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THREE
The Proprietor's Assistant

"I, uh . . ."

Even had her state of mind permitted it, Reille y Sanchez hadn't, in fact, had time to surmise anything. Before she could reorder her thoughts to speak, the feather-scaled thing preempted her.

"And here, unless I'm greatly mistaken, is the distinguished Dr. Piotr Kamanov." Without perceptible effort, the creature had switched to a language both humans shared, standard English—with a fussy, pedantic accent. She realized in a corner of her mind that it sounded like an actor in those old talking gorilla movies which, despite their marginal legality, she, like most of her generation, had somehow managed to see while growing up. Or that gold-plated robot, what was its name? "Good afternoon to you, sir."

She glanced at the spot the bird or lizard thing had indicated. It seemed, for once, that the geologist was as speechless with amazement as she was. His helmet bubble, a gloved hand, and the toes of both his boots thrust from the ceiling like one of his fossils, embedded in a matrix of yellow silt. The major shook her head in disbelief: Kamanov was winking at her!

With a grunt, the entity climbed to its feet, which were built, she noticed through a lucid tunnel in her bewilderment, like those of a parrot, with two long toes in front and another pair jutting backward where the heel should be. It was hard deciding if its appearance was more birdlike or reptilian. Its overall color lay somewhere between silver-gray and lavender. Veins in its scales (or were they feathers?) were bright red. Its body color shaded gradually from its human-looking shoulders, along broad, oddly jointed arms, to hands with delicate, powdery white fingers.

The creature's chest was stooped (how scholarly, she thought), tapering to a paunch. Its hips, for all that they supported an ordinary holster belt, reminded her of allosaurs or tyrannosaurs in the San Antonio museum and children's books. The legs supporting them, heavily muscled under the feathers (or were they scales?) appeared mammalian, but bent in the wrong places. The feet, as she'd observed, were birdlike, except that they ended in round toes with flat black nails like those of the fingers.

Aelbraugh Pritsch's scarlet-crested head was unquestionably that of a sapient being, with shrewd amber eyes under the same domed shape that afforded volume for her own capable brain. The face was as flat as any human face, with a pair of small nostril-holes beneath the eyes. A flattened beak, no more than a triangle of black horn scalloped twice along its bottom edge, met a mammalian-looking lower lip. As the thing spoke, the major watched for teeth, but wasn't surprised to see none. The tongue, too, was black, and looked as if it would be dry to the touch.

"My associates—" the alien indicated the insect beings "—whose names, I regret to confess, are impossible even for me to pronounce. They will assist you. Please don't be alarmed at their formidable appearance."

A couple of the living nightmares raised pairs of many-jointed arms to lift the major down. Despite herself, she shrank away.

"I assure you, Major, they're quite as civilized as you or I. Their drawn weapons were merely a precaution, occasioned by the rather fearsome reputation of your own species. But don't underestimate them, whatever you do. Their reflexes are a bit slower than yours or mine, but they're a remarkably hardy folk, singularly difficult to dispatch, in particular with firearms such as you wear. They'd wreak havoc before they expired, and my employer would be most distressed with me if you should happen to be damaged."

Shoving revulsion aside, Reille y Sanchez cooperated, only half hearing what the entity said. She could see now that its companions were more like marine crustaceans, giant lobsters, than giant roaches. What made accepting them most difficult was that they lacked anything like a face. The carapace covering the—the word was "thorax" she recalled—was ridged, made up of plates like samurai armor, showing hints of green on the high spots. The pattern seemed to vary with the individual. Golden-brown shaded to black at the edges of each segment. Below the thorax a lobsterlike tail seemed disproportionately small.

She never made an accurate count of the limbs. An upper pair of arms ended in mutually opposed chitin-covered fingers. Several middle sets boasted serrated claws. The weapons swinging at their sides were stubby cylinders, fifteen centimeters long, half that in diameter, attached to stirrup-shaped handles. Despite her resolve, she felt grateful when they released their hold on her. Looking into their compound eyes, their only identifiable facial feature, she managed a ragged, "Th-thank you."

Together, using claws, the creatures snapped out a faultless "shave-and-a-haircut," conveying several messages at once. She was welcome, they appreciated her courtesy under trying circumstances. They were intelligent creatures, not trained monsters, and they'd done their homework when it came to twenty-first-century humanity. Their impossibly long, slender antennae (each creature seemed to have several pairs) waved in what even she could tell was meant to be a comical manner. Aelbraugh Pritsch chuckled.

Standing upright (whatever that meant where gravity was an ill-remembered ghost) she reoriented herself the second time that day. The meshed platform was a huge shallow basket suspended, on cables too light for their impressive length, from half a dozen massive green columns, each a klick apart, three or four meters in diameter, blending without embellishment into the ceiling. The surface of the mesh was tacky enough that her bootsoles stayed where she put them (accustomed to Velcro inboard the shuttles, she knew to keep one foot on the floor at all times) without inhibiting movement. Reille y Sanchez watched another pair of crustaceans assist Kamanov from what now appeared to be the ceiling. He grimaced as his shoulder was moved, tears forming in the corners of his eyes, but was silent until they set him on his feet.

The geologist addressed Aelbraugh Pritsch: "Tell me, sir—or perhaps `madame'—can our people hear us?" Kamanov's voice came by radio and air-conduction. By the way their suits hung, the place had plenty of atmosphere. What particular gases, the major thought, was another matter.

Aelbraugh Pritsch raised feathery brows, bent its arms at misplaced elbows, and turned up webbed palms in a shrug. "It would be `sir', Dr. Kamanov, were my species given to honorifics in our own languages, which we are not. I'm a reproductive male. And to answer your question, I regret to inform you that you aren't being heard. The canopy's designed, among its other functions, to filter harmful and unwanted energies. This precludes communication in the radio wavelengths, which haven't been employed by our civilization for . . . well, for rather a long time."

The chief of military security had an imaginative flash of condensers, tubes, and other early components petrified in the geological strata of some far-off planet. "We're to be held," she stated, "incommunicado?"

Aelbraugh Pritsch blinked, looked at its—his—hands, turned one over and placed it in the other. "Great Egg, no! On the contrary, you're free to do anything you wish, within bounds of my employer's propriety. I'll order an antenna—is that correct, or is it aerial?—exserted through the canopy, if you insist. I suggest patience, since your colleagues, Col. Richardson and Mr. Empleado, will join us in a moment, along with Corporals Wise, Roo, Hake, and Betal, who've been sent to `dig you out.' In due course, a matter of mere hours, your entire group will be invited in, spacecraft and all, if it should be their desire."

The major opened her mouth to reply, but the being snapped his digits. "That reminds me: feel free to remove your helmets! I'm a bureaucrat by inclination, an execrable host. Your suits are stuffy. Our atmosphere's the same as you're accustomed to, twenty percent oxygen, most of the rest nitrogen. It contains less trace lead and carbon monoxide than you may feel comfortable with, having poured so much into the air of your homeworld."

The humans glanced at one another, shrugging at the same time, Kamanov with a grimace of pain. Reille y Sanchez pushed fabric out of the way to unlock her helmet ring, only to discover that it had been damaged and wouldn't detach from her suit. For his part, Kamanov made a half-hearted attempt to remove his helmet with one hand, and gave it up. His left arm floated useless.

"Dear me, I'm remiss again!" their host exclaimed. "Allow me, I'm rather good with primitive mechanics. The major first, I believe is the custom."

With the assistance of the nimble-fingered being and two crustaceans standing nearby at parade-rest, Reille y Sanchez's helmet was soon free, its sealing ring warped, accounting for the leak she'd experienced. She set it on the mesh and strode to Kamanov, boots making tearing noises like Velcro. With the aliens, she removed the geologist's helmet, revealing a pale, sweaty countenance. His eyes still twinkled.

"Are you okay, Doctor?" she asked, admiring and alarmed. If she felt the way he looked, she'd be lying down by now, or throwing up.

Kamanov bit his lip, then let it go. "You were calling me `Piotr', when we thought we were going to die."

She frowned. "Okay, Piotr-when-we-thought-we-were-going-to-die, you don't look well. I think your shoulder's dislocated."

He began to nod and stopped himself. "I am afraid so." With this, the geologist's body slackened, his knees bent, his arms began floating to a half-horizontal position. His eyes were still alert, but his companion knew he was in shock and not far from unconsciousness.

"First Nest!" Aelbraugh Pritsch exclaimed, failing to suppress a canarylike trill of alarm. "I didn't realize he'd been injured! He must be seen to immediately! Section chief, a vehicle!" One of the crustaceans clacked claws and reached to its belt with armored fingers. Making more noises, somewhere between those of a dozen sets of castanets and a pan full of frying bacon, it communicated with someone or something somewhere else, received an answer composed of the same noises, switched off, and made noises at the bird-being. Aelbraugh Pritsch turned to the major. "A vehicle will be here any moment, to take your friend to the surface below to be looked after."

"We have a medical doctor," Reille y Sanchez protested, "aboard the—"

"It will require an hour, I believe the interval's called, to get her here. If my information's correct, Major, Dr. Kamanov isn't a young being. He could die of shock, however superficial his injury."

The woman shrugged. "What do we do when the vehicle gets here?"

Aelbraugh Pritsch thought, then examined Kamanov without touching him, peering into the collar of his suit. "The important thing is what we do beforehand. Like me, you're endothermic creatures. Dr. Kamanov is warmed by his suit. His isn't an open wound, no fluid loss must be staunched. In absence of gravity, his circulatory system—"

"Kamanov? Reille y Sanchez? Is that you?"

The interrupting voice was Empleado's. True to Aelbraugh Pritsch's word, the hands and helmets of what turned out to be the expedition's political officer and second-in-command weren't long emerging from the substance of the ceiling. Beyond those first few, fearful words, Empleado was as speechless and shaken when finally freed from the matrix as the geologist and the major had been, content to be led aside by gentle claws and armored fingers as they all turned their attention to the colonel.

Richardson was in much worse condition, paralyzed and pale despite her complexion, unconscious despite wide-open eyes—until the bird being's assistants began reaching for her arms and legs.

"Get back all of you! Don't touch me! Don't touch me!"

With a screech, Richardson burst into a blurred flurry of furious motion, slapping hysterically at the creatures' manipulators, kicking at them with her heavy boots. The startled and dismayed crustaceans exploded from around her like pins in a bowling alley, adding their sizzling expostulations to the woman's shouts of terror and warning. No one, human or otherwise, dared approach her without risk of serious injury.

"Blessed Hatching," declared Aelbraugh Pritsch, almost unheard above the stream of noise and abuse, "can't you do something about her, Major?"

Reille y Sanchez shook her head without speaking, keeping wary eyes on the colonel while trying to watch the injured Kamanov, as well. Windmilling her limbs, the black woman slipped, unassisted, from the ceiling. Any one of those wild kicks might have sent her spinning in any direction, transforming her into a deadly, bone-breaking human missile. Instead, still flailing, she began settling toward the mesh below amidst screams and curses which filled the air about her and reverberated painfully in the major's suit communicator. Kamanov seemed inert, oblivious to it all.

By the time Richardson reached the mesh, she had a glove off, a tiny gun in her hand, and was swinging the black eye of its outsized suppressor back and forth at a variety of targets, failing to exclude her shipmates. The major thought she glimpsed the dull gleam of a hollowpoint deep in the chamber at the rear of the suppressor and short barrel—which she recognized as that of a double-action Kahr K9 9mm, a favorite of all the covert agencies—but it may have been her imagination.

The bird-being and his party knew what the weapon was. They scattered, ducked, and flinched, no less enthusiastic in their effort to avoid being shot than the humans, including Empleado, who found themselves on the wrong end of Richardson's little pistol. Briefly, from behind a pair of hunched-over crustaceans, Reille y Sanchez considered drawing her own Witness and putting an end to this insane display. Before she could act, however, despite his own physical difficulties, Kamanov had come to sudden life and somehow managed to slip behind the colonel and seize the Kahr K9 before it went off.

Exhaling a deep-throated moan into her suit mike, Richardson slumped into the relaxed posture which, in the absence of gravity, meant she was truly unconscious. As everyone else relaxed, as well, Reille y Sanchez noticed that, this time, the woman's eyes were closed.

"Major?" Reille y Sanchez almost jumped, despite Aelbraugh Pritsch's mild tone. With Empleado's help, the crustaceans were attending the colonel and the geologist. "I'll order that aerial run out, now. The vehicle's on its way. You can let your people know what's happened."

She nodded, watching the orders carried out. Despite her experience of darkness in the center of the ceiling, it seemed to transmit abundant sunlight of an eerie yellow-green character. No wonder she and Kamanov had been expected! She could make out, she realized with astonishment, fuzzy-edged silhouettes of her would-be rescuers, Empleado's four musclemen, who'd be the next to come through unless they exercised extraordinary care.

She glanced down, wondering about the vehicle. Under her feet, through the supporting mesh, she noticed a sight which severely tested her recent reorientation. The thick green columns seemed to reach into a nether region an infinite distance away, lost in shadows and obscuring haze. Gravity or not, a fall of at least a kilometer awaited before one encountered, at whatever velocity, the real surface of the asteroid. Nor, she became aware, was the bottom of the basket entirely flat and floorlike. Where she'd emerged, she'd just missed dropping into a long central depression worked into its shape, as if it were made to nest a piece of enormous, oddly-shaped equipment. This provoked a laugh: it was just right to cradle one of the shuttles!

One of the crustaceans handed her a stiff copper lead terminating in an ordinary alligator clamp. It took a moment to find the right place to clip it on her suit. Following the wire with her eyes, she observed that it had been thrust through the substance of the ceiling. She should have watched how that was done, she admonished herself. On the other hand, there was too much to be watched all at once.

Meantime, a soft humming from below announced the arrival of the vehicle. She'd have to hurry not to be left behind. She recited the names of three misunderstood and martyred socialist statesmen who, according to her schoolbooks, had made America what it was today:

"Dole, McCain, Hatch? General Gutierrez, this is Major Reille y Sanchez. Do you copy?"

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Framed