The Companions (39 page)

“Because he knows how to figure out languages,” I said. “And a word is a word is a word, no matter how it's conveyed. Right?”

“I suppose,” said Lethe. “We'll let Gainor decide.”

“Let him decide,” I conceded. “But in the meantime, get that equipment over to the meadow so it will be ready when he gets here.”

 

Paul was in his bed, as were three concs, sleeping in an untidy sprawl of appendages. I stood in the doorway, staring at the pile. Things weren't going well on the language front, obviously. Now I had to get Paul thinking about a language of odors without telling him. Unless, perhaps, he should just be told. I couldn't go on forever stroking his ego. Eventually he had to learn about cooperation. Or was that thought fatuous?

I shut the door and left him as he was. The day had contained quite enough excitement. The next would no doubt offer its own challenges, and, one hoped, its own solutions. Halfway back to my own room, I hesitated. Three concs. I tried momentarily to convince myself that the other one, whichever one it was, was back in its case. Or under the bed. Or somewhere.

Shaking my head, I retraced my steps, tiptoeing into his room and peering into the closet, under the bed, behind the
table where he'd been working. No conc. I went into the conc dormitory, so-called, where the four cases sat on low stands. All of them empty. The food bin full of food but empty of conc.

I searched the bathroom area, the living room, kitchen area, went through the door into the dog wing, woke the dogs and asked them to search.

“Whigh?” asked Behemoth.

“He wants to know which conc,” Adam translated from the door to his room, where he stood half-asleep.

“Does it make a difference?”

He merely looked at me. I flushed, went back the way I had come, into Paul's bedroom once more. Of course the concs smelled different. The one on top with purple hair, that was Lavender. Beneath it was yellow hair, Marigold; and on the far side was Salvia, blue. The redhead, Poppy, was missing.

I went back again to give Behemoth the information. He and the other dogs, except for Scramble, went through the bedrooms, through the closets, then out the door and over the fence. They were gone for some little time, returning in a group, Behemoth's hair raised around his neck, his lips drawn back from his teeth.

“Rrr-igh,” he yelped.

“Poppy was in the redmoss?”

“Ess. Wahs. 'awn.”

“He means she's gone,” said Adam. “He smelled her trail, into the redmoss, but now gone.”

I went at once to the administration building, where the med tech and several of the staffers were still lingering while four men mixed wet-set into the ashes.

Lathey was among them, and I drew him aside. “Did you see my brother or any of the concs outside today?”

His lips thinned, he frowned.

I said, “It's all right. I know he does stupid things. Tell me.”

“He brought them over to the commissary and got run off. The man in charge threatened to put him under restraints if
he didn't get the concs back where they belonged. Later we saw him outside, in the moss, chasing all four of them, laughing like a maniac. Drom said let it be until you got back, then he'd decide what to do.”

“One of the concs evidently was…uh, eaten by the redmoss. It's missing, and the dogs tracked it to the redmoss.”

“Bones?”

“Haven't looked, but as I understand it, concs don't really have bones. More like, cartilage. In which case…”

His face hardened. “In which case we could have something looking like a cone come around real soon. And before that happens, I'm taking the concs that are left and putting them in stasis. Our damned linguist, pardon me, ma'am, I know he's your brother, but he'll just damned well have to do without them.”

 

The concs could not be removed without waking Paul, who was not cooperative. I had foreseen as much. Paul was removed by Frank and Adam while the concs and their cases were taken from the building and put somewhere else; I didn't ask where, and no one told me. I did ask the men to take the conc food, as well, and I reminded them the concs needed to eat every seven to ten days even when in stasis.

“How dared they!” Paul shouted, when Frank and Adam went off on business of their own and Paul was allowed to return to his own rooms. “How dared they. Well, they can damned well solve their own linguistic problem. I'm sick of it. Sick of this place.”

Thus far during his tantrum, I had followed my usual habit of patient soothing and sympathizing. The rage went on without tempering, however, and finally I reached the point I had always sedulously avoided: I became angrier than he was.

“They'll learn who they're dealing with,” he shouted.

“They already know,” I said, coldly. “And they're sick of you. They don't care if you leave. They wish you would, so they can get someone else who will solve the problem. The
head of Earth Enterprises is due to arrive any day. They're going to ask for your contract to be revoked so they can issue a new one.”

It was the first time I had seen Paul speechless. He actually turned pale. “They're what?”

“I think you heard me, Paul. They have grounds. You disobeyed the regulations, and in doing so you've endangered every person on this base.”

“Don't be ridiculous,” he sneered.

I told him what I suspected as though it were proven fact. No point in temporizing! “You told Poppy to lie down on the redmoss.”

He flushed. His mouth twisted.

“You told it to. What was it, an experiment?”

“…see what happened…” he mumbled. “…tired of it…”

“Well, you saw what happened. No more Poppy. Now let me spell things out for you. It's widely thought that the concs are created by Zhaar technology, that is, with the use of shape changer matrices. We also found out recently that when someone or something living is absorbed by the redmoss, the redmoss makes a simulacrum of that person, and it comes back looking for other people to eat. It happened here, tonight, in the headquarters building, while you slept through it. A simulacrum of Bar Lukha came back and tried to eat Drom! It was scary. At one point I had moss crawling after me trying to get onto my skin again.

“Now, can you imagine a simulacrum of Poppy with a shape changer matrix in it coming back for you? Or wandering around out there building an army of Poppys? Can you imagine how your career is going to go down the tubes when this little escapade of yours is known throughout ESC and PPI and every commercial agency they've ever worked with?”

He sat down, abruptly.

“You have one chance to save your reputation. I found something out on this trip. I found out that each Mossen is a separate word in a message, with a particular place in a word
order, and each word is conveyed by odor. ESC has equipment to detect the odors and analyze them. They're going to do it tomorrow night when the Mossen dance. Then they'll give the information to you. I may even have a clue as to the system. Just like spoken language, it may have evolved as mimicry. The word for death smells like something dead. The word for rain smells like rain. What they do for verbs, I haven't a notion, but presumably you're bright enough to figure it out.”

“How…how did you find that out?” he said, his face very red, rage simmering just under the surface.

I told him the story I'd told everyone else, concluding, “They opened up one at a time, starting with the one farthest out, and as each one opened, there was a separate, distinct odor…”

“Before, you said it was color, patterns…”

“I didn't say it was color or pattern, I said the colors and patterns were unique and interesting. They also happen to be associated with particular odors. Pink ones do seem to smell alike, so do blue ones, and so on.”

“Why odor, why
not
color?”

“Because until humans got here, this world was blind and deaf,” I shouted, angry, mostly at myself for not having realized this immediately. “It couldn't have had language dependent upon seeing or hearing, because nothing native to this planet has eyes or ears!”

“You're saying they had noses?” he screamed.

“Chemical receptors, which is the next best thing. Most plants do.”

“Go away,” he said, petulantly. “Just go away.”

“Fine. Take the chance or don't take it. By tomorrow night, it'll be too late to change your mind.”

I left him. I also locked the door on my side of the living room as well as the outside doors, telling the dogs to wake me if they needed to go out. Since Gavi Norchis had described willogs, since I myself had seen a moss-demon, the planet Moss seemed much less friendly than before.

Certainly
I
was less friendly than before! I had never talked to Paul like that, never threatened him, never indicated that I thought him less than brilliant. Siblings were supposed to feel rivalry, which I had carefully avoided by giving him nothing to rival. I had always been compliant, indulgent, obliging. What on earth had happened to me?

Life Captain Gacha was a member not only of the Gar G'tach but also of the G'tach G'gh'hagh, the supreme council of the Derac people. Not all tribal life captains were members of this group, which selected only Derac who were of abstemious habits and able to keep their jaws locked, thus minimizing the betrayal of secrets when one was far gone with what the humans called “moodsprays,” a product of Earth Industries much in favor with certain aged Derac who had received little or no mental benefit from the late life change.

The meetings of the G'gh'hagh were rotated among the seventeen planets or systems used by Derac tribes as breeding and retirement sites. They were held at specified, infrequent intervals, though special meetings could be called if necessary. At Gahcha's summons, and as soon as was possible following the disposal of Tachstucha, this grand council met in the old wardroom of the retired ship named
Chagga,
or “Slammer.” There Gahcha repeated what he had been told by Tachstucha concerning the Derac females. When he had concluded, he lay back on his warmed cot and waited for reaction, which was not slow in coming.

“Your son. He'll tell everyone,” said one member.

“My son will tell no one,” said Gahcha in a soft but very meaningful voice.

Silence fell over the group. There was some shifting about, some muttering. Finally, one member growled, “Someone had better take care of that breeding facility worker. He'll get spray crazy some night and spill it all.”

“Already done,” said Gahcha, who had made an unscheduled inspection of the breeding facility the morning following Tachstucha's disclosure. The worker hadn't even fought back, had, in fact, seemed almost grateful that his terror was soon to be over.

“This means we don't need human women,” said the largest among them, a ponderous oldster with a low, growling voice. “Also, it means the Orskimi knew we didn't need human women.”

“You're sure?” asked another, pale chartreuse with age. “About the Orskimi?”

“This is the kind of thing the Orskimi are sure to know in great detail,” growled the large one. “Was not R'ragh the Reformer educated by the Orskimi? Did not our idea of H'hachap come from R'ragh? All along, have we not felt little Orskim pincers at the edges of events, nipping here, pinching there?”

“They have a plan,” said a third member. “They always have a plan.”

“Can we determine their plan?” asked Gahcha. “They have suggested, and we have agreed, to attack the human installation upon Moss. Then…of course, we will be at war with the humans…”

“And while we are at war with the humans,” said the ponderous one, “the Orskimi will no doubt slip into all seventeen retirement systems and wipe out every one of our breeding centers because we have foolishly allowed our females to be concentrated in a few locations, where they may all be easily killed.”

“All!” Gahcha was outraged. He had not thought of this, but it was certainly likely. What a blow! With all females gone…Great God Ghassifec forfend! “It would be the end of our race.”

“Let us make our own plan,” said the ponderous one. “For the moment we must conceal our knowing of what the Orskimi intend. We must seem to be proceeding as they expect us to do. Let our warriors upon Moss fall upon the outpost and inflict damage. Then let one of us—it will, I fear, have to be one of us, not a simple warrior—be captured by the Earthers or perhaps the Tharst. When we are captured, we will confess that the Orskimi paid us to do this thing because the Orskimi want to take over all the Earthers' planets…”

“Why only the Earthers?” asked another. “A small raid upon a Quondan planet, with another such confession. Another here, another there, and we could have half the races in the IC united against Orskim interests.”

“I fear, as their putative instrument, we would be considered as culpable as they,” said the ponderous one. “A small incursion, against an unarmed Planetary Protection team, that is not a big matter, particularly if we do not kill many of the important ones. An attack on a populated world would be of greater consequence, and would require the sacrifice of many Derac warriors at a time when all are needed to attack Orskimi. An attack is necessary, and while we are proceeding as planned on Moss, we can be deciding where and how it should take place.”

“What is left to be done on Moss?” asked the ancient.

“A few more of our warriors are to arrive with the heavy armament needed to knock out the shields at the ESC post. We have built our strength slowly, over time, not to alarm them, and we won't destroy the ESC post, just scare the softskins half to death so they'll get the message out.”

“How many of them are you going to kill?” asked the ancient one, running his old tongue reminiscently along his teeth.

“A few,” said Gahcha. “We'll kill quite a few ordinary men. There are no young ones, but there are a few females we can kill. Killing females and young upsets the softskins
greatly, but they forget as quickly. Kill their important men, they remember it forever, so we don't want to do that.”

A long silence followed, at the end of which Gahcha slapped his tail twice upon the drum section of the cot, and announced, with great satisfaction, “Done.”