Question One. Curiosity/Innovation valuable. Bruno-entity internal patterns acquired. Electrons flow interestingly. Patterns clearer than Carol-entity. Projection intended as communication-enabler.
“They accessed your interface and read your mind?” Carol asked Bruno, studying his pinched expression and thinned lips.
Discomfort sensed, source Bruno-entity. Sorrow. Pattern acquisition necessary. Knowledge of Bruno-entity and Carol-entity required. Provisions for continuance. Accept.
“They needed to know how to keep us alive,” Carol commented to Bruno. He still looked a little uncomfortable.
“Are you the… um, entities that analyzed our spacecraft?” Bruno asked.
Truth. One.
Carol smiled a little. “What should we call you? Does your race have a name?”
Humor. I/We not as you/they. No one entity-title. Many in one node-location. One node-location in many. I/We outside knowledge Bruno/Carol/other-entity. Patterns different. Outside knowledge.
“What if we call you Outsiders?” Carol raised an eyebrow at Bruno, who nodded.
Accept. One.
“Why did you capture us?” she asked, hoping that the Outsiders could understand speech better than they could produce it.
Entity-not-Bruno-not-Carol. Interrogatory. Concept difficulty. Queries. Aggression. Disruption. Inefficient. Patterns unclear. Issues complex.
There was a long pause.
Protection.
Bruno looked over at Carol. “Do they want to protect us, or us to protect them?”
“We'll sort it out later — though I would hate to meet whatever they need protection from.” Carol took a deep breath, then continued. “Outsiders, there are many things we do not understand. Will you help us to learn more?”
Laudable but possible not. Warm/Cold mix not all. Warm/Warm mix not often; Bruno-and-Carol entities with other-entity. Some Warm/Warm mix. Help yes/no. Understand not. Observe. Learn.
“Observe what?” she muttered, frustrated.
“Carol, look!”
To their right in the grassy false distance hung a circular window into another such 'park'. Through it they saw the blunt ovoid shape of a kzin singleship, and a huge orange-furred lump lying near it. Wisps of white feathery material led from the dark lawn into a network surrounding the prone kzin.
Carol felt sure it was the ratcat that had been attacking Dolittle.
Nature altercation. Intentions. Interrogatory. Coding similar, not-mixing understand one-not. Entity aggression Hot/Cold/Warm. One-not. Interrogatory.
“I don't understand,” Carol and Bruno chorused.
One. Time necessary. Solution short-duration.
She ignored the odd words and looked again at the stretched-out kzin. “Is it dead?” she asked.
Negative. Aggression high. One-not. Acquisition difficult. Damage severe. Repairs completed soon.
“Is there any way that we can help you?” Carol inquired of the open air.
Not I/We. One-not. Entities not-Bruno/Carol, not-other entity. One interrogatory. Arrive present. Speak wish interrogatory. Fortune better; Warm/Warm focus increase Warm/Cold. Speak wish interrogatory.
Bruno whistled. Carol, clueless, urged him to speak his piece.
“I think I understand. The Outsiders have another type of alien waiting to speak with us, another warm-temperature type, but not human and not kzin.”
Truth. Bruno-entity. One.
Carol nodded. “Outsiders, we wish to talk to these other life-forms.”
Accept. One. Observe. Interact.
Another bubble-window appeared in the force-walled enclosure, very close to where they stood.
“What the…” Bruno said softly.
Carol felt dizzy with the strangeness, shaking her head. Too much change in too little time, she thought wildly, and stood a little straighter.
Two aliens stood ten meters away. They both had three legs ending in tiny hooves. Each of them had two flat, single-eyed heads at the ends of long waving necks. They wore clothing and what looked like tools. The larger one appeared to wear armor studded with spikes and sharp edges, and one head hovered over what seemed to be a holster containing a pistol-like object. It never moved. The hair under the two necks of the smaller alien was elegantly coifed and glittered. Its heads waved gracefully, one held high and the other low.
A long silence.
“Take me to your leader,” Bruno muttered. Carol wanted to kick him in the shin.
The smaller of the two beings cocked a head suddenly and looked from Carol to Bruno, bird-swift. “Mr. Takagama,” it sang in a woman's contralto, low and sexy, as Carol's jaw dropped in surprise, “I hardly think that such inappropriate levity is called for under the present serious circumstances.”
The smaller of the two creatures then turned its other head to Carol, who slowly closed her mouth.
“We intend no disrespect to you, Captain Faulk,” crooned the alien from the second single-eyed loose-lipped head, in an identical voice. “In fact, we are quite aware of primate protocols. However, may we speak frankly with one another? There is not a great deal of time for sociobiological niceties.”
CHAPTER SIX
Carol Faulk waited for the centrifuge in her head to quit spinning. It did not, and the rotor seemed a bit unbalanced to boot.
There had been too many changes since they had first detected the kzin ships back in the Sun-Tzu. And all of them far too quickly.
The battle between the Sun-Tzu and the kzin spacecraft. Bruno nearly burning out his brain from the EMP. The dogfight between Dolittle and the ratcat singleship. Then the moon-ship of another alien race somehow dropping them from nearly 0.8 lights to nothing, and the whiplike aliens from that huge craft dismantling Dolittle. Not only did she and Bruno wake up in an alien zoo near a comatose kzin, but now another type of alien confronted them. Too much.
Intelligent creatures with two heads, one of which spoke Belter Standard! They looked like bizarre mutant deer costumes from a masquerade party, with one-eyed heads at the ends of what should be arms. Like dual hand-puppets.
Puppeteers? Carol considered.
She shook her head again. The cobwebs were starting to clear, but slowly. She had to put her mind on a battle footing. Curiosity began to overtake shock in her mind. Okay, she thought. So you are facing three sets of aliens now. What's the big deal?
These newest aliens waited in what seemed somehow like politeness. The big one, loaded down with weaponry, said nothing and made no move.
Carol wanted to take control. Maybe there was a way out of this mess.
Yeah, right.
Bruno continued to chuckle softly at the implausible sight of the two creatures, with an almost hysterical undertone. Was it too much, too fast for him?
“Knock it off,” she hissed at him.
“Why? They look like something out of three-D, put together by people suffering from… ah, chemical enhancement. Kidvid aliens.”
“Yeah,” Carol whispered, smiling despite herself. “A puppet show on braindust.”
“It's a little tough to take them seriously. And that might not be smart.”
Carol frowned and narrowed her eyes. Bruno was right; the aliens looked more laughable than imposing at first glance. The Outsiders appeared far more frightening. Because they were more alien looking? Or because they had defeated a kzin singleship and dismantled Dolittle?