Pertin scowled. "For what? Oh, you're looking at Doris." He laughed. "Don't worry about Doris; she's a Purchased Person. Her owners have this academic interest in human sexual behavior, so sometimes when things aren't busy for them they let me borrow her for a while. And sometimes I need to, believe me. Never more than when I finally got the transmitter fixed and got back here!" He threw the covers off; the movement half buried the woman, who seemed not to mind, perhaps not even to notice. "But that doesn't matter," he said sharply. "Listen, Jen! I told Doc Chimp to bring you here without saying anything, because out of all this trouble we've got a good break!"
"What's that?"
"No one knows I'm here!" he cried triumphantly.
Babylon pulled himself over to a more comfortable position—more comfortable mostly because it hid the bright, empty eyes of the woman named Doris. "I really don't see why that is going to help us translate the language," he said.
"Not help us translate. Help us get this place straightened out!" Pertin snapped. "As long as they don't know I'm here I have freedom of action, don't you see?"
"To do what, exactly?" Babylon demanded.
Pertin hesitated. "Well, that I can't say, exactly," he admitted. "What I know for sure is that some of them are out to wreck this place—even destroy the whole of Cuckoo! And, no, I don't know which ones. Not for sure. The Scorpians, yes, almost certainly. The deltaforms—I wouldn't put anything past those bastards! I don't think the T'Worlie are in it, or the Sheliaks, either, although there's always a chance of an aberrant individual in even a friendly race—"
"Ben," Babylon said patiently, suddenly feeling a rush of sympathy for the worn, harried man who had once been his friend, "are you sure you're not imagining all this?"
Pertin scowled at him. "You're not one of those aberrants yourself, are you?" he demanded. "No, of course not. Sorry. But you just don't know what it's like here. Sometimes I even worry about Doris, although her owners have never, ever shown any interest in the politics of what happens here; they're just curious, want to observe without taking part. I even worry about the Doc. No. Don't think I'm crazy, Jen—even if I am. I know I'm not crazy on the subject of some of these creatures wanting Cuckoo destroyed, and you and me with it!"
He flung back the cover, launched himself across the chamber to a cupboard, began pulling out fresh clothes. "While you're in the meeting, I'm going to look around. The worst ones are sure to be at the meeting—they only convened it to embarrass you and Doc Chimp, and any other friends of mine that might still be around. Say! I wonder! Do you suppose they could have arranged it so I'd be left down there to die? —No, I suppose not; but they would have if they could!"
A thought was insistently forming itself in Jen Babylon's mind, and the word that summed it up was paranoia. What did you do with a man who had gone over the edge? Heaven knew Pertin had every reason; but that did not make it easier. He said gently, "You know, Ben Line, I think you ought to rest a while longer."
"Don't call me that!" Pertin spun to glare at him. "Ben Line Pertin's dead down there in the lander. The one you're talking to is—is—is Ben Omega Pertin. The last of the Ben Pertins—and maybe one too many, at that!"
The situation was getting to be more than Babylon could handle, exhausted as he was, with his mind full of a hundred other concerns. A scratching at the door rescued him: Doc Chimp, leathery face poking in timorously, warning that it would not do to keep the meeting waiting. Fortunately it was only a short distance, but Babylon found time to say a word to the chimpanzee as they brought up before a larger, more official-looking door than any he had yet passed through. "Hold on a second," he panted. "I'm worried about Ben!"
The chimp poked its muzzle at him in what would have been a pout if he had had lips. "You're worried, Dr. Babylon? What do you think I've been, all this terrible long time?"
"Well—isn't there a medical service here on the orbiter? Some sort of psychotherapy?"
Doc Chimp looked puzzled. "What would Ben want therapy for, Dr. Babylon? Any more than any of the rest of us, I mean? . . . Oh, I see!" The leathery lips split in a grin. "You think he's having delusions about the wickedness of the deltaforms and the Scorpians and all those other beasts and buckets of junk! Wish it were true, Dr. Babylon! I'm afraid he's sane as you and I where that's concerned—maybe a lot saner! Now," he said, reaching for the door, "spruce up your posture and put a smile on your face! Make them think you've got the Galaxy by the tail and you'd just as soon as not swing it out past Andromeda! 'Cause if you let them think for a minute you're weak or scared—then you'll find out just how evil those beings can be!"
The room was huge and irregular, and it seemed to be packed with creatures and—things! Some he recognized, others not. A furry, big-eyed kitten-shape purred on the fat black cushion of its life-support system. A slithering eellike shape squirmed restlessly in among and behind the other creatures, with tentacled eyes that thrust themselves in all directions. Babylon caught his breath. There was a creature that was the surest shape of a nightmare, clad in armor that glittered slimily like an insect's chitin, black on its back and scarlet on its belly; its eyes were multiple globes of greenish jelly, and it had yellow, leathery wings. It was staring directly at Babylon, and without volition he moved away. And that was only the beginning: a pair of T'Worlie, a silver hive of Boaty-Bits, three Purchased People, a soggy-dough Sheliak—and, yes, there was a Scorpian robot. No, wrong. There were two of them, but one was stripped down, most of its casing removed, the propulsion system dead. It traveled on the back of the other one like a papoose. There is no easy way for a human being to tell one mass-produced Scorpian from another, but Babylon was sure that the one being carried had been his companion down below.
There was a racket of drumroll, squeak, shriek, and yowl as he came in, but the sound stopped. Everyone turned and stared at him, and Jen Babylon halted, gripping a handhold, for the first time aware of just what sort of council he was dealing with.
Doc Chimp, entering behind him, saw his hesitation and moved to ease it. He launched himself toward the center of the room, thrusting one long, skinny paw against Babylon's shoulder and stopping himself with a recoil-less collision against the Sheliak. "Let me introduce you!" he shrilled, hanging lazily in midair with the red flaps of his vest flying like small wings. "Folks and gentle beings, this is Dr. Jensen Babylon, our planet's most distinguished expert in quantum-dynamic linguistics—and not unknown to members of his craft throughout the Galaxy. Even herel He has come to risk his life for us—even to lose it, now and then, as so many of us have. Bid him welcome, beings all!"
The uproar broke out again, dominated by a roar of surprising volume from the kitten-shaped creature on the black hassock. Babylon's Pmal translated: "Terrestrial monkeys behave like monkeys everywhere. Be still, primate, for significant business of this council!"
Doc Chimp licked his lips, but faced the kitten bravely. "True," he chattered, "I am only a humble monkey, and no one cares for me. But no one cares about any of us here. We go to our many deaths without hope of reward. Yet be of good cheer! With terrestrial primate brawn and terrestrial primate courage to help you, you may yet—"
"Be still!" the growl thundered. "Babylon! Why are you here?"
It was not a question Jen Babylon had expected. The only true answers were that he didn't really know, and certainly had never desired it, but Doc Chimp was glancing at him nervously and he saw that the little creature was actually trembling. He temporized. "I thought this meeting was to discuss the wreck of the lander," he said.