Beert gave me a look I couldn’t read, then turned away. Well, “twisted away” is a better way to put it. He corkscrewed his neck around itself until it came to rest with his chin on his shoulder, or what would have been his shoulder if he’d had one, looking away from me. “I need to think,” he said. “Leave me, Dan.”
And I did.
Pirraghiz insisted that I eat, so I did.
Then she urged me to sleep, because there was no knowing when I might get the chance again, so I tried to do that, too. Sleep didn’t come quickly, though. What made it difficult was my conscience.
The difficulty was that although this Beert was a weird-looking creature with a snaky neck and the face of a rattlesnake- not to mention that he was also a member of that race who had just finished murdering a whole bunch of my fellow humans, one of whom (or several of whom) had been me-in spite of all that, he was something else. He was one of the only two friends I had left, anywhere in this part of the universe. And I had put him in the deep shit, and had every prospect of getting him in deeper still.
You might ask how I could do something like that to a friend.
I guess the only proper answer would be “practice,” because actually I had had plenty of experience along those lines. Betraying friends was basically the job description of what I did for the National Bureau of Investigation. We called it “infiltration.” In order to get the goods on some gang of criminals or terrorists- or whatever-my first step was to make some new friends, who would remain my friends just as long as it took me to get the evidence that would put them in prison for most of their adult lives.
I had never had much of a problem with my conscience in those days, because those “friends” weren’t friends at all. They were bad guys, and they needed to be put away. But Beert wasn’t a bad guy. Neither was my other new friend, Pirraghiz. And I was definitely screwing up her life, too.
So I didn’t get much sleep, hanging on to the webbing in my alien room in this alien thing called a “nexus.” Neither did anyone else, because it wasn’t long until one of the Christmas trees poked in on me and announced, “The channels for the Wet One have been accessed. It may proceed now to its transmission.”
CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO
I don’t know if Beert had slept, either. When I got to where the Wet One was, Beert was there, too, painstakingly reattaching all the amphibian’s gear to his body, but he didn’t speak to me.
He didn’t speak on the way back to the transit-machine chamber, either. The trip seemed shorter than it had coming the other way, maybe because my mind wasn’t on what we were doing. What my mind was occupied with was wondering what Beert’s mind was. I knew he was feeling guilty. I didn’t know what he would do about it. If duty overcame friendship, he only had to speak a couple of words and my hopes of ever getting back to Earth would be right down the tube. Or if he dithered indecisively for very long, that would be nearly as bad. What I wanted was to be on my way before it occurred to anybody to put in a call to the Eight Plus Threes.
A couple of the Christmas trees were waiting for us at the transit machine. So was a living Horch-a very young Horch, I thought, because he was no more than half Beert’s size, but handsomely decked out in a scaled-down version of his Greatmother’s body armor. “I am Kofeeshtetch,” he said-or something like that. He was talking to Beert, but his neck was swaying toward me and the Wet One. “I am the Greatmother’s least grandson. Can these organisms talk?”
Kofeeshtetch turned out to be pretty nearly the best thing that had happened to me in a while. He was a pampered, and fairly well spoiled, youngster, and that was very good for us lower organisms. He wasn’t just interested in us, he was fascinated. He was even more fascinated-no, the right word is “thrilled,” thrilled enough to be peeing his pants if he’d had any-at what we two aborigines were planning to do. Invade strongholds of the Others! Do it single-handed! “When I myself am grown,” he boasted breathlessly, “I too will command forces to capture stations and worlds from the Others, just as my parents did in this installation! But I will not, of course, be foolish enough to attempt it alone. Do you imagine that you have any hope of succeeding at all?”
I wasn’t sure whether he was asking the Wet One or me, but I wanted to be the one who answered. “With the generous help of you Horch, yes!” I said.
Beert gave me a disapproving look, translated as Shut up, you ‘ve made enough trouble. “It is kind of you to take an interest, Kofeeshtetch,” he said, doing his best to be polite to a grandson of a Greatmother, “but we have urgent business. This Wet One is most uncomfortable in this dry and weightless environment. He should begin his mission without delay.”
The youth shrugged impatiently. “Of course, but first I wish to hear his plans in detail. Speak to me if you can, Wet One.”
The amphibian’s little electric whiskers were twisting about. For a moment I thought the Greatmother’s least grandson was going to get a cattle-prod shock to hurry him along, but courtesy, and prudence, won out. The Wet One began telling his plans in his thick, slobbery voice.
Kofeeshtetch listened with a lot less courtesy, his neck drawn back from the Wet One in repugnance. “I can hardly understand this one,” he remarked to Beert. “He speaks very poorly, as do you. I am disappointed.” He turned to the nearest Christmas tree. “At least display for me what his planet looks like, also”-shooting one arm in my direction-“the planet of this one.”
“We have not yet identified the other organism’s home,” the machine apologized.
“Do so! Meanwhile, the display!”
There was no doubt that Kofeeshtetch was used to having his orders obeyed. They were. Another of the Christmas trees, the one hovering by the transit machine, quickly swung itself to a TV bowl in the wall and made adjustments.
As a picture sprang up in the bowl, the amphibian caught his breath in a sort of loud, abbreviated snore. To me, the picture was just a planet, and not a particularly interesting one. None of its few land masses looked anything like Earth, but it meant something to the amphibian. He croaked, “That is it! I believe that is my true Home Water!”
One of his shocking tendrils was resting on the image, touching a wide bay that looked like any other wide bay to me. It didn’t seem to mean much to Kofeeshtetch, either. As he pulled himself closer, one of those mean-looking fighting machines got in his way, but he shoved it rudely aside. Then he made a sound of disgust. “This is a very tedious object, Wet One,” he told the amphibian. “There is too much water. But if you wish to go there, then do so.”
And he waved to the Christmas tree, who opened the door of the transit machine.
The amphibian crawled in, attachments and all, and the other robot tossed his ammunition boxes after him.
The door closed.
Kofeeshtetch made a gesture of dismissal. “I do not think that Wet One will survive for long,” he remarked, and that was all there was to it.
After a moment Beert sighed. “I would have liked to wish him well on his venture,” he said meditatively. “In any case, thank you for your help, Kofeeshtetch, but now I am quite tired. I think I will go to my chamber and rest before the banquet. Are you coming, Dan?”
I looked at the young Horch. He seemed poutily disappointed in the entertainment, but he hadn’t left.
“You go ahead, Beert,” I said. “I think Kofeeshtetch still has some questions for me, so I’ll stay a bit.”
It took me about thirty seconds to get the kid juiced up again-he was, after all, a kid. All I had to do was to ask him if he would please grant me the favor of telling me how his ancestors had captured this installation. That did it. He was off, and then all I had to do was make the appropriate thrilled noises from time to time.
His story was full of Horch names that I didn’t retain, and matters of who took precedence over whom that I didn’t understand in the first place. Most of it, though, was blow-by-blow descriptions of how his parents’ technicians had managed to insert their fighting forces into the Others’ channel. And how the first wave of Horch fighting machines had been destroyed in a few moments. And how the Horch had sneaked a second wave in through a different transit machine while the defenders were distracted by what was happening at the first one. And-