And of course, Mac was conducting, under Becker"s guidance, an extremely critical security operation. He could now receive signals from the main fleet, although he could not yet send them. While Mac was working, Becker regaled him with cute stories about Nadhari. The captain figured if he was going to be crazed about the woman, the android -was the perfect party to hear his jabbering. That way he wouldn"t make a fool of himself to anyone who -was likely to gossip.
He was just getting to the part where Nadhari, in a fit of pa.s.sion, had inadvertently reintroduced him to somersaults and handsprings, when Acorna arrived, looking bemused and distracted, but as usual, determined to be useful.
"Any luck with the corn unit, MacKenZ?" she asked.
"I have had some contact with the main fleet. They are wondering where this scouting shuttle is. They apparently re ceived some communication before the crash onto the blue planet. However, these beings are on the whole unperturbed by peril to individual members or even vessels, from what I have learned from our captive, from what Aari has been able to tell me of his experience, and from what I have gleaned from their communications."
"Where are they? What are they doing?" Acorna asked urgently, hunkering down beside the thoroughly exhausted Becker and Mac.
Acorna looked down at the corn unit, still mounted on the control panel, and at a mess of other hardware from the shuttle. "What did you do with the rest of the shuttle?" she asked.
"Smells like Khieevi," Becker said. "Without you and the others on board, the smell was enough to gag a maggot. Maybe the smell w< p="">
"Ye-es," Acorna said. "We really should investigate their life cycle. We would have a better idea of their vulnerabilities if we knew more."
"True," Becker said. "Wonder if Hafiz has got any entomologists in this bunch of settlers he"s imported."
"From what I can tell, Kh.o.r.n.ya," Mac said, "The fleet may be en route to the Niriian home-world-where the piiyi came from."
Acorna nodded. "The Niriians have been warned already that their ship was intercepted and that the Khieevi are in this general area and still at large. Surely they will have taken defensive measures."
"In case they haven"t," Becker said, "Nadhari was going to get Hafiz to dispatch a light drone with a prerecorded message to broadcast from s.p.a.ce-well away from here. We still haven"t heard from narhii-Vhiliinyar, Princess, but it looks like the bugs haven"t got there yet."
"What"s needed is technology that prevents transmissions from being traced back to their origins, at least by Khieevi devices," Acorna said. "Do you think we could do a diagnostic that might help some of the engineers develop something within the near future?"
"Yeah, if we survive that long," Becker said. "Anyhow, it won"t hurt to ask Hafiz about it."
"If the Khieevi find the drone and destroy it, that would give my beloved uncle an economic motive anyway," Acorna said. "He just hates to lose something he"d hoped to make a profit on."
"You know, me too," Becker said. "Your uncle and I have got quite a bit in common."
Acorna smiled mischievously at him. "I know."
Becker gave her a sideways glance from under his bushy eyebrows. "Seen much of Aari lately?" he asked innocently.
"Not too much," she said, feigning lightness. "He has been a.s.sisting his parents in the laboratory, from what I can tell. They"ve determined that the sap contains a spore which, -when it comes in contact with an insect"s carapace, metamorphoses into a fungal infection of great virulence."
"I knew it had to be something like that," Becker said. He didn"t mention that she"d changed the subject away from Aari. "So all we gotta do basically is lure them to the place where we got the sap and tell them to eat their fill." He chuckled. "I"m getting good at this decoy business. We faked Ganoosh into thinking the Federation Outpost was the Linyaari homeworld and now all we have to do is convince the Khieevi fleet that whaddayacallit-vine worlds is full of yummy bug food and let them and the plants fight it out to see who eats who. Piece of-you should pardon the expression-cake."
"First, however," Mac said, "I must fix the transmitter on this unit. While I have no problem with concentration or distractions, Captain, you do happen to be sitting against the access panel. Perhaps you would consider moving?"
"Mutiny!" Becker grumbled. "C"mon Acorna, I"ll treat you to a bouquet or something dirtside."
They ate together in one of the little bistros Hafiz had set, one to a building, circus, or block, for times "when people did not want to meet in one of the several great dining halls. All of the ones in the main compound, which contained the Linyaari compound, opened onto gardens for al fresco mixed human and Linyaari grazing.
"Have you tried any of the activities around here?" Becker asked Acorna casually. "Nadhari and I are going to take a room in one of the fantasy suites at the hotel. Complete holo landscapes in every suite." He sighed. "She"s an amazing woman, Nadhari."
"You really like her, then?"
"That"s a little mild. I mean, there"s not many women I"d let take RK with them while they"re working, but she said he wanted to see what she did. She"s the first Makahomian he"s been around since the crash. He likes being worshipped. I guess everybody ought to try it once. Being worshipped, I mean."
Becker did not need RK. He himself looked like the proverbial cat who had swallowed the unfortunate proverbial canary.
"I am pleased for you, Captain. Have the two of you made any long-range plans?" Acorna asked.
"It"s a little early yet," Becker said complacently, "But I figure after we save the universe as we know it, -what with her brawn and my brains ..."
Acorna didn"t warn him, but Nadhari herself, clad in her green security forces uniform, crept through the garden until she was directly behind Becker, where she caught his head in a hammerlock, "And then what, oh brains of the outfit?" she asked. RK, slipping through the weeds behind her, stopped at her feet and wound around her ankles.
"Whatever you want, babe," Becker said, removing her arm without difficulty and distributing kisses up the crease in her uniform sleeve.
Nadhari actually wrinkled her elegant, if oft-broken nose at Acorna. "Isn"t that cute? He called me babe. n.o.body ever calls me babe. If most men did it I"d have to break at least a finger. But from Jonas, it"s not lack of respect, it"s protective." She put both arms around his neck and gave him a half-comic noisy smooch before melting back into the garden as if she were one of the plants, the cat"s plumed tail the last vestige of their presence.
Becker sat there with a silly grin on his face. Acorna remembered the word used for someone whose internal dam had broken so that the banks of their dry stream -were filled to overflowing. Besotted. Becker and Nadhari were besotted and Acorna was glad for them.
But she had to excuse herself before she choked on the lump in her throat.
Maati made Thariinye close his eyes as she led him by the hand into the holo-lab. Opening them, he saw a number of the youngsters from the station grouped around Aari and Acorna.
He looked confused. "Is this some kind of an instructional meeting or what? Where"s Becker and the cat and your parents?"
"Look closer," Maati told him, now letting go of his hand and herding him in among the children. "Aren"t they awesome?"
He saw now that Aari and Acorna were standing in little pools of light. Neither of them greeted him and once in a -while, though very seldom, one of them would flicker slightly.
"Holograms?" he asked.
Annella Carter beamed at him. "Yes! What do you think?"
Thariinye scratched his chin and circled the two familiar figures. "Well, they do flicker sometimes. What are they? Tourist attractions?" "Noooo," Maati punched him lightly on the forearm. ""Course not. They"re to, *well, be go-betweens for the real people."
"Go-betweens to what?" Thariinye asked.
"What"s the matter with you?" Maati demanded. "Have you gone soft in the head from too much easy living? Go-betweens to each other, of course!"
Thariinye groaned. "I was afraid of that. You don"t think it will actually work, do you? These things wouldn"t fool either of them for more than a moment or two if they have their wits about them."
"That"s why we wanted your help," Maati said. "You"re the one who made me think of it. How do we make it work?"
"Work?" he asked. "Why ask me? I don"t know anything about holograms."
"No," Maati said, "But according to you, you know all about loooove," she drew the word out mockingly and he gave her a look that would have sent older and more susceptible girls running away in tears. She just laughed back up at him and the other children giggled.
"Of course I know more than a lot of infant younglings," he said. "What is it that you need to know about it? And how does it concern your little holo dollies?" He flipped his fingers at the life-size holograms as if they were no bigger than his foot.
"We need to know what Kh.o.r.n.ya should say to Aari and what Aari should say to Kh.o.r.n.ya to get them together, of course!" Maati said. She did not seem to be getting the idea that she was a mere child being put in her place. She acted as if he was the one who was being stupid. He didn"t much care for it, but as her words sank in, he did see -what the children -were trying to do.
"Oh," he said. "Well, she should tell him that she loves him and why and he-er-should do the same."
"But how would they say it *without sounding corny?" Jana asked. Maati and Thariinye had both been speaking in Standard for the benefit of the others. Maati"s Standard was quite good by now, he noticed, no doubt the result of her prolonged a.s.sociation with the other younglings.
A young male the others called Laxme tapped some keys on his control pad and the Aari figure swung toward the Acorna holo and said, in a comic mockery of Aari"s own voice, "Oh, kiss me, my sweetie pie," and made sounds like hooves pulling out of a mud puddle.
Thariinye was indignant. "Stop that at once!" he said.
Laxme shrank back into himself as if he expected to be hit.
"He was just playing, showing you how it worked," Jana said softly.
"I know, but Aari is a brave man, the bravest man my people have ever produced probably, and I"ll not have him and Kh.o.r.n.ya ridiculed, not even by friends."
"That"s -why we wanted your help," Maati said. "To make them do and say the right things."
"What right things?" Thariinye asked.
"You know-to get them together. You say you"re this big expert on luu-uuve. So you should know, right?"
He glared at his former shipmate. "I know how to attract a girl to me," he said. "But, uh-" he lowered his voice and spoke out of the side of his mouth so just Maati could hear, "as you"ll remember, it didn"t work with Kh.o.r.n.ya."
"Maybe not, but she"s already attracted to Aari. We just have to have his hologram to encourage her, and vice versa. So what things should they say?"
"First of all," Thariinye told her, "You"ll have to have the holograms appear to them after they"ve been sleeping for a while so that they"re groggy and won"t notice the shimmering."
"That"s what we were going to do," Annella said. "But they don"t shimmer that much."
Thariinye ignored her. He was thinking hard. "I know," he said. "I think I can find just the thing. Wait a bit."
He returned about a half hour later carrying the book of ancient European literature Aan had been reading.
For the next several hours, Jana read aloud and the others argued the use of this pa.s.sage or that, "while -Maati and Thariinye, with the use of the LAANYE, attempted to translate the agreed-upon phrases into Linyaari. Once they decided on the phrases, they had to program the holos to move properly.
"They should look seductive, but mustn"t touch a real person, of course," Thariinye said. "They should lead Aari and Kh.o.r.n.ya to a real place together to continue in person ..."
"Or a holo place!" Annella said, "None of the holo suites in the hotels are filled yet, since we haven"t had a single new guest, just the people who came with the caravan and they all have their own quarters."
Mac"s performance and function had been greatly increased by his recent upgrades and education, and he knew the captain was pleased. Becker had puzzled him somewhat when Mac had shut himself down in the captain"s absence with Nadhari Kando. "I thought you"d keep working on the shuttle, Mac," the Captain had said. "Not exactly a self-starter, are you?"
"No, sir, though I do shut myself down to conserve energy."
"I want you working on that shuttle day and night, whether I"m here or not. So program that and don"t "worry about conserving energy. There"s energy to burn in this place and I don"t think Harakamian will begrudge you some if it saves our b.u.t.ts in the long run."
"Yes, sir," Mac had responded. And he had of course been following instructions ever since. If he could have felt regret, it was that now most of his social interaction was in the Khieevi fashion. He had repaired the transmitter some time ago, though he had not used it yet, as he had not been instructed to do so.
But he practiced, nevertheless, imitating, interpreting, a.s.similating, and integrating the klicking and klackings until he used them-if only to himself-quite as easily as he conversed in Standard and Linyaari.
He "was left alone a great deal these days. The captain and the cat spent increasing amounts of their time with the denizens of the Moon of Opportunity, particularly with Ms. Kando. Sometimes they had their get-togethers aboard the ConPor, but since Ms. Kando needed to be available to her staff, many times the three of them shared her off-duty time -with her in her quarters or in one of the hotel rooms available in the compound. Aari and Acorna were busy elsewhere as well, and the few times -when any of the Linyaari had come aboard, the initial smell, the noise emitted by the shuttle, its corn unit"s volume on high so Mac could hear it as he moved about the ship, seemed to distress them and they left again quickly, particularly *when Mac accidentally greeted Aari with Khieevi klackings.
So it was that he was alone when he heard the ships sounding off, a roll call of attack, heard the staccato klickety-klackklack of orders pa.s.sed from one unit to another. The essence was that the planet of Nirii, around which the fleet had been gathering, was now being attacked, the fleet swarming down upon it much as hungry insects were said to do on some particularly appropriate foodstuff.
Mac listened with interest. Had he been capable of it, he might have been excited. He was still listening when Becker returned.
"Hi, Mac, can you turn that d.a.m.ned thing down? It sounds like an army of tap dancers landing on a flat wooden planet."
"Oh, no, Captain, nothing like that. The sound is simply that of the Khieevi invading the planet of the two-horned bovine beings. They are pa.s.sing communications among their various ships, attempting to first conquer major cities and defense outposts, and to an extent prevent any possible escape by inhabit ants. Their efforts are concentrated primarily on the attack however."
"Great galloping gravity, Mac, why didn"t you say so?"
"You did not instruct me to do so. Captain."
"Do I have to tell you everything?"
Mac was pleased to now be able to employ one of the captain"s own idiomatic phrases, "Yes, sir. Pretty much."
"Right. Okay. You keep monitoring that thing-remember everything you hear. I gotta go see a man about a drone."
Hafiz was explaining why the drone -was not yet in s.p.a.ce as he had a.s.sured Becker it -would be with all possible dispatch. "I was preparing my message, dear Becker."
"Your message? How long can it take to say, "The Khieevi are coming, the Khieevi are coming, lock and load or get the h.e.l.l out now7." "
"You don"t understand, my boy. Even such public service messages carry delicate nuances. And of course, we did not know exactly -when or where they were coming, did we?"
"Now we have a pretty good idea, though. They"re chowing down on the cowboy planet right now."
"Cowboy planet?"
Becker stuck a forefinger from each hand up beside his temple and wiggled them. "Two horns like cows, get it?"
"Ahh, the Niriians. Yes, I have heard they have excellent organic technology."
"It stinks, if you ask me, but n.o.body deserves to have the bugs on top of them and that"s what"s happening right now. So, is the drone going up or do I have to take the ConSor up and make like Paul Revere?"
"Paul who, dear boy? And what was he revered for, exactly? "
"Getting his drone up before the enemy had a chance to eat every planet in the galaxy, that"s -what. Now then, do you think you can finish your message?"
"Certainly."
"Good. I"ll just wait then and carry it out to the drone for you."
Hafiz turned on his recorder and rewound. "Let me see, where was I, oh yes, "This urgent humanitarian -warning is brought to you through the kindness and beneficence of the Federation"s foremost philanthropic economic amba.s.sadorial firm, House Harakamian." "
"A commercial"}" Becker demanded. "You held off putting the drone into s.p.a.ce while you made a commercial?"
Hafiz spread his hands -with an elegant shrug. "I am in commerce after all, dear boy."
"Not for long if the bugs attack us," Becker said grimly.
"Ah, an excellent point. Very well, I shall continue."