However poor an impression the abductees were making on the Blurggit, the one they were making on the crew of the opposing spacecraft was far worse.
For now that a communications link had been opened between the two ships, the occupants of each could both see and hear one another through their large, centrally situated viewscreens.
And that meant the occupants of the bigger vessel could clearly observe the occupants of the smaller one pointing at them, jeering and mocking, before collapsing time and again into peals of laughter. That’s how it looked, anyway, though in fact the laughter was directed at one individual: the big vessel’s leader, who sat in a puffed-up chair at the center of his fellows, holding a white cardboard box.
“Do you think he wants to help us with our weight?” scoffed an attractive young woman on the smaller vessel.
“That’s OK. I’ll do whatever he says. So long as he doesn’t vaporize me!” howled a guy in gym socks and boxer shorts.
“It is certainly comforting,” snorted an older woman in a nightgown, “to dispense finally and forever with the god-awful notion that this is somehow real. The very idea that someone like him would gallivant about the heavens—”
“For sure,” said a bald man with gigantic arms and an accent, barely able to speak coherently. “But not only that. Look what he eating!”
“It is so imbecilic,” continued the older woman, “that I can’t imagine why even sleeping or comatose I would conceive of . . .” She had an idea. Marching up to her ship’s viewer, she stabbed a finger at it. “Illusory though you may be,” she said to the occupant of the puffed-up chair, “I will not miss an opportunity to tell you what a preening fraud you are, and how pleased I was to read about the timely accident which saved us from more of your self-serving quackery.”
“Quackery?” said Myron Crennick, bristling. “Ludwig, would you load another torpedo and aim it at her head.”
“I will not,” said Ludwig von Freunhoffer quietly, from his position at the larger ship’s tactical console.
Crennick wheeled on him, powdered sugar spraying from his lips. “Will not? Will not?” he blustered. “Who's in command of this mission? Who gives the orders now?”
“You, Myron,” came the tired reply. “But I will be damned if I allow you to bring more correction on the rest of us.”
This comment drew support from around the larger ship’s bridge.
“Here, here,” said Ellerbee Quinn, seated by the life support console.
“Thank you, my friend,” said V. S. Khuldip on communications. “I do not enjoy that correction of theirs in any form whatsoever.”
“And after the last eight weeks,” added Horace Kirby from navigation, “I think we can agree we’ve had more than enough of it. “Eight weeks,” he repeated, wincing at the memory.
“Now why would that have happened?” asked Crennick, surveying the others with childlike wonder. Why would we, or should I say, you, still be on basic nutrition?”
“We know, we know,” said Bill Mend, weighed down, but not because of the gravity generators he was overseeing. “It’s because you’re right. You’re always right. You’re so—”
“Damn right,” said Crennick. “And if you’d listened to me about Shmishkiss, you wouldn’t . . .” He reconsidered. “Well, I guess if you’d listened to me about Shmishkiss, you wouldn’t be my crew, and I wouldn’t be your new liaison, would I? Am I right? Am I right? I’m right, aren’t I? What d’ya say? Am I right?”
The crew moaned, except for von Freunhoffer, who persisted gently.
“Myron . . .”
“Yes, Herr Doktor Professor.”
“Myron, no one is questioning your judgment, but if we do not follow our directions—”
“And how are we not following our directions, Herr Doktor Professor?”
Von Freunhoffer took a deep breath, ignored the condescension and continued. “If we conclude our mission,” he said, “without reaching certain milestones, our friends will undoubtedly look askance—”
“I said load the torpedo, not fire it,” interjected Crennick.
“Yes, of course you did.”
“I didn’t say ‘fire it,’ did I?” Crennick called out, now rising from his chair and addressing not only his own crew but the other as well. He walked towards his viewscreen. “Did I? No. I just took the hit, right here.” He patted his heart. “You want to laugh at me? Go ahead. I won’t obliterate you.”
They stared at him, thoroughly amused.
“I’m not that kind of guy,” he continued, “though my colleagues here”—he jabbed a thumb at them—“they absolutely hate it when anyone’s disrespectful to me. But don’t worry, I’ll keep them in line. Why, I’ll even let you fly away. So long as you do me two small favors.”
They stared at him.
“Just two. Can we agree on that?”
They continued to stare at him.
“Can we?”
They went on staring at him.
“Look, I can blow you up right now, if you want me to. ‘Cause if that’s what you want—”
“Myron . . . ,” said von Freunhoffer quietly, while approaching from his station. “Myron, if I may, we have to consider their frame of mind. Think of the strangeness, the apparent illogicality. Just as with Shmishkiss, when first he came to us.”
“Yeah. So?”
“So just give me a moment with them.” And without waiting for an answer, von Freunhoffer placed himself between Crennick and the viewscreen, so that his face appeared hugely magnified in the other craft.
“Hello there,” he said in his cultured manner. “May I elaborate on what my colleague has been requesting. You may have noticed that he promised you something. He said that you could ‘fly away’ in exchange for a small amount of cooperation. Now what did that mean, ‘fly away’? Well, I will tell you . . .”
And here von Freunhoffer raised his voice, while carefully enunciating every syllable.
“It means that you can all wake up.”
* * *
Soon afterwards, his path lit by electrical fires, Marshall was wandering the interior of his crippled ship.
He had dashed from the duct to the little room, and from the little room into the elevator, as soon as he heard von Freunhoffer demanding that he be found and presented before the viewscreen. Apparently, the Zetans wanted to be sure he was on this vessel before they had the colleagues destroy it. They did not like their favorite semi renouncing his previous beliefs, and were making sure he wouldn't do it again.
But if no one could find him, then the colleagues would not be sure they were getting rid of him, would they? Hence his dash. It was the only strategy he could think of that might delay the slaughter. Or at least it seemed like a strategy at first. Now, in the dimness and silence of the interior compartments, it seemed like something else.
Like running away.
Like abandoning the people who relied on him.
With the result that he was soon back at the elevator, which opened welcomingly. But then he reimagined the consequences of being seen by the other vessel . . . and it closed.
He resolved to go back anyhow, hide in the duct, burst out at a key moment . . .
And the elevator, obligingly, opened.
He realized the futility of such a notion . . . and it closed.
“Oh, to have the same control over other things around here,” he sighed.
Then remembered something Oobla had told him.
That it was his equipment.
So was it?
Locating an undamaged console, he focused on its cold, dark screen.
* * *
“But Myron,” von Freunhoffer was saying, more softly than ever. “If you’re our boss, we don’t tell you such things, you tell us.” He turned to the others with a gentle smile.
While Crennick seethed.
What a bunch of assholes, he thought. Just like the disciplinary board at Cincinnati General, back in the old pre-diet days. Trying to make him look like the screw-up.
But those jokers didn’t get the last laugh, did they?
So why should these?
“All right,” he announced. “As is my prerogative, I am making the decision.” He brandished a cruller at them. “Input from all of you neither requested nor desired.”
“Yes, and . . .?” said von Freunhoffer.
“And they can’t find him, right? But we know he has to be there, so we take it as given and proceed.”
On his viewscreen he watched the idiots on the other ship still rushing about, hunting under consoles and attempting to pry open some doors at the rear of their bridge.
Then he rooted through the cardboard box for something better than a cruller to see him through the upcoming moments.
“Final order of business,” he said, fishing up a Boston cream. “Ludwig, talk to them.”
* * *
Marshall cringed. He had succeeded in activating three small monitors and was now wishing he hadn’t.
For what they were showing him—namely, everything that was happening on his bridge, plus an exterior view of the other vessel, plus the transmissions from that vessel—was distressing in the extreme.
He watched as von Freunhoffer persuaded his crew that if only they cooperated in “one more matter,” they would immediately find themselves rubbing their eyes, kicking their blankets, in danger of nothing worse than falling out of bed.
And even when Crennick blurted out the truth for all to hear—“We need this to look like a real battle”—they didn’t stop to consider what that might mean.
On the contrary, Aleksei hurried to oblige, firing two of his so-called big missiles. Then Margaret Burch cut the communications link with the other ship so that she and her companions might observe the result.
Marshall observed it as well. On one of his screens two bright orange ping-pong balls shrank into peas then periods as they neared a vast and shining hull.
“The way I shoot them,” said Aleksei, “they arrive same place, same time. Double power.”
“Nice,” said Ethan. “Though, of course, if this was science fiction, a ship like that would be protected by a force field. A really strong force field.”
“A really strong force field,” repeated Marshall sadly.
Then he slid to a squat, his back against a console, and stared at the section of hull in front of him.
For what else was there to do?
Except wait.
And what awaited him?
Except . . . The End.
* * *
Aboard the destroyer, however, Myron Crennick was still not certain The End should occur just yet.
For although von Freunhoffer had convinced the other ship to launch its pathetic weapons, now handily mopped up by the destroyer’s force field.
And although the encounter had therefore looked—at least briefly—like “a real battle,” as required.
There was still the other matter.
Shmishkiss.
What to do about Shmishkiss?
Before they set out, Lorak had seemed clear enough. “The renegade Shmishkiss is in command of the other vessel,” he told them. “You must eliminate it! You must eliminate Shmishkiss!”
But that clarity had dissolved when no one could find the moron.
Was he commanding from afar? What would happen if the colleagues returned without ironclad proof of his demise?
Minutes earlier, Crennick had decided that nothing would happen. They would create the semblance of a battle, destroy the other vessel and be done with it. But now, with the moment of decision upon him, he wasn’t so sure.
For if he launched the final torpedo and shouldn’t have, there would follow, undoubtedly, commensurateness—at the very least a change of liaisons—and he would be subject once again to the jackasses who surrounded him, only now full of spite and bile over—
“Myron . . . ,” needled von Freunhoffer. “Are you still with us?”
Feigning resolve, he turned to Khuldip. “V. S., link me to headquarters. This is not a clear-cut situation. I require their input.”
“But Myron,” said Khuldip. “You know the rules. It is our wits against theirs until someone prevails. There is to be no assistance.”
“But we have prevailed, dammit. Look, just open the channel. I’ll present the issue and hopefully they’ll see fit to reply.”
So that is what happened. Khuldip activated the controls which, under normal circumstances, would have opened a channel to the Zetan Earth vessel, and Crennick spoke, perhaps to no one, setting out the dilemma.
After which he paced back and forth, first disemboweling a strawberry-filled, then a blueberry-filled, then another Boston cream, until at last von Freunhoffer said, “You can get into as much trouble by doing nothing as by sending off a torpedo. Don’t you think, if Lorak was going to reply, he already would have?”
“I know what you’re after,” Crennick snapped. But even as he did, he was reseating himself and twisting around to survey the faces behind him. They were wary, worried, hopeful. “You think this’ll do it—free you of my fine leadership?” he asked them. “Well, let’s find out.” He addressed von Freunhoffer. “Administer the injection. One maximum-strength torpedo, right up their—”
But just as von Freunhoffer’s finger began to descend onto a bright red icon, Khuldip screamed, “No!”
And the finger hesitated.
Crennick smiled. “Oh, so you don’t want me to—”
“No. Not that. Look!” implored the communications officer, gesturing at the viewscreen.
Crennick looked and in an instant was out of his chair, his body lodgepole straight, the donut box hurled aside so forcefully that strawberry jelly was oozing down a formerly spotless starship wall.
* * *
The friend was so close to its transmission device that its face was all they could see: a face that would have been unpleasant at any size, but thus enlarged was many times more so.
“This is unacceptable!” blared the unmoving, lipless mouth.
Then, as if reading their thoughts, it said, “You perceive correctly. We are not Lorak. Lorak has been removed. Lorak forgot the principle that must govern all dealings with semi-sentients. Commensurate punishment, commensurate reward. Lorak failed to correct your actions, and we see now the predictable result.”
At this, several of the colleagues turned urgently to von Freunhoffer, since he, of all of them, knew best how to convince, charm or mollify a friend. But of course he said nothing; he dared not. For he was not the liaison anymore. Only the liaison could speak, and the liaison was . . .
Crennick approached the screen. Five bodies went rigid behind him.
“So . . . well . . . uh . . . how am I to address you?”
“Ornac. You address us as Ornac,” grated the voice.
“OK, uh, glad to know you, Ornac,” said Crennick. “And allow me to wish you, on behalf of all of us, success and satisfaction in your new position.”
The teaspoon eyes, insofar as they could, shone with anger. Von Freunhoffer waved his arms vigorously in front of his shaking head. Yet Crennick, oblivious, barreled on.
“But that said, and quite respectfully, sir, it seems to me that the only way to resolve the issue at hand is for you to spell out whatever dissatisfaction has—”
“You need us to spell it out?” interrupted the other, in a voice that called to mind a knife scraping over glass. “You, who dispatched the newcomer Shmishkiss on a journey without ensuring first that he would be accompanied at all times?”
“What?” said Crennick, taken aback. “But there was a contract, with the pilot—so I understood. Which specifically required that he—”
“Let us enumerate the results of your carelessness,” said Ornac. “A violent altercation on the planet Tradaxa that left twenty-eight of its citizens dead and caused extensive damage to multiple structures. Seven million units of currency expended to treat the wounded. At least seventeen million units of currency forgone by Tradaxan merchants when visitors to their world became so distracted by the altercation, they neglected their commercial transactions.
“And all this the inevitable result,” continued the new overseer, “of a semi-sentient set loose on an advanced world without supervision. So that now we are required to assume the costs.”
“But that’s ridiculous,” exclaimed Crennick, incredibly inappropriately. “I mean, in all honesty, how could I, or you for that matter, be blamed for—”
“Please, eminence, I beg you,” exclaimed von Freunhoffer, even more inappropriately, approaching the screen. “Consider how painfully unsuited Dr. Crennick is for the position into which Lorak incomprehensibly promoted him. Punish me if you must, upon our return, for this breach of etiquette, but grant me now permission to speak for my colleagues.”
“We do not grant it, Dr. von Freunhoffer,” said Ornac. “On the contrary, we grant Dr. Crennick, upon your return, his own neural hyperstimulator. Then he may put an immediate end to breaches of discipline on the part of his underlings.”
A wave of horror broke against the colleagues, who jolted backwards as if physically struck. All except Crennick, that is, who extended his hands, cocked his head and beamed.
“Thank you, sir. That would definitely improve things around here.”
“Improve things?” cried von Freunhoffer. “Eminence, go ahead. Punish me as you will. But for our enlightenment, I implore you, tell us why you would . . ." He thrust a quivering finger at Crennick. “Did you not just explain how he has harmed you?”
“We did,” said the alien levelly. “Yet his transgression is negligible when compared with yours, Dr. von Freunhoffer. Yours and the others’.”
“But what did we…?” began the old doctor, uncomprehending. Though after a moment a possibility dawned. “Certainly you could not mean Shmishkiss—our handling of Shmishkiss. An error, I grant, but one for which we are being—”
“That is precisely what we mean, Dr. von Freunhoffer.”
“But we are being punished for it. Surely you must have heard. Lorak—”
“Lorak has been removed. Lorak did not follow the principle of commensurateness.”
“But we were sentenced. To basic nutrition. For nine weeks.”
“Nine weeks?” came the reply. “Nine weeks you deem sufficient for jeopardizing an endeavor on which we have labored over centuries? Nine weeks for bringing hostility and scorn upon the race you claim to serve? Even now, word of this confrontation is spreading. Although we are merely granting a request of the sacred dead, we are being mocked for setting advanced weaponry against semi-sentients, while our opponents in the Galactic Council, who would ruin our plans of expansion, are gaining support. And why? Because you, unlike Dr. Crennick, could not be bothered to assess a newcomer.”
Von Freunhoffer, astonished, and not fully grasping what he had heard, hunted for a response. But Crennick was quicker. Seizing the initiative, and von Freunhoffer, he steered his predecessor away from the viewscreen, punctuating his steer with a push, and both with a curt kick in the pants.
He then returned to face his new boss.
“My apologies for that, Ornac. You may be sure that once I have the appropriate equipment, these guys”—he shoved a thumb behind him—“won’t think of staging a repeat performance.”
“We will indeed count on you for that, Dr. Crennick.”
“Understood. Now, as for the, as you put it, commensurate punishment . . .” He looked back at five stunned faces. “If you’re thinking of making an example of one or two of them, as I myself would be, I could certainly recommend—”
“There will be no examples, Dr. Crennick. You will all be punished.”
Crennick started. “But I thought—I mean, it’s them, as you said, who committed the really major—”
“Correct,” said Ornac. “But here too we see an example of Lorak’s incompetence. He punished one, rewarded another. Whereas we recognize that collective efficiency can only be achieved through collective responsibility.”
“Oh,” said Crennick, who, like von Freunhoffer, now found himself at a loss for words. “More glop, huh?” he suggested at last, nervously.
“No, not more of that,” said Ornac.
At this, Crennick joined his colleagues in feelings of both nervousness and trepidation.
While the friend elaborated. “The glop, as you call it, cannot deliver long-term sustenance. And only long-term punishment is commensurate.”
The nervousness increased.
Long-term? They were to endure something long-term?
“And what,” said Crennick, “if I may ask, might long-term be?”
“One standard human lifetime.”
“And what, if I may ask, will be required of us during that lifetime?”
“For one standard human lifetime—eighty of your years, no more, no less—each of you will consume exactly that which you once recommended to your fellow humans for their health and optimal circumference.
“Except William Mend,” the being continued, “who will choose which of the regimens to follow, when he is not running up and down the corridors of our vessel.”
The screen showed the other ship again.
The communication was over.
Gradually its implications sank in.
* * *
The Zetan named Ornac, meanwhile, was clumsily pulling off his helmet, revealing that he was not Ornac at all, or even a Zetan, but Marshall M. Shmishkiss. A Marshall M. Shmishkiss whose hair was matted and whose face was dripping sweat. A Marshall M. Shmishkiss who flung the headpiece back against the section of hull where he had found it, then tore from console to console in his battered interior compartment.
But none could provide what he needed, and soon it was clear he was getting nowhere and, what’s more, was losing his window of opportunity. Did he have a window of opportunity? Maybe not. But if he did, and was now losing it, after coming so far . . .
The prospect made him sprint to the elevator and hurry it all the way to the little room, where he stayed for about a millisecond before disappearing into the duct.
And then he was crawling—crawling as fast as he could through that narrow conduit, even as a distressing truth closed in on him: namely, that his vague notion of sneaking around the bridge, doing what was needed, was absurd. He would be seen and would have to handle them.
But how?
“Aleksei!” he shouted, while bursting out of the duct in a manner that was the exact opposite of sneaking around.
A weary face looked up from the floor, along with three others, all of them having had, apparently, the same idea: that if they lay down and went to sleep in their sleep, they might wake up in the real world.
“Aleksei,” called Marshall again. “Look!”
And almost at the same moment, he was at Margaret Burch’s station, reopening the communications link with the other ship, so his companions could see the men aboard her. Who were the same men and yet were not. Who were slouched, listless, staring hopelessly in assorted directions. Marshall placed himself in front of the viewscreen and called to them, waving his arms. “Hello! Hi there!” Then he was back at Burch’s console, cutting the link, then standing over Aleksei, while pointing at the screen, which again showed the destroyer from the outside.
“Hey, Aleksei, listen up. I have a question for you. Are you awake? The man on the other ship promised you would be, didn’t he? All you had to do was find me and launch some missiles. Well, now you have, and what has it brought you? Think about it. Are you back in your bed?”
Aleksei looked about, at Marshall, at the viewscreen and at the others, who, similarly exhausted by novelty and absurdity, were likewise reexamining their surroundings.
“No, Shmeeshkees. No.”
“Nor are you going to be,” said Marshall, boring his words into his former teacher, “unless you do one more thing.”
And then he was pounding on Aleksei’s console. “Only you, Aleksei, have the training, the skill, the courage . . .”
It wasn’t true, of course. Marshall could have easily operated the console himself. But that would have allowed the large man time to consider other options.
“Only you, Aleksei,” said Marshall again, but it was unnecessary. The weapons officer was at his station.
“What you want?” he asked.
“Torpedoes,” said Marshall. “Everything you have.”
Aleksei examined the words on his monitor and grunted. “We have . . . it looks like . . . only one left. I don’t know. Sheep very—”
“That’s OK. Never mind. We—you—are going to fire it. All right? Can you load it? Good. Now aim. We need to hit…”
And pressing a finger against the part of Aleksei’s screen which showed a cartoon image of the other vessel, he indicated a central point on its hull.
“That’s where they keep their antimatter fuel,” he said. “So that’s where we need to hit them.”
“But Shmeeshkees, we already—”
“No!” he countered fiercely. “I’m aware of all that. Never mind how, but I am. And you have to try again.”
Aleksei went to work loading BIG MISSILE.
“Good,” said Marshall. “Now wait for the fire icon to appear—the red one. Good. Now . . .”
So far, he had succeeded by presenting himself as someone who knew exactly what was required in a situation where no one else had the slightest idea. But now he saw a new possibility and had no choice but to spoil this positive impression.
“Wait!” he screamed, yanking on the large man’s finger just as it was going to hit the fire icon.
Aleksei looked up and glared. “Hold on. What I doing? Leessening to you? Why I not keelling you? Maybe then we can—”
“Fine,” snapped Marshall. “Then kill me. In ten minutes. But now, help me. Come on. How can it hurt? Just do it.”
“Do what? What you want? You say, fire torpedo, but then—”
“Look, isn’t there an icon, a button, that controls the torpedo’s speed?”
“Da, for sure. You want it go faster? We can—”
“No, I want it to go slower.”
“What? Oh come on, Shmeeshkees. Thees no time for joke.”
“Do I look like I’m joking?” said Marshall ferociously. “We can’t have them . . .” He flicked his head at the other ship, grasping for a quick way to explain his reasoning but unable to find one. “Never mind,” he continued. “In ten minutes you kill me. For now . . .”
He then dispensed with the nicety of having Aleksei operate the controls and took them over himself, covering the FIRE icon while with his other hand pressing the one labeled SLOWER. He pressed it again. And again. A fourth time. A fourteenth.”
“Shmeeshkees!!!”
Sensing that Aleksei might not wait the full ten minutes, he gave up pressing SLOWER, uncovered FIRE, jabbed it, then raced to the front of the room where, pivoting, he faced them all.
“This is it,” he said. “The end of our dream, one way or another. If possible, I suggest you wedge yourselves between solid objects.”
* * *
Outside, meanwhile, the two ships faced each other. One was puny, amputated, smoldering; the other immense, shiny, in the prime of life. At first, after Marshall activated the FIRE command, nothing changed. At second, nothing changed either. But at third or fourth, a keen-eyed observer might have spotted a development at the opening of a tube which ran underneath the smaller vessel.
Something was poking out.
Eventually the middle and rear of the missile emerged as well, and the weapon plodded off to its destination.
* * *
“But why?” demanded Aleksei, who couldn't wait to kill the bizarre idiot, but also had a perverse desire to hear his rationale for the most ridiculous tactic ever imagined. “I mean da, ees dream, but if meessl go so slow, and if it can hurt them—which it can’t, we know already—but if it can, they have lot of time to run away.”
“Yes, that’s a good point,” said Marshall. “But you see, we can’t have them reacting automatically. Once they realize we’ve fired something, they need time to think.”
“Think? About what?”
“I agree. About what?” said Oobla, who was suddenly communicating again. “Yes, yes, we’re still here—the few of us in charge of this debacle. And I have to tell you, Marshall, I have never seen anything so endless. Talk about up the creek in ten thousand leaps. Is this what you meant when you promised us rejuvenation?”
But Marshall wasn’t answering. He was at Ethan’s console, trying to figure out if they had any kind of propulsion left.
* * *
And meanwhile the missile moseyed on. Strolling to the halfway point, it seemed for a time to be waiting there, admiring the stars, the ships, a nearby nebula, while exhibiting itself shamelessly to its opponent’s sensors.
* * *
“I think I can still see it,” said Ethan, squinting at the viewscreen.
Marshall, squinting also, had to agree. It was still out there. An orange speck.
So maybe . . .
“So maybe what?” said Oobla.
But he didn’t finish the thought. Instead he prodded and re-prodded the navigation console, eventually concluding that either every last maneuvering engine was dead or the other ship had them in some sort of tractor beam.
“Expect to be going somewhere?” said Oobla.
* * *
“Expect to be going somewhere?” said the destroyer—figuratively, of course. But the object of its question, a tiny missile, did not answer. It just loafed along, basking in an invigorating full-body tickle of sensor beams converging from its humongous target.
By now, it was just shy of the point at which the giant ship’s force field would set it off, scattering its every fighting photon.
And then . . . it vanished. Or was impossible to see anymore against a mountainous hull.
* * *
Marshall’s face dropped into his hands. Well, at least he'd tried, he told himself. Trying was better than not trying.
“No, it isn’t,” said Oobla.
Vengefully he pictured the seafood display case at Stop & Shop.
And then . . .
* * *
He looked up. Everything around him was darker, but why? In a couple of seconds he realized. Because less light was coming from the viewscreen. And why was that? Because the destroyer had dimmed, from blazing whiteness to muted grayness, which might mean . . .
But did it?
“What it mean?” said Aleksei, studying the other ship.
“It means . . . ,” said Marshall, rushing to Melody’s station and examining her sensors. “At least, I hope it means . . .”
“Oh, my homeworld!” said Oobla. “Why would they—?”
“But they did!” cried Marshall exultantly, first with eyes raised, then voice raised, then fists raised. “They did! They did! They couldn’t stand the thought of all that healthy eating and turned off their force field!”
“When meessl arriving?” said Aleksei, still as confounded as ever.
But Marshall had no time to elaborate, because now, maybe, he could use the navigation console. Frantically he jabbed its icons, and with relief felt the old ship lurch. But were they moving? And fast enough? And in the right direction? He certainly hoped so, because on the viewscreen big changes were under way where the missile had disappeared. Where seconds ago there had been nothing but hull—vast, blank and spotless—there was now a small but expanding blossom of light. Very bright light that radiated angry fissures from which even more light poured out. White light. Blue light. Stabbing spears of light. Marshall hammered the icons. “Come on!” he shouted, and surveyed the others, expecting to find them similarly alarmed. But no, they were all quite placid, absorbing the scene as if it were a movie and the only thing missing was the popcorn.
What they needed, however, wasn’t popcorn. It was seat belts. Because at that moment the shock wave struck, the gravity generator yowled, equipment exploded, and with dreamlike sluggishness, as if in oil not air, they all went tumblesaulting about.
* * *
It was a tumblesaulting followed, almost immediately, by a gurgling.
Not the deep cynical gurgling of Ugglub, or the brazen gurgles of the Day of Delight. And certainly not the arid, matter-of-fact gurgling-on of the third-day meeting. What fountained in Marshall's head, rather, were the wordless gurgles of an excited, vibrant, gleeful aquatic creature.
It was Oobla, transported beyond speech. And time.
But that only lasted moments before the translator had something to translate again. “Oh, oh, beauteous bay, oh, this is amazing. I haven’t felt like this in centuries. Compared to this, I haven’t felt anything in centuries. None of us has. But now—you should see, Marshall. We’re laughing. We’re feeling. We’re surprised. We’re young! Can you believe it? At our age? Young?”
And then she was saying something else—something about selling broadcast rights to galactic media—but he couldn’t hear her because he couldn’t pay attention. And he couldn’t pay attention because hands were grabbing him—huge powerful human hands—though not to kill him but rather to hoist him to his feet and hug him, and then dance with him around and around the shattered bridge, while other hands slapped his back and tousled his hair.
“I always saying, best student I ever have!”
“May I second that? Good work, Mr. Michelin!”
“Nice, Marshall, nice. Outstanding, really. But, say, can I interpret it to mean I don’t have to blame myself anymore?”
Only after long celebratory minutes did he finally have an opportunity to check out the ship. Which, in fact, wasn’t so badly off. Why, some of the equipment was still working. Life support was working—obviously. And the viewscreen was working. Dizzy from the dancing, he stumbled over to it and looked out.
No destroyer. Not a trace of it. Just stars. Millions and millions of stars.
A hand touched his arm.
She was close to him.
Very close to him.
“I know you’re not real,” she said, her pupils wide, the whole of her giving off an almost limitless desire to mingle her genes. “But if you were . . .”