And perhaps the TWorlie were right. Babylon told himself justly that the "enemy"—the rogue beings leading that expedition—had really done nothing that could not be explained. Indeed, nothing for which an explanation was really required. They were exploring new ground. Well, given the chance, what being among them would not? There was no evidence to convict them of a crime. No crime had been committed. The most you could say against them was that they had acted in secret.
Yet in his heart Babylon knew that something was terribly wrong. The individual beings were rogues; the collective purpose of the expedition was threatening.
And he was not alone in that feeling. Each in its own way, the seething mass of beings that hung by the walls, floated in midair, or flapped, clung to stanchions and each other—that raucous, malodorous congeries of nightmare shapes that were his shipmates—they all shared his fear, rage, and indignation. The Canopans had demanded a Grand Council. The T'Worlie had agreed, out of their own patient curiosity more than any desire to prosecute; and beings Babylon had never seen before, or even dreamed of, were still flocking to the great interior farlink chamber.
How they bellowed, and how they stank! The handful of true humans—loosely enough defined, to be sure, to include Org Rider and Doc Chimp—huddled near the entrance, trying not to be choked by the hot-iron stink of the Scorpian robots and the vinegar scent of the inquisitive T'Worlie, and the fouler reeks of the beings that looked like kittens, or roaches, or sea anemones or copper-wire mantises. There were beings here Babylon had never seen before: the anemone-creature, with its violet shell shading to dark purple, slithering eel-like shapes with tentacled eyes, a soft-bodied sort of beetle with many legs, a human form—but no! It was not human! It was a winged woman's figure, but silvery and with blank, opaque eyes. "It's an edited form," Doc Chimp whispered nervously when Babylon asked. "Don't be deceived by the way she looks! She's not human, no, not a bit!" And before Babylon could ask more, she was lost to sight in the crush.
There had to be three hundred beings in the room! Not counting the Boaty-Bits, who were so thrust about and jostied by the crowd that they could not maintain the integrity of their swarm, but buzzed about like a smoked-out beehive. Doc Chimp, morose and distraught, flung himself into the mob to get a better look at the hologram, then wriggled his way out again. "Good fellow primates," he said distractedly to Pertin and Babylon, "I can't see a thing! And it's me down there, and I tell them it's my camera that's sending them the stereopictures, and they push me out of the way!" Babylon gave no answer, because he could think of none to give. The chimpanzee wrinkled up his long black lips and muttered, "Here's Redlaw, anyway. 1 forgot to tell you I saw him coming."
Pertin spun eagerly around. "Anything?" he demanded. The big man looked around carefully before replying.
"Not the way you mean," he said, loud enough to be audible above the din, too low for his words to carry beyond the small group. "But there's something, all right. Your girlfriend, Benpertin."
"Doris?" Pertin scowled sourly. "What can there be about her that would be important?" He caught a glimpse of Babyon's expression and added, "Oh, come on, she's just a convenience—I don't care if she lives or dies! Why should I? And don't look at me that way—do you know how she got to be a Purchased Person? Torched the house where her husband and three babies were sleeping! Killed them all! You think I really care about someone—"
Redlaw put his hand on the other man's arm, his expression showing that his feelings were no more kindly than Babvlon's. "It isn't exactly Doris," he said softly. "It's the creature that owns Doris who has something to say. You'd better hear it, all of you."
Doc Chimp muttered, "But the Grand Council, Mr. Redlaw! It's supposed to start any minute—"
Redlaw's deep growl cut him off. "The council doesn't know what this is all about. Come! And bring that T'Worlie if you can find him."
As almost the oldest resident of Cuckoo Station, Ben Pertin had certain privileges. One was the room he slept in.
It was a faceted polyhedral chamber, most of the interior faces filled with flat pictures of scenes from his lives. Past the stereostage was an exterior shot of Sun One. Over his bed loomed the immense majesty of Knife-in-the-Sky Mountain. In the center of the room, fitted with soft binding tapes to keep an occupant from floating away in his sleep, was Pertin's bed; and as they entered someone lifted a head from it to gaze at them.
From the side of the room Zara came toward them, the helmet slung from one hand. Her expression was strained. All she said was, "I'm glad you're here."
Ben Pertin—Babylon could not decide whether his voice was surly or embarrassed—scowled at the bed. "Doris giving you any trouble?" he demanded.
"It's not Doris," said Zara, and from the lips of the figure on the bed a woman's voice, unearthly slow and carefully formed, said:
"Attend the person Zara. This person has already communicated." And the woman turned her face to the covers of the bed, waiting.
Doc Chimp turned his leathery face to Zara. "And what does that mean?" he asked plaintively.
"She's been telling me things," Zara said. The strain on her face had not eased; the sound of her voice was troubled. "She won't tell me much about her home planet. Least of all, where it is. But it's hot. I believe in her real body—that is, its real body, the body of the thing that bought Doris—molten sulfur flows in its veins instead of watery blood. But they have a civilization not too much unlike ours: that is, it's a collection of individuals, not a single multicellular society like the Boaty-Bits. And they differ widely among themselves—like us—not like, say, the T'Worlie or the Sheliaks."
Mimmie, hanging inconspicuously by the doorway, danced gently forward. "Disagreement," he chirped. "TWorlie find other TWorlie quite individual."
"I know," Zara agreed, "but you're more, well, united than human beings, aren't you? Anyway. The important thing is, some of their individuals on this fire planet are doing the same sorts of things humans are on Earth. It's their equivalent of Kooks."
The female human figure on the bed stirred restlessly. It did not lift its head, but the unearthly voice, muffled by the bedclothes, said: "Speak of zero-mass tachyons."
Doc Chimp exploded, "That was private information! Good heavens, Ben! I didn't know Homo sapiens primates could be so naive! Didn't you know better than to discuss that sort of thing with your fancy woman, knowing she was Purchased?"
Pertin said defensively, "I didn't! Tell them, Doris—I mean, you there, whoever you are!" But Zara interrupted.
"Ben is right," she said. "The . . . being wasn't repeating what she had heard from us. She was telling a deep secret of her own race." The figure on the bed moved convulsively, but was silent. "They have used zero-mass tachyons for their own purposes for a long time, but have never shared the knowledge with the rest of the galaxy. And they suspect that their . . . Kooks are controlled with zero- mass tachyons from somewhere else." She took a deep breath. "They think it's from Cuckoo," she finished. "And they think that the members of the expedition are controlled in the same way, or at least their leaders are."
The figure lifted its head. "These are instructions," it said tonelessly. "Display spherical object. Consider relationships. Advise all other beings." And the woman's figure tossed away the restraining straps, rose from the bed, and moved silently out of the chamber and away.