Beert wasn’t giving me much chance to bring it up. “As soon as I am finished in the laboratory,” he said happily, “I must go to my cousins to talk to the Greatmother of the Eight Plus Threes, so that we may schedule a time when Mrrranthoghrow may operate the transit machine for him. I will send Pirraghiz to you, Dan.”
I swallowed and took the plunge. “There’s one other thing,” I said.
“Yes?”
“I’ve been thinking about what you said. You were right. So let’s just forget about making that copy of Pat for me,” I told him.
Horch can’t smile, don’t have the facial muscles for it, but I could have sworn he was looking at me in an affectionate way. “It is forgotten, Dan. I am glad.” And he gave my arm a gentle pat before he turned and hurried away.
Listen, I’m only human. Get me depressed enough and you might see a person selfisher than you would have believed. But I didn’t have to stay selfish all the time.
PART SIX
Fighting Back
CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE
There was another lesson that old drill instructor of mine had taught us, in between the pushups and the ten- kilometer runs. What she said was, “Listen, ass-holes. It’s always better to do something than nothing, you hear me? If it don’t do nothing else, it’ll make you feel better.”
She was right. It did. My situation hadn’t improved a hair in any tangible way, but I felt different. I felt for the first time that I was playing some part, however insignificant, in an action that might cause the Beloved Leaders some aggravation, even if only a little. Morale-wise, that was a big plus. It almost made me feel as though this interminable lonely life that stretched ahead of me might be worth living after all.
So I decided to start looking for other ways to do the Others harm. I don’t know exactly what I was thinking of. Maybe leading a charge of Horch fighting machines into some Beloved Leader stronghold, the way they had taken over the prison-planet base. But whatever I was going to do to the Others, the first step was to get to where the action was.
Beert was the logical person to talk to on that subject, but he wasn’t available. When he wasn’t over in the Horch base to negotiate with the cousins, he was locked up in his workshop, making the changes in the Wet One’s armament. I decided to pester Pirraghiz about it. She was in her room, sterilizing my chamber pot for me, and Mrrranthoghrow was with her.
I hesitated in the doorway. Pirraghiz’s room was no bigger than mine, but she had somehow found time to put in homey touches of her own: some of those tiny flowers in a planter, clothing neatly hung, her own much larger bed. She had turned the room into a very personal habitation and, belatedly, it crossed my mind that they might have preferred being alone in it.
Apparently not. As soon as Pirraghiz saw me she waved me in with a spare arm. “Are you hungry?” she asked at once, but I shook my head. I wasn’t looking for food.
“I want to know about the Wet One,” I said. I
She looked surprised, but recited: “He is being sent back to his own planet, so that-“
“I know that. Tell me how he’s getting there.”
She looked at Mrrranthoghrow, who answered for her. “He will be transmitted on the captured transit machine of the Others, of course.”
“And how does he know how to get there?”
“Ah,” the Doc said, enlightened. “You want to know how the Wet One will find his way to his home. The Horch have been working on such problems ever since they occupied this base. Capturing a transit machine of the Others is very useful to them. Once we had it disassembled, the robots began tracing its channels.”
“That is the one great advantage the Horch have over the Others,” Pirraghiz added. “The Others are very strong, but the Horch have in some cases been able to enter the Others’ channels, while the Others have never been able to enter theirs.”
I mulled that over. I could see the strategic importance of that. “Does that mean there’s a channel direct to the Wet One’s planet?”
“Of course not, Dannerman,” Mrrranthoghrow said. “Not from this outpost. But there are channels to a nexus, which has many channels. One will take the Wet One to his destination.”
He was annoying me. “What is a ‘nexus’?”
“It is a sort of center where many channels come together,” he said patiently. “In this case it is a large installation which also was captured from the Others. Now it belongs to the Horch. There was great damage in the fighting, but much of its equipment is intact-just as is the case here.”
“What kind of installation?”
He gave me one of those massive shrugs. “I had no reason to ask such a question, Dannerman. I only know that it is much larger than this installation here.”
Pirraghiz had been silent, watching me, but then she spoke up. “Dannerman, I think you are jealous of the Wet One. Do you want to go with him?”
I started to shake my head, then decided to admit it. “I think I could help him fight against the Others. I’m a lot better with those guns than he is.”
She made a clucking sound with those thin lips. “You would be discovered at once, Dannerman, and then you
