Lost and Found (22 page)

“While the image such murderous exertions call to mind is much to be desired,” Sque told him, “it is misplaced and premature. More low-tech even than that.”

“More low-tech than hitting someone over the head?” Walker opined uncertainly.

“More basic than you can imagine.” Sque sounded pleased with herself: a not uncommon state of affairs. “If fortune holds, more low-tech than our captors can imagine, as well.”

“Tomorrow,” Walker murmured. It had become a magic word. A destination rather than a description. “What do we do until then? Do we stop and sleep here?”

Like a sentient worm, one tentacle semaphored in his direction. “Do not squander the tiny bit of acumen you have recently displayed, human Walker. We still have some distance to go. It would be disheartening in the extreme to stumble upon stalking Vilenjji on the day before we are destined to risk all.”

“Then I’ll follow you,” he replied readily, “and keep my mouth shut.”

Pivoting neatly, the K’eremu resumed scuttling down the long, dim passageway. “Two prudent decisions in one coherent phrase. Despite inherent shortcomings, a glimmer of evolution may be discerned. One can but hope.”

Which is what all of them were doing as they silently followed their insufferably egotistical guide onward into the darkness.

Triv-Dwan led the quintet of members forward. Two of them bore an assortment of capture gear. The other three were heavily armed. Bearing with them the decision of the association, as finalized by Pret-Klob and its other senior members, they were operating under a mandate to recapture the still at-large inventory, but not to take chances. It was imperative that the inventory, who had already had the audacity to disgrace a previous search group, not be allowed to escape into the inner regions of the ship a second time. The group’s instructions were clear: If the absent inventory could not be recaptured this time, it was to be terminated.

At least, after days of wandering aimlessly, the group now had something definite to track. The sensors they all carried had picked up an unmistakable indicator. At least one large organic signal and possibly more lay directly ahead of them, moving steadily in the opposite direction. Despite the carnage that had been wrought by the free-roaming Tuuqalian, Triv-Dwan felt confident. The two other hunting groups that had also been searching for the missing inventory were closing in on the signal from opposite sides. By coordinating their approach, all three should arrive to confront the source of the signal at the same time. Not even the Tuuqalian, Triv-Dwan felt, could make an escape through three synchronized hunting groups.

Immediately on his right, Sjen-Kloq wrapped her arm flaps tighter around the impressive long weapon she carried. The members of all three groups had been cautioned to attempt capture first and shoot only as a last resort. The warning was superfluous. Everyone knew how much profit was at stake. But they would not put their lives at risk to preserve it. That had been tried immediately subsequent to the initial mass escape of the inventory, and had resulted in the deaths of several members of the association.

It would be good, he knew, to finally see the last of the escapees helpless in clean restraints. Their return would be a lesson to the already recovered inventory: Escape from the enclosures was a futile gesture. Expensive as it had already been, in terms of lives and ship-time, the lesson should not be wasted.

A glance at the sensors that lined his limber right upper appendage indicated that they were closing rapidly on the target. Whatever food and drink the inventory had been able to scavenge should be running low by now, he reflected. Weakness would take its toll on mental as well as physical acuity. With luck, the recapture would go smoothly, with no damage either to inventory or to any members of the three hunting groups. A separate indicator showed that Hvab-Nwod’s and Skap-Bwil’s teams were closing rapidly. Seeing that all possible avenues of flight were blocked to them, perhaps the inventory would behave rationally and give up without a struggle. If they did so, Triv-Dwan would be among the first to compliment them on having done well to remain at liberty for so long. After all, valuable lessons could be learned even from lowly inventory.

Sjen-Kloq had been forced closer to him by the narrowness of the passageway they were presently negotiating. Triv-Dwan felt the presence of the other members of their group close behind. Having limited space in which to operate did not trouble him. Less room for them to maneuver meant correspondingly less opportunity for the inventory to slip past.

According to the sensor readouts they were very close now. His suckers tightened on the capture device he held. For a change, everything was proceeding flawlessly. Both other groups should be in position within seconds.

“There!” Sjen-Kloq hissed sharply as her own sensors switched from remote to direct visual perception. Simultaneously, Triv-Dwan unleashed his device. From the opposite direction, a member of Hvab-Nwod’s team did likewise.

Both shockeshes swiftly enshrouded their target. Enveloped, startled, and stunned, it ceased moving immediately. It did so without protest and without crying out. Weapons and devices at the ready, all three groups rushed forward. What they saw resulted in confusion, bemusement, frustration, anger, and a rapidly dawning realization that this time they had not only been humiliated in the manner of Dven-Palt, but humiliated in a way that was as inimitable as it was ancient.

On Triv-Dwan’s limb, as on those of his fellow association members, organic sensors continued to glow with the fullness of detection. Before them, the object of their resolve stood motionless, uncertain how to respond to what had happened to it. It was a repair automaton. A repair automaton that had been methodically and liberally coated with the organic byproducts of not one but four different free-ranging inventory. No wonder the insensate mechanical had given off such a strong and distinctive signal of organic presence. It was emitting other signals as well; ones that Triv-Dwan and his fellow members were at pains to ignore. While distracting, these did not trouble him half so much as the realization that, for a second time, the diligence and technological superiority of the Vilenjji had been systematically deceived.

As he turned away from the sight that was at once unpleasant and taunting, it also left him wondering where, if not here, the unspeakable absent inventory had betaken themselves.

The corridor was big. The accessway was big. The final atmosphere lock itself, leading straight into the secondary vessel, was bigger than he had expected. Instead of the small, narrow, easily sealed entrance he had envisioned, Walker found himself sprinting through an arching portal capacious enough to pass a rhino. Scuttling along beside him, listening to his exclamation of surprise, Sque marveled at his lack of common sense.

“These secondary relief craft are designed to accommodate Vilenjji. Vilenjji are large. In an emergency, the intent is to provide for as many individuals as possible. Forcing them to enter a vessel designed to save their lives by making them cross a narrow threshold slowly and one at time would be counter to its purpose.”

“A happy coincidence, for which I am grateful, many times.” For one of the few times since they had fled the grand enclosure, Braouk did not have to duck or squeeze to fit through a passage. If the Tuuqalian had been relieved by their success before, now he felt positively liberated.

Walker glanced back over a shoulder. There was still no sign of any pursuit. Whether the clever if odious diversion propounded by the inventive Sque had succeeded in drawing the attention of the Vilenjji away from them or because their vain captors had not believed a handful of escapees could conceive of attempting so daring a gambit he did not know. All he
did
know was that they had successfully gained entrance to one of the subsidiary spacecraft whose location she had memorized from her prior study of the Vilenjji control box.

When the K’eremu, with a boost from Braouk that enabled her to reach the relevant instrumentation, caused the heavy outer and inner doors to spiral shut behind them, Walker felt as if he had just surmounted Everest solo sans supplementary oxygen. If everything went for naught from now on, they had at least in some small way struck back at their abductors. The nature of the triumph was delicious: The abductees were themselves now engaged in the process of stealing from those who had stolen them. Tit for tat, far out among the stars. He wondered if the Vilenjji, when they discovered what was happening right under their olfactory orifices, would feel mortified. He hoped so.

George was running around the interior of the secondary craft, sniffing and exploring. The voluminous central chamber was lined with what looked like giant ice cream scoops: seats or lounges for a couple of dozen Vilenjji forced to abandon ship. With Sque beckoning them onward, they passed through the chamber and into a smaller one beyond. Though it boasted the same customary high ceiling, it overflowed with tiny projection devices and other arcane instrumentation whose purposes Walker did not even attempt to grasp. There were also two more of the archetypical body scoops. As the escapees studied their surroundings, several projection devices winked to life. Bits of dense light, like floating kanji characters mated with exotic flowers, appeared in the air around them. The majority were concentrated forward of the portal through which they had just entered.

“Up,” Sque commanded impatiently. For once, an energized Braouk responded without comment, poetical or otherwise. Placing two tentacles next to each other, the Tuuqalian provided a sturdy pedestal for the much smaller K’eremu. Effortlessly, Braouk lifted her up into the web of hovering light-shapes. Gripping his tree-trunklike supportive limbs with half a dozen of her own much smaller ones, she launched into an intense study of the softly glowing, evanescent structures that now surrounded her like so many curious pixies.

That left the two Terrans free to explore the corners of the craft’s forward chamber. So elated were both of them at their success in having coming this far that Walker took no offense at Sque’s patronizing directive, “Do not touch anything the function of which you do not understand. Which is to say, do not touch anything.”

“We’re still a long ways from getting free of the Vilenjji,” George reminded him, trotting alongside. “We’re still a long ways from anywhere.”

“But we have a chance,” Walker told him. “It might be no more than a minuscule chance, but that’s more of one than we had squatting in our enclosures like so many—”

“Dogs in a pound?” George finished for him.

Walker looked down at his friend. “I wasn’t going to say that,” he replied somberly.

“Doesn’t matter. I wanted to. Remember it the next time you find yourself comparing degrees of freedom.” The black nose rose and dipped to indicate a nearby patch of luminous alien imagery. “Wonder what that does?”

Walker eyed the cluster of carmine and orange lights that formed an eye-catching basket of floating photons in front of them. Unlike similar luminosities that hovered above their heads at Vilenjji limb-level, this out-of-the-way mass of drifting radiance was practically resting on the deck. Head down, George approached it with his usual caution.

Walker added to it. “Sque said not to touch anything.”

“Doesn’t smell.” The dog raised its head. “It’s just light. Why does she get to give all the orders? Why does she get to do everything?”

“Because she knows how,” Walker reminded him. “Because she’s a representative of the high and mighty all-knowing, all-seeing, all-stuck-up but inarguably ingenious K’eremu. Because if anyone’s going to get us out of this, it’s her.”

“Screw that,” George shot back. “It’s time I was treated like a dog.” So saying, and before a startled Walker could move to stop him, he reached out with his front right leg and gently pawed the bundle of hovering lights.

His claws went right through the drifting shape. They were nothing but lights, after all. Then a rising hum made both of them turn.

“I told you not to touch anything,” Sque called down to them from her perch atop the Tuuqalian’s extended limbs. Encouragingly, she did not sound any more than usually scornful, much less worried.