If the question was meant for me, I didn’t answer it. I was squinting down the passage, where a pair of those Horch three-wheeled velocipedes were rolling toward us. Each cart carried a single cousin Horch, their belly plates gleaming and their necks extended in curiosity toward us. I was wondering if my whole plan was going to collapse right there.
Beert answered for everyone. “This other organism is my project, for which the Greatmother has also given permission. I am investigating whether such a primitive person could learn to use advanced technology, or whether he is at too low a level to be a possible ally against the Others.”
Whether the Christmas tree was buying that, I couldn’t tell, but it didn’t matter. One of the cousin Horch spoke up. “We have been called for nothing. It is only Djabeertapritch’s puppy.”
Well, he didn’t say “puppy,” exactly. What he said was more like “immature lower-form creature possessed for entertainment,” and he sounded amused as he said it. But he went on to the Christmas tree: “He is harmless. Let them pass. Escort them to the transit machine in case they need help.”
And the other cousin Horch said to Beert, equally amused, “You are still not used to the blessings of technology yourself, are you, Djabeertapritch? Imagine using organisms to carry another organism! You should have summoned a vehicle.” And, with the Horch equivalent of chuckles, the two of them rolled away.
For the benefit of the glass robot, I did my best to look harmless, while, for Beert and the Docs, doing my best to prove the cousin Horch’s estimate of me wrong. I hadn’t cared for being called a puppy.
What I cared about was that the guard Christmas tree had been instructed to accompany us. It did. It rolled along in silence, apart from the occasional faint jingle of its needles. It paused when we paused, so that Mrrranthoghrow, panting, could turn the burden of the Wet One over to Pirraghiz for a while. It didn’t seem to be paying any attention to us, other than that, though the sparkly ball at its top was flickering rapidly. It was just there, and it stayed there until we reached the space where the great green transit machine stood.
Two other Christmas trees stood there, apparently waiting for us. Worse still, one of the spider-legged fighting machines stood immobile against a wall. It seemed to be in standby mode, but I was pretty sure that it would come to life very quickly if needed. The only plus factor among those unwelcome negatives was that there were no living Horch cousins on the scene, but I wished their machines would go away. And they had no apparent intention of that.
When Pirraghiz had set the amphibian down, Beert looked around at the machines. “We have come to transmit this Wet One on his mission,” he announced, in case they were interested. They didn’t seem to be. I know of no way of telling what a Christmas tree is looking at-one configuration of needles is pretty much like another-but I didn’t think they were even watching as Mrrranthoghrow opened a flap on the side of the transit machine and began rearranging its little rainbows of color. Beert’s own Christmas tree was busy, too. It was expertly fitting all the Wet One’s paraphernalia into its receptacles on the amphibian’s body.
There was something I wanted there, so I walked over to where that was going on. The amphibian raised himself up, staring at me with those hippopotamus eyes. I patted his thick body encouragingly. “Good luck,” I said, loudly enough so that everyone could hear, at the same time relieving him of one of his guns. That wasn’t hard to do, since the holsters were made for quick release. I didn’t think anyone had seen me.
Whether the amphibian had, I didn’t know. Those electric Medusa snakes around his broad mouth were waving wildly, but not coming close to me. “I wish the same to you,” he said thickly, and waddled over to the transit machine.
There was no ceremony. Mrrranthoghrow held the door open. The amphibian climbed in. Beert’s personal Christmas tree followed, lugging the ammunition cases. Mrrranthoghrow slammed the door shut and touched one of the colored lights.
And a moment later he opened the door again, and the chamber was empty. The Wet One was on his way.
That was when we came to the hard part.
I picked up my little copper-mesh bag of goodies and strolled to where Mrrranthoghrow was holding the door for me. “We will now transmit this other organism,” Beert announced, and everything went bad at once.
All three of the robots spoke up. “No,” said the violet one. “We have no instructions for more than one transmission.”
“Why did this organism take the weapon from the Wet One?” the greenish one asked.
And the third one, the pale orange jobber that had stopped us in the first place, moved toward me. “What has the organism got in that bag? Has he been stealing from you, Djabeertapritch?”
The whole scheme was falling apart before my eyes. I could not let that happen, not when I was so close. “Wait!” Beert ordered, but the robots weren’t waiting, and neither was I. I had the gun in my hand. I got the pale orange robot right in the globe at its top, first shot. I was drawing a bead on the second one when Pirraghiz grabbed me. She leaped into the machine, me and my bag in her arms, mewing at Mrrranthoghrow. Who put his hands on the controls. Beert bellowed in surprise and anger, but he was looking at the fighting machine, which had come to life and was advancing toward us.
I don’t suppose Beert was thinking very clearly. What he did was jump into the transit machine with Pirraghiz and me, and the door closed.
I was on my way. To a place very far from Earth, as it happened. But on my way.
CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE
Travel in these alien go-machines was no trouble at all. You got in at one place, you came out at a different one. That was all there was to it.
This time the other place was really different. The first thing I noticed about it was that it was a microgravity environment, like Starlab’s, where I weighed nothing at all.
No, that’s wrong. The first thing I noticed about this “nexus” was that three ugly Horch fighting machines were standing there, looking ready to blow my head off. That’s wrong, too, though, because they weren’t standing. They were clinging to a network of cables that spanned the bare-metal-walled room we were in, and they hung there in three different orientations-heads up, tails up, every which way up-because the microgravity gave them no place to stand on. Beert, flailing around for something to grab on to, squawked, “Don’t shoot!”
Mercifully, they didn’t. I still had my twenty-shot in my hand, but I don’t think I could have fired it to any effect if they had. Pirraghiz was holding me tight, but Pirraghiz was floating herself until she managed to catch on to a couple of the cables. Then things stopped whirling around for me; such were the advantages of a few extra arms.
By a doorway a couple of the glass robots were tugging the great bulk of the Wet One away. They stopped as we got there. One of them, an unfamiliar Prussian blue, shot out a crystalline tendril in our direction and spoke. “We were not informed of a second transmission. What is your purpose here?”
I didn’t have a good answer for that, so I was glad that the question seemed to be aimed at Beert. He didn’t look as though he had a good answer, either. He had caught one of the lines to moor himself-upside down relative to me, as it happened-and his neck was darting this way and that worriedly. That had me worried, too. Could he forgive me for shooting up one of his cousins’ machines? And if he couldn’t, what then?
The only thing I was sure of was that whatever might come after that would not be good news for me.
As inconspicuously as possible, I jammed the gun in my pocket to get it out of sight, but I kept that hand near it, just in case. I was well aware that if Beert said the wrong word, one of those fighting machines would start shooting, and that would be the end of this particular Dan Dannerman. Of course, I would certainly be shooting back. But it wouldn’t do any good in the long run, because I wasn’t fool enough to think I could defeat the whole Horch race single-handed.
Which would not have kept me from giving it a try.
The machine apologetically repeated its question, and Beert finally bestirred himself. “I am Djabeertapritch of the Two Eights,” he said, sounding wretched but determined. “I was a captive of the Others. My ancestors were caught there when the Two Eights planet was invaded, and I am one of their descendants.”