Transgalactic (14 page)

The room—it was little more than a cubicle—was bare, too bright, and too warm. The bureaucrat was a Xifor, a weasellike alien like Xi, who had been one of the pilgrims on board the
Geoffrey
. That meant, Asha thought, that her case, and that of Solomon, if she could focus the examination on the issue of Squeal's application for membership, was still low-level stuff. Xifora were at the bottom of the bureaucratic service.

This one sat behind a metallic desk with a built-in monitor that he scribbled on between his study of what seemed to be records, a report, or instructions. It was not visible from where Asha stood, and she could learn nothing from a study of the Xifor's eyes. There were no other chairs, and the Xifor did not look up for what seemed like a mini-cycle. Finally, however, the Xifor raised its head. “My name is Xi,” he said in Galactic Standard. “And my identity is…” He rattled off a string of numbers. “You are not writing this down?” he asked.

“We don't need to write,” Asha said, “even if we had something to write on.” And she repeated the string of numbers he had just given. “I am Asha and this is Solomon.” She gave the identity designations she had prepared for them. She did not want to reveal her abilities to this bureaucrat, but the possibility of gaining a psychological advantage outweighed the risk.

“Yes,” the Xifor said. “The human with the false identity.”

“The representative from an applicant species and his assistant and translator,” Asha said firmly. “Any application for membership takes precedence.”

“And yet … the irregularities—”

“Simple clerical errors by an inexperienced species,” Asha said, “which must be discussed after more significant issues are presented.”

“You presume to instruct me in my duties?” Xi said.

“I know my rights,” Asha said.

“Humans have no rights.”

“Even an apprentice species has rights,” Asha said. “I know this meeting is being recorded.” She gestured at the computer monitor in front of the Xifor. “I present Solomon.” She gave his identity numbers once more. “He is the representative of the Squeal world and its people, who are under the guidance of a Federation ambassador, the Dorian Sandor.” She paused, expecting the mention of the Dorian to impress the Xifor, but he did not flinch, if that was in the catalog of Xifora responses.

“And what is his appeal?” Xi said.

Asha turned to Solomon and told him, in squeal, that now was the time to present the case of his people for Federation membership.

“We are an ancient people,” Solomon said in halting Galactic Standard, “who find ourselves in difficulties that only the mighty Federation can resolve.”

“And what are these?”

Solomon responded as he had learned from his discussions with Asha, and she was proud of his ability to adjust his beliefs to the exigencies of the situation, a flexibility she would not have expected from his attachment to the traditions of his people. “Our world finds itself in a dangerous location, Galaxy Center, with a black hole eating its neighbors and supergiant stars ready to explode. And we, the Squeal people, have responded by turning away, refusing to look, focusing our gaze inward to protect our ability to survive in ignorance rather than suffer the knowledge of imminent destruction.”

The moment had inspired Solomon to peaks of eloquence, Asha thought.

“And what,” the Xifor said, “do you expect the Federation to do?”

“We know your capabilities,” Solomon said. “We throw ourselves on your mercy and pledge our people to Federation goals and principles.”

“They are a people capable of great contributions to the illustrious history and promising future of the Federation,” Asha said, “to which the reports from the great Dorian Sandor will attest.” If the reports were not what the Xifor had been reading, they soon would appear on his monitor. “But they need to be rescued from the location in which an uncaring universe has placed them.”

“And you expect the Federation to expend the resources to drag this unpronounceable world to safety?” the Xifor said. Asha could not bring herself to think of him as Xi, no matter the Galactic tradition.

“It would be a great triumph, for you and the Federation and the great Dorian Sandor,” Asha said, “and the Federation is rich with power. Of course the rescue itself would require many generations, though the honor of initiating the project would accrue immediately, and the power sources available at Galaxy Center, with a base in orbit around Squeal, are inexhaustible. There would be, no doubt, a surplus that could be diverted to other uses.”

It was a pretty picture, and the Xifor could not resist contemplating it. Even in an alien psyche, Asha could read that much.

But it did not keep the Xifor from saying, “All that does not change the fact of the false identity for which you must answer.”

“A simple clerical error, as I said,” Asha replied. “After all, the great Dorian—”

“I know,” the Xifor said, “Sandor.”

Perhaps she was overdoing the Dorian connection, but she persisted. “—Sandor validated my identity when he loaned me his Captain's Barge.”

The Xifor looked again at the monitor. “Such a validation might take cycles to check. You will be taken to another jurisdiction for a decision far more expeditious.”

“That—” Asha begin, but the Xifor raised both hands to stop her.

“The disposition is final. You will go with the guards. Your applicant companion will remain.”

“I ask for a moment to acquaint my companion with the situation,” Asha said, and turned to Solomon without waiting for permission. “I have to go on alone,” she continued in squeal. “You will be sent elsewhere. Continue your application. Insist on your rights. When you are turned down, as you will be, request transport back to Squeal. They will be forced, by their own regulations, to honor your position and request. Do not despair. Given this avenue, the Dorian ambassador will persist. All will end well, and you will be honored by your people and the Dorian ambassador as the savior of your people.”

Solomon looked uncertain but determined. “What will happen to you?”

“Don't worry about me,” she said. “Bureaucracies are rigid, but that makes them easily broken.”

“I could have imagined a better outcome for both of us,” Solomon said.

“Enough!” the Xifor said.

The door opened as if from some unseen signal, though Asha suspected it came from a computer, or perhaps the computer at the center of everything. The computer, she thought, that was making the decisions about where she went and whom she saw and what happened to her. The Pedia at the heart of every space-faring world in the galaxy. She turned and made her way out the door and into the custody of the guards who had brought them. They began their long journey back halfway around the world again. This time, however, their jitney took a side corridor to an upper level where the décor and the amenities were a bit better. The food dispensaries offered choices other than gruel and fluids, and there were real restaurants, waste-disposal rooms, and what seemed to be more expansive living areas or apartments. Even in a community of equals, hierarchies of authority and privilege developed.

Asha tried to engage her guards in conversation, but they ignored her until the Alpha Centauran finally told her to be quiet. She evaluated her chances to escape. She had no doubt that she could deal with the Xifora, who were quick and stealthy but vulnerable, with limbs that detached when under sufficient stress. The barrel-like Sirian was another matter. Only his head offered a target, and it was sturdy. And the birdlike Alpha Centauran was quick with its vicious-looking beak.

But it was not time for desperation, and she had not yet achieved anything of what had brought her to Federation Central. She had not been exaggerating, for Solomon's peace of mind, the problems of bureaucracies, and she had not yet learned where her identity creation had gone awry and might be explained away nor what had happened to the human prisoners left behind when she and Ren had escaped with the
Adastra.

The jitney arrived finally in an area of broader corridors, better lighting, and fancier doors, behind which lurked, she had no doubt, fancier offices with fancier bureaucrats. Well, she thought, the fancier the better.

They waited until finally the door opened. Asha got up slowly, a bit stiff from her long journey, and entered the office, which was, indeed, bigger, with a bigger desk and chairs for people to sit or stanchions for support if they were built to stand. On the wall behind the desk was a screen on which was displayed rolling hills and green valleys that could have come from a hundred different worlds, but clearly from the Earth that she had never seen. Because standing in front of it, with his back to her, was a human, elderly perhaps, with white hair.

Finally the man turned.

“Father!” Asha said.

 

CHAPTER THIRTEEN

Riley maneuvered the spaceship he had just purchased into a spot next to the red sphere. The artifact from the Transcendental Machine people was not only too noticeable, it was the only evidence of what had made them so powerful in their mastery over interstellar travel and potentially the most valuable piece of technology in the galaxy. He might need it as a bargaining chip before his current task was done. He extended the ship's linkage tunnel to the red sphere, locked it in place, waited while the air from the ship replaced the toxic Alighieri atmosphere, and joined Rory in the ancient vessel.

The dinosaur was unhappy. That state was difficult to differentiate from his normal condition, but by now Riley had learned how to read Rory's moods, which varied in a narrow range between annoyed and angry. “Come,” Riley said, and motioned for Rory to follow him through the plastic corridor that formed in front of them, and into the fixed walls of ordinary matter that was the linkage tunnel and then the traditionally organized ship.

Rory roared at the change. Although the reptilian creature had expressed dislike of the red sphere and dismay at its continually changing substance, the Federation ship, with its hard metal walls and three compact spaces, was just as unfamiliar and unsettling.

“This will be your new home,” Riley said, “and it will return you to your world when I am finished with what I have come here to do.”

Rory roared.

“I know,” Riley said. “You want to go home now, but have a little more patience.” He asked for it without expectations. Patience was not part of Rory's repertoire. “Now, we've got to strap ourselves in for takeoff. No more expecting the walls to take care of us.”

Riley fastened Rory to a stanchion fashioned for a differently shaped creature but one, like Rory, that did not sit. He was careful to avoid Rory's fearsome teeth. His reptilian companion had learned restraint during their long voyage, but Rory's instincts were never far from the surface. They took off for Dante.

After they had cleared the limited atmosphere and the engine had cut off, Riley released Rory and showed him the tiny galley with its built-in food printer, and showed him how to operate its controls. “See?” Riley said. “When you touch these places on the screen, you get something, well, resembling meat.” And what emerged from the glass door in the wall was a slab of food that in shape, odor, and texture seemed like beef. Rory reached for it hungrily, bit into it, raised his massive head to look at Riley as if to say “this may be meat, but it's not like any meat I ever ate,” and then swallowed. “It is meat,” Riley said. “It just never grew in an animal.”

Three more slabs later, Riley took Rory back to the control room. “Look,” he said. “I have put into the machine the instructions that will take you back to your home world. When it comes time, you will only need to push this button, and the ship will do all the rest.”

Rory looked at Riley with his head cocked to one side and blood from his meal still staining the sides of his mouth.

“Now, though,” Riley said, “we're going to another world where I have things that I must do. Then you can go home.”

“Home,” Rory said.

“Home,” Riley repeated. He didn't know what was going to happen to him on Dante or what he was going to discover there, but whatever it was he knew Rory was better off with him than abandoned in the red sphere hidden on Alighieri. Although Rory was with him by impulse and accident, Riley felt something for this primitive carnivore that he had not felt since his boyhood on Mars: a sense of responsibility. He didn't know whether it was a product of his transcendental transformation or his evolution from the damaged ex-soldier who had joined the pilgrims that boarded the
Geoffrey
in search of the Transcendental Machine. But it was a burden he would have to live with.

Half a cycle later they docked at the pleasure-world Dante.

*   *   *

Dante would have looked like any other medium-sized satellite—not as large as Earth's oversized moon nor as miniscule as Mars's tiny twin moonlets—were it not for Rigel looming majestically in its sky, even at this distance, and for the ships clinging to docking ports scattered across its scarred and solar-wind-scoured surface. “Stay here,” he told Rory, “and try not to get into trouble.” Dante paid little attention to appearances—a reaction to strangeness was considered actionable, even an excuse for violence—but Rory, with his dinosaur-like power and his massive, tooth-filled jaw, might be an exception.

At the check-in station just inside the airlock, he registered the identity to which he had transferred his funds, paid his docking fee, established his credit, and passed through into the complex of rooms and temptations that had been carved out of the satellite's interior. He did not worry here about the information alerting surveillance as had happened on Alighieri. Anonymity was essential to Dante's services. Not that he wouldn't be discovered. Total identity protection was a myth; no data was completely immune from discovery, if the motives were strong enough, but discovery could be slowed by the levels of security through which data was screened.