboat, and cast off. Now his cover’s blown, so we have to pick him up.”
“Lifeboat alongside,” reported the metallic feminine voice of the cyborg. “Prepare to link.” A pause was followed by a mild bump. “Lock linked.”
Bumgartner and Gayal went back to the lock area to receive the latest refugee. Gayal watched and waited as the pressure gauges showed the air transfer. The red light turned green and the ship’s lock door opened.
Gayal wasn’t quite sure what she expected, but she could not shake the image of a mechanical man of some kind, all facts and figures. Or perhaps a wizened, serious gnome accustomed to dreary offices and accounting books. Koldon was not so easily stereotyped.
“I thought you’d never get here,” came a voice. No, not a voice, really. It seemed to boom, full of life and emotion, yet no sound had been uttered. The words formed inside her head.
“Your fat belly could stand to lose some lard,” Bumgartner shot back good-naturedly.
The creature he addressed was almost three meters tall. It had to bend to get through the port. Gayal had seen nothing remotely like it in her life, but to Bumgartner the creature could have been a reddish-blond grizzly bear with a skeletal structure better suited to walking upright. Its eyes were huge, a bright blue, and very human; while its long, thick forelegs ended in stubby, fur-covered hands with coal-black palms, three fingers and an oversized thumb that was almost as long as the hand itself. Gayal also noted that he was incredibly fat; it hung in droopy layers all over him.
The newcomer spotted her.
“Ah! What’s this? A Delialian? And a female at that!”
“What’s so odd about that?” she snapped angrily. She didn’t care for the continuously humorous note of the newcomer’s thought projections.
Telepathic Koldon caught this immediately and grew serious…
“I know what your world must have gone through. I’m terribly sorry. I feel, well, somewhat responsible…”
“So you should!” She almost shot the words at him.
He showed it, and his “voice” took on a tone that was incredible for its depth and range of sadness and hurt. She felt suddenly sorry for the big creature.
“I … I don’t know what to say,” he went on. “There has been too much tragedy already, and this is, I fear, only the beginning of it. But you must learn to accept those who are on your side you know, no matter what you think of them personally. We live, work, breathe for the same cause.” He pointed a stubby red finger at her. “But never lose that moral tone! It’s what separates us from them.”
The great bear-creature went over and plopped down on a cot. It was far too short for him, and he finally lay straddling the end of the cot with his great hind legs as it sagged and creaked.
“I trained Fala, you know,” he said quietly.
Gayal turned as if shot. “What do you know of Fala?” she asked sharply.
“When this network was set up long, long ago, I trained him. He was just a boy then. An orphan alone, a castoff among his own kind.”
“But why?” she asked, remembering the strong sensual man she had known for so many years.
“He was born weak, a runt, with little to ensure survival. Too much inbreeding, I think. He was a bleeder, and had a humped back. They threw him out to die in the fields.”
“That’s not so!” Gayal protested. “He was neither of those things!”
“Oh, but be was,” Koldon replied. “Our field agent discovered him and took him in, realizing that in that rotten body was a keen intellect, if properly developed. We took him to where we’re going now: to a world called Valiakea, in the Aruni Cluster. They’re master biologists — had to be. Things are so unstable on that planet that they change shape and metabolism ten times an hour just to stay alive.
“They fixed him up. I don’t know how, they just do, that’s all. You’ll see. Made Fala into the best proportioned, most athletic Delialian ever. He and I lived together for almost five years, off and on, and I got to know him very thoroughly.”
Gayal nodded. “I think I understand.”
Koldon raised himself up, a little. “No, you do not.. I am a telepath, a very good telepath. No one, except The Bromgrev himself, can be false with me, for I know their innermost thoughts and feelings; I dream their dreams. Oh, God, the dreams! He sank back down. “Leave me be for now,” he snapped suddenly.
She started to say more, but thought better of it, realizing that this was not the time. She continued to stand near him for a while, however. Then she saw that he was asleep, his massive chest rising and falling rhythmically. She sought out Bumgartner, who was sipping a drink while reading some reports.
“This Koldon is a very sad person,” she said.
Bumgartner barely looked up as he grunted and replied, “Everybody’s got a problem, and for him it’s the weight of the universe. You didn’t help any, you know.”
Gayal felt very guilty. “I know…” she replied hesitantly. “I — I didn’t realize at the time.”
“Neither did he,” Ralph Bumgartner interjected, and went back to his reports.
The ship sped on to Valiakea.
“Successful trip, Ralph?” Koldon asked over his dinner, which was massive.
“Not really,” replied the Terran, nibbling a sandwich. “We got you two, and the Fraskan in the baggage hold, but we lost two. One we had to zap and the other got trapped in his own headquarters before he could destruct and wound up taking the whole gang with him.”
“Anybody I’d know?”
“Don’t think so. Pyayya of La’abin, pretty green and prone to mistakes; needed a few more years to season. And an unpronounceable blob of jelly from Flalkan’s Star The Bromgrev’s agents made before they even took the place.”
Koldon grunted audibly. “Things aren’t going so well for the good guys, are they?”
Bumgartner chuckled. “There are no good guys, Koldon. You know that. Only those who do what they want to do, and their victims.”
“The side really doesn’t matter to you, does it?” Koldon prodded.
The Terran smiled broadly. “You know the only side that counts is my side, you old grizzly. The army of my country trained me to kill people. After a while, I found I liked it; it was the greatest game of all. The trainers really thought so, too, deep down, no matter what patriotic platitudes they spouted. If they didn’t, they’d have been in a different line of work.
“Me, I progressed until I was too big to do the stuff, myself. I graduated, you might say. I arranged revolutions, started civil wars, whatever my country asked me to do in the name of freedom and democracy.”
“How’d you ever get mixed up in this mess?” Koldon asked him. “Seems to me that you were headed for fifty anonymous medals and a heart attack.”
Bumgartner shook his head. “There are universal constants in behavior, Koldon. Intelligence develops on worlds where organisms need it to survive; that’s the law. You, me, Gayal, and Old Frozen back there, all of us are as different as night and day on the outside. But in here—” he tapped his head, “we’re all the same, really. It’s the real definition of what my people call ‘human.’”
“So?”
“We fight, we strive, we survive. And in the struggle there’re always people like me. We’re born for it, bred to it. We’re always in demand to go out and herd the cattle. It’s what The Hunter looks for in his agents. Why I’m here. And why the others are here.”
“And I’m included in that crop?” Koldon asked, bemused.
“Sure. You fight for conscience, whatever that is. Gayal fights to free her homeland, as does this fellow Vard. Me, I’m just more honest: I like it.”
“We’re in station off Valiakea,” the cyborg’s voice interjected. “Their control would like to speak to you.”
Bumgartner sighed, and went over to the forward console. Koldon remained seated on the floor, finishing off the lastof his monstrous meal.
The Terran flipped the transceiver switch. “Ship with load of three, as arranged. Appointment code R-821.”
“Thank you, R-821,” came a calm, toneless voice. “What do you have for us to do?”
“Got a Fraskan that must be acclimated to oxygen/CO2 norms, a Delialian and a Quoark for gravitational adjustments of muscle, tone to +2 norms and some mild atmospheric tolerance adjustments.”
“I see,” answered the voice. “We’ll outfit a ship and be up to you. Give us an hour. In the meantime, no one is to eat anything and tell that Quoark that we’ll pump his stomach.”
Koldon dropped his plate. “Dammit all,” be swore. “I think those bastards presume too much!”
Bumgartner chuckled and switched off. “It’ll be good for you, you know. Haven’s a lot heavier than you’re used to.”
“I’ve been there before,” the Quoark reminded him brusquely, “and it’s never troubled me before.”
“Suit yourself,” Bumgartner shrugged. “I’ll call Old Frozen.”
He flipped a switch and called Vard, explaining what would happen. Vard acknowledged the call but didn’t seem too thrilled by the idea, even though this would mean the physical company of others that he’d been denied.
Gayal entered. “Is this the Adaption process coming up?” she asked.
The Terran nodded. “Yeah. It’s fairly quick and absolutely painless. I’ve had to undergo treatment here a couple of times, and there’s nothing to worry about. The only thing that’ll happen is that you’ll feel more comfortable.”
“This place we’re going to — are there other Delialians there?” she asked, a bit hesitantly.
“No. You know there aren’t,” Koldon replied. “And if you’re willing, it might be better for you…”
Bumgartner, who could not read minds, looked puzzled. “What’s this all about?” he demanded.
Gayal started to speak, then thought better of it and turned sheepishly to Koldon.
“Psychology,” Koldon explained. “Delialians are herd types, Ralph, not loners like us. You know, we generally let everybody retain their forms because of the identity sense?” Bumgartner nodded affirmatively. “Well, it’s a little different here,” Koldon continued. “Gayal is afraid of being a pariah, a freak. She’d rather fit in.”
“Well, I don’t know…” the Terran said, scratching his chin. “The Valiakeans can make you into anything at all: four legs, two, tail, anything at all.” He stopped, and coughed apologetically, realizing that Gayal already had a tall. He looked up in the air. “Hey, doll, what do you think of all this?”
“Leave it to me,” the cyborg’s voice replied. “Alien but familiar. The Valiakean ship’s just pulling alongside and I think I can feed in the necessaries.”
“Okay, doll, do it,” Bumgartner ordered. Then he looked directly at Gayal. “But on your own head be it,” he warned her. “Whatever you come out is it for the duration.”
Gayal nodded seriously. “I’m willing. They can change me back if — when — I return home, can’t they?”
“Yeah, or any other time you’re out here. Okay, let’s do it. What about you, Koldon?”
The Quoark snorted. “You know this is a perfectly normal shape, the only proper one for civilized people. Besides, if things go sour at Haven, I’m set for life at the San Diego Zoo.”
The airlock door opened and a creature stepped in. It looked like a hairless half-formed humanoid, devoid of identifiable organs of sex and totally naked.”
“Are the subjects ready?” the Valiakean asked.
Bumgartner nodded, and gestured for Koldon to go with the strange creature.
Gayal stayed, hesitant. “So that’s a Valiakean. Looks like a nothing.”
“Pretty much,” the Terran agreed. “That’s just the best form for limited use in this environment. If we should suddenly lose temperature and pressure or start having a neon atmosphere at absolute zero, that ‘nothing’ would just instantly change form to the proper equipments. Their world’s such a horror and a hell that they’re all really just blobs of protoplasmic jelly, able to adapt to any environment — and they have almost every environment almost every day down there. We wouldn’t last ten seconds.”
“Sounds useful. Why don’t we just become like them for the duration?”
“It would be handy,” Bmngartner admitted, “but they just won’t do it. It would louse up their business. Now, get going! This is costing!”
She went.
The Valiakean came back and looked around. “There was a third? You?”
“No, a Fraskan. Had to keep him in the lifeboat because he couldn’t survive here.”
The Valiakean nodded. “Very well. We shall open a lock and a tube for Fraskan norms. I’ll get him.”
Gayal entered a chamber glowing with a greenish light. A stool stood, in the center, with a notch for the tail so that she could sit down, something uncommon to her race, which even slept standing up.
“Sit on the stool,” instructed a Valiakean voice, that sounded like the other Valiakean voices she had heard. “We will need some pictures.” She sat, feeling very uncomfortable, and heard a series of whining noises, then nothing. A Valiakean entered, holding some photographic plates. It looked enough like the other to have been the same creature.
As it started to examine her, much like any doctor, Gayal noticed some strange phenomena. Tracking a muscular series with the aid of the photos, its right hand grew long enough to go around her left shoulder while the left one stayed short. She glanced at the photos and didn’t see much of anything. She’d expected at least X-rays. Then she looked at the creature’s eyes. They no longer looked like hers, but were more prismatic, multifaceted. She had the opinion that the creature could see right through her.
Finally, the Valiakean went over to the wall, a pulsating bright green plane that seemed to have no outlet, and pressed a part of it. A chamber, something like a coffin, materialized from the wall and slid into the larger room.
“Get in, please, on your side,” the Valiakean instructed.
It was almost a perfect fit, she saw as she climbed inside.
“You will be unconscious for a short period while the alterations are made,” the Valiakean told her, sounding like a tailor. “Do not be alarmed… This will start now!”
Everything went blank for Gayal.
Elsewhere in the Valiakean ship the other two experienced the same thing.
Koldon was the first back, having needed the least work.
While they were out, Bumgartner had readjusted the entire ship to Earth norms. Koldon, now adapted to the changes, felt no real differences, but did feel a bit more comfortable and at home.
“That’s much better,” he said aloud.
The Terran jumped. “You spoke!” Bumgartner almost accused the other.
“Sure. Easier for radios, intercoms, and the like, where mostly nontelepathic people are. I thought of it after I was in, but I assumed the expense account would stand it.”
Bumgartner shook his head in dismay. “All these changes … I mean, I’ll have to justify the whole batch!”
Koldon shrugged. “Got the food locker sorted out?” he asked. “Those bastards really did clean out my stomach!”
In about fifteen-minutes Koldon was gorging himself once again, his appetite unaffected by the changes, when Gayal reappeared in the ship. The bear-creature stopped his eating and Bumgartner rose out of his seat.
“I don’t believe it!” they both said in unison.
“Is there something wrong?” Gayal asked, concerned.
“No, no, no, nothing at all. A perfect compromise,” Bumgartner assured her. “Perfect.”
The cyborg had been presented with a problem and had solved it. Simply stated, it was to retain as much of the Delialian as was possible to remain comfortable and normal-seeming, while making her more acceptable to the far more Earth-human types she would be around.