“Do you want me to quote the rest of that poem?” Bruno's voice asked. “I can, you know. Leigh Hunt was one of my favorite poets. Or would you prefer Yeats? Dylan Thomas? Or how about Gulati?”
“No,” she answered quickly, not wanting to believe. “Information is information. Bruno's datachip collection was in Dolittle, and could have been downloaded.”
For once, the little Puppeteer kept quiet while Carol said nothing. Waiting, half hoping.
“I remember walking out of the Black Vault with Colonel Early and Smithly Greene, while you were walking into the building.” Was there a smile in the voice? “You looked good under lunar gravity. We were just back from a roundtable on antimatter containment. Colonel Early introduced us, but you looked at me like I was a bug.”
Carol smiled. The first time she had met Bruno Takagama she had thought he was a bug. “I suppose I did. But — for the sake of argument — how is this possible?”
“The Outsiders do not — cannot — think as we do. They require a model of alien thought, as a translator.”
She pulled on her lip. “An electronic slave?”
“Hardly. They know how to restrict my… growth… to keep me human. They want to keep a copy of my mind as a translator.”
Bruno's mind, loose in any computer architecture, would mutate and change rapidly, turning into something inhuman. His reactions to extended Linkage proved that. But did the Outsiders know that much about how a human mind operated?
“There is more, Captain Faulk,” interjected the puppeteer.
She nodded at him to continue.
“Our hosts can build Mr. Takagama a fresh biological body. They can use what they learned when you were first taken on board, along with the autodocs on Dolittle.” The weaving heads peered at Carol. “And then they can download his mind into it.”
“Impossible,” she scoffed.
Diplomat pawed delicately at the turf beneath his hooves. “You seem to use that word often, Captain Faulk.”
Wasn't hyperspace impossible? Or how about a galactic war between creatures of flame and ice? She was certain that, even now, she was not being told even a fraction of what was truly at stake.
“Carol,” Bruno's voice broke in. “Please listen. Please.”
“If this is another trick,” she reminded Diplomat almost gently, “I will find a way to get around these force-shields and wring your necks — one at a time.”
The weaving heads stopped. “You would do this? Truly, Captain Faulk?”
“If you tell the truth,” she clipped, “you have nothing to fear, do you?”
The puppeteer considered her statement. “With your kind, there is always something to fear.”
Carol held back a smile. “Keep that in mind.”
A head cocked. “As you say, Captain Faulk. Though you do not improve your position with threats. But it is true that the Outsiders will download Mr. Takagama's stored mind into a rebuilt body. It would be most difficult under normal circumstances, but so much of Mr. Takagama's mind was…”
“Mostly circuitry,” added Bruno's voice helpfully.
“Yes, electronic… so that the task would be much easier.”
“What is the catch?” Carol asked. “I doubt that even aliens do favors out of the goodness of their hearts.”
The puppeteer froze for a moment, then both heads leaped up and faced one another again.
“Wonderful phrase,” the three-legged alien sang.
“The catch,” reminded Carol.
“It is unlikely that you will be returned to human space soon. The Outsiders do not want extensive information regarding them distributed, until they are known by a new species.”
Carol finally did laugh. “Diplomat, I don't know anything about the Outsiders. And I just witnessed a battle between two factions.”
“Nonetheless.” Again, the little alien pawed the lawn in impatience. “The Outsiders require that you and the… reconstituted Mr. Takagama stay out of human space, until such time as the Outsiders make themselves known to your race.”
“Easy to do,” Carol pointed out to the puppeteer. “Our ship is useless. Do you intend to strand us somewhere?”
The puppeteer moved from hoof to hoof lightly. “Not at all, Captain Faulk. You and Mr. Takagama would assist me in my dealings with alien races.” The eyes on different heads held hers. “You seem relatively unfrightened of new things, and I find your insights interesting. You will make useful companions and coworkers.”
“And once humans make contact with Outsiders or puppeteers?”
Diplomat's right head wobbled up and down loosely. “You would of course be returned to human space.”
Yeah, right, Carol thought to herself. But what choice did she have, really? There was only one more thing…
“Bruno,” she called.
“I hear you, Carol. Will you agree to Diplomat's terms?”
“If you are with me, Tacky, yes. But — even if they can do all they promise — how do I know it is you?”
The voice of Bruno Takagama sighed. “Carol, I can't answer that question. Are you the same person when you wake up as you were when you fell asleep? And can you prove it?”
“This is a little different — ” But the disembodied voice cut her short.
“Not at all. A great deal of my mind was stored electronic data; you know that. And did you not think it was me after the EMP fried my brain?”
The Bruno-voice had a point, but still…
“Wait a minute,” she argued. “You only have Bruno's memories up until he left for the Zealot ship.”
“True enough,” replied the voice. “But again: You were prepared to take care of me after the EMP blast, even had I been seriously brain damaged, right?”
She nodded. “Yes,” she added, not knowing if Bruno's mind could see her.
“How is this all that different?”
She could not disagree with the voice's point. Was she doing the right thing? She was Finagle only knew how far away from Earth or Wunderland. What could she do? And she might learn something, if the little alien was not treacherous.
Carol thought about a completely foreign set of stars and planets, strange aliens and odder adventures. Things no human had ever seen. And wouldn't see, if Diplomat had its way, for some time yet.
But she would. And — maybe — she would do so with Bruno by her side.
“Yes,” Carol said simply. “I accept.”
She could hear Bruno's voice sigh.
“Excellent,” replied Diplomat.
Carol held out a hand. It couldn't have all been for nothing. “There is one more thing, Diplomat.”
“What is it, Captain Faulk?”
Carol's eyes jogged back and forth, trying to hold the gaze of the two weaving heads. “We can't leave humanity to be kzin bait.”
“We will not obliterate the kzinti,” Diplomat sang firmly. “They are aggressive, but may someday be useful. You know this, surely.”
“Fine,” Carol replied. “But they have too much of a technological edge. How can we humans hold our own long enough to learn to live with the ratcats?”
The two snake-heads of the puppeteer again flipped up and stared one another in the eyes. “Captain Faulk, I have an excellent idea regarding that concern of yours.”
“Do tell,” Carol drawled. She would have to play this one carefully. Maybe it was possible to salvage something from this debacle, after all.
Why, sometimes I've believed as many as six impossible things before breakfast, Carol thought to herself. The phrase did, she decided, have a certain ring to it. A good antidote for her becoming too dogmatic, he had told her. Carol had always wondered where Bruno had dug up that phrase.
Perhaps she could ask him soon. In the flesh.
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
In the scented meditation chamber the Dissonants had constructed for him, Diplomat sat with folded legs before a holoscreen.