As always, he was bombarded with questions as soon as he appeared: “Why were you gone so long?” from Jimmy Lin; “What was that explosion?” from Dannerman.
One answer did for both of them. “There was an incident,” Dopey admitted, his fingers working nervously, his bright tail dimmed and still. “It caused some problems for a time, but it has been dealt with. Now I have some news for you-“
Pat wasn’t letting him get away with that. “What kind of incident?” she insisted.
He hesitated, staring around at them with those great eyes. Then he spoke to Dannerman. “In your previous life you were assigned to dealing with ‘terrorists,’ is that not correct? That is, with criminal persons who performed violent and destructive acts? Yes. Well, it is something of that sort here. I can say no more about it, except that the criminals have been, ah, neutralized.”
“Neutralized how?” Jimmy asked suspiciously, but Rosaleen overrode him-probably, Pat thought, because she didn’t think they would like to hear the answer.
“Never mind that,” she said. “What he means is, are these the same ‘criminals’ who were interfering with your communications?”
“Yes, precisely. The terrorists.”
“I see. And perhaps the same ones who transmitted the message that described you people as destroying the universe?”
For a moment Pat thought that Dopey was going to relapse into his trance state again; it seemed to be a troubling question. But then he made a breathy sound-almost a sigh-and said, “Yes. They are the same. Through trickery and violence they managed to infiltrate the link to your Starlab for a brief time. Of course, I observed their transmission at once and was able to jam the rest of it.”
“But then they did it again,” Dannerman offered.
Dopey said mournfully, “Indeed. This time I failed to observe it, as they had caused the death of one of me. But my replacement dealt with them. No,” he added, waggling his head against the next burst of questions, “that is all I may say on that subject. But I have received new instructions for you. I am instructed to accelerate your program, and so a device is being prepared which will give you more complete information-“
“Device? What kind of device?” Rosaleen demanded.
“It will be explained when it is ready,” he said severely. “Please do not interrupt. I have further instructions. I am directed to provide you with whatever additional materiel from your Star-lab you require-except, of course, anything that can be used as a weapon.”
“Why are you being nice to us?” Martin asked suspiciously.
“I do not make these decisions. I simply carry out instructions. If there is anything in particular you wish, simply inform me, now or later. Otherwise I will use my own discretion.”
“We don’t have room for anything else in here!” Pat put in.
“Yes. That has been anticipated. Other accommodations are being prepared for you.” He paused, eyes closed, fingers busy in the muff. It looked to Pat as though he was getting ready to leave, with a million questions unanswered; Rosaleen evidently thought the same, because she spoke up.
“Tell me one more thing. Are you going to bring any more of us here?”
“More copies of you here? I know of no such plans. It is possible, however, that there will be other human beings. Two additional human missions to Starlab are currently being proposed, and of course if they reach the orbiter they, too, will be copied for study. Now I must go.”
He turned, then paused to look back at Jimmy Lin. “One more thing. Please do not give any more thought to the plan of capturing and torturing me. I do not think you could succeed, but if you did it would be very unpleasant for me, and it would do you no good at all.”
CHAPTER TWENTY
Pat
Pat Adcock was deep in sleep when the sound of her own voice yelling jerked her awake. It didn’t come from her own throat; it had to be one of the new Pats, and she jumped to a conclusion. “Is that damn Jimmy trying something?” she demanded, sitting up and rubbing her eyes.
But it wasn’t Jimmy Lin. It was one of the Docs, and the person shouting was Patsy, hanging by one arm from the Doc’s grasp. “Damn you,” she cried, shaking herself free. “Don’t grab a person like that!”
The Doc hesitated, glancing at a second Doc standing stolidly by. “Where’s Dopey?” Pat demanded; no one answered, and he wasn’t there. The second Doc, which was holding some sort of metallic object, didn’t speak, of course: They never did, as far as Pat knew; perhaps couldn’t. Or simply had no reason to. What it did was make a gesture, and at once the first one abandoned Patsy and casually reached out for the arm of the nearest other human-it happened to be Jimmy Lin-holding him firmly while the other jammed the object down on Lin’s head.
“Hey!” Jimmy squawked in alarm, reaching up with both hands to tug it free. In vain; the Doc’s grip was firm. Pat thought for a moment of trying to rescue the Chinanaut from whatever new torture the Docs had devised. She could see the thing plainly now: a sort of helmet, made of the same coppery mesh as Dopey’s muff. On Jimmy’s head it looked almost like a garish wig, cut along the lines of one of those flapper hairdos of the early twentieth century, what they called a “French bob,” she thought. And while she waited Jimmy stopped struggling.
“Hey,” he said again, sounding startled but now-astonishingly-almost pleased. “There’s a Frenchman talking to me. He’s saying-no, just wait a minute, I’ll translate for you when he’s done.”
“I speak French,” Rosaleen said eagerly-only the first to make the claim; she was quickly followed by all three Pats and both other men.
Jimmy waved impatiently for silence. “He isn’t speaking French. He’s speaking Chinese. Shut up so I can hear.”
“Chinese!” Martin muttered angrily, as the two Docs left as wordlessly as they had come in. One of the Pats-Pat thought it was Patrice-complained:
“That is so inconsiderate!” Both of them were echoing Pat’s own thoughts. Chinese, for God’s sake! Dopey was showing even worse judgment than usual. But there was nothing to do about it but wait until Jimmy Lin was willing to talk to them.
Evidently the Frenchman’s message was short. After a moment Jimmy took the helmet off and gazed at them. “Well,” he said, “that was interesting. It didn’t actually tell much, but- hey!” Martin had grabbed the helmet from him. Jimmy reached to take it back, but Martin fended him off and settled the thing on his own head. “Now, what’s the use of doing that?” Jimmy demanded pettishly. “You aren’t going to understand Chinese, Martin.”
Martin said triumphantly, “He isn’t speaking Chinese! He’s speaking Spanish.”
“But that’s impossible,” Jimmy protested. “He was speaking quite excellent PRC Chinese, with a well-educated accent, though there was a trace of the Beijing tones-“
“Be quiet!” Martin thundered. “I can’t hear while you’re making all that racket! Also, I know who this man is. I will tell you all about it if you will simply let me listen.”
Looking petulant, Jimmy Lin did as ordered, but the others didn’t. Under the dark eye-patches of the helmet Martin was scowling at the noise, but he said nothing more until it was over. Then he took the helmet off and held it in his hand for a moment.
“The man speaking, he is Hugues duValier. He’s a navigator with Eurospace; I met him once at Kourou. What he is saying is a communication meant for everybody in the world. It sounds as though they finally got their own Starlab mission off.”
“What did he say?” Dannerman demanded.
Martin shook his head. “Try it for yourself. Since he is so unexpectedly versatile, I am curious to see if perhaps this time he will speak in some language you can understand.”
“Hey!” Pat cried as Martin handed the helmet to Dannerman. “What happened to alphabetical order? Who said all the men go first?”
“What happened to women’s rights?” Patrice chimed in, and Patsy added:
“Oink, oink, you sexist pigs.”
But Rosaleen said, “It’s faster if we don’t argue. Let him go; we’ll all get a turn.” And Dannerman placed the helmet on his head.
CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE
Dan
Dannerman settled the thing on his head as rapidly as he could; he wanted to see this linguistic marvel, wanted even more to find out just what the Frenchman had to say. The helmet didn’t fit particularly well and it was heavy. The goggles-opaque eye-shields, actually-dug into his flesh over the cheekbones, but they did their job. He could see nothing but blackness, could hear the sounds from his companions only faintly through the thickness of the helmet.
Then the blackness dissolved. Dannerman was looking at a man dressed in an astronaut’s EVA spacesuit, helmet tucked under one arm, and the man was looking directly back at him. It didn’t look like a broadcast. It seemed that the man was standing before him, solid in three dimensions, seeming almost near enough to touch. When the man spoke he sounded as though the conversation was one-on-one. He said: