"Our host has respiratory problems?" he inquired.
By way of reply she gestured nervously with the gun. He shrugged, stepped farther out into the middle of the room. There were several shelves full of books protected from the dampness by glass. Real books, he noted, made of paper. They looked quite old. Valuable antiques. But then, the location and design of the house hinted at the presence of money. That was merely a fact Loo-Macklin noted and filed for future reference. The trappings of wealth had long since ceased to impress him.
The furniture was protected by transparent, woven plastic. In addition to the couches and lounge chair there were several other pieces of furniture concealed beneath opaque cloth. Their shape was peculiar.
"I just think he likes the climate this way," said Selousa. She was whispering, and he wondered why.
He turned to face her again. Only two of the fourteen who'd guarded him during the flight to this place remained with her in the room. They held their short, stubby rifles tightly and their attention was no longer on him. Everyone was frightened of something, and he didn't think it was him. Not now.
He commented on the disappearance of the rest of his escort.
"They're outside now," she told him, gesturing with her head. "There's only the one entrance to this room, so there's no way you could break past them even if you could get past Dom, Tarquez, and myself."
"Suppose I don't try to break past you," he said, testing her. "Suppose I managed to incapacitate you three." He used the word delicately. "Suppose I just locked the four of us in here." He gestured toward the blank computer screen. "If that goes outside, and I'd think it would, I would have my own people here inside an hour."
"I wish you would not do that," said a new voice. It sounded as though it was rising from the bottom of an old stone well, intensely vibrant, guttural, echoing.
Loo-Macklin turned to his left, noticing as he did so that Dom, one of Selousa's backups, was edging toward the doorway. He was a big man, young and competent. Now he was sweating profusely, and he wore an expression of extreme unease and disgust.
One of the darkly draped pieces of furniture lifted the material from itself and tossed it to the floor.
Chapter 8
Kees vaan Loo-Macklin was rarely taken by surprise. This time he was.
"I was hoping that," the gurgling voice continued, "we might have a conversation." A tentacle, gray and damp with mucus, gestured toward the nervous figure of Selousa. "Hence the need to bring you here quickly and in ignorance, lest you refuse the invitation or insist on having others accompany you."
"This wasn't necessary, but I understand the reasons for your actions. Not many people would agree willingly to such a meeting."
"But you it troubles not?" the voice asked.
"No," Loo-Macklin replied softly, "not in the least."
A rich burbling sound that might have been a sigh came from the speaker. Enormous, bulging eyes flicked in opposite directions, gold flecks sparkling around slitted pupils.
"Parum met mel noma," the alien rumbled. "I had hoped this might prove so. Thus far it appears."
The representative of that exceptionally ugly race known as the Nuel turned on thick cilia and used a tentacle to pull another protective covering from a strange, horseshoe-shaped piece of furniture. It settled its gross body into the wedge thus proffered.
The Nuel ruled an unknown number of worlds farther out on the galactic disk than the eighty-three human worlds of the UTW. They had been pressing against the UTW's borders for several hundred years, probing and testing, seeking weak points and withdrawing when none were found, instigating incidents and in general attempting to gain influence over the UTW's citizens in any and all ways possible. They were aggressive yet cautious, paranoid yet willing to take chances.
Much of their drive derived from their shape, which was no less than repulsive to every other civilized race. The Nuel had therefore resolved, back when they first began to explore the stars around them, that they could insure their own safety only by taking control of everyone else. This end they had been pursuing for some time now with considerable success . . . until they came up against the powerful federation of peoples that formed the UTW. Their advance slowed and their paranoia increased proportionately.
They had reached the point where they were willing to try anything to gain a tentaclehold within UTW commercial or government circles. As they became desperate they grew more inventive.
Where confrontation had failed, perhaps a meeting might succeed.
The Nuel shifted in its peculiar chair. Slime dripped from the edges of the cupseat. One of Selousa's assistants made a strangled sound, choking back the gorge rising in his throat.
The Nuel extended two of its four tentacles.
"A custom you have of shaking hands. Would you make the supreme sacrifice for a human and touch flesh with mine?"
Loo-Macklin strode over to the cupouch, studying the alien with intense interest, and unhesitatingly extended a hand. As his fingers were wrapped in a pair of slimy tentacle tips, the bullywot named Tarquez put his hand to his mouth and burst out the only door. Dom watched him retreat, then glanced anxiously at his boss.
Even the tall, self-assured Selousa appeared ready to break as the tentacles slipped away from Loo-Macklin's fingers. Delicately, he wiped the residual ooze clean on one leg of his coveralls.
The two oversized eyes moved in that lumpy, silver-gray head. The supporting cilia were wrapped around the central pole that rose from the center of the cupouch seat and the tentacles spraddled loosely around the body. There were no visible ears or nostrils, only the serrated beak protruding from between the great, curving eyes.
"You may depart, Selousa-female," the Nuel told her. She hesitated, glancing empathetically at her former captive. Loo-Macklin ignored her stare, fascinated by the sight of the Nuel. He could feel her relief, however, as she and her remaining assistant fled the room.
Turning, he searched until he settled on a chair fashioned of spiderweb steel, pulled it over, and sat down deliberately close to the alien. The Nuel regarded his action approvingly.
"Thus far comes the night, bringing with it everything we had hoped you might prove to be, Kee-yes vain Lewmaklin," said the alien in that reverberating voice.
"How can you know this?" He shifted in the comfortable seat. "I haven't done anything yet."
"You touched flesh with me," said the Nuel. "Few, oh few humans can do that. Fewer still without forming on their faces expressions of extreme displeasure, to mention not the reactions that overcome their physical functions. As did happen with that one male," and a tentacle pointed toward the door.
"I don't consider that I've reacted in any way remarkable," Loo-Macklin told him honestly.
"All the more remarkable for that," the alien replied. "You sit across from me, almost close enough for touch, and exhibit no evidence of distress. Can it be that unlike the majority of your kind you do not find the Nuel repulsive to look upon beyond imagining?"
"Now that's an interesting thought," Loo-Macklin informed him, for a him he thought it was. "You see, most human beings," and he ran a hand down his Neanderthaloid body, "find me unpleasant to look upon."
"Had not thought, had not hoped," murmured the Nuel, "to find a physiological as well as psychological analog for facilitating communication between the two of us. You surpass my wildest expectation, Kee-yes vain Lewmaklin."
"And I'm curious to know what those expectations are," he told the alien. "Obviously you have high ones or you wouldn't have gone to all this difficulty and expense. Not only that required to bring me here, but that required to slip yourself surreptitiously onto an intolerant human world like Evenwaith."
The Nuel made a gesture with its tentacles, which Loo-Macklin hopefully read as a sign of agreement.
"We are not at war, human and Nuel. Not today, anyway. Tomorrow, perhaps." It was watching Loo-Macklin closely for any hint of reaction to this pronouncement. When none was forthcoming, it c
ontinued.
"It is difficult but not impossible to arrange such things. Even a single world is a vast place. This one is a planet of large cities and many open spaces, easier to penetrate than most. By the way, I am called Naras Sharaf. Your calling I know already."
"What is it you want of me, Naras Sharaf?" asked Loo-Macklin. "More than a casual early morning's conversation and polite discussion of our mutual ugliness, I'm sure."
The squat gray body shifted slightly, cilia rippling on seat and center pole. As it moved, the weak illumination drew forth an isolated flash of purple or maroon iridescence from the otherwise dull epidermis, a momentary redeeming spark of beauty too infrequent and isolated to much mitigate the extreme repulsiveness of the Nuel's form.
"Indeed more than casual conversation, Kee-yes vain Lewmaklin. We have done much expensive and thorough research into your personal history and career."
"There's nothing in it that I'm ashamed of or would want to hide," Loo-Macklin told him.
"Nevertheless, it was required. It is hard for us sometimes to obtain such information, although we have learned during our years of contact with your kind that with sufficient monies we can purchase a great many things supposedly not for sale."
"Better to bribe than kill," Loo-Macklin replied. "I've done both when necessary."
"As have I," the Nuel told him unthreateningly. "I too prefer to purchase rather than take through violent action. Though there are among my kind many who feel otherwise.
"However, I have been able to persuade sufficient of the Heads of the Families (from his studies, Loo-Macklin knew that in Nuel society, a "Family" might consist of several hundred thousand individuals, a Great Family of millions) to allow me to make this contact with you. We occasionally find the rare human with whom we can work."
"Work how?" Loo-Macklin leaned forward, interested.
"I have what amounts to a business proposition for you, Kee-yes vain Lewmaklin. Would such coming from me interest you?"
"I am always interested in good business," was the calm reply.
"Even if it entails dealing with filthy, slimy Nuels?"
"Filth and slime are often personal, not physical characteristics," said the industrialist. "I know many humans who could be so described. Go ahead, make your proposition. My acceptance or rejection will be based solely on its merits, not on its source."
"Equitable is this creature," growled Naras Sharaf.
"Always equitable where business is involved."
"Even with a Nuel."
"Your credit line intrigues me, not your shape, Naras Sharaf. I do business with Orischians, Athabascans, half a dozen other nonhuman sentient races. Why not the Nuel?"
Naras Sharaf blinked, quite a production considering the size of his eyes. Loo-Macklin had no idea what the gesture signified; if it was full of meaning or merely a reflex. The Nuel did not blink often, so he suspected the former. Double lids closed like doors over those vast orbs, slid slowly open again.
"And not the Orischians, the Athabascans, or any of your other half dozen will have anything to do with us," commented Naras Sharaf, "as they find our shape and appearance as abhorrent as do your own kind."
"Such prejudices are common misfortunes. I fear intelligence and common sense are not the same thing," replied Loo-Macklin. "I've told you that I'm not subject to such primitive emotions."
"Told I was you were a most extraordinary human. The reports did not lie."
"I'm not extraordinary at all." Loo-Macklin shifted in his chair. "I'm just a good businessman, always on the alert for a way to enlarge my holdings."
"Would access to a virtually unlimited supply of iridium enhance your holdings?" asked Naras Sharaf.
Loo-Macklin offered no outward show of emotion. Inside, he was churning. A rare and expensive member of the platinum family of metals, iridium was an important component in the compact, efficient fuel cells which ran half the independent motors in the UTW, everything from household appliances to free transports like the one which had brought him here.
Access to a substantial quantity of iridium would give him control of a vital industry, which he'd heretofore been able to penetrate only weakly. It would also give him an inside line on every company that manufactured products requiring the metal . . . though he wondered how exaggerated was Naras Sharaf's claim to have access to a virtually unlimited supply.
"I can see that it would," said the alien, without waiting for a verbal response. The Nuel possessed an impressive panoply of expressions, so it came as no surprise to Loo-Macklin that they might have studied those used by other races.
"We can promise you that, at a price absurdly low by UTW standards, and more. Much more."
Loo-Macklin's attention was distracted by the three caterpillarlike creatures crawling across the bulging front of the alien's body. Each was extruding a continuous silken thread. One was crimson, another yellow, and the third a bright orange.
As they moved in tandem across the lumpish form, they wove the Nuel a new gown, simultaneously devouring the old material that lay in their paths. The effect was like those perpetually changing advertising signs, which dominated commercial streets inside the tubes.
He'd heard about such well-trained creatures. They could weave four or five new sets of clothing a day, converting old material into new silk. Wardrobe was a matter of training.
No human could have tolerated the constant crawling sensation, but it was typical of the Nuel to work in such fashion. They were arguably the finest bioengineers in this part of the galaxy, preferring to alter or create new organisms to provide services for them rather than develop the extensive physical technology mastered by humankind and most of the other sentients.
When the periodic, almost ritualized little wars broke out between the two groups, men dealt death with energy rays and high explosives while the Nuel utilized poison projectiles and selective diseases. As man tried to deal with the latter, which he found unnatural and insidious, the Nuel struggled to cope with the former, which to them outraged nature and was unnecessarily destructive. Meanwhile the dead of both sides watched and laughed. The morality of the methodologies of murder is of little concern to the victims.
Neither side succeeded in gaining an advantage over the other. Mankind fought with new biology, the Nuel wrestled with complex physics, and each side shouted a lot.
Loo-Macklin had also noticed the organic recorder in the back of the room. A small, flattened creature about half the size of his head, it rested in a transparent acrylic container open at the top. Tiny cilia flowed underneath it. It was photosynthetic, bright green, operated almost wholly on sunlight and water. It was an auditory sponge, soaking up conversation, music, and any other sound within its range and storing them in its copious memory.
When stimulated, it could reproduce from its formalized memory anything heard earlier. It was independently operated with fuel-cell storage, wore out only when it died, and functioned on sunlight and water. Another example of Nuel bioengineering substituting for the more familiar tools of human civilization. As to which method was the more efficient, Loo-Macklin could not say.
It was yet another thing that made the Nuel so alien to mankind where the tall Orischians, for example, seemed like feathery, attenuated cousins. It didn't trouble Loo-Macklin anymore than did Naras Sharaf's appearance. He found both fascinating.
It would have been impolitic to enter into a long discussion with the Nuel on such peripheral matters. Despite his seeming calm, the alien was on a hostile world and risking considerable personal danger. Such risk had been taken on behalf of Loo-Macklin. He wasn't flattered by this knowledge. Flattery was something he did not respond to. He merely found it interesting.
"Naturally I'm intrigued by your offer," he said politely. "What in return would you require from me? I know that the Nuel are deficient in certain areas of hard physics. I have access to a great many plants and facilities dealing with the products of such knowledge. We can trade finished goods for raw mat
erial, goods for goods, or . . ."
"Something of a rather different nature is what interests us," said Naras Sharaf. He leaned over and touched a fuzzy object, which might have been a tail or a bristly switch: Loo-Macklin wasn't sure which. You couldn't tell with the Nuel. Touch a button and it might leap up on tiny feet and scuttle over to settle down on some other unsuspecting instrument. Some Nuel devices were chemically coded for secrecy. If the main control didn't recognize you, it might bite you. No wonder so many humans found Nuel technology disconcerting.
"Secrecy circuit," said Naras Sharaf, confirming Loo-Macklin's suppositions. "This room has been carefully shielded, but I still check circuits frequently." The vast, slitted eyes gleamed glassily in the dim light. The suns of the Nuel worlds were dimmer than those of Sol.
"You are, of course, aware of the disagreements between our races that have pockmarked our mutual past."
"Hard not to be," replied Loo-Macklin.
"An impartial observer might almost say we are in a constant state of argument, rather than war. We fight each other as often as we pause to catch our collective breath. Words I will not mince with you, Kee-yes vain Lewmaklin."
"That usually makes them unpalatable," he responded.
The Nuel hesitated. His upper folds of flesh and barnaclelike structures seemed to quiver beneath the steadily changing gown. He emitted a peculiar grunting sound that was probably laughter.
"I see, yes, a humor. Unpalatable. So we will be worbish with one another."
And it was Loo-Macklin's turn to ask for an explanation.
"There are ways to conduct wars without inflicting pestilence or bombs on each other. Ways that preserve life instead of canceling it. After all, war is simply a method by which opposing governments seek to gain control of each other.