Lost and Found (23 page)

The upper half of the front of the chamber was retracting.

As it slid upward into the ceiling, the universe was revealed. Distorted by whatever engine or drive drove the Vilenjji craft, but still stunning in its expanse and glory. It was far more impressive, and more overawing, than had been the view through the modest passageway port they had encountered earlier. Curving halfway around the forward chamber in imitation of a Vilenjji eye, it also allowed them, for the first time, a view of part of the Vilenjji ship itself.

It was immense. Even after days of wandering through its dimly lit passageways, Walker had not really succeeded in acquiring an honest impression of its true size. And they were seeing only a small part of it, he reminded himself. Only that portion that was visible through a corner of the secondary craft’s viewport. Certainly it was bigger than your average ocean liner or cruise ship. The sheer scale of it brought home to him in a way nothing else could the magnitude of what they were attempting. The starship was intimidating in ways he had not envisioned. Surely they had no chance of escaping the grasp of beings who could construct, operate, and steer something that was infinitely beyond the collective capability of the entire human species.

“Podal toggle,” Sque announced from on high, by way of explanation for what they had done.

So that was what the impudent George had activated. The cluster of dazzling hovering alien luminosity, an incomprehensible mystery, was nothing more than a foot switch. And why not? A wandering spider could short out a massive computer. A skittering rat could interrupt a beam of light, setting off all manner of unforeseen consequences. And a curious, defiant dog could trigger an alien photonic input.

You didn’t have to be able to explain the physics of an internal combustion engine to know how to drive a car, he reminded himself. Maybe, just maybe, their chances of actually escaping the clutches of the Vilenjji were a shade more than minuscule.

Turning to study the thousands of silent, alien stars now visible through the sweeping curve of the forward transparency, he came to a solemn conclusion.

He would allow himself at least as much hope as a dog.

14

Although to all intents and purposes it appeared that they had succeeded in gaining entry to the secondary craft without being observed, it was their activity there that finally alerted the Vilenjji to their presence. As the smaller vessel’s internal systems were accessed and brought on line by the busy Sque, notification was passed to relevant instrumentation elsewhere within the main ship. These instruments in turn alerted those whose responsibility it was to monitor such matters.

The fact that every one of the secondary craft’s internal monitors had been shut down from inside was in itself instructive. As far as the hastily informed Pret-Klob was concerned, the only question remaining was how many of the still-at-large inventory had managed to gain access to such a sensitive installation. Certainly the missing female K’eremu must be counted among them, since of the four remaining escapees she alone theoretically possessed sufficient skills to control such advanced functions. Perhaps allowing the specimen in question to occasionally accompany selected Vilenjji outside her enclosure had not been a notion that could, in hindsight, be commended for its wisdom.

What of the dangerous giant, the Tuuqalian? Was it still with her? Analysis of the multiple excretory deposits that had been used to deceive Triv-Dwan’s hunting group confirmed that it had accompanied the K’eremu at least that far, together with the two oddly matched specimens from the far-distant overheated water world. It seemed likely that all four were now sequestered within the secondary vehicle. At least, he reflected, it was good to know they had finally been located. The task now at hand was to extract them from their final hiding place without damaging either the relief craft itself or the diverse quartet of specimens.

He proceeded to issue the necessary directives.

“Our captors are trying to access the outer lock.” From her seat atop the rock-solid Braouk’s supportive tentacles, Sque studied the concentrated barrage of flashing lights and drifting colors that filled the air before her. To Walker the condensed light show reminded him of what he saw when he squinted his eyes tight together while driving past a bunch of neon signs at night. He was glad that the coronal hodgepodge made more sense to the K’eremu, because it was nothing but a colorful blur to him.

Braouk’s flexible eyestalks allowed him to scan his immediate surroundings without having to put her down. “I see nothing, viewed from my perspective, like weapons. Nothing with which, taking even utmost care, for defense.”

“No need to stock weapons in a lifeboat,” Walker conceded. A dull thump drew his attention back the way they had entered, through the spherical chamber with its scoop seats, to the now sealed inner lock and beyond. “I wonder if they’d damage their own backup craft just to get at us?”

“Why not, if we’ve made them mad enough?” George was pacing restlessly back and forth. “Sque said this ship has several others.”

“I have sealed the outer lock as best I can,” the K’eremu announced from on high. “No doubt they are even now seeking a means to override what I have done. Once they have succeeded at that, they will then need to compute a new sequence to forcibly open the inner portal. We can further seal ourselves in here, but that would only postpone the inevitable.”

“Then what do we do?” George asked her.

She spared a glance for the fretful dog. “Remove ourselves from such eventualities—I hope.”

The distant thump was not repeated. Standing in the forward chamber with George panting nervously at his side, Walker experienced the kind of helplessness he had not felt since he was the smallest lineman playing for his Pop Warner football team, always facing bigger kids. At such times, he’d gotten run over a lot. Then his growth, both physical and mental, had taken a sustained spurt, and he was the one doing the pancaking.

Now it was like he was ten again, back in kids’ league, wondering what kind of stance he ought to assume. Facing the spherical chamber through the open portal of the control room he knew one thing for certain: Die here he might, but he was not going back to the enclosure the Vilenjji had fashioned for him. He’d had enough of Cawley Lake, both the real and the transplanted. Whatever happened next, he was done once and for all with being caged.

Stepping back into the forward chamber, he joined Braouk in searching for something that could be used as a weapon.

The smaller ship rolled slightly to its right. Possessed of an athlete’s balance (albeit one who had put on some weight over the previous nine years), he managed to stay upright. Four-footed and with a low center of gravity, George had no problem handling the unexpected jolt, nor did the immovable Braouk. Sque murmured something Walker’s implant was unable to translate effectively. Flashing through the air, multiple maroon tentacles conducted light. All the K’eremu needed was a baton and accompanying music, Walker mused, and the illusion would have been complete.

A second jolt followed, stronger than the first. Despite being prepared, this time he was knocked forward, to land on hands and knees. Braouk was hard-pressed to simultaneously maintain his stance while providing a steady perch for Sque from which to operate.

“I cannot proceed effectively if I am to be shaken about like water in a cup,” she chided him.

One globular ocular rose upward on its stalk to eye her unblinkingly. The orb, Walker noted, was larger than the K’eremu’s head. “Fashion you anything, small master of insults, with results?”

“They’re breaking in!” In a panic, George sought out a hiding place beneath a fluted mass of melded plastic and metal forms.

“They are not breaking in,” Sque assured him. “Unless I have done everything wrong, it is we who are breaking free!”

At that moment the reason for the jolts and shakes became crystal clear as the secondary ship dynamically disengaged from its primary vessel. As it commenced an automatic slow turn away from the parent craft preparatory to engaging its main drive, there was an instant of complete disorientation accompanied by a rising nausea in the digestive systems of those within. Then the craft’s own artificial gravity took hold, the bottoms of Walker’s feet once again found the floor, and his stomach settled gratefully back into its customary position. Out the sweeping forward transparency, much more of the Vilenjji vessel hove into view as the relief ship continued its balletic pirouette in the void.

Conditioned by a limited knowledge of spacecraft gleaned almost entirely from watching movies, Walker was expecting something streamlined. It came as a bit of a shock then, to see the gigantic conglomeration of conjoined geometric shapes that constituted the main body of the Vilenjji vessel. The larger craft from which they were escaping was stunning in its disarray. Pyramidal components penetrated battered rectangles and parallelogons. Spheres like bubbles of blown rust adhered to bracing pylons and immense connective cylindrical tubes. Near what he imagined to be the front, or bow, of the hopelessly unruly craft, a succession of grooved cones extended outward into space for what looked like half a mile. Every exposed surface was pockmarked with depressions or festooned with what appeared to be antennae. Here and there, external lights shone steadily or winked in and out of existence.

In place of the grandiose star-spanning vehicle he had envisioned in his mind’s eye was a gigantic junk pile of joined-together bits and pieces. While some of the individual components were of impressive size, not one of them would raise appreciative eyebrows in an architectural competition back home. Like the illicit intentions of the Vilenjji themselves, their vehicle was designed with function in mind, not beauty. He found the sheer prosaic ugliness of it consoling.

And they were completely free of it. Free from recapture. Free from their remorselessly coddling, wretched enclosures. Free from—

George made a very rude noise.

About to inquire as to the cause, Walker found that he did not have to. He could not have spoken anyway. All he could do was stare, lips slightly parted. Had he possessed lips, Braouk would have doubtless done likewise. Sque continued to silently manipulate her photic controls—but now to no avail. Having successfully disengaged from the main Vilenjji vessel, the four escapees suddenly found themselves confronted with a new and entirely unexpected predicament.

Another ship. Another really big ship.

It loomed directly in front of them, its prodigious mass slowly blotting out all but small scraps of the visible starfield. Walker had thought the Vilenjji ship sizable, enclosing as it did within its crazy-quilt jumble of linked-together shapes as much usable interior space as several oceangoing supertankers. The vessel that had without warning appeared before them was the size of the port where such supertankers would dock. Furthermore, what he could see of it was far more elegantly put together than the ungainly home of their captors. The newcomer was the color of aged ivory, marred in places by darker rambling slashes on its outer shell that were variously tinted dark green, blue, and several resplendent variants in between.

Hundreds of ports glowed with internal lights sharper and more defined than anything emanating from the Vilenjji ship. If not exactly a space-going city, it certainly expanded Walker’s limited scale of alien architectural values. Only Sque, as might be expected, was not overawed. But eventually even she was forced to concede defeat. Turning away from the photic controls, she directed Braouk to lower her to the deck.

“This craft’s internal instrumentation is no longer responsive. Either it or the mechanics it commands have been arrested. I can do no more.”

“Then that’s it.” George looked from one companion to another. “Everything we’ve done has been for nothing. The Vilenjji will open this secondary craft up like a can of old dog food and in a couple of hours we’ll be right back where we started. In our cages.”

Despite Walker’s resolve not to be returned to the enclosures, he did not see that there was anything more they could do to prevent that dismal eventuality from occurring. Braouk might go down fighting, taking a Vilenjji or two with him, but even that seemed unlikely. Surely their captors had learned their lesson by now and would take proper precautions before attempting to repossess the powerful Tuuqalian. As for himself, there was not much he could do against beings seven feet tall who outweighed him by a hundred pounds or more. The last thing he wanted to do, the one thing he had determined not to do, was surrender meekly. Yet without so much as an old razor blade to his name, there was little he could see himself offering in the way of resistance. At least George could take a bite out of a dark leg flap before the Vilenjji wrapped him up in a helpless bundle. He, Walker, could not even do that.

They waited for the end in silence: frustrated man, resigned dog, self-contained K’eremu, pensive Tuuqalian. An odd foursome, cast together by a shared longing for freedom and a mutual hatred of their captors. Walker did his best to reconcile himself to the inevitable. It had been a good run, he told himself. For all they knew, one unprecedented in Vilenjji memory. A few of their captors were dead, a few more humiliated. They had accomplished more than they had any right to expect. As to what the future held for him, he tried not to think about it.

As it developed, he had quite a lot of time not to think about it.

The interior lock of the craft they had commandeered did not cycle open. The outer lock was not blown. They continued to drift between the two larger vessels—one huge, the other immense—like an ant caught between an elephant’s forefeet. No attempt was made to communicate with them. Nor was he the only one to be struck by the continuing calm.

“This is very odd.” Having been set back down on the floor, Sque roused herself, her body rising upward from the middle of her cluster of tentacles. Silver-gray eyes contemplated the unresponsive instrumentation above her head. A few of the controlling lights were in motion. Though he had noticed the activity, Walker had thought nothing of it, believing it to be part of normal onboard operation. It was plain to see that Sque felt otherwise.

“It would appear that someone is talking to someone else. But no one is talking to us. Yet I should think our presence here would be the focus of any conversational activity.”

“Probably deciding thoughtfully, between both of them, what happens.” Braouk had settled himself against a wall, his four massive upper limbs crossed across his long gash of a tooth-lined mouth, his eyestalks slumped to where they were nearly level with the deck.

George piped up defiantly. “Well, I wish they’d put their pointy heads together and make up their feeble minds. I’m getting sick of waiting!”

Sque eyed him mordantly. “Freedom wearying on you already, little quadruped?”

The dog growled. “How about I see what one of those ropy excuses you’ve got for appendages tastes like? See if you find
that
wearying.”

A disgruntled Walker spoke up. “We won’t gain anything by fighting among ourselves.” He tried to find a reason, any reason, to be optimistic. “Maybe they’re having trouble forcing their way in. Maybe what Sque did when she sealed us off screwed with their programming or something, and they can’t get it sorted out. If they can’t, and the locks can only be opened effectively from the inside, maybe we’ll have something to bargain with after all.”