"Excellent, Mr. Takagama. You grasp the point with both mouths." Again the twin necks shot up, the heads eye to eye for an instant. "So we leave their temple alone," Bruno said. "We didn't know. Now we do." "It is not so simple, Mr. Takagama," sang Diplomat. "The Zealots now see you – and your whole species – as an irritant to be removed. Our hosts wish to change this potentially destructive point of view." "Wait a minute," asked Carol slowly. "Why are we – or the kzin, or you – important to this faction of Outsiders?”
"They are called Dissonants," added Diplomat. "They oppose the ancient strictures of the Zealots, and wish to forge their own destiny, sometimes in association with life-forms like ourselves." "Whatever. I am glad that we were rescued, but where are we being taken – and why?”
The three-legged alien's hooves beat a complex pattern It turned and sang to the larger alien, which blared music back.
"Carol – " Bruno started to ask, but she squeezed his arm to signal for silence. Diplomat turned to face them again. "My Guardian has argued for becoming yet more direct." The heads wobbled a bit. "Let me take the points quickly, as time remains short There are many things like your species in the galaxy, you know full well, considering your cargo.”
"How do you know about that?" asked Bruno. How could they know about the Tree-of-Life virus still in the hold of Dolittle? They might have found it, of course, but how would they know what it could do? The puppeteer waved a head in a slow figure eight as if dismissing his comment. "The point is that the Dissonants have worked with your various species many times in the past. Your own… more undomesticated, feral species appeals to them… well, aesthetically.”
"We'll table that for the moment," Carol said.
"As you wish," replied Diplomat. "The Dissonants wish to preserve your species – as well as my own, and the kzin. We are interesting to them, a source of information." Bruno broke in, sensing another long speech on the alien horizon. "So where are we now, and where are we going?" The hemisphere above Carol and Bruno suddenly stopped looking like a sky with fleecy white clouds. It was a bowl filled with a mottled opal radiance that hurt the eyes, Geometrical shapes swam in curdled colors that Bruno could not name. The 'sky' twisted and bent, distorted and distorting. It was like nothing Bruno had ever seen before. "We are presently," sang Diplomat quietly in his human-sounding voice, "just over one hundred light-years from human space. And moving at three hundred times the speed of light, in another dimension." "Another dimension?" "Certainly. It is the only way to travel faster than light, is it not?" "Hyperspace," breathed Bruno and Carol at the same time.
"Indeed. We are leading the Zealot spacecraft far away from human and kzinti space." "And… " Bruno prompted, still in awe of the eye-straining vision above them. A shape seemed to form, shifting and rotating, moving in a stately procession across the false sky.
It grew somehow larger and smaller, then faded into the milky clotted strangeness. "We hope to engage the Zealot ship here, away from normal space, and destroy it." "But how?" It seemed to Bruno that he and Carol were far out of their elements, pawn to unreadable forces and minds. "With your help of course, Mr. Takagama." A head wobbled for emphasis. "But don't feel alone. Guardian and the kzin will go with you.”
CHAPTER TEN
It had been several hours since Diplomat had outlined the plan, and he still could not read the humans well. He knew little about decoding their bizarre body language, changes in chemistry and skin conductivity: all the hints he would need to better predict their actions. Still, was he not known as Diplomat?
"Little Talker," rumbled Guardian, "you do not seem afraid of these aliens now.”
Diplomat nodded agreement. In a way, he would miss the giant puppeteer.
True, Diplomat was not as afraid as he had been. Of course, it helped that they were nowhere near the small supply of transformation virus the Dissonant mechanicals had found in the hold of the small human warship. And the humans were on the other side of a force-shield, with no means to disrupt the barrier.
Diplomat had once again focused his minds on the issue at hand, as he had among the Q'rynmoi. If they could not trap and destroy this upstart faction of Outsiders that the Dissonants had discussed, more was at stake than simply the fate of two primitive and warlike species. That briefing had burned out most of Diplomat's fear. There was fear and then there was Fear.
Diplomat knew something that nonpuppeteers did not: his race was cowardly, until there is no choice but to be brave.
His supply of antidread drugcud helped, of course.
Perhaps the Zealots would put a stop to all warmlife, if they could convince enough of the other Outsider factions to join their philosophy. All warmlife in this region were at risk, including the puppeteer race.
The former Pak threat was insignificant in comparison. The Outsiders were everywhere, and potent with unknown abilities.
Much had become clear since he and Guardian had received their briefings, when they had arrived at the Outsider groupship. Dissonants, Traditionalists, Zealots. The faceless form of an Outsider held diversity and challenge, opportunity and threat.
Diplomat and Guardian had taken time to digest and rechew the information given to them, while the damaged humans and kzin were speed-healed by Outsider technology. More accurately, technology developed on one of their hominid experimental worlds, on the other side of the galaxy.
"Dissonants," he sang to the air around him.
"I hear you, Diplomat," replied the voice. It sounded like an educated puppeteer, but he knew that it was a sophisticated translation program. The Outsiders had deep difficulties with communication without such translators. Soon, they would have such a program for these humans. Until then, Diplomat had to speak for them.
"Is everything in readiness?”
"Yes," came the reply. "There is little choice, actually. If we do not stop the Zealots, here and now, we will all lose much.”
Diplomat moved tongue across finger-lips. "Why should the human Bruno help?”
"Indeed. Why should Guardian, or the kzin?”
That had been Diplomat's greatest victory: convincing the furious carnivore that his entire race was in peril, and giving him a chance to help preserve the kzin. "I would much prefer to eat the monkeys," the kzin had told Diplomat. He had then gone on to threaten Diplomat himself, which was both typical and unimportant. Force-screens were everywhere, and Rrowl-Captain's threats empty.
And Diplomat had no time to be frightened. Later, yes.
As for the Guardian puppeteer, such was her duty and pleasure both. She had gone so far as to verbally worry about Diplomats safety afterwards, which was out of character for the gruff soldier. "Diplomat, the Zealots are here in hyperspace with us, and are closing quickly. The spacecraft is ready.
The other crewmembers are ready. We must have Bruno Takagama – and his brain – on board." Diplomat rose to his feet and walked swiftly to the force-shield window. "Mr. Takagama," he called in the barbarous language the primates used, devoid of music and joy and structure.
The male and female humans walked toward Diplomat, holding hands. The puppeteer guessed this was a gesture of affection. "We need," began Diplomat, "a decision from you. The Zealots approach in hyperspace, and we intend to use a… what is the word?… booby trap to stop them." The taller human – Carol Faulk – had a face without expression. "And you want us to go along?" "Indeed. You, my Guardian, and the kzin." "Who will surely eat us," snapped the female. "I rather doubt it," soothed Diplomat. "There is more at stake here than your own interspecies battles.