“I don’t doubt,” Duncan said. ‘Td better get down there and see about them.”
“You can’t tell me what this business is.”
“No. I’m sorry.”
She nodded, shrugged. “You can’t tell me whether things are likely to reverse themselves.”
“I don’t think they will.”
Again she nodded. “Well,” she said sadly. That was all.
He took his leave of her and walked out, through the lab that was, he saw, in a disorder that had nothing to do with research, small items that had been on the shelves now gone, books missing.
Saber’s men had been thorough.
But if they had taken the mri from the ship, then the dusei might pine and die, like one that he had seen grieving over a dead mri, a beast that would not leave for any urging.
He took that downward corridor that led him to the hold. His stomach was already knotting in dread, remembering what they could do in distress. He had been among them since that first night, brought them food and water, and they had reacted to that with content. But now they had been disturbed by strangers, attacked; and the fear of that feeling that had possessed him once was as strong as any fear of venomed claws.
The sensation did not recur. He entered the hold high on the catwalk, looked down at the brown shapes that huddled below, and cautiously descended to them, fearing them and determined not to yield to it. The regul avowed that the dusei thrived on synthetic protein, which was abundant enough in the station stores; that they would, in fact, eat anything they were offered, which presumably included humans and regul, as he had heard Luiz remark. The air was remarkably fresh, a clean though occupied aroma to the hold, not so pronounced as with the fastidious regul. The beasts were very neat in their habits, and remarkably infrequent in their necessary functions, metabolizing fluids in such a fashion that Boaz and Luiz found exceedingly intriguing, with a digestion that exacted fluids and food value from anything available of vegetable or animal tissue, and gave off practically no waste compared to the bulk they had ingested and that quite dry. Regul information on them was abundant, for regul ships had kept kel’ein and dusei for many years. Dusei seemed to go dormant during long confinement, once settled and content. In general dusei put less demand on a ship’s life-support than humans, mri, or regul. It was the awesome size of them that made them uncomfortable companions, the knowledge that there was absolutely nothing that could be done should one of them run amok.
Duncan stepped from the last tread of the stairs, saw both dusei rise with a keening moan that echoed throughout the deep hold. They stood shoulder to shoulder, nostrils working, smelling the stranger. Their small eyes, which were perhaps not overly keen, glittered in the light. The larger of them was a ragged, scarred beast: this one Duncan took for Niun’s own; and he thought he also knew the smaller, sleek one for a one-time companion of theirs.
The big one shambled forward with his pigeon-toed gait, looked Duncan up and down and rumbled a deep purring that evinced pleasure in the meeting. The smaller one came,, urgently thrusting with its broad nose at Duncan’s leg.
He sat down on the last steps between them, and the big animals settled in an enormous mass about his feet, so that they touched. He stroked the velvet-furred hides remarkably pleasant, that velvet-over-muscle. There was no sound at all but the rumbling of the dusei, a monotonous, peaceful sound.
They were content. They accepted him, accepted a human because of Niun, because they had known him in Niun’s company, he thought, although they had disdained his touch while Niun was there. When once he had attempted escape, the dusei had hunted him, had cornered him, all the while pressing at him with such terror as he began to understand was a weapon of theirs.
I wonder that they did not kill you, Niun had said that night.
Duncan wondered now that they rested so calmly after what had been done to them, after humans bad tormented them, trying to sedate them; but the dusei’s metabolism absorbed poisons, and perhaps absorbed the drug. There was no evidence of harm to them, not even any of disturbance in their manner.