Rrowl-Captain opened his eyes in fright, the dream dissolving into a chaos of sorrow, lost battles, and green- tinged monkey hell.
His hand leapt to his face, seeking the faint scar that had been left there so many years before by the Stalker in the Night.
He did not know where he was.
A false red sky loomed above him. The air carried odor that seemed right, but were somehow not. White traceries like chachatta webs, clung to him. He carefully stood brushing the webbing from his body. Sharpened- Fang was nearby, laying on its side on sandy soil.
The air was quiet, but his nose sniffed wetly at danger.
What has happened? Rrowl-Captain wondered to himself The ugly aliens interrupting the battle with the monkey shot my ship with some form of energy weapon… and then…
Something suddenly occurred to Rrowl-Captain, making him forget the strangenesses around him. All trace of his radiation sickness, a last dark gift from the monkey trap was gone.
Rrowl-Captain felt well fed and healthy. It should not be so.
'Greetings, Honored One,' hissed and spat a voice in the Hero's Tongue behind him, but pitched as high as a tiny kitten's. 'We must speak to you, having need of your bravery and honor.”
Rrowl-Captain whirled, and saw a hole hanging in midair. No, he realized, more like a window. Through which the alien called Diplomat was still speaking. 'The pointless battle between your species and the kzin – “
'Wait a second,' interrupted Bruno. 'They attacked us, enslaved our people. I would not call our self-defense pointless.”
Carol had nipped his ear between her fingers. 'Tacky, darling,' she whispered sweetly. 'Let the nice alien finish, would you? We can defend our actions later.”
Diplomat had craned heads at Bruno and Carol, watching them both at the same time, with the loose-lipped idiot stare that so clearly was misleading. 'Thank you, Captain Faulk,' Diplomat continued. 'As I was singing… ah, saying… the altercation in deep space between your warring solar systems has disturbed a rather traditional faction of our hosts.”
Carol pulled at her lip again in thought. 'We – the kzin there and ourselves – tread on their territory, perhaps?' 'Excellent simile,' replied the little alien. 'It is more accurate to say that this Traditionalist faction holds the spaces between stars rather sacred.”
Bruno began to understand. 'So this is a religious issue in deep space?' It was a bit amusing, and he stifled a chuckle. Both heads swiveled at once to face Bruno. 'Mr. Takagama, if that choking sound you are emitting is actually a vocalization of humor, I can assure that this is a grave situation. The Zealots' so-called religious concerns are based on actual events, from the early era of this universe.”
'We have violated their temple?' persisted Carol.
'More like we have stirred up a hornets' nest,' added Bruno. He took Carol's hand in his, running his thumb back and forth against her palm. Diplomat cocked a head at Bruno. 'I do not understand.' Bruno held back impatience. 'Stinging insects that live in group nests on our worlds, Diplomat. If the nest is disturbed, they attack the disturber as a group.”
'Excellent, Mr. Takagama. You grasp the point with both mouths.' Again the twin necks shot up, the heads eye to eye for an instant. 'So we leave their temple alone,' Bruno said. 'We didn't know. Now we do.' 'It is not so simple, Mr. Takagama,' sang Diplomat. 'The Zealots now see you – and your whole species – as an irritant to be removed. Our hosts wish to change this potentially destructive point of view.' 'Wait a minute,' asked Carol slowly. 'Why are we – or the kzin, or you – important to this faction of Outsiders?”
'They are called Dissonants,' added Diplomat. 'They oppose the ancient strictures of the Zealots, and wish to forge their own destiny, sometimes in association with life-forms like ourselves.' 'Whatever. I am glad that we were rescued, but where are we being taken – and why?”
The three-legged alien's hooves beat a complex pattern It turned and sang to the larger alien, which blared music back.
'Carol – ' Bruno started to ask, but she squeezed his arm to signal for silence. Diplomat turned to face them again. 'My Guardian has argued for becoming yet more direct.' The heads wobbled a bit. 'Let me take the points quickly, as time remains short There are many things like your species in the galaxy, you know full well, considering your cargo.”
'How do you know about that?' asked Bruno. How could they know about the Tree-of-Life virus still in the hold of Dolittle? They might have found it, of course, but how would they know what it could do? The puppeteer waved a head in a slow figure eight as if dismissing his comment. 'The point is that the Dissonants have worked with your various species many times in the past. Your own… more undomesticated, feral species appeals to them… well, aesthetically.”
'We'll table that for the moment,' Carol said.
'As you wish,' replied Diplomat. 'The Dissonants wish to preserve your species – as well as my own, and the kzin. We are interesting to them, a source of information.' Bruno broke in, sensing another long speech on the alien horizon. 'So where are we now, and where are we going?' The hemisphere above Carol and Bruno suddenly stopped looking like a sky with fleecy white clouds. It was a bowl filled with a mottled opal radiance that hurt the eyes, Geometrical shapes swam in curdled colors that Bruno could not name. The 'sky' twisted and bent, distorted and distorting. It was like nothing Bruno had ever seen before. 'We are presently,' sang Diplomat quietly in his human-sounding voice, 'just over one hundred light-years from human space. And moving at three hundred times the speed of light, in another dimension.' 'Another dimension?' 'Certainly. It is the only way to travel faster than light, is it not?' 'Hyperspace,' breathed Bruno and Carol at the same time.
'Indeed. We are leading the Zealot spacecraft far away from human and kzinti space.' 'And… ' Bruno prompted, still in awe of the eye-straining vision above them. A shape seemed to form, shifting and rotating, moving in a stately procession across the false sky.
It grew somehow larger and smaller, then faded into the milky clotted strangeness. 'We hope to engage the Zealot ship here, away from normal space, and destroy it.' 'But how?' It seemed to Bruno that he and Carol were far out of their elements, pawn to unreadable forces and minds. 'With your help of course, Mr. Takagama.' A head wobbled for emphasis. 'But don't feel alone. Guardian and the kzin will go with you.”
CHAPTER TEN
It had been several hours since Diplomat had outlined the plan, and he still could not read the humans well. He knew little about decoding their bizarre body language, changes in chemistry and skin conductivity: all the hints he would need to better predict their actions. Still, was he not known as Diplomat?
'Little Talker,' rumbled Guardian, 'you do not seem afraid of these aliens now.”
Diplomat nodded agreement. In a way, he would miss the giant puppeteer.
True, Diplomat was not as afraid as he had been. Of course, it helped that they were nowhere near the small supply of transformation virus the Dissonant mechanicals had found in the hold of the small human warship. And the humans were on the other side of a force-shield, with no means to disrupt the barrier.
Diplomat had once again focused his minds on the issue at hand, as he had among the Q'rynmoi. If they could not trap and destroy this upstart faction of Outsiders that the Dissonants had discussed, more was at stake than simply the fate of two primitive and warlike species. That briefing had burned out most of Diplomat's fear. There was fear and then there was Fear.
Diplomat knew something that nonpuppeteers did not: his race was cowardly, until there is no choice but to be brave.
His supply of antidread drugcud helped, of course.
Perhaps the Zealots would put a stop to all warmlife, if they could convince enough of the other Outsider factions to join their philosophy. All warmlife in this region were at risk, including the puppeteer race.
The former Pak threat was insignificant in comparison. The Outsiders were everywhere, and potent with unknown abilities.
Much had become clear since he and Guardian had received their briefings, when they had arrived at the
