Пол Андерсон - Explorations

We sprant to our feet. "What the hell?" ripped from Maclaren.

"Vincent Indigo!" Rero-and-I cried together.

He was taken aback at our recognition of him. Unequipped for much conscious details. He rallied at once, chopped air with his firearm, and snapped: "Silence. Not a peep out of you. The first that starts trouble, we'll shoot." A pause. "If you cooperate, nobody need get hurt. If you don't the kids might suffer too."

Tamara gasped and clutched at her husband. He laid an arm around her waist. Rero-and-I joined in a look of longing. We couldn't touch.

"We're taking the Arvelans away," Indigo said. "A kidnapping. The government ought to pay a

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fancy sum for their release. I'm telling you this so you'll see we don't mean worse and it's to your advantage to be good. Sir and Lady Maclaren, we're going to disable your phone and your car, to keep you from giving the alarm before we're a safe distance off. We don't want to do you more harm than that, and won't if you stand quietly where you are. As for you two. creatures, we don't want to harm you either. No ransom for a corpse, eh? We'll take care of you if you behave yourselves. If you don't — well, a bullet doesn't need to kill you by itself. It only needs to make a hole in your sealsuit.

"Quiet, I said!" he ordered as Maclaren's mouth stirred. To his followers: "Get busy."

They grunted assent. One attacked the telephone. Not content to break its connection, he put a shot through the screen. The hiss of the pistol, the crack of splintered glass sounded louder than they were. He used the scanner to make sure the children had not roused, then rejoinded Indigo in keeping watch on us. Meanwhile his companions had gone back inside, evidently to the garage for their own task of demolition. I had noticed tools hung at their waists. This was a carefully planned operation.

Stupefaction left me; anger seethed up. Vincent Indigo! The rest are unknowns — he must have left the official craft when it landed at a nearby airport to wait for tomorrow, and met them — Was he always a criminal, who slithered his way into public service, or was it the chance he saw which corrupted him?

No matter. He dares endanger Rero!

Beneath the fury, a logical part of me was baffled. His actions don't make sense. Probably he supposes, probably rightly, that his name didn't register on the Maclarens when we uttered it. Voice transponders or no, we do have a thick accent.

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Nevertheless, can he really hope that his part in this business will remain hidden? He has to return us if he wants to collect his price, and we'll denounce him—

Is he insane, to overlook that? Are his accomplices, too? He never struck me as irrational. But what is sanity…ma human?

My glance went to Maclaren and his wife. Over the years I have learned in slight measure to read expression, stance, aura in that race. Fear had largely departed from them, now that it appeared there was no direct physical threat. He stood a-scowl with thought, and a cold wrath was coming over him. She was regarding us, her guests, with a horrified pity. Though they remained in bodily contact, that was not where their attention lay.

It would have been for Rero-and-me, of course, if we could have touched. But we could simply hold gloves and make forlorn skin-signs.

The two men re-entered and reported their task done. "Fine," Indigo said. "Let's get going. You" — he pointed at the human prisoners—"stay indoors. You" — that was us—"go on out."

The four kidnappers moved cautiously, two ahead of us, two behind, while we shuffled forth. Moonlight glimmered on early dew. The stars looked infinitely far. The lights of the village and of neighboring houses looked farther still. Most distant was the yellow glow from the home we had left.

Rero attempted speech in our language. Since our hosts could no longer hear it, Indigo did not forbid. Her words hurried: "Beloved, what do you suppose we should do? How can we trust them? They must be crazy to believe they can carry this off and go unpunished."

So her thought had paralled mine to that extent: hardly a surprise. Mine leaped onward. "No, they

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can reason, in a twisted fashion," I said. "Else they wouldn't have the kind of preparation and discipline they do. Perhaps they have a secure hiding place ready, or a change of identities, or whatever. The risk would still appear enormous to me — considering that we represent a whole planet, won't the Citadel bend every effort to hunting them down? — but what do we know of the ins and outs of Earth?" I clamped her fingers in mine, hard. "Best we stay calm, alert, bide our time. The ransom will surely be paid. If the Protector won't, then I expect those people who want alliance with our kind will subscribe to the sum demanded."

We reached the aircraft. Its door stood ajar above us. "Go on in," directed Indigo. His men drew closer.

We could not enter side by side in our bulky equipment. As it happened, I went first, climbing up a short extruded ladder. Cabin lighting was weak but sufficient. My gaze traveled aft, and I stopped short in the entrance.

"You have only one biostatic unit!" I protested. My hearts began to gallop. A roaring rose in my head.

"Yes, yes, we've no room for two," Indigo said impatiently. "Either of you can plug into it if you like. The othe can last in his suit, or hers, till we get where we're bound. There we have an Arvel-conditioned chamber."

My look sought Rero's. Though her countenance was a blur in the moonlight, her aura throbbed red. Mine did too. She spoke in our language: "If that is true, why need they bother with a unit at all? They only mean to keep one of us alive. Not both."

"Alive as a hostage." My words sounded remote, a stranger's. "This is not a capture for money."

And rage took us into itself.

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She at the thought that I might have to die, I at the thought that she might have to die, went aflame. You can imagine; but in these peaceful years of ours, you cannot know.

We were no longer persons, we were killing machines. Yet never had our awarenesses been more efficient. I believe I saw each dewdrop upon each blade of turf around the feet of those who would let Rero perish. I knew that my suit and its gear made me awkward, but I knew also that they were heavy. I gauged and sprang.

A man stood beside the ladder. My boots crashed on his skull. He went down beneath my mass, we rolled over, he lay broken, I lumbered up and charged at the next nearest. Rero was entangled with a third man Indigo danced about. He hadn't fired immediately for fear of hitting a comrade. He would in a moment, I knew, and Rero-and-I would be dead.

Dead together.

A form hurtled from the verandah, across the lawn, toward us. Utterly astounded, I'did not slay him with whom I grappled. I only throttled him slack while I stared.

Maclaren. Maclaren had abandoned his wife to come help us.

He caught Indigo by surprise, from behind— grabbed the pistol wrist, threw his left arm around the man's neck, put a knee in the back.

I mastered myself and went to aid Rero. Despite her weight of apparatus, her small form was bounding back and forth, in and out, fast enough for her enemy to miss when he shot. Him I did pluck apart.

The moon stood higher when calm had returned to us. It had to the Maclarens earlier. In him it took the form of sternness, in her of a puzzled half-compassion, as we loomed above Vincent Indigo.

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He huddled in a chair, a blot upon that beautiful room, and pleaded with us.

"Certainly I'm going to take your flyer and fetch the police," Maclaren said. "But before then, in case the Citadel tries to cover for you, I want the facts myself: " He realigned his audiovisual recorder. "Several copies of this tape distributed in the right places — You were acting for the Protector, weren't you?"