patchwork of holes and cavities. The rate of the absorption of the spacecraft by hyperspace was increasing. A thin silvery filigree of brightness shone against the blurred opalescence. Then – Nothing. The Zealot ship was gone. And Bruno Takagama with it. She turned to Diplomat. 'Is it – ' she began. 'It is over.”
Carol did not know how to mourn the man, to remember him. Her eyes burned, yet no tears filled them. She had always been a practical woman, strong and capable. Carol knew that in her bones. But Bruno had seemed oblivious to it. He had opened her up, defused her cynicism. Carol's mind dredged up bits and pieces, fragments of the brave little man's life with her, inside the dingy corridors of the Sun-Tzu.
It all had to mean something.
Even stranded far from human space, in a spacecraft of alien manufacture moving in another dimension, Carol knew that humanity was worth something. It was more than weapons or technology or sex or fighting.
Bruno had taught her that.
She was standing in front of an alien that no human had ever seen, inside an impossible spacecraft built by aliens still stranger. She was too good a soldier to think that she would be allowed to go home. Would they dissect her, like some laboratory animal? Or break her very mind down into pieces, as they had done with poor Bruno, when first taken aboard?
Her life – all of it – had to be worth something, more than an impotent challenge to the night sky. Black entropy could not always win, not here and now.
She had fought for things she had believed in, made a difference. Had been true to the things in which she had believed. So had Bruno. Bruno Takagama would not want her to give up, no. He never had, not even when fighting against himself.
Carol remembered Bruno's love of old poetry, from the bad old days when humans had walked alone across a single world. Poetry scribbled with pigments on sheets of flattened vegetable matter. Long-dead words that had resonance after centuries.
One of them came to mind, by someone named Hunt written before the atom had yielded up its energies to mankind, and the gene her potent secrets. It had been stored on one of Bruno's recreation datachips, and had pleased her. Light and silly, but with a sting of truth to it.
Carol whispered the words aloud, ignoring the nonhumans listening to her.
'Say I'm weary, say I'm sad, Say that health and wealth have miss'd me, Say I'm growing old, but add, Jenny kissed me.”
Carol turned to the alien, and drew herself UN Space Navy straight. She wanted to do the memory of Bruno proud. He had faced his fate well; so should she. Carol prepared to speak.
'Well,' a voice said into her ear from the air around her, 'I must admit I have never kissed anyone named Jenny But kissing Carol Faulk is something to remember.”
Bruno's voice.
Carol's jaw dropped – then she closed it. Anger quickly formed in the pit of her stomach. 'This is some kind of trick,' she grated, moving without thinking toward the little two-headed alien, her fists raised like bludgeons.
Her nose banged painfully into the invisible barrier. The alien was prepared; Carol had to give him that.
Even with the protective shield between them, Diplomat had turned to run. It looked over its shoulder with one head.
'Captain Faulk,' the two-headed alien sang quietly, 'I can assure you that I have no intention of tricking you.' The single eye in the head facing her glittered. 'Can I trust you to eschew violent action?”
She lowered her shaking fists and nodded.
'I wish to offer you what you humans would call… a deal. Is that the correct idiom?' The little head that had been speaking paused, cocking to one side.
Carol said nothing, still seething. Would they make a dead man pawn to their plans, too? 'No matter,' Diplomat continued. 'A demonstration is in order.' The alien raised its voice. 'Mr. Takagama?”
'Yes?' replied Bruno's voice from nothing, again. 'Since Captain Faulk is… underwhelmed?… by my approach, would you please explain your presence.' Carol's head whirled. 'It is me, Carol. Before the Dissonants sent us against the Zealot ship with the databomb in my circuitry, they uploaded my mind into their processing core.' 'But that's – ' 'Impossible?' A tone of humor entered the familiar voice. 'You have always forgotten how much of me is electronic.' Still suspicious, she thought about it for a moment. There was some truth in the words, but it could be a trick; a souped-up version of the Buford Early hologram when she and Bruno had first been taken aboard the Dissonant spacecraft. 'Do you want me to quote the rest of that poem?' Bruno's voice asked. 'I can, you know. Leigh Hunt was one of my favorite poets. Or would you prefer Yeats? Dylan Thomas? Or how about Gulati?”
'No,' she answered quickly, not wanting to believe. 'Information is information. Bruno's datachip collection was in Dolittle, and could have been downloaded.' For once, the little Puppeteer kept quiet while Carol said nothing. Waiting, half hoping. 'I remember walking out of the Black Vault with Colonel Early and Smithly Greene, while you were walking into the building.' Was there a smile in the voice? 'You looked good under lunar gravity. We were just back from a roundtable on antimatter containment. Colonel Early introduced us but you looked at me like I was a bug.”
Carol smiled. The first time she had met Bruno Takagama she had thought he was a bug. 'I suppose I did. But – for the sake of argument – how is this possible?' 'The Outsiders do not – cannot – think as we do. They require a model of alien thought, as a translator.”
She pulled on her lip. 'An electronic slave?”
'Hardly. They know how to restrict my… growth… to keep me human. They want to keep a copy of my mind as a translator.' Bruno's mind, loose in any computer architecture, would mutate and change rapidly, turning into something inhuman. His reactions to extended Linkage proved that. But did the Outsiders know that much about how a human mind operated? 'There is more, Captain Faulk,' interjected the puppeteer.
She nodded at him to continue.
'Our hosts can build Mr. Takagama a fresh biological body. They can use what they learned when you were first taken on board, along with the autodocs on Dolittle.' The weaving heads peered at Carol. 'And then they can download his mind into it.”
'Impossible,' she scoffed.
Diplomat pawed delicately at the turf beneath his hooves. 'You seem to use that word often, Captain Faulk.' Wasn't hyperspace impossible? Or how about a galactic war between creatures of flame and ice? She was certain that, even now, she was not being told even a fraction of what was truly at stake. 'Carol,' Bruno's voice broke in. 'Please listen. Please.' 'If this is another trick,' she reminded Diplomat almost gently, 'I will find a way to get around these force-shields and wring your necks – one at a time.' The weaving heads stopped. 'You would do this? Truly, Captain Faulk?' 'If you tell the truth,' she clipped, 'you have nothing to fear, do you?' The puppeteer considered her statement. 'With your kind, there is always something to fear.' Carol held back a smile. 'Keep that in mind.' A head cocked. 'As you say, Captain Faulk. Though you do not improve your position with threats. But it is true that the Outsiders will download Mr. Takagama's stored mind into a rebuilt body. It would be most difficult under normal circumstances, but so much of Mr. Takagama's mind was… ' 'Mostly circuitry,' added Bruno's voice helpfully. 'Yes, electronic… so that the task would be much easier.' 'What is the catch?' Carol asked. 'I doubt that even aliens do favors out of the goodness of their hearts.' The puppeteer froze for a moment, then both heads leaped up and faced one another again. 'Wonderful phrase,' the three-legged alien sang.
'The catch,' reminded Carol. 'It is unlikely that you will be returned to human space soon. The Outsiders do not want extensive information regarding them distributed, until they are known by a new species.”
Carol finally did laugh. 'Diplomat, I don't know anything about the Outsiders. And I just witnessed a battle between two factions.' 'Nonetheless.' Again, the little alien pawed the lawn in impatience. 'The Outsiders require that you and the… reconstituted Mr. Takagama stay out of human space, until such time as the Outsiders make themselves known to your race.”
'Easy to do,' Carol pointed out to the puppeteer. 'Our ship is useless. Do you intend to strand us somewhere?”
The puppeteer moved from hoof to hoof lightly. 'Not at all, Captain Faulk. You and Mr. Takagama would assist me in my dealings with alien races.' The eyes on different head held hers. 'You seem relatively unfrightened of new things and I find your insights interesting. You will make useful companions and coworkers.”
'And once humans make contact with Outsiders or puppeteers?”
Diplomat's right head wobbled up and down loosely. 'You would of course be returned to human space.'
