He skipped to the warm waterfall and stood under it. As he showered he told a blue-furred, wise-looking little creature dressed in a dapper waistcoat and sitting on a nearby tree what clothes he wished prepared for the evening. It nodded and swung off through the branches.
VI
‘It’s nothing to worry about, Gestra,’ the drone told him as he stepped out of the bulky suit in the vestibule beyond the airlocks. Gestra Ishmethit leant against a maniple field which the drone extended for him. He looked down the corridor to the main part of the accommodation unit, but there was no sign of anybody yet. ‘The ship has come with new codes and updated security procedures,’ the drone continued. ‘It’s some years before these were due to be altered, but there has been some unusual activity in a nearby volume – nothing threatening as such, but it’s always best to be careful – so it’s been decided to move things along a bit and perform the update now rather than later.’ The drone hung the man’s suit up near the airlock doors, its surface sparkling with frost.
Gestra rubbed his hands together and accepted the trousers and jacket the drone handed him. He kept glancing down the corridor.
‘The ship has been verified and authenticated by the necessary outside referees,’ the drone told him, ‘so it’s all above-board, you see?’ The machine helped him button up the jacket and smoothed his thin, fair hair. ‘The crew have asked to come inside; just curious, really.’
Gestra stared at the drone, obviously distressed, but the machine patted him on the shoulder with a rosy field and said, ‘It’ll be all right, Gestra. I thought it only polite to grant their request, but you can stay out of their way if you like. Saying hello to them at first would probably go down well, but it isn’t compulsory.’ The Mind had its drone study the man for a moment, checking his breathing, heart rate, pupil dilation, skin response, pheromone output and brain-waves. ‘I know what,’ it said soothingly, ‘we’ll tell them you’ve taken a vow of silence, how’s that? You can greet them formally, nod, or whatever, and I’ll do the talking. Would that be all right?’
Gestra gulped and said, ‘Y-y-yes! Yes,’ he said, nodding vigorously. ‘That… that would be good… good idea. Tha-thank you!’
‘Right,’ the machine said floating at the man’s side as they headed down the corridor for the main reception area. ‘They’ll Displace over in a few minutes. Like I say; just nod to them and let me say whatever has to be said. I’ll make your excuses and you can go off to your suite if you like; I’m sure they won’t mind being shown round by this drone. Meanwhile I’ll be receiving the new ciphers and routines. There’s a lot of multiple-checking and bureaucratic book-keeping sort of stuff to be done, but even so it should only take an hour or so. We won’t offer them a meal or anything; with any luck they’ll take the hint and head off again, leave us in peace, eh?’
After a moment, Gestra nodded at this, vigorously. The drone swivelled in the air at the man’s side to show him it was looking at him. ‘Does all this sound acceptable? I mean, I could put them off completely; tell them they’re just not welcome, but it would be terribly rude, don’t you think?’
‘Y-yes,’ Gestra said, frowning and looking distinctly uncertain. ‘Rude. Suppose so. Rude. Mustn’t be rude. Probably come a long way, should think?’ A smile flickered around his lips, like a small flame in a high wind.
‘I think we can be pretty sure of that,’ the drone said with a laugh in its voice. It clapped him gently on the back with a field.
Gestra was smiling a little more confidently as he walked into the accommodation unit’s main reception area.
The reception area was a large round room full of couches and chairs. Gestra usually paid it no attention; it was just a largish space he had to walk through on his way to and back from the airlocks which led to the warship hangars. Now he looked at each of the plumply comfortable-looking seats and sofas as though they represented some terrible threat. He felt his nervousness return. He wiped his brow as the drone stopped by a couch and indicated he might like to sit.
‘Let’s have a look, shall we?’ the drone said as Gestra sat. A screen appeared in the air on the far side of the room, starting as a bright dot, quickly widening to a line eight metres long then seeming to unroll so that it filled the four-metre space between floor and ceiling.
Blackness; little lights. Space. Gestra realised suddenly how long it had been since he’d seen such a view. Then, sweeping slowly into view came a long, dark grey shape, sleek, symmetrical, double-ended, reminding Gestra of the axle and hubs of a ship’s windlass.
‘The Killer class Limited Offensive Unit Attitude Adjuster,’ the drone said in a matter-of-fact, almost bored-sounding voice. ‘Not a type we have here.’
Gestra nodded. ‘No,’ he said, then stopped to clear his throat a few times. ‘No pattern… patterns on it… its hull.’
‘That’s right,’ the drone said.
The ship was stopped now, almost filling the screen. The stars wheeled slowly behind it.
‘Well, I-‘ the drone said, then stopped. The screen on the far side of the room flickered.
The drone’s aura field flicked off. It fell out of the air, bouncing off the seat beside Gestra and toppling heavily, lifelessly, to the floor.
Gestra stared at it. A voice like a sigh said, ‘… sssave yourssselfff…’ then the lights dimmed, there was a buzzing noise from all around Gestra, and a tiny tendril of smoke leaked out of the top of the drone’s casing.
Gestra leapt up out of the seat, staring wildly around, then jumped up on the seat, crouching there and staring at the drone. The little wisp of smoke was dissipating. The buzzing noise faded slowly. Gestra squatted, hugging his knees with both arms and looking all about. The buzzing noise stopped; the screen collapsed to a line hanging in the air, then shrank to a dot, then winked out. After a moment, Gestra reached forward with one hand and prodded the drone’s casing with one hand. It felt warm and solid. It didn’t move.
A sequence of thuds from the far side of the room shook the air. Beyond where the screen had hung in the air, four tiny mirror spheres bloated suddenly, growing almost instantly to over three metres in diameter and hovering just above the floor. Gestra jumped off the seat and started back away from the spheres. He rubbed his hands together and glanced back at the corridor to the airlock. The mirror spheres vanished like exploding balloons to reveal complicated things like tiny space-ships, not much smaller than the mirror spheres themselves.
One of them rushed towards Gestra, who turned and ran.
He pelted down the corridor, running as fast as he could, his eyes wide, his face distorted with fear, his fists pumping.
Something rushed up behind him, crashed into him and knocked him over, sending him sprawling and tumbling along the carpeted floor. He came to a stop. His face hurt where it had grazed along the carpet. He looked up, his heart twitching madly in his chest, his whole body shaking. Two of the miniature ship things had followed him into the corridor; each floated a couple of metres away, one on either side of him. There was a strange smell in the air. Frost had formed on various parts of the ship things. The nearer one extended a thing like a long hose and went to take him by the neck. Gestra ducked down and doubled himself up, lying on his side on the carpet, face tucked into his knees, arms hugging his shins.
Something prodded him about the shoulders and rump. He could hear muffled noises coming from the two machines. He whimpered.
Then something very hard slammed into his side; he heard a cracking noise and his arm burned with pain. He screamed, still trying to bury his face in his knees. He felt his bowels relax. Warmth flooded his pants. He was aware of something inside his head turning off the searing pain in his arm, but nothing could turn off the heat of shame and embarrassment. Tears filled his eyes.
There was a noise like, ‘Ka!’ then a whooshing noise, and a breeze touched his face and hands. After a moment he looked up and saw that the two machines had gone down to the airlock doors. There was movement in the reception area, and then another one of the machines came down the corridor; it slowed down as it approached him. He ducked his head down again. Another whoosh and another breeze.