“So what are you going to do?” asked Kwarive. “Dissect out the transmitter?”
“Gods above!” said Darvin. “Don’t say things like that. Not where it can hear them, anyway.” He leaned toward the cage and crooned: “Don’t you listen to the naughty lady, she won’t hurt you, I won’t hurt you, will I? No, no, no — ow!”
He rubbed his nose where a tiny claw had scratched it. “Oh, you nasty little beast!”
“Iodine,” said Kwarive. “Now.” She unstoppered a bottle and dabbed Darvin’s nose with a rag. “There.”
“Thanks,” he said.
“Well, what are your plans for this bit of a handful?”
Darvin eyed the cage. “Treat it with kindness,” he said. “Talk to it. See if it talks back.”
Kwarive snorted. “Men!”
“You have better ideas?”
Kwarive passed him a pair of thick leather gloves. “You wash him in the sink,” she said. “Use the rock-oil tar soap. I’ll clean out the cage.”
A few minutes later she added, without having to look around: “With warm water.”
Sitting wrapped and restrained in a hand towel, its ear fur still bedraggled, the trudge kit looked almost cute. Darvin considered the appearance deceptive. Kwarive pointed proudly at the box, now scrubbed down inside and lined with fresh straw. The whole room reeked of disinfectant soap.
“Well, Handful, what are we to do with you now?” said Darvin. “Oh, I know. Back in the cage with you.”
He stroked the top of its head with a gloved finger. To his surprise the kit rubbed back, rolling its head so that the stiff fingertip seam scratched behind its ear.
“Mmmm…” it said in a small throaty voice.
“I suppose that’s a response,” said Kwarive. She picked up the still wrapped animal. “It’s disturbing how much he looks like a human kit.”
“How old is it anyway?” asked Darvin.
“About a year, I’d guess. About the age human kits start talking.”
“I remember,” said Darvin.
Kwarive sat the kit down on the straw in the box and tugged to remove the towel. The kit mewled and clung hard to the rough cloth.
“Oh, all right,” said Kwarive. “Hang on to it if you want.” She closed and locked the cage door.
“Maybe it’s cold,” said Darvin.
“Or maybe he just wants to feel held,” said Kwarive.
“You think it misses its mother?”
“Maybe.”
“Just don’t ask me to cuddle him.”
“He must be lonely.”
“Hungry, too,” said Darvin.
“Well, don’t stand there,” said Kwarive.
When he’d come back with a scrap of raw meat and a small slice of fruit, the infant trudge had fallen asleep. Darvin slid the food through the bars. The trudge’s nose twitched but it didn’t waken.
“Let him rest,” said Kwarive.
They went out. As they walked through the museum Kwarive laughed.
“What?”
“We’re padding about like a couple with a newborn litter.”
“Don’t even think about it,” said Darvin. “One handful’s enough.”
“What’s the point of all this, anyway?”
“We have to prove it,” said Darvin. “Strange tales are one thing. Right in front of your eyes is something else. We have to show a talking trudge kit to the project high-ups.”
“You know what they’ll say?” said Kwarive.
“Yes,” said Darvin. “They’ll say: ‘What an ugly child!’ ”
“This is hopeless,” said Kwarive, the third morning after they’d bought the trudge. “He’s just not talking.” Handful sat on now grubbier straw, grooming his wings. He’d taken to rattling the cage door whenever Darvin or Kwarive entered the room, but other than that treated them with wary disdain. Every so often he would clutch the towel and chew the corner of it.
“Three days isn’t long,” said Darvin. “In astronomy.”
“I think we should let him out,” said Kwarive. She closed the slatted screen over the window space and moved to open the cage door.
“Hang on,” said Darvin. “He’ll crash into things and crap all over the place.”
“You know what?” said Kwarive. “I don’t care.”
“On your head be it.”
Kwarive opened the barred door of the box. Handful watched, still sitting. He crawled forward and looked out over the edge of the shelf. His head recoiled. Then he stood upright, spread arms and wings, and leaned into the drop, eyes closed. He tipped forward and fluttered to the floor, where he sat down with a bump and peered around. “Ow,” he said.
He stood up, rubbed his skinny buttocks, and opened his wings again and flapped hard. After getting nowhere for a bit he walked over to Kwarive and stretched his arms upward. “Up,” he said. “Up.”
“Did you hear that?”
“Yes, I did,” said Kwarive. “No need to yell.”
She stooped and held out her fists, thumbs extended. The trudge kit grabbed on and she swung him up above her head. Handful made a harsh cackling noise and let go. Suddenly he was flying. Around the room once, not hitting anything, and back to the box.
The telephone rang. Darvin picked it up.
“Museum annexe,” he said.
“Hah!” said Bahron’s voice. “They said I’d find you there. I told you to watch the skies, astronomer.”
“What’s happened?”
“Come to your office and I’ll tell you.”
“No,” said Darvin. “You come down here. Kwarive and I have something to show you.”
“Hah!” snorted Bahron. “All right.”
Bahron arrived a few minutes later. He had company: Orro and a stranger.
“Orro!” Darvin said. “How good to see you again.”
“Likewise,” said Orro. He looked more than pleased. He looked like a different man. “Darvin, Kwarive — allow me to introduce my good friend Holder, from the Regnal Air Force of Gevork.”
The stranger, tall with uniform brown fur over which he wore a complex leather harness with a long sabre at each hip, spread his wings and hands. “Delighted to meet you,” he said. “I’ve heard much of you both.” His diction was clear, his accent stronger than Orro’s.
“I’ve heard much of you,” said Darvin. He looked around. “Please, everyone, take, uh, a perch or whatever…”
Bahron, as was his wont, made for the windowsill. As he rattled open the slatted shutter, Kwarive latched the cage. Darvin saw Bahron take notice, and glance from the cage to the wireless receiver on the table, and the hint of a self-satisfied smile. The Eye missed nothing, and knew it.
“Consider the sabreur one of us,” said Bahron.
“I… see,” said Darvin, hating the awkwardness in his voice.
Bahron laughed. “Nothing like you think. Signal is a joint project now — between Seloh, Gevork, and the Southern Rule.”
“I’m not going to fall for that,” said Darvin. He looked sidelong at Kwarive. “This is a test, yes?”
“Stop acting the amateur,” said Bahron. “The Sight does not indulge in petty intrigues, or set little traps. The word from the Height will come down later today. The situation is far too serious for flapping about. Tell them, Holder.”
The Gevorkian frowned into the distance, as if inspecting a complex display flight.
“As Bahron mentioned,” he said, “we shall hear officially later today. I arrived in Kraighor five days ago by airship as a guard on a diplomatic mission. The instructions of our plenipotentiary were not divulged, but I was given to understand that the moment was fraught. Suspicion had been evinced that Seloh’s Reach had entered into direct relations with the aliens. I admit that some wild talk was indulged regarding our military advantage in the field of rocketry. The impression among the air force personnel was that we were in a position to negotiate from strength, as the phrase goes. When our mission was met and escorted down by four flying machines, such talk was heard no more. Within a day of landing at the Height, I was summoned to the embassy to be told that I had been assigned the post of scientific-military liaison to your Project Signal, on behalf of our own Project Portent, of whose existence I had been unaware until that moment. I can only speculate that I was chosen on the basis of my position of, ah, personal trust with Orro.” He smiled. “Be that as it may, my instructions are simply to share all that we have learned. Portent and Signal are to be merged without delay or reservation. A treaty of mutual assistance between the three great powers has been signed and will be proclaimed. We face a situation where our previous differences are of no account.”