IGMS Issue 2 (25 page)

The cap's horn had suddenly gone dead, too.

Felder appeared in the cabin. "Neither of them is where they were," he said. "So here's what we do. We're going out, just as we planned. Set your beamers to mid-level -- I don't want to kill these things, whatever they are, just make 'em move away. I've got a signal on the S.O. It's weak, so we'll go after her first." He turned to Postelwaite. "Jim, you stay with the ship. If the other shuttle gets through from above, report what we've found. If they burn a big enough hole, and we're not back in two hours, tear the hell out of here. Got it?"

Postelwaite nodded. "Clear as ice."

Felder turned to the rest of us.

"Make sure those bio suits" -- he glared at Simmons, who was quickly climbing back into his -- "are tight, and your O2 is ready. Since we only have an hour of air, for now you can crack a vent and use the atmosphere outside." He looked from one to the other of us, then nodded. "Okay, let's do it."

When he opened the lock there was a smooth wall of green in front of us, luminescent as colored glass.

As soon as the door slid closed behind us, the wall turned into an army of figures.

They melted right out of it like liquid. They were human looking enough -- too human, if you know what I mean, since they weren't clothed. The gals looked like, well, gals, and the guys . . . you get the picture.

They had us surrounded before we knew what hit us. I was raising my beamer when one of them slipped his hand, smooth as can be, around my wrist and removed the weapon, like Mama removing a toy from a bad tot.

The smooth wall was still there, and it was moving back as we approached it. Then, abruptly, it receded a long way, making a perfect bright green hallway, which we were led through.

I turned my head and saw that there was now a solid wall behind us, keeping pace about ten feet back. The shuttle was nowhere to be seen.

When I looked forward again I stopped to study the face of my green escort. It looked vaguely familiar. One of the female figures accompanied Felder, and I studied her carefully --

"Hey, Mr. Felder," I murmured through my suit radio, as casually as I could, "you happen to notice --"

"I noticed," he answered. He sounded embarrassed.

Let me tell you: it wasn't every day you were chaperoned by a full sized naked green copy of your commanding officer.

Or of Koprowski.

"They forgot his toothbrush," I muttered.

"Excuse me?" Bill Felder asked, and I saw that he was staring straight ahead, trying not to look at any of the Caps or Koprowskis.

"Forget it," I answered.

As abruptly as they appeared, the bright green figures vanished. I watched one of them melt back into the wall to my left, another one pull up into the ceiling.

We were now in a box, a cube of green about eight feet to a side. I touched the walls. They were firm as concrete.

"Now what?" Simmons said.

"For now, we wait," Felder replied.

"That's fine with me," Simmons answered. "I've got plenty of images I want to leak out of my head."

I noted he had been surrounded by
two
Koprowskis.

"Oh,
my
images ain't so bad," Quint cracked; he had been accompanied by two copies of the Cap.

"That's enough," Felder ordered.

So we waited -- until naked copies of ourselves suddenly appeared, and led us on another trek, this one down a green set of stairs that materialized before us.

"Now I'm
really
gonna have nightmares!" Simmons groaned; this time he was accompanied by two pea-green naked versions of himself.

Quint laughed. "I don't blame you."

"Hey --"

"I said that's enough --" Felder snapped.

At the bottom of the stairs we came face to face with our shuttle -- only made completely of green vegetable matter.

"This can't be real --" Quint began, and Felder answered immediately.

"It isn't. It's a copy, just like the figures. We're forty feet below the real shuttle. I'm still reading its signal above us."

The green door on the green shuttle slid open, and we were escorted inside.

"Well you have to admit this copy is amazing," I remarked. There was exactitude down to the smallest detail, including Simmons' crossword puzzle tab where he'd left it on his seat.

And Science Specialist Jim Postelwaite, who we'd left behind.

He was all green, of course, and naked, but he sure as hell looked like Postelwaite.

Felder said, "Jim?"

The green Postelwaite looked at Felder and said, "Yes, Bill?"

"Hey, you're not the real --" I said.

Green Postelwaite looked at me and began to speak, but at that instant he melted away, along with the entire green shuttle we were in. We found ourselves standing on a flat green expanse -- and there in the distance marching toward us, flanked by one naked green Jameson and two naked green Koprowskis, were the real, fully clothed, captain and tech. They looked embarrassed but determined as hell. One of the naked green Koprowskis bore a closed green pod about three feet in length.

When the cap had reached us she greeted Felder and briefly acknowledged the rest of us. "I suggest we all keep our sight at eye level," she said, and she meant it. "Mr. Simmons, please give our friend here --" she indicated the green naked copy of herself "-- your bio suit. You don't need it to survive down here."

Simmons did as instructed, and there was an awkward silence while the naked green copy of the captain was helped into the bio suit. Once that was done the captain seemed to relax.

I couldn't keep my mouth shut: "Hey Cap," I said, "want us to give the naked Koprowskis our suits?"

"That won't be necessary," she answered. "They won't be staying."

With that, the two nude Koprowskis melted into the floor like water being poured into a drain, leaving the pod behind.

"Gentlemen," the S.O. said, "I'd like you to meet Rena. She'll be coming with us as a representative of her . . . people."

"Not 'people,' exactly, S.O.," the green figure in the bio suit corrected. I noticed that she now looked like Simmons.

As she looked at each of us in turn, she became our doppelganger.

"I can see this is going to be a problem," the cap said.

Rena replied, "Would you rather I assume one set of features?"

"That would be a good idea, if you don't mind."

"It's easily accomplished." She instantly reverted to an exact duplicate of the captain.

Captain Jameson began, "I don't think . . ."

"Hey S.O.," Koprowski cut in; it was the first time he'd spoken since arriving with two naked green duplicates of himself. He'd spent most of his time glowering at Quint, who had been barely hiding his laughter at Koprowski's discomfiture. "Why don't you let Rena be . . ." With his head, he indicated the pod.

Rena instantly approached the pod. She opened it along its seam, reached in briefly, then re-closed it.

When she stood back up she had assumed the features of Rasha Pikal.

I was staring at the pod as Jameson explained, "I assume the rest of Rasha's remains were found on the surface. All Rena needs is a sample of his genetic material to duplicate him."

"The accident is greatly regretted," the green Pikal said. "I shall stay in this shape, at least for the time being, if you wish. Perhaps it will serve as an homage to the slain entity."

"Okay if we call him Reno?" Bill Felder chimed in.

There were no objections. Jameson said, "Reno it is. And, as I said, Reno will be coming with us. This area we are in, which is a kind of oasis, is both one life form and many life forms. Each one of those green patches we saw from orbit is such a gestalt. Basically, they are the only living things in their areas. Even the trees and other plants we saw on the surface are extensions of this one creature. In fact, though they thrive on oxygen, they
became
plant life in order to produce their own oxygen. They nurture themselves. And though there is only one creature, it can live as separate parts. While Reno will be coming with us, he will remain, at the same time, this entire creature."

Reno said, "It will be our one chance to see the stars, and visit other worlds. We would be foolish to pass it up. And we will assist you as needed."

"Not a bad deal," Bill Felder said. "It's too bad poor Pikal didn't get to see this. He would have been thrilled."

"He
is
thrilled, I assure you," Reno said. "As long as I retain his shape and mass, I feel exactly what he would have felt. His brain patterns and memories have become my own. My reactions will be what his reactions would be. He is positively ecstatic, believe me."

"Would Pikal's family object . . .?" I began.

"We'll sort it out later," the cap said. "Right now I want to get back to the
Russell
."

Without any movement from Reno, we found ourselves on the surface of the planet, stepping out of what I later described as "elevator" pods. Another huge pod opened nearby, revealing the shuttle.

Pushing the sticky substance of the pod away from me, I said, "I'd like to get back to the ship too -- and take a shower."

As we stepped into the shuttle, greeted by a baffled, and decidedly ungreen, Postelwaite, the captain said to Reno, "Would you like to take a last look at what you're leaving?"

Reno answered, with what I thought was a trace of a smile, "But captain, I won't be leaving."

That was another one we had to sort out later.

And sort it out we did. We stowed the shuttle, and Jen Jameson plotted a slow boat course for our giant gray golf ball to hit a new wormhole which, when we went through it, would put us in the vicinity of another promising system. It was, I was told, three weeks away. Before we left Epsilon Eridani Two we shot the large scheduled probe out ahead of us, containing my full report, brilliantly written if I do say so myself, as well as the remains of Pikal. Don't ask me how, but with the vagaries of wormholes, the reply drone will be there waiting for us when we reach our next jump point, with the latest news of home, as well as word from Pikal's family.

Later:
as advertised, that reply drone was waiting for us, and it was captured as we prepared to enter the new wormhole and set off on Mission B. The remains of my
P. J.
Award, glued together, have been stowed, along with anything else that might not like that bump.

We got word from Pikal's family: they would be honored to have our new addition exist in the likeness of Pikal. Which is fine with me, because Reno, like Pikal, is a heck of a good chess player. He's beaten me eight times so far, and the last game we played I made the same dumb Queen to Rook 5 move I made in the last game I played with Pikal.

We're about to go through; I can hear Bella Post's bellows of a voice booming through the hallways from her cubicle where she's strapped down like the rest of us. She and the other Techies are singing:

"We're ready to meet with anyone who

Wants to join our little zoo!
"