He vanished into the back room, reappeared shortly in a brown vest shot through with green metallic thread, and a matching cap that formed two points on one side of his head and a third on the other. Thus clad he looked like a cross between Robin Hood and King Kong.
“Come with me. I’m taking you all out to dinner. You’ll be cooped up here for a day as it is. We have much to talk about, goodness knows.” He put a comradely arm around Rail’s shoulders.
“Maybe we should stay here now, like you said.” Kerwin was looking out into the dark street.
“As you must realize by now, young Cro-Magnon, Alvin is quite large. I doubt we will encounter any Oomemians right away. They’ll be concentrating on the main spaceport, Arthwit’s abandoned ship, and the travel centers. Besides, they’re following you by tracking Izmir’s occasional pulses. Whether we go to a favorite dining place for food or remain here will not alter their means of finding you.”
Yirunta left his six-legged partner with instructions and then led them out onto the seedy boulevard, heading for the nearest upshoot. His assurances couldn’t keep Kerwin from glancing nervously at every passing alien face.
“Why does he generate these energy pulses, anyway?” Kerwin asked him.
“Who knows? They appear to be quite random. I thought for a moment they might have something to do with his physical changes, as for example when he went from imitating that piece of sculpture to duplicating the necklace your female is now wearing.”
“Hey, I’m not anybody’s female,” Miranda told him warningly. “Not that I’m, like, heavy into women’s lib or anything, but I just kind of, you know, belong to myself.”
“That’s another thing about Cro-Magnons, particularly the women,” Yirunta said conversationally. “They talk all the time without saying anything. I think they are fascinated by the sounds their mouths make.” Without stopping, he spoke to Kerwin.
“Anyway, I saw no correlation between these elsewhere energy pulses and shape changing.”
“Anything that can put out even a weak energy field that maintains its strength over thirty thousand light years must be capable of producing incredible amounts of power,” Kerwin mused aloud.
“Hey, now there’s a clever observation.” Seeth grinned casually at the Neanderthal. “All Cro-Magnons ain’t equal, you know.”
“Gracious, I’m certain that’s so. Some of you must be dumber than others. However, your friend and relation is correct. The question is, what are his limits, and can he generate anything stronger?” He was staring at Izmir, who trailed them several feet above the street. The Astarach had become a tall, twisting spiral, rotating around an imbedded flashing globe.
“Not to mention how he does it,” Kerwin added.
“We’ve never even seen him eat nothing, for cryin’ out loud.” Seeth kicked at a piece of debris that the street-cleaning machines had overlooked.
“How could he eat?” Miranda eyed Izmir pityingly. “He hasn’t got a mouth.”
“Anything which can generate energy without converting it from mass defies known physics,” Yirunta observed. “That would be reason enough to regard him as immensely valuable. If he is not producing the energy from local sources he must be drawing it from elsewhere. I wish I had taken more math and spatial cognition. It must have everything to do with this hypothesized other space. If he can tap into such a source he may be capable of generating much more than these weak if expansive pulses.”
“You calling an energy pulse that covers thirty thousand light years weak?” Kerwin asked him.
“Everything is relative, cousin. I call it weak, gracious me yes, but only compared to what his potential may be. What if instead of spreading this pulse over such an immense region he could concentrate it in a smaller area? Direct it? We are talking, my friends, about unknown and hitherto inconceivable amounts of energy.” He looked at Rail.
“Haven’t you ever considered, my friend, how much energy is required simply to change shape and substance, to generate those beautiful colored lights that run across his surfaces? Not to mention what is involved in levitating or countering the effects of a dropshoot field. Such fields manipulate tons of freight. They were not intended to be countered, yet he resists their pull without visible effort. Energy is involved, goodness yes! Incalculable energy.”
“We saw him drift through the shoot fields several times,” Kerwin admitted.
“As he pleases, or so friend Rail claims. Without strain or effort, without producing heat or any other byproduct.”
“None we could detect,” Rail agreed.
“Then something quite extraordinary is in our midst, friends. Something I am not clever enough to analyze. Something which defies natural law.”
“Maybe he doesn’t defy it.” Seeth and Kerwin turned to gape at Miranda. She was mildly embarrassed. “I had freshman physics. It fit my schedule. Got an A, of course. Actually I thought it was kinda boring. I mean, like, all that stuff about quantum mechanics and subatomic particles. When they started talking about ‘color’ I got interested, but only until I found out what they meant. I thought it had something to do with matching paint to fabrics. But this goofy stuff about bosons and quarks and anti-pi-mesons, I mean, like, who needs it? Besides, it’s all so obvious.”
“Do tell,” mumbled Seeth.
“What about Izmir?” Kerwin tried not to make it sound like a challenge but couldn’t help it. “Is he obvious?”
“Oh no. Mr. Yirunta’s right about that. It’s just that he’s kind of like, you know, overwhelmed by the physical evidence as well as the philosphical implications and as a result his initial judgements are emotionally clouded.”
“Goodness gracious me,” Yirunta murmured softly. “Please do tell me, cousin, what you mean when you claim he does not refute known natural law.”
“It’s like—this is so totally obvious, I mean—he’s not contravening accepted physical principles, he’s only manifesting them in a new way. The mathematics are solid and stable. It’s our inadequate perception that’s confusing the issue. Like trying to find something to go with gold lame that isn’t gold lame, you know?”
“Interesting.” Yirunta looked back to Rail. “Are the Cro-Magnons still dominated by the male children?”
Rail nodded. “But this may be changing. Remember, I wasn’t on Earth to do a sociological study.”
“The sooner they shift to a matriarchy the sooner the species will be ready to integrate into galactic society. The old tales always did say the Cro-Magnon women had more common sense. At least they knew enough to come into the caves out of the rain.”
“Yeah?” said Seeth belligerently. “Then how’d we end up with a male-dominated outfit?”
“Aberration of nature.” Yirunta shrugged. “Who knows? With Cro-Magnons anything is possible.” They had slipped off the shoot and were walking down a brightly lit, busy street. “Here is my favorite restaurant. I think you will find it to your taste. I have opted for good quality and quantity rather than risk unsophisticated palates on gourmet cuisine.”
“No sweat, Jack.” Seeth eyed the softly lit establishment eagerly. “I mean, gimme a burger and fries and some ketchup and I’m fine.”
Kerwin wondered how their headset translators would handle that claim, but Yirunta appeared satisfied with the reply.
“I thought as much.”
After a filling if strange meal, they returned to the shop and waited impatiently for the evening to come. Since Alvin functioned around the clock, Kerwin wondered what difference it made whether they tried to flee during daylight hours or at night. Yirunta replied that no matter how advanced the Oomemians’ detection equipment, darkness still offered opportunities for some cover.
Miranda wasn’t bored in the slightest. She had the whole shop to peruse in detail, and proceeded to do so following a four-hour nap. When Yirunta remarked on her staying power, Kerwin commented that shopping seemed vital to her continued good health. Not as important as breathing, but
close.
When she grew bored with the shop’s contents, it was decided that she could safely patronize some of the other stores nearby. She returned as the evening rain was descending with her arms full of plasticine boxes. Yirunta eyed them askance.
“I thought you meant to go shopping in the philosophical sense.”
She frowned. “What’s that? There’s, like, no such thing as shopping in the philosophical sense.”
“You cannot take that all with you.” He was firm, immovable.
Kerwin made sure he wasn’t caught between them.
“What do you mean?” she said tightly. She looked over at Seeth. “He gave me the money.” She indicated the boxes. “It’s all paid for, in cash. I’m not taking any of it back.”
Yirunta tried to be patient. “Listen to me, madame. If we are to remove you safely and quickly from this world without attracting the attention of the Oomemians, we cannot travel encumbered by superficials. We are trying to save your lives, to return you to your home world, to your own kind. This is not a shopping expedition.”
“Of course it is,” she replied determinedly, nodding toward Rail. “He said it would be. He promised me.”
Rail swallowed. “What I promised and what I find I can now deliver are not necessarily the same thing. I’m sorry, but this isn’t a game we’re playing.”
“Exactly. You think this was a game?” She indicated the pile of packages. “It took me simply hours to pick all this out. I’m not leaving without it.” She sat down on the top container, which, despite its apparent fragility, supported her weight easily, and crossed her arms.
Yirunta leaned toward Rail. “Why don’t we just sedate her?”
“You could probably do that,” Miranda told him, demonstrating superior hearing along with everything else, “but you won’t.”
“And why won’t we?”
She smiled triumphantly. “Because you’re supposed to be the superior branch of humanity, like, and if you have to resort to violence of any kind you’d be denying your own claim.”
“A life-and-death situation and I’m arguing philosophy with an inferior cousin.” Yirunta bowed slightly in her direction. “You win—temporarily. I’ll talk to Captain Ganun when he arrives and we’ll see if he can’t accommodate your baggage as well as your mouth.” He smiled sweetly. “Perhaps you’d like the ship that will try to carry you to freedom to make a few stops on the way back to Earth, so that you could pick up a few last items, complete any unfinished aspects of your new wardrobe?”
“Oh wow, that’d be super!”
The Neanderthal shook his head dourly. “Is she crazy, or am I?”
“For what we’re doing trying we all qualify,” said Rail. He indicated Izmir the Astarach, who had transformed himself into a Wirmasian music box. Solid colors like animated mercury were crawling along his flanks while he played a soft, waltzing tune.
A half-dozen of Yirunta’s friends came for them when everything but the all-night shops had closed down. Every one of them looked like they could have stepped into the starting offensive line for the university, including the two women in the group. They wouldn’t have won any beauty contests back home, but then Kerwin knew he was judging them by different standards. No doubt Yirunta and his colleagues found Miranda unbearably skinny and fine-featured.
One of the women gave Seeth the once over and whispered to her companion, “Look at the fighting monkeys.”
“Watch your lip, blubberbutt.” Seeth shot back.
The woman growled at him. Actually growled. “Blubberbutt? How’d you like to be a smear on the wall, monkey?”
The one known as Captain Ganun stepped between them. “Less than a minute and the Cro-Magnons have you fighting,” he told her. She looked properly abashed. “The histories were right. Goodness gracious, you should be ashamed of yourself.”
“I am, sir.” She stepped clear, turned her back on Seeth and mumbled, “But I will not tolerate insults from an inferior species.”
“Who you calling inferior, with a body like that?” Seeth demanded to know.
“That’s enough!” Yirunta was displeased. “It is only through Ganun’s good graces that you are coming along at all. Our only real concern lies with Arthwit and Izmir. You travel on sufferance. We could easily leave you behind.”
“Suits m—“
Kerwin stepped forward hastily. “He didn’t mean anything, sir. He’s just nervous, like the rest of us.”
“Who’s nervous?”
“Tell her,” Kerwin told his brother sternly, “you didn’t mean anything by what you said.”
Seeth ran a hand across the shaved side of his skull. “Yeah, right, Jack. I didn’t mean anything by it. Sure. But if she calls me a ‘fighting monkey’ again...”
Two of the other members of Ganun’s crew were whispering to one another. “What do you think?” said the one with the blue haircut. “Ten druzins apiece. Think they’d fight each other? That would be something to see! A real bit of history, goodness knows.”
“I don’t think it would matter.” Rail had overheard. “They are brothers.”
“I never heard that it made any difference to Cro-Magnons. I hear they even fight their parents.” They were staring in fascination at the three visitors from Earth,
“Ugly things,” said the other crewman, gazing at Miranda. “I mean, look at the female. There’s nothing there and what there is, why gracious, it’s all unbalanced.”
“I said that’s enough!” Ganun snapped. “These are our guests. They are contemporaries despite their peculiar racial characteristics, not ancestors dredged from an ancient past. I don’t expect you to embrace them fondly, but the least you can do is be polite. You will treat them like the guests they are.” He glared at Seeth from beneath enormous eyebrows.
“And you, sir, will comport yourself like a guest.”
“Yes sir, aye-aye sir, right on, Captain sir!” Seeth snapped to attention and ricocheted a salute off his forehead. “And if you need any help flying your ship around the Oomemians, just ask my idiot relation here. He’s ROTC.” Kerwin’s lips formed an obscene word. Seeth merely grinned.
“Right. Let’s get a move on.” Ganun was eyeing his chronometer uneasily. “From all that you’ve told me, it’s only a matter of time before the Oomemians close in on you because of the radiation or whatever it is that this creature is putting out.” He nodded toward Izmir.
“That’s right so,” said Rail. “Though, because the energy is low-level, they may have a difficult time picking it up again here on Nedsplen. Too much background stuff.”
With Ganun’s crew leading the way, they began to exit the shop. One of the crewman curiously shook the boxes he was carrying. “What’s in here? Emergency supplies? Special food for the Cro-Magnons?”
Oh boy, here it comes, Kerwin thought nervously. Mutiny, or worse.
“No,” Miranda told the Neanderthal. “I’ve been shopping.”
“Oh, well, that’s all right, then.” The crewman made sure he had a good grip on the packages. “First things first, right?” He waddled carefully out the door.
Miranda smiled at Kerwin. “See, I knew there wouldn’t be any trouble. These people are superior. They know, like, what’s important.” She followed the crewman out the door.
Kerwin followed too, muttering that something didn’t make sense. He didn’t quite know what it was, but one of these days he was going to figure it out.
Instead of continuing down the main boulevard, the procession soon turned into a back service way. Only technicians from the city were supposed to have access to this concealed labyrinth, but for the professionals in Yirunta’s crew it was a simple matter to break the electronic locks and then reseal them once they’d entered. Horizontal shoots carried them across the metropolis, sometimes ascending at gentle angles, so that by the time they reached the city’s outskirts they were back on the actual surface. Kerwin and the others knew it was the surface because they could s
mell fresh air and growing things and see stars overhead.
A low-slung air-suspension vehicle was waiting for them. It carried them down an enclosed tube at a speed nothing short of breathtaking. Soon they were traveling the sublevels of another city, which to Kerwin’s eye appeared every bit as extensive as Alvin. The machine plunged down a sheer drop and leveled off in a subterranean transport tube, briefly accelerating once more. When they finally cruised to a halt, the doors parted to admit them to a lush, open square lined with brightly lit fountains that floated in midair like watery dandelions. Though they walked directly beneath the powerful sprays, not a drop of water fell on them.
“It’s all timed,” Rail explained. “Programmed to evaporate after it’s traveled a specified distance. The moisture is then sucked back up through those cones hanging from the ceiling, where it’s recondensed and piped back to the aerial fountains. We have similar devices on Pruflllia.”
“Outstanding,” Seeth murmured. “Psychotic rain.”
Their Neanderthal escort led them into an upshoot. The crew kept their fingers close to their sidearms, but no Oomemians materialized to challenge them.
They were deposited on a level not far below the surface. Another pair of journeys via horizontal shoots took them to a vast spaceport. A small car was waiting to transport them across the tarmac. With its recognizable wheels and straightforward seats, it might almost have been manufactured in Detroit.
They barely had time to examine their new surroundings when the car slowed to a halt outside a bulbous, silvery hull. Scrambling out of their seats, the Neanderthals exchanged hasty greetings with waiting crewmates. With Izmir docilely tagging along, the refugees were hustled inside.
Each was assigned to a tiny private room that opened onto a much larger common room. There were restraint lounges set in a circle and Kerwin lost no time slipping into his. Assuring them everything was going as planned, Captain Ganun departed for the command center. Moments later the floor quivered. There were no loud rumblings, no impressive chemical eruptions. Lift-off was indicated only by a gentle feeling of motion.