“I can imagine.” murmured Caroline.
“I enjoyed your company, Ross Ed Hager. Your protective instincts commended you to me, and I did my best to help out where possible. I can’t move my dead arms and legs, but thanks to this suit I was able to influence my surroundings by other means. Within limits. I could not only protect myself, but those around me.”
“I know.” As Ross Ed reflected, memories came flooding back.
“Once they located me by homing in on emanations from my suit, I couldn’t do anything to keep the Culakhan from picking us up. Don’t think I didn’t try, though.”
“How’d you happen to end up in that cave, anyway?” Ross asked.
“My ship went down close by. Nothing astonishing. Just your usual mechanical foul-up. Spaceships aren’t perfect instruments either, you know.”
“Then there was a UFO crash near Roswell! All those old beaks were right.”
“Roswell, Roswell … let me look at your thoughts for a minute, Ross Ed.”
The Texan’s jaw dropped slightly. “You can do that?”
“Of course. How else do you think we worked the ventriloquist act so smoothly? Hang on. Just a moment there, that’s it. Let your mind go nice and blank, the way it usually does.”
“Thanks,” Ross mumbled.
“Only a little deeper … there, that’s got it. It’s just like searching one of your primitive computers. Access the soft drive. When you get right down to it, any memory is nothing more than stratified electrical impulses.
“Oh, now I see. So that’s what got sucked into the spatial displacer. A ‘weather balloon,’ whatever that is. Fouled me up good, it did. I didn’t put down very smoothly. Got out of the ship before the molecular bonds disengaged and managed to crawl into that cave. Long-term survival programming took over from there. Unfortunately, the suit couldn’t preserve more than my mind for very long, so it began shutting down noncritical functions. Extremities go first, then the internal organs.” Caroline made a face. “If you hadn’t found me, Ross Ed, I’d have died completely in there. Within another of your planet’s five years there wouldn’t have been even this much of me left.”
“I’m sorry about what happened to your ship.” Ross uncrossed his legs, relieving the cramp that had uncomfortably announced itself. “Our people are always shooting stuff up into the sky.”
“Don’t feel so bad. I wanted to put down here. That’s why I came in a ship designed to self-destruct. I wanted to crash on your world. It’s just that I planned on having a little more control over the process. I’m afraid I wasn’t paying full attention during approach and survey, preferring to leave the details to the automatics. Anything substantial they would have detected and avoided. This weather-balloon device was apparently insubstantial enough to be overlooked yet solid enough to cause problems.”
“You wanted to kill yourself?” Caroline stared at the motionless form.
“No, no, no! I said crash, not kill. There’s a difference. Damn, this is frustrafing, not being able to support words with gestures! I have in mind several the Culakhan wouldn’t appreciate.
“It was my intention to crash just hard enough to engage the ship’s self-destruct sequence, which is designed to prevent advanced technology from falling into the hands of primitive species, but not so violently as to injure myself. A recordable crash sequence would hopefully convince any who might come after that I had perished in the debacle, with the result that I would be left alone.” A hint of irony corrupted the artificial speech. “I’m afraid my incompetence has rendered the scenario all too likely. With my suit’s life-support functions fully recharged, my mind and thoughts will live for another fifty of your years, although it is not my health and well-being that interests the Culakhan.”
“You know, I’ve been meaning to ask you about that.” Ross Ed leaned forward to stare into shuttered eyes. “I can’t tell if you’re telling the truth, so I’m going to assume that the Shakaleeshva code of conduct is at least as binding as the Culakhan’s. Go ahead and read what I’m thinking.”
There was a brief pause before the synthetic voice responded. “No, I’m not a criminal, Ross. Rather the contrary, in fact.”
“Then why would they say such things about you?”
“Understand that the Culakhan have their own reasons for wanting to make an example of what’s left of me. It’s all quite complicated and the details need not concern you. I’m not sure what they intend to do with me except that it will be unconventional. After all, they can’t exactly threaten to kill me.” Something not unlike a chuckle drifted out of the mechanical larynx.
“I’m going to take you at your word.” Ross Ed rose and surveyed the chamber. “I’ve stuck with you this long. I guess we’re together to the end.”
“Uh, hello? Excuse me a minute, here?” Caroline tugged at his pant leg until he gave her a hand up. “I haven’t agreed to stick with anybody, and I’m not real interested in being dead. If there’s another option I’d sure like to hear it.”
Ross considered. “Maybe we can play on this Code of Conduct of theirs.”
“I wouldn’t count on that,” Jed told them. “Besides, being dead’s not so bad. It’s just kind of slow.”
Caroline loomed over the motionless, instrument-laden form. “I’m a slow kind of person. If there’s any chance of getting out of here in a state of not-dead, I’d like to take it.”
Ross Ed had walked back to the edge of the depression in the floor. “If we could get this door, or hatch, or whatever it is open, I wonder if we could survive the drop to the ocean.”
“What makes you believe we’re still over the ocean?” Jed queried. “You think the Shakaleeshva are still hanging around fifteen feet above the end of the Malibu pier? I haven’t sensed the mind distortion that goes with the activation of spatial displacement, so we’re still in your atmosphere, but our altitude could be anything from ten feet to ten miles.”
“Um. Well, it was just an idea.” Caroline had come up alongside Ross Ed and he put an arm around her. “At least we’re together.”
Putting both hands against his chest, she shoved hard. “What the hell’s that supposed to mean? Haven’t you been listening to me, Ross Ed? I don’t want to die here, not with you or anybody else. I still haven’t been to San Diego. I love you, but I draw the line at mutual-death scenarios. They’re too friggin’ gothic.”
“It doesn’t matter. We’re stuck until they find a gap in their manners that lets them kick us out with a clear conscience.”
“You’re overwrought,” Jed insisted. “The Culakhan are relentless bastards, but they pride themselves on what they consider to be their gentility. When they’re finished their observations they’ll probably put you down somewhere. You’re representatives of an ignorant, primitive species, you see, and therefore it would be demeaning to kill you.”
“Then we can relax,” Caroline declared hopefully.
“In all likelihood.”
Ross Ed wasn’t satisfied, the whole situation rankled, and he wasn’t used to feeling helpless. “I wish we could do something for you, Jed.”
“I can’t imagine what. As you can see, at the moment I’m not real mobile. Give me some time to cerebrate. I still haven’t had an opportunity to properly analyze the instrumentation they’ve hooked me up to.”
Ross started to nod before he remembered that Jed wouldn’t be able to see the gesture. Could he perceive it? “Whatever happens, it’s nice to finally have been able to say hello.”
“Pardon me if I don’t shake your hand.” The voice had grown distant, contemplative.
After being assured it could not harm them, they were given protein substitute to eat and water to drink. It did nothing for their taste buds but did assuage the growing hunger in Ross Ed’s stomach. Soon thereafter the interrogation resumed. He and Caroline were ignored, which both supposed was all to the good. Despite Jed’s reassurances, they weren’t quite convinced that Uroon’s ultimate intentions were entirely benign.
