“Goes right to the source,” Alex murmured.
“In essence. That is a simplified explanation. Cerebral engineering is not my field. My concerns are with destruction, not interpretation. As are yours.”
“They are? I mean, are they?”
“All will be explained.” The Rylan spared a quick glance for some instrument he wore inside a shirt pocket. “But not by me. You have to hurry. We don’t have much time. There have been reports pouring in that are most disturbing in nature and frequency. Decisions of great import are about to be made.
“Besides, the briefing begins shortly.”
“Briefing? What briefing?”
“The briefing wherein many of your questions will be answered.” Schemal, the Rylan thought, what has Cen-tauri brought us this time? Don’t these creatures ever stop asking questions? Such unrestrained curiosity was sometimes an indication of great flexibility. The Rylan hoped fervently this was so. This late adolescent specimen was going to need all the flexibility it could muster in the coming action.
“Now come along and join the other recruits.” He started across the smooth floor toward the large glass-enclosed room at the far end. Alex trotted along in his wake, not knowing what else to do, hugging his burden of clothing tightly to his chest.
“Recruits? What was that about ‘other’ recruits?” He tapped his ear lightly. “You sure this thing is working right? I could’ve sworn you said ‘other recruits.’ Or is this gadget reading my pulses wrong? Hey, I’ve got it! You folks are AC and I’m DC, right? I’m mixing up your meaning, right?”
The Rylan stopped, indicating a doorway leaning inward.
“In there?” Alex asked. The Rylan made a gesture Alex couldn’t make up or down of. The button didn’t translate gestures. The movement was repeated.
“Of course in there. Where else did you expect to end up?” Then the Rylan turned and strode off down a hallway.
“Hey, wait a minute.” Alex hesitated, then shrugged. Machinery thrummed around him. “What the hell.” He headed for the door, which opened noiselessly for him.
A dozen nightmares turned in the briefing room to give him a quick glance. Their inspection was cursory and they soon turned back to their interrupted chatter, for which he was grateful.
Many of them wore uniforms identical in color and design, if not in shape, to the one he held in his arms. Others were clad in different attire. Two different ranks, he thought, or different classes. Most of the talkers were humanoid, though a couple were alien to the point of unrecognizability. One wore a complex mask across the lower half of his/her/its face. This was connected by a flexible tube to a square tank strapped across a broad back. Another creature didn’t appear to be breathing at all.
The chairs were not lined up neatly and everyone sat according to individual whim. Two of the talkers disdained the use of the furniture altogether and squatted side by side on the floor. No one objected to this choice of unconventional seating, which was after all a matter of personal comfort and not discourtesy. There were more Rylans present than any other species.
A voice blared over a hidden speaker. “Attention, attention! Ambassador Enduran of the League is here! He will deliver the final address. Please to devote your full attention to the words of the honored ambassador.”
Muttering in a dozen languages filled the room. Overwhelmed, the button in Alex’s ear could only produce a kind of verbal static. He started forward, letting the door close itself behind him.
The being who entered from the far side of the room and walked slowly toward the small rostrum conveyed a feeling of great age despite his erect bearing and fluid stride. He was humanoid, quite human in fact, as much if not more so than the Rylans. From the instant silence that greeted his appearance Alex presumed him to be the just announced visiting ambassador.
He paused in front of the eclectic collection of creatures, all united in common cause, and scanned them slowly. He overlooked Alex, perhaps by choice, perhaps because Alex was standing apart, or possibly because Alex still carried his uniform instead of wearing it. The ambassador was a powerful presence and Alex found himself waiting anxiously for whatever he might have to say. There was also about Enduran a strong feeling of resigned sadness.
But he stood tall, the single backbone that he shared with most of the chamber’s inhabitants unbent by age. Stood surveying them and listening to something only he could hear. Alex wondered if he wore something more advanced than a simple translator button, perhaps some ultraminiaturized device that enabled him to stay in constant communication with his own superiors.
The ambassador’s hesitation gave Alex a chance to move without attracting undue attention. Trying to keep an eye on Enduran and his path at the same time, Alex started working his way through the scattered seats.
“Excuse me . . . sorry . . . pardon me. . . ” He could only hope his apologies were being properly conveyed through the many translators in use in the room. To his dismay he seemed to be drawing more attention than he’d hoped to. This was due as much to his nervousness as to his inability to negotiate the sprawling limbs of various non-human listeners.
His usual agility deserted him utterly when he stumbled over a chair support, only to step back on something the size and shape of a garden hose. The hose whipped back like a retreating anaconda, throwing him off balance and toppling him into the lap of something with a face like a tormented cantaloupe.
Strong hands caught him and kept him from hurting himself. Alex got a good close look at them as they eased him back to a standing position. They were almost normal hands, if you ignored the peagreen color and the translucent webbing that joined the fingers. Dull red veins marbled the webbing.
The bulk that heaved behind him did not belong to those friendly hands, however, but to the owner of the bruised hose. Several identical hoses twisted and curled in anger, coddling the one Alex had stepped on. They looked capable of ripping pilings away from piers.
Neither a translator nor an intimate knowledge of alien expression was required to see that he’d stepped on the wrong toe . . . uh, tentacle. Skin rippled on the alien’s face and the fury in its eyes was clear enough to anyone who cared to look. Alex didn’t care to, but his retreat was cut off and he didn’t want to risk offending anything else in the room.
As conveyed by the translator button, there was nothing ambivalent about the alien’s tone, either.
“Biped of a thousand heavy pods! I should grind you to g’run dust!” A sweeping tentacle barely missed Alex’s face.
He didn’t know what g’run dust was but was positive his present condition was preferable. Swallowing, he fought to compose a suitable reply.
“I’m real sorry, uh, sir.” He let out a mental sigh of relief when the creature didn’t react. At least he’d gotten the sex right. “It was an accident. I didn’t mean it. I’m a stranger here. Just got in.” He raised the armful of clothing. “See? I haven’t even had time to change over yet, and I didn’t want to miss the briefing.
“Anyway, we’re all here because we’re on the same side, aren’t we? No point in fighting among ourselves, is there?”
The big alien glared at him a moment longer. Then it brought forth a prodigious grunt and sloshed back into its chair, muttering one last phrase about “clumsy bipeds” and their propensity to trip over everything in sight. But. the initial anger had dissipated.
Carefully Alex resumed his course toward the empty chair he’d spotted from across the room. It happened to lie next to the friendly, web-handed alien who’d caught him when he’d first tripped.
“It was an accident,” he mumbled.
“I’ve no doubt of that,” his new-found acquaintance whispered back at him. “Only a true fool would do such a thing deliberately. You just don’t trifle with a Bodati. They just love to fight. That’s why so many of them have volunteered to participate in this war, although I understand that the majority of them have to be kept in the rear echelons, employed in support and logistics. They’re much too impulsive and reckless to be trusted with a gunstar. They have a racial tendency, so to speak, to shoot themselves in the foot. But it’s nice to know they’re around in case it becomes necessary to go to a suicide defense.”
Alex digested this information and quickly locked in on the operative word.
“Excuse me, but you did say ‘this war’?”
The alien eyed him uncertainly, its gaze traveling from Alex’s face down to the uniform he still carried.
“But of course. Why else do you think you’re here?”
“I don’t know. I was told,” he said slowly, “that I was to receive some sort of honor.”