"Yes, Nannel Rab, I know, I know."
Having decided, Eichra Oren didn't wait. Before another hour had gone by, Sam was keeping an appointmentrather, he was spending more time than he cared to, cooling his nonexistent heels as the appointee attended to other chores. Eichra Oren was off on another part of the asteroid.
"Yes, yes, Nannel Rab, I know."
At the moment, Aelbraugh Pritsch was speaking with Mister Thoggosh's chief engineer, his words spoken into empty air while his thoughts traveled halfway around the little world via cerebro-cortical implant. He and Sam were in the building that served the scale-feathered being as office and quarters, a rambling structure which never seemed quite the same whenever Sam visited Mister Thoggosh's assistant. The plan was open, without floors or partitions. It was a multistory maze of crisscrossing stairways, perches, and swings unique to the warm-blooded avian dinosauroid species. Aelbraugh Pritsch delighted in rearranging it every chance he got, although it confused his nonavian, nondinosauroid associates.
"I know it isn't working. I merely observed that it meets the standards originally specified. I don't see how a debt assessment would help. We're here, the manufacturer's back home. We must make do with what we have."
Sam dreaded continuing the conversation. From long acquaintance, he knew that Eichra Oren's "disrespectful attitude" and "disorderly methodology" upset Aelbraugh Pritsch, a being capable enough in his own fussy way (although it pained Sam to admit it) but neither by personality nor inborn nature a particularly happy soul. Sam thought he understood why, although he'd never been able to persuade Eichra Oren. The species had descended from forms which, over the long course of their evolution, had given up their ability to fly. Flying being a biologically expensive strategy, flying creatures often found easier ways of staying alive: ostriches had sacrificed wings for size and running speed; penguins had followed the way of the seal. Giving up flight had freed dinosauroid brainsalready well developed for the three-dimensional task of flyingto do other things.
Mostly, it appeared to Sam, worrying.
"Yes, yes, I'll ask about ion implantation. If it's within my power . . ."
In many respects, too, beings like Aelbraugh Pritsch remained creatures of the flock. In their world, they were used to hierarchy and predictability. Unlike humans (and dogs) they'd never felt at ease as Appropriated Persons, although they'd been collected in greater numbers than any other species, due to a habit of staying in large groups. The Elders' laissez-faire informality, a result of the molluscs' sophisticated history, went against the avians' bent as badly as Eichra Oren's personality which, to a degree, reflected it.
"The Americans? Why you're right, Nannel Rab. Their ships do show evidence of ion hardening. If in need of a dugout canoe, ask a savage. But you'll have to do your own asking, I'm afraid. My time is occupied."
It didn't help that Aelbraugh Pritsch was aware of all this, or that by avian standards he was a loner bordering on the psychotic. Avians tended to strike others as neurotic anyway. They, in turn, had long ago given up pointing to the difficulties that others experienced adjusting to life with the nautiloids. By all rights, he ought to have gotten along with the newly arrived humansprofessed altruists and collectivists that they werebut by nature, they were no more creatures of the flock than he was an individualist. Sam had noticed he could hardly stand to be around them.
"Where were we?" Aelbraugh Pritsch had finished speaking with the engineer. "Doesn't Eichra Oren realize the risk that he incurs? He's supposed to protect the Elders' privacy. Yet someoneanyoneby staying one step behind him in the course of his investigation, would benefit from whatever he discovers."
"He wondered whether you'd been let in on the Proprietor's secret."
"I certainly haven't," came the answer, "nor, considering the terrible responsibility entailed, do I wish to be. I've too much responsibility of my own."
"Aren't you curious," Sam asked, "about why you came to 5023 Eris?"
"If I were, I wouldn't be doing my job, would I?" So there, nyah, Sam mentally completed the thought. "Need I add that those associated with the Elders are hardly monolithic in their views? They begin with the intransigence natural to them and then, thanks to the Elders, add half a billion years of disunion to that. Humans like Eichra Oren are unruly to the last cell of their bodies, incapable of acting as an unprotesting unit. From the moment of their arrival, it puzzled me that the Americans had ever talked themselves into socialism. Generations have passed, and still they spend each waking minute writhing in the discomfort of it, imposing it by force on one another. For all they've achieved, they might as well be pachyderms, flapping their ears and trying to fly."
Sam had seen an animated movie on that subject, but didn't mention it. "You complain that they're trying to be monolithic?"
"I complain that they act against their nature. I live among natural individualists and to an extent, because I'm sapient, have become one myself. Yet for my species, it isn't necessary to adopt an ideology, we naturally sort ourselves into a `pecking hierarchy' and obey orders. To us it feels as if that's what we've chosen freely. Before the advent of the Elders, we had to invent a semblance of individualism, simply in order to advance. In that respect, I can sympathize with these `Marxists.' Collectivism can't be any more comfortable for them than its opposite has been for my people."
"The difference being," Sam offered, "that collectivism fails to benefit them the way individualism did your people. But we've digressed."
"We have. I understand that any preference on my part that others be more like me is doomed. That's the danger I foresee in this scheme of Eichra Oren's. Like individuals everywhere, some among our party have looser tongues than others. Others disagree with the necessity of keeping undercover."
"Or the dignity," Sam interposed.
"Or the dignity. Have it your own way."
"I try to," the dog replied absently. A light had begun flashing in his mind at Aelbraugh Pritsch's last words, but he couldn't pin it down.
Tongues, loose or otherwise, had nothing to do with the Elders themselves, who spoke by radio produced by the same sort of cells that make some eels electric. Despite the fact that it was their expedition, few had come here besides Mister Thoggosh and the late Semlohcolresh. With Pulaski in tow, Eichra Oren made short work of interviewing half a dozen of them. Now the assessor was traveling all over the asteroid in search of answers.
At the moment they sat with a third individual on packing crates in a large tent overlooking one of the mysterious drilling sites that seemed to be the reason for the colony's existence, while a fourth, incapable of sitting, stood nearby. All about them were the scattered remindersfolded cots, stretchers, stacks of bandages, metal and plastic implementsof an emergency safely past.
"Dear me, yes," Dlee Raftan Saon told them. "When a piece of machinery that size comes apart at 150,000 gigavolts, there are bound to be injuries, no matter how hardy the species." He turned his triangular head to regard Nannel Rab, a nine-foot spider covered in black and reddish-orange fur. Toya found the arachnoid engineer beautiful and repelling at the same time, although her beauty was marred just now by surgical dressings over a large area of her great abdomen. "I'm just grateful that no one was killed, thanks to Nannel Rab's quick thinking. She heard the plasma drill begin to fail and ordered an evacuation. Those I treated had dorsal shrapnel wounds, including Nannel Rab herself."
Nannel Rab waved a modest palp. "You are too kind, Dlee Raftan Saon. I merely performed as any rational being"
"Perhaps, my dear," the insect-being replied before the giant spider could finish, "but there are too few rational beings in the universe."
"Yes," Toya put in impatiently, "but you haven't told us what they were drilling for, Dlee Raftan Saon."
He emitted wheezing noises she'd learned to interpret as a chuckle. "You noticed. That's because I haven't the faintest idea."
Eichra Oren shook his head. "And you aren't curious?"
"I'm consumed with curiosity. I'd hoped, somewhat unethically, to learn something from my patients under anaesthesiayou'd be surprised what we hear that wayalthough I'd never have repeated a word to anyone, of course. But we made do with topicals, so I'll have to wait until another timemay fortune forfend." He wheezed again.
"But you're a partner in this enterprise, aren't you?" Toya protested.
"You don't think I'd come here for professional fees?"
"Then how can you not"
"Rather than promise not to divulge something I might find interesting to talk about, I refused Mister Thoggosh's explanation and trusted his judgment. Isn't it more fun," he lowered his voice and wheezed, "to guess?"
"Some fun!"
Eichra Oren grinned. "What have you guessed so far?"
"It's my impression," Dlee Raftan Saon scratched at a mouth part, "that it concerns development of sophisticated technology, involving unconventional application of certain philosophical principles."
The assessor blinked. "That's a hell of a guess, even if it's wrong."
"I'm a good guesserthat's what diagnostics is about, after all."
"In that case," Nannel Rab put in, "I had better obtain a second opinion. The most charitable speculation is that this mission is nothing more than an archaeological expedition."
Eichra Oren raised an eyebrow. "And the least charitable?"
The eight-legged giant peered down at them, its many eyes hard, glittering drops of obsidian. "That we look for treasure."
The physician gave an almost human shrug. "Well, some of it Mister Thoggosh told me in the first place to get me interested. As to the rest, I keep my eyes open. Like Nannel Rab, here, I haven't any choice; unlike yours, they have no lids!" He was still wheezing to himself as they left in search of their next subject.
Toya couldn't decide what Voozh Preeno was.
The creature was the result of impressive evolutionary divergence. He, she, or it (she hadn't learned much about the assistant logistics specialist) might be distantly related to anemones, urchins, even the starfish at Eichra Oren's session. On the other hand, Voozh Preeno might descend from organisms as diverse as fan corals, arachnids, even intelligent plantsits overall color was a pale greenlike Llessure Knarrfic. Sam would say it was an extroverted hairball a meter in diameter. Observation revealed dozens of fibrous tentacles rising from an unseen center, branching into dozens of smaller appendages which branched into dozens more. The finest tendrils at the ends of all that branching were specialized. What kept Voozh Preeno from looking like a furry beachball was the fact that, as it moved, when it "walked" or "handed" her a drink she accepted for the sake of observing it, it appeared to split, revealing a coarser inner structure. She still wasn't sure whether there was any central body or if it consisted entirely of limbs.
"Truth is a valuable commodity," it informed Eichra Oren, "which we do not automatically owe to anyone. I am, moreover, honor bound to withhold it. That is more than you would learn did I offer you an engaging falsehood."
"Well put, Voozh Preeno," a fourth individual declared. "With eight legs, you might have been a Minister of the Royal Web."
Like Nannel Rab, Nek Nam'l Las was a spider of daunting proportionarachnoids appeared to be highly successful across time, and these two didn't represent the only species of sapient spiders Toya had heard ofbut that was where resemblance ceased. The engineer was black and red and furry. Nek Nam'l Las was a hardshelled blue-black from palp to spinneret. Nannel Rab was descended from solitary hunters. Nek Nam'l Las's ancestors had been gregarious web spinners.
"You flatter me, Your Highnessbut I enjoy it."
Eichra Oren stood. He'd been sitting on the floor. "We thank you for that much, Voozh Preeno. Ready, Toya?"
" `Your Highness'?" Toya was confused: why was Eichra Oren giving up so easily? "I thought your society didn't have any government."
The sleek black form, a meter taller than the girl, pivoted on its legs to focus several eyes on her. "We haven't, my little warm one. Our noblesse oblige is not to rule, so that anarchy is free to reign without a power vacuum begging to be filled. Thus it has been for generations among my kind on our world, and among those of us caught in the Elders' web of power and transported to theirs."
"The Princess is the highest of her line among the Appropriated Persons," Voozh Preeno explained.
Toya shook her head, "And a humble logistics officer at the same time?"
The spider raised a foreleg. "Those who will not endure social equality condemn themselves to suffer the political variety in its place."
Toya set down a glass which had been filled with ordinary tomato juiceshe hoped. These quarters seemed ordinary, too, their only odd feature being a vat of oily fluid in place of the usual sleeping platform. Looking closely at Voozh Preeno again, she played with the idea that perhaps the Elders had accidentally collected at least one extraterrestrial in all that sampling fifteen thousand years ago.
They were back at the settlement to question beings from a list Eichra Oren had made, having spoken with dozens more across the asteroid. The results weren't very different, she suspected, from those obtained on Earth by any conventional detective. This wasn't the first outright refusal they'd elicited, along with a mixture of unrelated facts, unsupported theories, and lies. Out of this mixture, the stubborn investigator was attempting to sift, one microscopic hint at a time, something resembling the truth. At least he'd been stubborn until now.
She got to her feet. "Thank you, Voozh Preeno. Sometime I'd like to speak with you about your people. I'm interested in evolution."
"And you wonder what I am, Sergeant Pulaski?"
"Toya. Yes, I hope you don't mind."
Voozh Preeno laughed. Toya didn't know where its voice came from, but it sounded human. "Other sapients often have trouble placing us. Your interest is generally shared in the culture the Elders have helped us create. It would be strange if this were not the case."
She nodded. "I suppose it would."
"To answer your question: you are distantly related to chordates, like sharks. Well, through an extremely indirect process which makes us a species rather younger than the Elders, my people are related to sponges. And before you ask your next question, I am both male and female, although I am gratified to say that we mate with others of our species rather than ourselves. That is biologically unproductive and also considered a perversion."
Toya nodded gravely and thanked Voozh Preeno for explaining.
"But stay, mammals." Nek Nam'l Las wheeled until she stood between them and the door. Toya felt a chill run down her spine. "I relish the odor of your blood. And you have not yet asked for my opinion."
Eichra Oren reached up to stroke the furry palp of the giant towering over him and another chill coursed through Toya's body. "I thought it more respectful, Princess, to wait until you offered."
Nek Nam'l Las turned to the girl. "The expression among your kind is `in a pig's valise,' is it not? Eichra Oren, you have never been respectful of anyone. But I am subject to no promise of secrecy, and have heard it said that Mister Thoggosh seeks a faster-than-light technology called the `Virtual Drive.' " She regarded Toya. "Now, was that not worth the risk of being eaten alive?"
"Your Highness," Eichra Oren touched her again, "I'll repay you with my firstborn child the second Thursday of next week. You'll find it a succulent tidbit for your web."
"Not if half as acerbic as yourself. Fare well, delicious friend, and you, as well, Toya Pulaski."
Hand shaking, Toya reached up to stroke the coarse fur of the creature's face, then hurried out the door. In the corridor, Eichra Oren turned. "You survived that rather well. What are you trying not to laugh about?"
Toya giggled. "Perversion. I don't know about going blind, but Voozh Preeno seems to have grown a lot of hair on its palms."
"And," he grinned back at her, "everywhere else."
She shook her head. "I like your cannibal princess. Where to next?"
"The infirmary," he told her, "and Remaulthiek."
Another thing Toya couldn't figure out was why Eichra Oren chose certain individuals to question. The creature Americans had first labeled a "walking quilt" dispensed refreshments at the infirmary and was also a partner in Mister Thoggosh's enterprise. Why Eichra Oren thought she'd violate the contract to tell him of the mission here, Toya couldn't guess. They found her, another of the chordates Voozh Preeno had mentioned (more closely resembling a ray than a shark), sitting beside her cart, having a meal on a lawn before the infirmary.
"Greetings, Remaulthiek, how do you do?"
"I do not return your greeting, but keep it for my collection. I do by eating as you see now, Eichra Oren, and by getting sufficient sleep."
The human shook his head. "I'm sorry, I didn't mean `how is it that you exist.' I meant to inquire as to your state of being."
Remaulthiek, glistening within the covering which kept her gills moist, stretched to the cart for another sandwich. "It continues," she told him, "as it has for some time now. This is one of the new ones?"
"Toya Pulaski. We've come to ask you questions, if we may."
"There are better answerers than I. What do you wish to ask?"
"I want to know why the Elders came to 5023 Eris. What"
"I interrupt," Remaulthiek told him, "saving you much time and further effort. We are here because we seek after the Gods."
With a disappointed expression, Eichra Oren opened his mouth, but was interrupted again. "Gods?" Toya asked.
"The Great Ones who no longer choose to manifest themselves upon this plane of existence," came the reply. "Was not this made clear to you?"
The girl sat down beside the creature. "It's supposed to be a secret. Didn't Mister Thoggosh swear you to secrecy when you signed his agreement?"
"My kind make no agreement, human person, but do as we say and deny not reality. This is not so with other species. We respect the ways of others."
"I see." Eichra Oren's words followed a long silence while the creature contemplated her sandwich, "What happened to these gods, Remaulthiek?"
"They departed long ago. Know you nothing of unnatural history?"
"It's my place to seek the truth. How long ago did they depart?"
"Close upon the ninth order. We partners seek to follow them."