Pohl, Frederik - The Far Shore of Time

I could see that there were all sorts of things there that I thought the Bureau’s techs would have liked to play with. More immediately important, I saw a sort of chisel, a pink ceramic blade with a handle shaped for Beert’s grip, not mine. But I thought I could hold it well enough in a pinch. What’s more, I was pretty sure that the blade could cut right through that sinewy neck of his.

Well, let me make that clear. I certainly wasn’t intending to kill Beert. I was merely hoping that he would believe I would, once I put the knife to his throat. The real question was whether threatening his life would force him to help me.

I wasn’t proud of myself for thinking of taking a knife to a being who had befriended me. I wasn’t even sure that I could bring myself to do it. But then I thought of what awaited my whole world-including Pat-and I inched a bit closer to the workbench.

Finally Beert gave one of his whispery sighs. “I do not see that this would directly threaten the interests of the cousins,” he said reluctantly, “though perhaps it is better if they are not consulted. But even if I were willing to do what you wish, I do not know how to do it.”

Well, I did. Or hoped I did, anyway. “When you transmit the Wet One to this nexus, transmit me too.” I had been thinking it all out, as far as I could, and I laid it all out for Beert. The Horch in this nexus probably could find a channel to the scout ship for me. If not, at least to whatever Beloved Leaders relay station was passing on the data from the bugged humans. If they could find the channel, presumably they could use it to send me there. And then I would take my chances.

Beert listened in brooding silence, then finally raised his serpentine arms to stop me. He said somberly, “Do you know, Dan, I was sure that, if I helped you at all, sooner or later you would ask me to do something that the cousins had not approved.”

“Then why did you help me?”

Reflectively he rubbed his chin against the edge of the workbench. “I am not sure. Probably because I had seen so many of you die. Perhaps because you and I had both been captives of the Others. In any case, I thought it harmless to keep you alive, even to let you learn all you wished of our ways, since there was no possibility you could use that knowledge against us.”

“I haven’t really learned very much,” I said, wheedling.

He lifted his head to gaze closely at me again. “You have learned enough to lie to me, haven’t you? But very well. If I were you, I would fear the cousin Horch as much as I did the Others. Perhaps I do already. Let me find Mrrranthoghrow and tell him what he is to do.”

PART SEVEN

The Nexus

CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT

The air-cushion van that took us to the old Beloved Leader base was big, but the eleven or twelve hundred kilograms of us, of one species or another, crowded it pretty tight. Beert’s Christmas tree stood at the central control pedestal. Pirraghiz and Mrrranthoghrow sat one on each side of the vehicle, I guess for balance. The Wet One had the rear seat all to himself, while Beert and I were in front. Beert wasn’t talking, his neck glumly waving from side to side, and I didn’t press him. I took a piece of the stuff Pirraghiz had given me out of my pocket and began to eat it-it looked like a carrot, and crunched like one, but it had a sort of lemonade flavor.

Beert suddenly darted his head toward the copper-mesh bag between my feet and then up to confront me in my face. “What have you got there?” he asked suspiciously.

“Extra food,” I said-untruthfully. I don’t think I convinced him. To take his mind off it I jerked a thumb at the Christmas tree. “Do we have to have that thing with us?” I asked.

“It will carry the gear for the Wet One,” he said grumpily, “and it will go with him to the nexus in case there are any problems.” But he let it go at that, and then we were arriving.

We climbed a rise in that rust-red rock desert that seemed to be the prison planet’s natural state, and the dilapidated buildings of the base were right in front of us. They looked naked. The Horch hadn’t bothered to replace the silvery energy dome of the Beloved Leaders. The place looked like, and was, not much more than a junkyard of damaged Beloved Leaders machines.

As soon as we stopped, the Christmas tree silently gathered all the Wet One’s possessions, guns and scrambler and ammunition boxes, and led the way outside. “Pick him up,” Beert ordered, and Mrrranthoghrow obeyed. The Wet One was a lot of mass, and ungainly to handle, but the Doc lifted him and carried him out of the car, puffing slightly with the effort as Pirraghiz followed. Beert and I got out just behind them. Then, as the two Docs moved out of the way, I saw what was standing just inside the building line.

I froze. A silvery Horch fighting machine was poised there between a wrecked, man-high purple cylinder and a heap of coppery junk that might once have been anything at all. I knew all about those fighting machines. Two of them had done their best to kill me and all the others as we tried to escape the first time, and they had come pretty close. The good part was that they had turned out very vulnerable to a gunshot, having been designed to expect more sophisticated weapons, but that was not of immediate importance since I didn’t have a gun. My adrenaline surged.

But the machine wasn’t paying any attention to us. It stood like a statue on its spidery, wheeled legs, evidently abandoned there when the fighting was over. I breathed again, but I kept my eye on it as I sidled past, and that was what kept me from seeing the other Christmas tree, the one that was barring our path.

The first I knew of it was the sound of its little roller-skate wheels, but as I looked around it spoke. “Stop there,” it ordered.

It didn’t look hostile. Its needles were mostly retracted, but it didn’t look as though it wanted to get out of our way, either. Beert shouldered his way past our own Christmas tree to confront it. “This Wet One is to be transmitted to his own world, for which the Greatmother of the Eight Plus Threes has given permission,” he told it. “It cannot walk well on land, so these persons are here to carry it.”

There was another noise of wheels coming from somewhere nearby, deeper and louder than a Christmas tree’s skates, but the robot paid no attention. It extended a branch of needles toward me. “What is the reason for this other organism being here?” it asked.

If the question was meant for me, I didn’t answer it. I was squinting down the passage, where a pair of those Horch three-wheeled velocipedes were rolling toward us. Each cart carried a single cousin Horch, their belly plates gleaming and their necks extended in curiosity toward us. I was wondering if my whole plan was going to collapse right there.

Beert answered for everyone. “This other organism is my project, for which the Greatmother has also given permission. I am investigating whether such a primitive person could learn to use advanced technology, or whether he is at too low a level to be a possible ally against the Others.”

Whether the Christmas tree was buying that, I couldn’t tell, but it didn’t matter. One of the cousin Horch spoke up. “We have been called for nothing. It is only Djabeertapritch’s puppy.”

Well, he didn’t say “puppy,” exactly. What he said was more like “immature lower-form creature possessed for entertainment,” and he sounded amused as he said it. But he went on to the Christmas tree: “He is harmless. Let them pass. Escort them to the transit machine in case they need help.”

And the other cousin Horch said to Beert, equally amused, “You are still not used to the blessings of technology yourself, are you, Djabeertapritch? Imagine using organisms to carry another organism! You should have summoned a vehicle.” And, with the Horch equivalent of chuckles, the two of them rolled away.