"Laika," Mister Thoggosh chuckled. "Surely Mr. Empleado offered some comment on the general's attitude."
"Through clenched teeth, and at the top of his lungs." Eichra Oren grinned. "I imagine it must have hurt."
He willed himself off the chair-edge, trying to relax. Outside it would be afternoon by now. Pulaski had gone, presumably to ponder Mister Thoggosh's offer, although she'd made a pretense of turning it down. Sam, too, had run off on some errand. Furry sapients weren't very happy soaking in liquid fluorocarbon, however temperate and oxygenated. Eichra Oren looked forward to leaving as well, having had enough of the aqueous gloom the great mollusc regarded as cozy, but which the human often found depressing.
"I'm ashamed to admit that I enjoyed watching it," he told his employer. "It's slim return on the investment you're making keeping me around."
As they spoke, Mister Thoggosh stabbed button after lighted button set into the space before him that he used as a desk. In all fairness the atmosphereat least the tempohad changed with the amateur paleontologist's departure. She'd been a guest, while Eichra Oren was "family." A backlog of urgencies had accumulated during each minute spent entertaining Pulaskiwith orders to Aelbraugh Pritsch that they weren't to be disturbed unless the asteroid was exploding (and a footnote to admit Eichra Oren whenever he showed up).
Enjoying a respite, the nautiloid lifted a resigned tentacle. "I'm aware that your services are costly, Eichra Oren, pray don't belabor the fact. Let it stand that it's preferable to the more dangerous and even costlier alternative of transporting you back home. With these Americans, I can't predict how soon I'll require your talents again, anyway, perish the thought. I assume that you're spending as much time with them as possible."
The man nodded. "For all the good it does either of us. The benefit of knowing more about events on their version of Earth than, say, than someone like Pulaski expects of me may be more theoretical than"
"Mister Thoggosh!" The precise, fussy voice was that of Aelbraugh Pritsch, transmitted from his own nearby office. Feathered sapients cared even less for fluorocarbon bathing than furry ones. An image of the man-sized avian or dinosauroid (it amounted to the same thing) welled up in Eichra Oren's mind as his employer shared the incoming signal. "Nannel Rab reports another equipment failure at Site Seventeen. I'm afraid it's the drilling system again."
"I suspected as much." The nautiloid sighed, sending his limb off for another beer. "Have Nannel Rab follow the procedure we discussed. Keep me informed." He turned to the man. "You were saying that the benefit of knowledge is only theoretical?"
"May be theoretical," Eichra Oren corrected, failing to rise to the bait. "Despite the volume and quality of our data, there is much I don't understand about these inscrutable Americans and possibly never will."
"I see. That was to be expected, wasn't it? They have a lifetime in which to comprehend their civilization, and many of them fail, even so. What, in particular, is troubling you?"
"Many things." The human thought for a moment. "Just one item from the inventory as an example: where does the PRC really fit into the current world political picture?"
"The formidable People's Republic of China." Mister Thoggosh took a long drink. "You are perhaps acquiring a personal reason to be curious?" He transmitted another deep and (his organs of respiration and speech having no connection) thoroughly counterfeit sigh. "You humans are irrepressible; no wonder there are ten billion of them on this Earth alone. What an experience, to spend one's life swimming in a fog of hormones, gripped by perpetual coupling-frenzy."
Sam would have asked if it were envy speaking. He might even have suggested that Mister Thoggosh go couple with himself. Eichra Oren merely gritted his teeth and ignored the gibe.
"I've asked about them because I feel they're important. They've maintained a collectivist dictatorship for over a centurymurderous and repressive even by Marxist standardsbut have a longer history of private capitalism, which they show occasional interest in reviving. The World Soviet's afraid of that. They keep the massive Chinese population within its borders by brandishing the biggest, dirtiest nuclear weapons their science can devise. This encourages the PRC to revert to an isolationism they've been inclined toward readily enough on their own for thousands of years."
Eichra Oren was about to add something when Aelbraugh Pritsch filled their minds again. "I deplore interrupting, sir. Remgar d'Nod wishes to reduce power twenty-three percent while the matter-energy converter is serviced."
Had he been human, Mister Thoggosh might have rubbed a hand across his face. The tip of one tentacle made little circles in the thin layer of sand beside his working area. "May I assume that this is not another equipment failure?"
"It's routine scheduled maintenance," the avian answered.
A tentacle slapped the sand-pattern away in irritation. "Then why in the Predecessors' name does he bother me with it?" His tone changed as he cut the circuit and turned his attention again to Eichra Oren. "And the beautiful Rosalind Nguyen has nothing to do with this?" The mollusc possessed no eyebrows to raise skeptically at his employee, but managed to convey the impression anyway. "Perhaps not. She's of Vietnamese, rather than Chinese, extraction, isn't she?"
Again the man controlled himself, not without a struggle. An American habit he found particularly satisfying was their penchant for referring to an antagonist in terms of the terminal anatomical feature of the gastrointestinal system. Every sapient he knew ofexcepting certain rare representatives of the plant kingdompossessed such an anatomical feature, so the epithet could be appreciated universally. He predicted a brilliant future for it among those compelled to associate with the Elders.
Again Aelbraugh Pritsch interrupted. "Sir, I have a report of two humans wandering near the abandoned boring platform at Site Four." Eichra Oren had been occupied with other matters, but recalled this as another location where the subsurface geology had proven too much for nautiloid technology. Not for the first time, he wondered what they were drilling for.
"Was the excavation sealed?" his employer inquired.
"No, sir." Dinosauroid eyes rolled to an unseen ceiling as he consulted his organic memory or an electronic implant. "The crew was pulled off to another site. I'm sending a remote to see whether the bore collapsed on its ownunlikely in this gravityor whether the humans might have discovered anything from examining the site." The remote, Eichra Oren knew, would be an aerostat like the one which had brought Pulaski here, under cybernetic pilotless guidance.
"Let me know," came his employer's weary reply. "And Aelbraugh Pritsch?"
"Sir?" The bird-being's down-rimmed eyes widened, pupils contracting and expanding as he gave the nautiloid his worried attention.
"Try to relax, my feathered friend. Even the end of the world isn't the end of the world. See whether you can find out who these humans were. That might tell us something."
Visibly attempting, with little success, to follow Mister Thoggosh's advice, he nodded. "I'll try, sir." Again his image faded from their minds.
"We were speaking," the nautiloid observed, "of China."
Eichra Oren lifted a hand. "All Dr. Nguyen says is `We don't talk about the PRC.' `We' meaning citizens of the American Soviet Socialist Republic, the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics, and the United World Soviet."
"Why do majoritarians invariably give their nation-states such awkward names?" Mister Thoggosh mused. "What was wrong with `France' or even `Bulgaria'? Never mind, please go on."
"She's ethnically Chinese, like many twentieth-century Vietnamese who fled the oncoming Communist wave by emigrating to America. Where they came from, they were a hated minority in any case, something like the Jews in Europe. In the end, they only escaped from one variety of repression into another. Perhaps because of her background, she appears to have difficulty fitting in among her fellow Soviet Americans."
"And as the sole non-Soviet human here," Mister Thoggosh suggested, "not to mention the only member of your species in our little group, you've developed more than a casual interest in her, is that it?"
The man frowned at what he felt was becoming a pattern of intrusion into his personal life. "You could say that."
"What is it this time?" His employer was speaking with the disembodied voice of Aelbraugh Pritsch again.
"Nek Nam'l Las in Logistics. They can't find sixteen pallets of extra boring coolant we brought with us and equipment failures have consumed more than planned. They want permission to send for more."
Mister Thoggosh was more than annoyed. "What does that pebble-counter think the transporter is, a tenthbit trolley? I discussed this with Nannel Rab and the other department heads yesterday, and thought it understood that we'll make do with what we have! Those pallets were moved from the equipment yard when space was required to disassemble the driver core damaged at Site Eleven. I knew some idiot would report them lost. They're stacked in the vehicle charge-and-storage bay at the north end of the converter. Tell Remgar d'Nod to move them back. Tell Nek Nam'l Las and everyone else there'll be no sending or receiving anything for another thousand hours! Turn down all such requests on your initiative. And one more thing, Aelbraugh Pritsch."
The dinosauroid gulped. Not only were his pupils bouncing from half to twice their normal diameter with each heartbeat, but ruffled feathers around his neck made him look as if he were molting. Reminded of his assistant's physiological sensitivity, Mister Thoggosh moderated his tone. "See here, I realize there hasn't been time for your remote to arrive at Site Four yet. Has Tl*m*nch*l managed to identify those wandering humans?" Tl*m*nch*lwhose name most sapients found unpronounceablewas an evolutionary relative of sea-scorpions, and Mister Thoggosh's chief of security.
"No, sir, he's trying a cyberscan-and-match." The avian's feathers were smoother now. "But he complains that all humans look alike to him."
Mister Thoggosh chuckled. "That's only fair, I suppose, since I'm sure his people all look alike to humans. They certainly do to me. Now hold all messages, if you please, while I finish my conversation with Eichra Oren."
Aelbraugh Pritsch blinked"Yes, sir."and faded.
Visibly preparing to issue more orders, the mollusc seemed to inhale and exhale deeply. "Eichra Oren: I sympathize with your resentment of my personal remarks, just as I admire the romantic inclinations that every human being I've ever known seems continuously inspired to manifest. I would prefer, however, that you forget Dr. Nguyen, however she may intrigue you. Concentrate on Toya Pulaski, who is in a positionsomething I doubt she realizesto endanger a future triumph which will vindicate all of our past defeats."
"What do you mean `concentrate'?" There was more in what he'd said that worried Eichra Oren, but this would do for the moment.
Mister Thoggosh lifted a tentacle. "Discover her likes and dislikes. Given her presumed heritage, normally I'd guess that she despises the current regime more than most; it's our misfortune that politics fail to interest her. We know she gave up her real lovepaleontologywhen drafted by the Aerospace Force. Here among sapient molluscs, sea-scorpions, dinosauroids, she must have trouble deciding whether she's in a waking nightmare or gone to her personal idea of Heaven. I'd hazard that it offers features of both." He curled the limb into a sort of fist. "Stimulate her political uncertainty. Win her over, if you can, to our point of view."
Eichra Oren's mouth compressed into a hard line. "If I had a clue what our point of view is. Is this a professional assignment?" He rose, clenching his own fists, determined to walk out.
"Sit down, Eichra Oren. I thought you understood that you were on the payroll the moment you arrived, and will remain so as long as you're here, in whatever capacity. Knowing humans as I do, I'm aware that Toya happens to be, by your aesthetic standards as well as those of her own culture, an unlovely thing. Although you'd gallantly have it otherwise, this makes what I ask all the more difficult. Be that as it may, given her interest in paleontology, she represents a threat to an achievement which will make good all of our past shortcomings. She must be turned aside. If you wish to add a surcharge, if it will make the task any less unsavory, by all means do so."
Eichra Oren stood beside the chair. Only at a time like this did it occur to him how small and frail human beings must look, how ridiculous he must appear, confronting a creature many times his mass, with ten powerful meters-long tentacles. "Before we change our minds about what profession I'm here to practice, you should consider my lack of credentials in the field, instead of haggling over my price!"
"This is American humor?" Mister Thoggosh asked mildly.
Disgusted with his lack of dignity (Eichra Oren was capable of winning a physical battle with a nautiloid and had done so more than once as a professional necessity), he stepped around the chair and sat again, arms folded across his chest, his mind seething with suspicion. "Better than nautiloid humor: hiring me to protect your little secret and not telling me what it is I'm supposed to protect."
"We come to it at last!" Mister Thoggosh laughed. "Dear boy, I acknowledge that you're stranded here as a result of a task I hired you to accomplish, one I confess you performed with astonishing alacrity, in a manner satisfactory to me. I'm obliged to see that you suffer no further for it, just as I would if you'd been injured in the line of duty."
Apparently surprised to find his container empty again, he sent his tentacle for another, bringing the coffee Eichra Oren preferred without asking. Knowing his employer, the man accepted it as the token of reconciliation it was meant to be.
"It is your fortune," the great mollusc continued, "for good or for ill, that you're freeas a kind of workman's compensationto enjoy this time as a vacation if you wish, with no additional obligation. It is my fortuneand I regard it unreservedly as goodthat you're not a man to whom idleness for its own sake is welcome. I'm grateful that you're willing to help me perform my solemn duties here, even at the confiscatory rates you deserve so well."
Eichra Oren did have eyebrows, and raised them. "But?"
"You ask too much. If the Americansor worse, their leaderwere to discover what we seek here, not learn what it is, but make the find before us, it would culminate in a disaster of unparalleled magnitude."
"If it's so serious, I'd like to help. You're willing to swear Scutigera to secrecy. I'm your friend, I'm Eneri Relda's son, I'm a p'Nan assessor for reason's sake! Why won't you confide in me?"
Mister Thoggosh thought long before answering. "I need partners like Scutigera; it can't be helped. I chose them as best I could. Even so, each morning I awaken hoping I've chosen wisely."
"I have some savings, make me a partner."
"Eichra Oren, I esteem your discretion above that of any sapient I know, excepting your mother. And at this point, I wouldn't confide even in her. The risk is unthinkable. If you wish to helpand for the sake of restitution which will repay every past transgression we ever made against ourselves, I hope you dodistract and occupy the attentions of Toya Pulaski!"