I would like to assure you that both Carialle and Keff have been thoroughly briefed on the importance of this assignment, and have been cautioned under penalty to keep the contact on an absolutely professional level.
I again thank you for your interest in this department's function, and suggest that since we have come to terms with the immutable situation you should do so as well. I feel it is unwise to anticipate failure.
Sincerely,
Lavon Muller-Danes, Commander
Alien Outreach
Chapter One
"What say you, good Sir Frog?" Keff asked, peering over the head of the small, green, bipedal amphibioid at the pieces of the three-dimensional puzzle spinning in midair at the entrance of the great hall of Castle Aaargh. The green being glanced up at him. He gestured toward the conundrum then flicked the tip of his unnaturally long forefinger against his knobby temple.
"Not difficult," Tall Eyebrow signed. Swiftly, he pointed from one piece to another, indicating which edges fit against one another. As he made each match, the pieces flew together until there was only one object spinning before them. Keff studied it.
"The Mask of Mulhavey," he said, awed.
"What is this Mask of Mulhavey?" the globe-frog asked, combining sign language with the unfamiliar Standard words voiced in the high-pitched peep of his kind. "Is this an important artifact in your culture?"
"Just a pretend artifact, TE," Keff said, as a quick aside. "Carialle made it up for the game. Stay with it."
"Ah, make-believe." Tall Eyebrow nodded, and threw a self-deprecating gesture toward his host. "Forgive me. I forget this is but Myths and Legends." His signs grew more theatrical, in imitation of the human male. "What does this mean?"
"I know not, my lord," Keff said, replying in both frog sign language and Standard. "Perhaps if we looked through the eyeholes we would see a wonder."
"He's altogether too good at theoretical and combination spatial relations," Carialle said over the central room speaker as the two "adventurers" bent to see through the apertures of her creation. They made a curious picture. The man, of medium height for a human, had a broad chest, muscular arms and legs. He was dressed in a garment that reached to mid-thigh, not unlike a medieval tunic, over trousers and boots. His usual gentle countenance wore a watchful, inquiring scowl. Around his waist, a sword belt held a glow-tipped epee ready to hand. His companion stood less than a meter high, had shiny green skin, a short, narrow body and beady black eyes. His hands and feet were almost as large as those of the human beside him, the fingers of almost equal length to one another. He wore a beret, a short cape, and a belt around his small middle, its buckle a large, gold boss with five indentations in it that looked made for the fingertips to slide into.
"Better than I am, my lady," Keff laughed, shaking his head. "I give up, TE. You tell me what you think we need to do with it."
The game they were playing was Myths and Legends. Among the grounders, who occupied the safe and settled planets, it was a children's game. Keff had learned it in primary school, and had introduced it to his brain partner, Carialle, as a means of occupying the infinitely long intervals of space travel. To Keff it gave life a certain special meaning, to accomplish points of honor, to lay successes at the feet of his Lady Fair. He was a born knight errant. His private aim, ever since he had been a child, had been to do good, a goal that had gotten him into more than a few playground fights with schoolmates who lacked his natural devotion to the greater concept of truth. To Carialle, it provided an outlet for the creative bent that was so often lacking in the technical jobs given to shellpeople, even brainships. And it was fun. Over time, it had simply worked its way into their everyday lifestyle, to the despair of the Exploration arm of Central Worlds. To Exploration and Alien Outreach, Keff's globe-frog playmate was Tall Eyebrow, ambassador and representative from a shared colony world known to the humans who lived there as Ozran. To the knight and his lady, he was also occasionally the Frog Prince.
Tall Eyebrow gestured to Keff to look through the eyeholes. Carialle was amused when her brawn had to crouch down on the floor to put his head at the same level as the globe-frog's.
"It should have taken longer for him to solve that jigsaw," she said. "I'm going to have to make the puzzles harder. These little chappies have surprisingly deep minds. I am continually having to reevaluate my judgement of their ability to learn."
"Well, you've already surpassed my understanding, Cari," Keff said cheerfully, rising from his haunches with his hands on his thighs. He turned toward the titanium pillar that contained and protected her physical body, and winked. The two years that had passed since they had first met the globe-frogs had lightened a few more hairs on his curly head, and possibly slowed down his reactions by milliseconds, but hadn't taken a whit off his boundless good nature or enthusiasm. His muscle tone continued to be excellent, Carialle was pleased to note, and the bright blue eyes in his mild, bull-like face were clear and alert. Respiration and pulse, up a little, but that had to do with excitement over the game rather than exertion. He stretched his arms out and rotated his broad torso from side to side to ease his back. "Actually, I'm enjoying being TE's sidekick, if I allow the truth to be known. After adventuring on my own for so many years, a change is nice."
"I, too, am enjoying it," Tall Eyebrow signed quickly. "Too much reality for so long, to strive without fear is high fun."
Keff grinned. "Well, that's why we do it- Yoicks!"
Carialle had chosen that moment to activate the next peril in the ongoing game. The human jumped back as the holographic "stone wall" beside them slid back to reveal four villains, armed with chains and machetes. He felt for the light-tipped sword at his side, and was soon engaged in healthy battle with his computer-generated adversaries.
The enemy was only a holograph, but Carialle made them look utterly real, using a combination of projective cameras like the ones that drove her navigation screentank. The setting, complete with cobwebs and rats, could have been any pre-industrial village, instead of the cabin of a sophisticated starship. The brain behind it was as clever as the swordplay of the villain facing him.
Completely into his part once again, Keff slashed his blade overhand and thwacked the scarred villain in the arm. The man dropped his guard, giving Keff a chance to fling himself forward with a thrust to quarte. The glowing cursor went home, and the villain collapsed to the floor with a wail. Keff threw back his head with a feral laugh. "Come on! Who's next? Together we cannot be beaten!" Another adversary stepped forward over the body of his fallen chief, saber flashing in the candlelight.
The globe-frog emitted an alarmed squeak. "What are those?" he signed, pointing at the sparks, like fireflies, that poured out of the dark hall after the human villains.
"Some foul, unknown peril," Keff called over his shoulder, not taking time to sign. "Catch them!"
The sparks flitted all over the room. Keff ducked a squadron of the small glows, then skillfully parried a chop from one of the hoods wielding a machete.
The globe-frog took a moment, translating Standard human language to his own, then his small brow rose in comprehension. He bounded up to clap his hand against the wall next to Keff's head, trapping a "firefly."