Kane noticed the last remark seemed to be directed at Brigid, but he was too busy gratefully gulping the water to reason out its meaning.
Sindri waited until the three of them had downed two tumblers of water apiece before saying, “I’m certain you have just as many questions for me as I have for you, so allow me”
“Question one,” interrupted Kane. “What do you intend to do with us?”
A puzzled line creased Sindri’s high forehead. “I don’t understand.”
“Are we your prisoners?”
Understanding shone in the little man’s eyes. “Not unless you offer violence toward me or my people. I have your weapons locked away so some of my more curious brethren won’t be tempted to play with them. No, I fully intend to allow you to return to where you came fromwherever that might be.”
No one spoke.
Gently Sindri said, “That was a conversational lead-in. You are to provide me with the name of your place of origin.”
“We’re not much for polite drawing-room chitchat,” Brigid said dryly. “Just ask us what you want to know outright.”
Sindri laughed merrily, his blue eyes alight. “But don’t you see, it’s more fun this way. I can deduce that wherever on Earth you sprang from, English is the native tongue. You have access to higher technology, else you would not be here. You are also accustomed to treading dark, dangerous ground.”
He waved to their blasters on the shelf. “You came prepared. Furthermore, you have a fair amount of education. Or at least” he inclined his head toward Brigid “one of you has. It is contraindicated that your arrival here was not simply serendipity. No, it was instigated by our brief occupation of the installation code-named Redoubt Papa.”
Sindri’s expression changed suddenly, the smile disappearing from his lips and the humorous light in his eyes turning cold and implacable. “An occupation from which my cousin Brokk did not return. I was told he was wounded unto death. Is that true?”
Brigid stated frankly, “True. But we were not responsible for his death. We found his body and removed it from the redoubt.”
Sindri passed long fingers over his brow. “I am the responsible party. The quantum interphase inducer controls here were computerlocked on to the one in Papa. It was reported to me that the area was not suitable for our needs, but I viewed it only as our first, tentative step on Earth.”
He sighed regretfully. “I should have devoted more time to searching the database for initiator codes to other gateway units in other places. Instead, I wasted my time with petty administrative details here.”
“How long have you been here?” asked Kane.
Sindri gave him a detached, preoccupied glance. “Here?”
“On the station.”
The man’s mouth pursed in thought. “Three months. Or is it four?”
Grant glowered at him. “Only three or four months?”
Sindri nodded.
“How did you get here?”
“The same way you did. By mat-trans unit.”
“But from where?” Kane demanded.
Sindri’s eyes widened in ingenuous surprise. “Did I
forget to mention that, Mr. Kane? Forgive me. Mars, Mr. Kane. We came from Mars.”
Sindri’s revelation stopped conversation for the next few moments. Grant was the first to start it up again. “Do you expect us to believe that you are extraterrestrials? Aliens?”
Sindri chuckled. “Yes to the former, no the latter.”
“The difference,” said Kane in a quiet monotone, “escapes me.”
“You were born on Mars,” Brigid declared. “Technically that makes you extraterrestrial, but since you’re of obviously human ancestry, you’re not aliens.”
Sindri smiled broadly, nodding. “Precisely, Miss Brigid. I and the twenty people here and the thirty back in the Cydonia Compound comprise all that remains of a human Martian colony, seeded there some 190 years ago.”
“Seeded by who or what?” Grant demanded.
Sindri fixed him with a direct, unblinking gaze. In a soft voice not much above a whisper, he answered, “I sometimes wonder about that myself, Mr. Grant. If nothing else, Parallax Red supplied me with confirmation of several suspicions I’d harbored all my life.”
“Such as?” inquired Kane.
Sindri pointed to the cavernous storage facility beyond the living area. “Come with me, and perhaps together we can work out the knottier problems that plague both our houses.”