“For a million years?”
The great curving skull bobbed to one side, like a drunken ski-jump. “The alarm didn’t go off. What do you want from me? You think I’m happy about it? My friends, my shipmates, my mating partners: all gone, swallowed by the bottomless vortex of time.” Three cablelike tentacles writhed in a complex gesture of accentuation.
“I awaken to a ship operational but lifeless save for a bunch of quarreling parasites, and with an emergency to deal with.”
“Emergency?”
“You are not aware that an advance force of approximately one thousand unidentified vessels is approaching this system?”
“Uh, no.” She glared accusingly at the Autothor, which of course ignored her.
“This enemy of yours,” she wondered, “what are they like? Besides the fact that they have an obvious ability to build lots of ships.”
“If offered the opportunity to confront them in person, you would choose instead to luxuriate in my company.”
“That bad,” she murmured worriedly.
“As to physical appearance, you don’t want to know.”
“I guess not. How are you going to fight so many ships all by yourself?”
“I am not prepared to discuss my tactical decisions with a parasite.”
“I wish you’d stop calling me that. I’ll live with ‘insignificant,’ but ‘parasite’ is pretty hard to take. We’re not taking anything from you.”
“You exhibit the admirable courage of the blissfully ignorant. I choose to comply.” There was a definite mocking undertone to the translation of the Drex’s response.
“Thanks. You know, you could help me halt an injustice.”
“As a representative of a new species I find you marginally interesting. I have no interest in your infinitesimally insignificant problems.”
“You’ll find my companions interesting too.”
“That is highly unlikely. Do not think to play upon my casual interest in your kind to achieve some nebulous aim of your own. You do not want to upset me. I am larger than you, infinitely stronger, more intelligent, and besides, I am in a bad mood.”
She started to reply, then decided it would be expedient to shut up for a while.
It was a wise decision.
XX
It seemed to Ashili that they took a roundabout way to return to the observation chamber, but eventually she began to recognize highlights of the corridor which led to the room she had left not so very long ago. Everything looked different from her mobile vantage point fifteen meters above the deck.
The Drex turned a corner and entered the chamber. As it did so she was able to make out her colleagues and their five prisoners over by the sweeping arc of the floor-to-ceiling transparency. At the same time they noticed the new arrival, and their reactions, even at a distance, were interesting to observe.
Bassan let out a strangled scream audible clear across the wide floor as he bolted to his right. As the Drex continued to approach, the commando dropped to his knees and buried his head in his arms, as though by not seeing the apparition he could make it go away.
Argolo, Fontes, and Praxedes gripped their weapons (rather tentatively, she thought) and clustered tightly together as they began backing away from the prisoners. As for the latter, they had nowhere to run. Heath supported Gelmann while Shimoda and Iranaputra formed a pathetic shield in front of them. Hawkins stood slightly off by himself, laughing hysterically.
She realized that from her elevated position it was unlikely they could see her. Not that they had any reasonable expectation of doing so. Their attention was understandably preoccupied by the advancing, looming mass of the Drex.
“These are your companions?”
“Only the five off to the right. The others were, but they’re not anymore. They have weapons.”
“I’m shaking in my cosmata. Do you think they might be foolish enough to attempt to employ them?” Before she could reply the alien bent toward the trio far below. It couldn’t be called a bow, exactly, because technically the Drex had no waist. As the tentacle on which she rode bobbed wildly, Ashili tightened her thighs around it until they throbbed.
“You there!” The translation boomed out of the Drex’s cluster of chest instrumentation. “Do you dare think to threaten me with such puny devices?”
“Us?” squeaked Argolo. She promptly tossed her gun aside and put her hands behind her back. Fontes hastily imitated her. Praxedes exhibited an incomprehensible reluctance to mimic the sensible actions of his companions until a tentacle the size of an air conduit slammed into the deck before them and the Autothor hovering at its end expanded to an angry, flaring turquoise sphere ten meters in diameter. His weapon sailed farther than any of the others.
“What devices?” he managed to choke out.
“You intended me physical harm!” Four black and crimson eyes bulged at the tiny humans.
“No, no!” Fontes and Argolo were half dragging, half carrying the sobbing Bassan while their commander struggled to come up with reassuring words. “Just a reflex action, that’s all.”
The Drex was unimpressed. “I interpret it as an unfriendly, however, impotent, gesture.”
“No worries,” Praxedes insisted desperately.
Four legs carried the alien a giant step nearer. Incandescent eyes blazed. “It makes me very, very angry.”
At that the three commandos bolted to their right, hauling the useless Bassan with them as they fled in panic for the doorway. If anything, they accelerated when they reached the outer corridor.
With its four eyes the Drex followed them briefly. Then it turned to the five waiting seniors. Hawkins stopped laughing.
Iranaputra found himself pointing as he frowned. “Can that be you up there, Zabela Ashili?”
