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  Tuuqalian eyestalks were aimed directly at them now, a sure sign that despite his concentration, Braouk’s staying power was fading. “What problem?” Walker asked her tersely.

  For the first time since he had met her, Sque seemed unsure of herself. “If our gamble should enjoy any degree of success, there is the matter of subsequently securing adequate sustenance to go on.”

  “We’ve talked about that,” Walker reminded her. “Depending on how circumstances develop, those in need of food will have to scavenge for it as best they can.”

  She remained visibly perturbed. “It is not so much the basal nourishment that concerns me as it is the potential inability to acquire a sufficiency of certain specific ingredients.”

  Realization dawned. Walker peered hard into her eyes, not caring if any spying Vilenjji noticed his abrupt shift of attention. “Your daily dose of si’dana and joqil. You’re worried about having to go cold turkey on your stimulants.”

  “The metaphor you choose does not translate well, but the general inference is clear.” She drew herself up slightly, her tentacles bunching beneath her. “They are ‘herbs.’ ”

  “Oh yeah,” George muttered. “Herbs you ‘really like.’ It’s not like you’re ‘hooked’ or anything.”

  “On the contrary, I admit to the addiction.” Silver eyes turned toward the dog. “I am not one to dispute the actuality of a reality. The question is, what can be done about it?”

  Walker started to rise. Proceedings had progressed too far to turn back now. If necessary, he was prepared to go ahead without the K’eremu. Better to embark on an ill-prepared effort than none at all.

  “You’ll just have to eat your fill the night before,” he told her. “After that . . . ,” he paused. “After that, you’ll have an unprecedented opportunity to demonstrate to all of us how a superior intellect can overcome something as trifling as mere physical dependence.” Water dripped from his bare legs. “I know you can do it, Sque, because I’ve seen humans do it.

  “One casual friend of mine was a chocolate aficionado. So great was his obsession that he had made a living trading solely in cocoa futures. Whenever anyone would question him about his fondness for chocolate, both professionally and personally, he would go on and on about its hidden health benefits, how it stimulated his libido, and how much of an energy rush he got every time he ate some. Eventually, it killed him.” He went silent, wondering if she would buy the edifying fiction.

  Sque indicated her understanding. “I will apply the utmost self-control of which I am capable, Marc. I assure you that is quite a considerable amount. But it will still be grueling. An acquired fondness for joqil is not easily forsaken.” Though he knew she was not cold, several tentacles quivered. “Surely I can do better than the poor pathetic acquaintance of which you speak.”

  “I don’t doubt it for a moment.” It would be a sad day indeed, he mused, if a determined K’eremu could not show more determination than a nonexistent human. Straightening, he used the camp towel that had been draped around his shoulders to begin drying himself. Seeing that the conclave was in the process of breaking up, a grateful (and exhausted) Braouk jumped ahead to the rousing conclusion he had chosen for his oration.

  Afterward, they each of them went their separate ways. Sque left with the Tuuqalian, riding (to save time) in the supporting curve of two of his massive appendages. While they walked, she would find an appropriate time and place to inform him that the decision had been made to make their move on the morrow. Walker retired to his tent with George following at his side. While its batteries were beginning to fade, the compact music player he had brought with him could still put out enough decibels to allow man and dog to converse in comparative privacy. He turned it on, and up, as soon as they entered the tent.

  George lay down, chin on front paws, watching as Walker finished drying himself and prepared to get dressed. “How about it, Marc? You’re convinced we won’t get shot, or worse, for trying this. I wish I had your confidence. Not even that squirmy bunch of bitch-slime Sque can really predict how the Vilenjji are going to react.”

  “I know.” Slipping clean feet into dry socks was one of the few earthly pleasures remaining to Walker. It was one that was not going to last much longer, as his limited supply of camp soap had just about run out. At least if he and Sque were wrong and they did get shot, or worse, he wouldn’t die in dirty underwear.

  His one consolation was that the Vilenjji, faced with a situation they had hopefully never been forced to deal with previously, would also not know how to react. As for the likelihood of dying, he had already given it far too much thought. To his own surprise, the possibility no longer troubled him. There was a time when the thought of a premature death would have sent him rushing for a drink, or set him to silently bawling, or lamenting the loss of all that he had worked so hard to build.

  All that was in the past now. Part of a life half forgotten. A life on another world—a real world. Not an artificial one speeding through space subject to the whims and mercies of a taciturn, uncommunicative species of purplish, pointy-headed giants. He was ready to die trying to shake things up.

  Trying what? They didn’t even have a real goal, except to do something different, something that for a change was not controlled by the vile Vilenjji. Maybe, he thought, that was enough. For now, it would have to suffice.

  Given a choice, he would rather have perished, like his imaginary friend, from eating too much chocolate, but on board an alien vessel racing across the cosmos that was sadly not a fate that was open to him.

  10

  It was a damned bright and sunny morning, with the temperature a damned perfect warmth, as it was just about every damned day. Damning the Vilenjji-synchronized repetitiveness of it, Walker and George set off across the grand enclosure to visit Braouk. Along the way, they paused to pick up Sque. The K’eremu emerged from her sodden surroundings in a mood that was unusually subdued even for her. As she was understandably preoccupied, Walker had to spur her to participate in the general conversation.

  Finding the hulking Tuuqalian sunk in a dark mood of his own, tentacles and eyestalks entwined in a thick, tight knot, there was some discussion as to whether they should even intrude upon him. After a brief, purposefully loud debate, it was determined that as friends it was their duty to try and rouse him from his proportionately enormous funk. As it was nearly breakfast time, it was either join him in eating or else retrace their steps all the way back to their individual enclosures. It was decided to proceed.

  Though they knew the Tuuqalian, none of them knew all the vagaries of his many moods, and so they approached guardedly, keeping close together. As they advanced, a pair of eyes on muscular stalks emerged from the tangle of tentacles to stare down at them intently.

  “You three again. I grow sick, dealing with the sight, all obnoxious.”

  “Take it easy, Braouk.” Walker continued to approach, flanked by his friends. “What’s the matter? What’s wrong?”

  Globular orbs turned away from him, toward the expansive circular patch of open surface where nothing grew. “Hungry. Affects it does the Tuuqalian emotional as well as physical state. Did not eat last night, and should have. Emptiness in belly, screaming loudly of deprivation, addles thinking.”

  “It’ll be all right.” Smiling, Walker indicated the circle where the bricks and drink always emerged from below. “Food’ll be up soon enough.”

  Limbs like tree trunks trembled. “Hungry now.”

  George started to back up, muttering urgently, “This isn’t good, Marc. I don’t like this at all. Let’s come back later.”

  “Foolish four-foot no-hands,” Sque admonished him. “We are here now. We came to converse now. I, for one, will not be driven to flight by the anarchic hunger pangs of an overstuffed sentient with only eight serviceable extremities. Far less by one with no head.” Disdaining Walker’s restraining fingers and moving forward on her own ten limbs, she sidled toward the crouching, markedly unhappy Tuuqal
ian.

  “Here now; stop this nonsense and act your intelligence. Such as it is. We have no time to waste on such puerile indulgences.”

  Eyestalks swiveled sharply to confront her. The huge, powerful body began to rise on its thick hind limbs. “Always the condescending, disdainful of any other, haughtily patronizing.” Menacing black pupils seemed to expand slightly. “Perhaps better stimulating when engaged in another way.” Tentacles began to unknot.

  Walker’s eyes widened. He started to join George in backing up. “Sque—run!”

  Perhaps she was too certain of her own unassailability. Perhaps she felt proximity to the mountainous Tuuqalian forestalled any realistic attempt at flight. Or perhaps there was another reason. Regardless, the K’eremu remained rooted to the spot as the angry Tuuqalian loomed over her.

  Walker looked around wildly. Sque was caught between Braouk and the corridor. Unexpectedly, a Vilenjji appeared there, sauntering into view rather rapidly from the right. Its linear eyes, not unlike Sque’s but much darker and wider, took in the ominous tableau that was being played out within the Tuuqalian enclosure. It stared for a moment, then turned and sloughed off back the way it had come, its pace perceptibly increased.

  Maybe their surveillance systems weren’t as all-encompassing as everyone imagined, Walker mused.

  Then he put the thought aside as the raving, hunger-maddened Braouk reached down with one tentacle, picked up the futilely protesting K’eremu, and popped her into his mouth.

  “Oh no, no!” Waving his arms, Walker took a couple of steps toward the giant. In response, the Tuuqalian whirled on him. Dark eyes glared down at the protesting biped.

  “Still hungry,” the alien growled as it thrust a questing tentacle in the human’s direction.

  It might have grabbed him, too, except that George interceded. Barking furiously, the dog dashed between his friend and the Tuuqalian. George was not particularly fast, but he was quick. Tentacles flailed impotently, striking at the dog, who danced back and forth between the blows. Visibly torn between taking flight and trying to help his brave friend, Walker ended up standing where he was and yelling desperately at the rampaging alien, trying to shout some sense into him.

  “Food!” he finally yelled toward the corridor. “Braouk—the Tuuqalian, needs food! He needs it now! Do something!”

  He had no way of knowing if the Vilenjji were listening. Or if they were, whether they were paying serious attention to the drama that was playing out in the enclosure, despite the brief visit from the single visitor in the corridor. Would they react at all? According to the daily, unvarying schedule, regular breakfast/food delivery was still minutes away. Observing what was happening, would they, could they, rush one delivery in time to protect a pair of valuable remaining specimens like himself and the dog?

  Whatever their intentions, they were too late. Dodging a pair of descending limbs, George darted to his right—only to run smack into another tentacle that came sweeping around from that direction. It swept up the hairy lump of snapping, snarling canine effortlessly. Heedless of his own safety now, Walker bent and managed to find a couple of fist-sized rocks. Using his best baseball throw, he heaved them at the hunger-crazed Tuuqalian. Either one of the stones was big enough to knock a human unconscious. They struck the alien’s bristle-covered hide and slid off like spitballs on Teflon.

  Barking and biting to the last, George went the way of the overconfident K’eremu, disappearing between vertical jaws into a vast, dark maw. Manifestly too distraught to yell or cry, Walker continued to scavenge and throw whatever he could find: rocks, handfuls of soil, pieces of loose vegetation. None of it had any effect whatsoever on the Tuuqalian. Then it turned to confront him.

  With Sque injested and George following, any onlooker aware of the relationship that had developed between man and dog would have found it believable that, his friends consumed, an unhinged Walker would have continued to strike back instead of fleeing. As human and Tuuqalian confronted each other, a soft hissing sound was heard. Turning in its direction, both sentients saw a disc of solid surface begin to sink downward into the ground, exactly as it had done on hundreds of previous occasions. Forgetting his single surviving visitor, the famished Braouk threw himself toward the opening, ignoring the barrage of objects that Walker continued to throw at him.

  “Damn you!” Walker yelled at the alien. “How could you do that? Is a little appetite all it takes to make you lose your mind?” Running right up to the massive Tuuqalian, who was now lying prone on the ground, the upper portion of its body jammed partway within the opening as tentacles fished for the food that would be rising within, Walker began hitting and kicking it. His blows had as much effect as the bits and pieces of surrounding terrain that he had hurled at the alien.

  Straightening slightly, the single-minded Tuuqalian came up with tentacles full of food. One under-limb snapped forward and casually flicked the howling human aside. Walker was sent flying backward, to land hard on the alien ground cover. He started to get up, recoiled at a pain in his side, and was reduced to sitting and watching helplessly while the alien mindlessly gobbled down oversized food brick after brick, only occasionally pausing to messily slurp gallons of water from the accompanying cistern.

  “You senseless cretin!” he cried aloud, not caring who overheard. “You stupid, ignorant, appetite-driven piece of alien crapola. Do you realize what you’ve just done? Do you even know? When you get hungry, does your brain go completely blank?” Sitting there holding his bruised ribs, he began finally to cry: long, drawn-out sobs of hopelessness. He wondered if the Vilenjji were watching, taking it all in.

  Wincing with obvious pain, he struggled to his feet. A rational onlooker would have expected him to stagger out of the Tuuqalian’s delimited ecosystem. Apparently overwhelmed by the catastrophe that had struck him and his friends, he did not. As if wishing to wallow in the extended misery of his loss, Walker instead stumbled over to a far corner of the enclosure. There he sat down, his back against a supportive rock, and began to glare miserably at the still-ravenous alien. Indifferent to the human’s presence, Braouk continued to stuff one food brick after another into an apparently insatiable maw. Whenever he would bite one in half with clashing saw-edged teeth, Walker would stir himself long enough to hurl another slur, a fresh accusation. These troubled the Tuuqalian about as much as had the kicks, punches, and thrown stones.

  Only when there was nothing left and the last crumb of food brick had been devoured did Braouk move away from the place where the food had been delivered. Choosing a comfortable depression, the Tuuqalian snugged down into it and, without a word to or a glance in his surviving visitor’s direction, immediately fell asleep. Walker continued to eye the alien moodily, reduced to muttering the occasional choice insult.

  Several minutes passed, following which a pair of Vilenjji appeared in the corridor. Though they kept their voices down, Walker’s implant was able to pick up enough of their conversation to suggest that they were discussing the events that had just taken place within the Tuuqalian enclosure. Any conclusion or determination they reached, however, escaped him. Occasionally one or the other would raise a flap-tipped limb to point or gesture in Braouk’s or Walker’s direction. When their attention focused on him, he glowered back silently and said nothing. Experience had taught him that they were unlikely to respond in any case.

  Eventually they wandered away, disappearing off to the right in the wake of their single predecessor. Within the enclosure, nothing changed. None came to force Walker to move back to his own bit of Sierra. No posse of irritated Vilenjji materialized to take Braouk the way of the Tripodan. Huddled against the rock at his back, knees pulled tightly up against his chest, Walker rested his chin on his hands and scowled silently at the indifferent Tuuqalian. He remained so all that day and on into the night, when at last he managed to fall asleep. Not because he was angry. Not because he was despondent. Not because unanticipated circumstances had stolen all hope and reduced him to gibb
ering despair. No, he had trouble falling asleep because he was excited.

  So far, it had worked.

  Braouk had snatched up Sque and shoved the K’eremu into his mouth. He had eventually caught George and put the dog into his mouth. But in the midst of his madness there was one thing the ostensibly amok Tuuqalian had not done.

  He had not swallowed.

  Braouk had dived on the circular food lift the instant it had begun to descend. In addition to digging and scrabbling for the nourishment it was designed to supply to the enclosure, he had momentarily covered the opening with his upper body, and therefore also with his mouth. It had taken only seconds to spit out the two gasping entities who had been concealed within the Tuuqalian’s generous oral cavity.

  George emerged first, oriented himself as he fell, and bounced lithely off the already ascending lift, scattering the neatly piled food bricks in all directions. Sque followed immediately, her multiple limbs allowing her to secure a better purchase on the lift’s surface than any dog could have managed. Even so, given the speed of the ascending elevator, she had just enough time to squeeze her semiflexible body between the piles of rising brick and the underside of the rigid surface that now formed their overhead. Encountering no opposition to their presence, hearing no Vilenjji hisses of surprise, dog and K’eremu scrambled madly for the nearest cover.

  Though darkness descended at regular, predetermined intervals within the grand enclosure and most individual holding areas in order to allow their inhabitants to have the benefit of their normal sleep cycles, much of the vast Vilenjji vessel remained at least partly lit at all times. Even those areas where automatics held sway and the owners rarely needed to call in person were graced by a certain minimum illumination.

  Still, George and Sque took no chances. Remaining concealed beneath the complex of machinery they had seen, a fair distance from the small lift that provided food to the Tuuqalian cell, they waited for the equivalent of night to fall in the enclosures that now hung heavy over their heads. Meanwhile they used the time to clean themselves, and to study their new surroundings.