Lost and Found (5 page)

“What did happen was that a whole squad of Vilenjji showed up and came lurching into the grand enclosure. That’s the big central area where all the captives are allowed to mix with one another. I hadn’t seen that many of them all in one place before, and I haven’t seen that many together again since. They must’ve been pretty ticked off. The Sesu, I later found out, mate in quartets. Remove any one of the four and you lose breeding capability. No wonder the Vilenjji were upset. They carried these funny-looking, squat little balloonlike guns that spat out some kind of fast-hardening glue. In less than a minute that Tripodan, big and strong as it was, had no more range of motion than the statue I used to piss on in the park back home.”

Walker’s tone was subdued. “What did they do to it—to the Tripodan?”

“Took it away. Never saw it again.” The dog rose, stretched. “Maybe now it’s a doorstop in some high-ranking Vilenjji’s office. If they have ranks. If they have offices. Me, I’ve got my standard defense all prepared in case something like that comes after me. I back into a corner and whine my guts out.” He eyed the solemn-faced human tellingly. “You ought to try it. Works wonders. Even on aliens.”

“I’ll keep it in mind.” Walker intended nothing of the kind. He hadn’t made first string outside linebacker at a major American university by whining in the face of adversity.

Of course, he reminded himself, then he had only been competing against corn-fed 300-pounders from Nebraska and swift tailbacks from the small towns of Texas—not seven-foot-tall aliens who controlled immobilizing electrical fields and paralyzing glue guns. Perhaps under certain circumstances the occasional whine could be countenanced. Like, to preserve his life.

It was getting dark. Walker glanced back at his tent, then toward the invitingly open environment that constituted George’s reconstituted urban backstreet. He studied the decaying trash, the torn and tattered cardboard cartons, the rusting ruin of a once-grand automobile, and decided that a change of surroundings could wait. Apparently, the dog had been thinking along the same lines but had come to a different decision.

“Mind if I stay with you tonight, Marc?”

Walker turned toward the corridor. It was still empty, still silent. Still fraught with ominous possibilities better left unconsidered. “Won’t you miss your place?”

“My ‘place’?” With a twist of his shaggy head, George gestured back the way he had come. “That dump’s just where I happened to be hanging out when the Vilenjji picked me up. I’m an orphan, Marc. Lot of us in Chicago.” Without waiting for further invitation, he trotted past the commodities trader. “Your place looks clean. I’ve never been in the mountains. Not much of that in Illinois.” Dark, soulful eyes stared up at him. “I can whimper longingly, if it will help, and lick your hand.”

Walker had to grin. “I didn’t know dogs were capable of sarcasm.”

“Are you kidding? We’re masters of it. In fact, we’re so good at it that you humans don’t know when we’re having a laugh at your expense. So, what do you say?”

Another glance toward the threatening, dark corridor wherein nightmares dwelled. “What about the Vilenjji? Won’t they object to two of their specimens doubling up?”

George shrugged. “Only one way to find out. Nothing we can do about it if they do.”

Walker rose from where he had been sitting. With the setting of the “sun,” the temperature was starting to cool rapidly. “Actually, I was going to ask you if you’d stay.”

The dog spoke while sniffing industriously at the entrance to the tent. “Us terrestrials have to stick together. At least until we find out what the Vilenjji ultimately want with us.”

Despite his boredom, his isolation, and his continuing depression, as he walked over to the entrance Walker fervently hoped that day still lay far in the future. “It’s a big tent. There’s plenty of room. Glad to have the company. Just one thing.”

George looked up at him. “I’ll go outside to do my thing, if that’s what you’re wondering. Technically I’m not housebroken, because I’ve never had a house, but I don’t do business where I sleep.”

“It’s not that.” Walker felt slightly uncomfortable, having to put into words a request he had never previously had to articulate. “It’s just that, well—do you mind if I pet you once in a while?”

The dog grinned back up at him and replied, in an excellent impersonation of the commodities trader’s voice, “Actually, I was going to ask you.”

When the hooting of a counterfeit owl woke Walker up in the middle of the night, he found a warm, dark mass pressed tightly up against him. Somehow, the dog had wormed its way into the sleeping bag without waking its principal occupant. Walker’s initial reaction was to shove the furry lump out into the tent proper. Instead, he ended up gently raising his left arm and circling it over the warm body, to snug it just a little closer. Deep in sleep, George snuffled once, then lay quiet. The arrangement worked well enough for the rest of the night, except for one time when the dog woke the commodities trader a second time by kicking out with his hind legs. Walker decided to persevere and ignore the kick. He would get used to it.

He’d once had a girlfriend who snored, but never a sleeping partner who kicked.

Perhaps the Vilenjji did not care where George slept, Walker reflected the following morning. More likely, they were pleased to have a new relationship to study. Walker did not care. After weeks of isolation, it was good to have company, and an affable dog was better than nothing. A chatty, talking dog who’d had his IQ boosted was a good deal better.

Their captors must have been pleased. Breakfast brought forth not only the usual food bricks, but a flexible metal bowl full of bite-sized food cubes. Maybe it was the presence of his new companion, but the new food reminded Walker uncomfortably of kibble. It didn’t taste like dog food, however. The blue ones tasted like chicken. The pink ones tasted like the blue ones. The yellow, lavender, green, and gold ones all tasted like boiled brussels sprouts, which only proved how little the Vilenjji actually knew about human beings. As if by way of unintentional compensation, two silvery sapphire cubes tasted like fresh banana pudding.

As soon as his palate encountered one of the latter cubes, he made a show of consuming it and its complement as slowly as possible, running his face through the gamut of expressions of ecstasy. Whether his performance would result in more of the silver banana-ish cubes being provided he did not know, but he was determined to try. Although he did not make the connection, what he had done was the human equivalent of George wagging his tail. To top it all off, in addition to the usual cylinder of water, there was a second, smaller one full of some pale gingery liquid. Though it tasted like weak cola, it might as well have been champagne. By the time he had finished eating, Walker felt as if he had consumed the equivalent of a full five-course meal at the best restaurant in New Orleans.

That was when he noticed George looking at him oddly.

“Well, what is it? What’s wrong?”

“Nothing’s wrong,” the dog replied. “Did I say anything was wrong?”

“You’ve got that grin on your face. I know that expression already.”

“How perceptive of you. All right, I’ll tell you. But you’re not going to like it. I was watching your face while you ate, especially those silver-metallic things. You were begging. You weren’t sitting up on your hindquarters holding your paws out in front of you and sticking out your tongue, but you were begging.”

Walker looked away. “I was not,” he groused.

“Why deny it? As long as you know what you’re doing, and why you’re doing it, there’s no reason to be ashamed. Humans beg all the time. For better jobs, for sexual favors, for the appreciation of their fellows. Is that a higher calling than begging for food? Why do you think you suddenly rated a better spread, anyway?”

Actually, Walker realized, he’d been so busy sampling the new comestibles that he hadn’t thought about it. He said as much.

“It’s because you’re cooperating. You haven’t done anything stupid, like try to kill yourself. And you’ve interacted constructively with me. And vice versa. I got better food, too.”

“I did try to break out and jump one of the Vilenjji,” he argued, even as he drained the last of the ginger drink from its container.

“That’s not stupid: that’s expected,” George countered unhesitatingly.

“I was going to collect rocks and throw them at the Vilenjji.”

The dog’s mouth opened and his tongue emerged. He was laughing, Walker saw. “You think any entities smart enough to build something like this ship and travel between the stars a-hunting specimens like me and you aren’t bright enough to take steps to protect themselves from the disgruntled? The electrical barriers that restrain us? The deeper you try to penetrate one, the stronger the shock becomes.”

“I know that,” Walker informed him. “I’ve tried it.”

George nodded. “Everybody does. So did I. We’ve got one fellow prisoner, doesn’t look like much, but she can spit acid. In my book, that trumps throwing rocks as a potential threat. If you could push deep enough into the restraint field, without it first killing you, it would strengthen enough to fry your bones. Same thing would happen to any rocks you threw. Or acid someone spit. The Vilenjji may be big, and ugly, and gruff, but they’re not stupid.

“In addition to failing, the attempt would cost you a day’s rations, at least. I get the impression that they like their specimens to stay healthy and in one piece. But that doesn’t mean they won’t mete out punishment if they feel it’s deserved. Through withholding food or, in the case of the disappeared Tripodan, something worse.”

Seated by the shore of the lake, dangling his bare feet in the cold water, Walker nibbled on the last of the standard food bricks. “So we get rewarded for good behavior, punished for bad. There are no variables?” A twinge of anxious anticipation tickled his mind. “They don’t, for example, try to train you? To perform tricks or something?”

George shook his head, rubbed at one eye. “Not so far. Not that I couldn’t handle it if they did.”

“Of course you could,” Walker assured him. “You’re a dog.”

Eye cleared, George looked up. “And you’re a human. Don’t try to tell me humans aren’t trainable. You have jobs, don’t you? Mange, I could train you myself.”

“Don’t get cocky just because you can talk and reason,” Walker advised him. “Humans train dogs. Dogs don’t train humans.”

“Oh no? What about last night? You were going to kick me out of the sleeping bag, weren’t you?”

“I wasn’t—I mean, that was my
decision
to let you stay.”

With a woolly shrug, George slid his front legs out in front of him. “Okay. Have it your way.”

Nothing else Walker could say or do could induce the mutt to resume the discussion.

4

Time passed. Time that Walker was able to track thanks to his watch. Ticking off Central Standard Time, it had no real relevance to his present circumstances. But the mere sight of the digits changing according to what the time was back home helped, in its small chronological way, to mitigate the stress of his captivity.

Then it happened. Without warning, or announcement.

One minute he and George were sitting and watching fake fingerlings swim through the shallows of the transmigrated portion of Cawley Lake. The next, everything beyond the body of water had disappeared. Or rather, had given way.

In place of “distant” mountains and forest there stood an open, rolling meadow. Green sedges fought for space with clusters of what appeared to be rooted macaroni, all dull yellow twists and coils. There were also patches of red weed that was neither true red nor familiar weed, its actual hue shading over significantly into the ultraviolet. Ghost grass. There were trees, some of which entwined to create larger, perfectly geometric forms, while others formed whimsical arches and shelters as they grew.

Roaming over, around, and through the fusion of alien verdure was a Boschian concatenation of beings who looked as if they had stepped whole and entire from the pages of a lost tome by Lewis Carroll. It did not take the edge off their collective consummate weirdness for George to declare that, insofar as he knew, each and every one of the ambulating menagerie was sentient, and at least as intelligent as a dog.

Looking over his shoulder, a momentarily overcome Walker saw his tent standing where he had left it. Beyond lay the empty corridor. To his left were the remnants of the persistent diorama of Sierran mountains and woods. To his right, gravel and lake fragment gave way to George’s cozy urban junkyard. Though he knew he ought to be used to it by now, this arbitrary switching on and off of selected quadrants of reality still retained its ability to disconcert.

Leaning over, he whispered to his companion, “Am I correct in assuming that this is the ‘grand enclosure’ you’ve been talking about?”

George panted softly. “You would be. Not bad, eh? Of course, I don’t know everybody here. Haven’t been on board all that long. But I know a few of the guys. And gals. And others.” He bounded forward. “Come on: I’ll introduce you. No butt sniffing. I learned that right away. Bad protocol.”

Walker wanted to tell his friend that he need not worry, because such thoughts had not occurred to him. Even had he been so caninely inclined, he doubted he could have pursued the activity with any exactness, since some of his fellow oxygen breathers were of such outlandish build and construction that it was difficult to know where butt ended and breathing apparatus began.

It seemed equally unlikely that he would be able to converse with any of them, but the individually attuned transplant that Vilenjji manipulators had inserted into his head transmuted virtually all of the intelligently modulated air that was pushed in his direction into words he could understand.

Looking around as the vigorously tail-wagging George led him away from the tent and deep into the far larger enclosure enabled Walker to gain a much better sense of his surroundings. Not only could he see his own personal pen (a term that wasn’t much more endearing than cell, he reflected, determining then and there never to use it again) receding behind him, he could make out similarly shaped but far more exotic corrals (that wasn’t better either, he decided) nearby. They marched off to the right of his enclosure and to the left of George’s. Though he could not quite make out the final boundaries, it appeared as if the smaller enclosures formed a giant ring, with the grand enclosure across which he was presently striding occupying the center. A garland of compartments surrounding a central open area like pearls flattering a diamond. Strain as he might, and certain the every move of every being within the compound was being watched and recorded, he could not pick out a single monitoring lens or similar device. After a few moments, his attention drawn inexorably to the exotic parade of fellow oxygen breathers, he gave up trying.

George had halted before a pair of the most graceful-looking living things Walker had ever seen. Displaying skin that more nearly resembled glazed porcelain, they had flattened heads with large, doelike eyes and downy hearing organs. Disconcertingly, these could retract completely into their platelike central bodies and reemerge elsewhere. Dressed in shimmering sackcloth holed like Swiss cheese, the pliable bodies themselves undulated like peach-colored gelatin. A brace of long cilia fringed the torsos. Like the rest of the creatures’ bodies, these too were in constant, hypnotic motion. Only the lower limbs, thicker versions of the raylike cilia, exhibited any kind of stability.

“Greetings of the hour, Pyn and Pryrr. You can call me George now.” The dog gestured with his head. “My new companion Marc has gifted me with a new name.”

“Geoorrgg—George,” the one called Pryrr sang. The tone of voice it employed was natural and unaffected, but it sounded like singing to Walker. “Hello, Maaarrrc—Marc.”

“Hello—greetings.” Though he excelled at a profession that rewarded the articulate, Walker found himself momentarily tongue-tied. It was not the appearance of the two aliens that challenged his speech: it was their beauty. The splendor of their shimmering skin, of their mesmerizing movements, and their liquid voices.

George was less overawed. “Marc and I are from the same homeworld. So I guess I’m not a solo anymore.”

Cilia that caught the light like shards of crystal china rippled rhythmically. “That is a goooddd thing, George.” Pyn emphasized pleasure by popping a mutable head through a hole in the front of the flowing garment. “It is good to have the company of another with whooommm one can share memoriess of hooomme.” Limpid orbs surveyed the taller human. “You two cannot mate, I thinnnnk.”

“Lord, no,” Walker blurted. “Different, uh, species. Though George’s and mine do have an association that goes back a long way.”

“Aaaaahhh,” Pryrr sighed—a sound like warm wind rustling tropical palms. “Symbiooootes. Almost as gooooddd.”

“Pyn and Pryrr are Aulaanites,” George explained helpfully. “They were at sea, in what we would call a cooperating lagoon, rehearsing a presentation for an extended family gathering, when the Vilenjji snatched them. Though they can get around okay on dry land, their compartment is mostly heavy water.” Without a farewell, he turned and trotted off. Walker followed. Behind them, the Aulaanites danced in place, cilia describing meaningful streaks of reflective beauty through the accommodating air.

“You told me that the Vilenjji let oxygen breathers interact without constraint. They also let you visit one another’s living spaces?”

“So long as nobody makes trouble, yeah.” The dog nodded in the direction they were going. “Have a look. More interspecies interactions to study.” Slowing, he indicated the small hillock they were approaching. It was covered with something akin to rusted clover that popped and snapped underfoot like fried pork cracklings. “Here’s a good place.” So saying, he turned a few tight circles before settling himself down in the ground cover.

Wincing at the crunching sounds that resulted, Walker sat down next to him. The single large growth that dominated the hillock resembled a giant multiheaded mushroom with dozens of individual translucent caps. They were delicate enough, Walker saw, that they would have moved up and down in a light breeze. But there was no breeze. Only the distant, unvarying whisper of the unseen recyclers that processed the enclosure’s atmosphere.

Spread out before them, several small streams ran downslope to terminate in individual enclosures. In one, Walker thought he could make out harsh light and little growth: some kind of desert environment. In two others, rain appeared to be falling steadily. Highly localized rain.

“You said that the Vilenjji like to study interspecies interactions.”

“That’s just a guess.” Rolling over onto his back, George let his tongue loll lazily out one side of his mouth. With all four paws in the air, he looked almost as relaxed as he did comical. “I haven’t been able to find out what the Vilenjji want with us. Of course, I haven’t talked to everybody here. There are representatives of dozens of different species, hailing from as many different worlds. If you’re interested in asking questions, you can try your luck with any of them.” Turning onto his side, he winked at his friend. “Just don’t get into any fights. Although from what I’ve been able to figure out, the Tripodan was the worst of the lot except for one. It’s gone, and you don’t see much of the other.”

Eyeing the perambulating carnival of alien grotesqueries, Walker wondered how to go about approaching even the least off-putting of them.

“Just mosey up and say hi,” George advised him. “Nothing ventured, nothing gained. I struck up a conversation with the Aulaanites because I thought they were pretty, and I wanted to tell them so. We’ve been friends ever since.” He sniffed at some bright pink growing thing that was thrusting a spherical head up through the ground cover. “The curiosity turned out to be mutual. Pyn and Pryrr find my appearance, as they put it, ‘inconceeeeivably undisciiiiiplined.’”

Leaning back with knees up and palms on the ground, Walker watched something like a miniature elephant crossed with a flock of flamingos amble past in front of them. “I wonder what they thought of me?”

“Ask ’em,” George advised. “They’re not shy. Very few of the captives are shy. Any that naturally are tend to lose it after spending a few months by themselves alone in their own enclosures.”

“Months?” Walker looked down sharply. “Some of these beings have been here for months?”

The dog sneezed, pulled back from the pink pop-up. “That’s what I’ve been told. Among those I’ve spoken to, a few have been here longer than a year. Divide that by the number of worlds represented by the diversity of abducted individuals you see, and it’s clear that our friends the Vilenjji not only know how to cover a lot of ground, but have been very busy.”

“But what’s it all for?” With a wave of a hand, Walker took in the grand enclosure and its surrounding necklace of smaller, individual living compartments. “Why do they keep picking up individuals from so many different worlds? Just to study them?”

“I told you: I don’t know. Maybe some of our fellow inmates do. If so, I haven’t met them yet.”

“Somebody must know,” Walker murmured thoughtfully. “If only from questioning the Vilenjji.”

“Ah yeah, the Vilenjji.” George snorted. “Our oh-so-talkative hosts.”

“You said that
you’ve
talked to them.” Walker’s tone was mildly accusing.

“Couple of times, yeah. Briefly. About all I managed to get out of them, I’ve already told you. They can be damned close-mouthed.”

Over the course of the following weeks Walker met more of his fellow captives. Some were open and friendly, others shy, a few grudgingly antisocial. The latter he tried to avoid, though none of them were really hostile. Not, as a glum and permanently depressed Halorian observed to him, like a Tripodan. In mass they ranged from the single elephantine Zerak he had first seen while seated on the hillock with George, to the trio of turkey-sized Eremot, with their color-changing fur and comical waddling gait. Some were naturally as bright as a human. Others, like George, had been given the Vilenjji brain boost and had learned subsequently how to communicate and learn. It seemed strange that none were demonstrably more intelligent than an increasingly downhearted commodities trader from Chicago, Illinois.

“Maybe they can’t catch anyone smarter,” George suggested when Walker broached the subject to him. “Or maybe they’re afraid to try. Or constrained by other considerations. We don’t know. We don’t know anything, really, Marc.”

“I know that I’m getting out of here,” he shot back defiantly. But in his heart he knew better.

His isolation as well as his destiny were brought home to him forcefully one day, as it was to everyone else who happened to be wandering within the grand enclosure at that time. One moment all was as it was normally; creatures wandering, conversing, contemplating in silence, some playing interspecies games of their own devising. The next, the artificial sky had vanished, giving way to a shallow-domed transparency. With the sky went the light, so that everyone in the enclosure suddenly found themselves standing or sitting or lying or hovering in darkness. It was not total, however. There was some light. As his surprised eyes adjusted, Walker saw its source.

Stars.

Thousands of them. Probably millions, but all he could see were thousands. That was enough, shining in an unbroken spray through the now transparent ceiling. All the colors of the rainbow, like jewels scattered on black velvet, they shone in all their collective galactic magnificence through the crystal clear ceiling of the grand enclosure. Whether the view had been made available intentionally or by accident, perhaps caused by a glitch in some wiring or computer program, Walker never knew. It lasted for a couple of minutes. Then it was gone. The simulated sky returned, a neutral pale blue. Synthetic clouds drifted, gray and low, hinting at rain that would never fall. Fake sunset loomed inexorably.

For no specific reason, tears welled up in Walker’s eyes. Standing there gazing at the alien stars, he had made no sound: simply wept wordlessly. George sat quietly nearby, watching his friend, tail (for a change) not wagging. After awhile he said, “I’d join you if I could, Marc, but dogs don’t cry. Only on the inside.”

Kneeling, still staring at the sky where the stars had been, Walker let his hand fall to the woolly head. As he stroked it gently, George closed his eyes, his expression one of pleasure and transitory contentment.

“That’s all right, George. I know you feel the same.”

“How else could I feel?” Slipping out from beneath his friend’s companionable hand, he rose and started back toward the tent. “Let’s get something to eat. You got any of those power bars left? Not the trail granola—that stuff tastes like Styrofoam packing pellets. The ones with the dried fruit.”

Straightening, Walker wiped at his eyes and nodded. “I think so. Why? You hungry?”