Space Hostages (17 page)

Y
ou screamed, and I hastened down the ladder, afraid for your life.

I didn't
scream
. You were still spaced out on Takwuk, you probably heard it way screamier than it was. But okay, yes, I did make a bit of a sound as I jumped backward, and I heard the Krakkiluk make a low
grrrrrkrr
sort of noise.

But—it was coming from
behind
the Krakkiluk. And down a bit.

I felt Th
saaa
land beside me in a rush of cold.

The Krakkiluk didn't move. It was
facing
me, but it wasn't looking at me after all. It didn't have
eyes
. And it didn't have internal organs: it had a long split down its abdomen, and inside it was empty, like something very soft and squishy had pulled itself out.

“It's
molted
its
shell
!” I said, suddenly very excited.

“Eeeeeeeee,” said Th
saaa
.
“
That is
disgusting
.”

“
It's not disgusting,” I said. “It's
interesting
. Don't any Morror animals shed their skins? Aww, I wish we could have seen it do it. And now it'll have to wait for its new shell to harden, and I guess it'll have to have all its decorations done again, and—”

There was a splash from behind the shell.

The shell was standing on, like, a special round shedding-your-shell platform, and a ramp led back from this into a bubbling Takwuk bath. The actual Krakkiluk was lying in the water, all pink and raw and floppy looking. Its eyes swiveled toward me, and it moaned and tried to sit up. It managed to lift a weak, rubbery-looking arm but sank back into the water, exhausted. I came a little closer, and it shrank back and sort of curled up behind all its legs.

It was
scared
, I thought. It could hardly move, and with its new shell still growing, it was soft as a poached egg and weak as a kitten. I wondered if it felt naked, and embarrassed, so pink without any paintings or decorations. There weren't any other
Krakkiluks about, so I think maybe molting was very private. Even though it was twice my size, it couldn't hurt me . . . but I could hurt it, I realized. I could probably even kill it. I mean, of course I wasn't going to, but it—I mean, he or she or they—didn't
know
that.

I wondered if it was also a nice person, in a Krakkiluk kind of way, and whether there were Krakkiluks anywhere who didn't agree with the kind of thing the ones we'd met had been doing. Not that it was very helpful right now if there were, but it was still sort of nice to think about.

“It's okay,” I said to it. “We're just passing through. No one's going to hurt you.”

But there was no translator box, so it couldn't understand me.

“
Quick!” breathed Th
saaa
. “Before it recovers its senses and calls for help!”

I looked around. The only obvious way out of the room was back up the lift shaft—there was a door, too, but we'd seen that the only way to open them was by DNA recognition or whatever.

“Oh,
wait
,” I said.

And I went back to the shell and took hold of the claw piece and snapped it off. The Krakkiluk
managed to sit up a bit and groan some more when it saw what I was doing, but it soon flopped back again.

“Sorry,” I said. The Krakkiluk's eyes stared up at me despairingly from above the surface of the water. “I expect taking bits of other people's exoskeletons is rude. But you know, so is kidnapping and trying to kill people, so you have got it coming a bit. You should get a different job.”

It won't work, I thought as I approached the door. There's no way it's going to actually work.

I couldn't reach the panel, even when I jumped. “Th
saaa
, come over here,” I called.

I held out the claw and apparently empty air took it, causing another round of alarmed groans from the pool. “Ohhh, I seeee . . . ,” Th
saaa
said, and they reached up and laid the claw against the panel.

The door opened.

“Yes!” I said, and Th
saaa
went
“Wooooooo!”
, flinging their tentacles wide. I know, because one nearly knocked me over. I don't think I'd ever known them to get so enthusiastic about anything, except maybe tomato ketchup. “Did I not say, Noooooell?” Th
saaa
cried. “We can do
aaaaanything
!”

“Bye-bye!” I called to the raw Krakkiluk in the
bath, as Th
saaa
threw the invisibility gown over me again. It was silly, but maybe I
was
a bit hopped up on the Takwuk fumes too.

We waddled down another corridor, past a mess room where Krakkiluks were eating things that all seemed to have been rolled up into balls—surprisingly tidily; you expected them to be maybe slobbering like jackals or something. The fresher air in the corridor cooled Th
saaa
's head a bit.

“I think we should go back to the cells,” they said. “Now that we have the claw, we can free the others, perhaps. We know where to look for them, at least. But if we go onward—this ship is so large, even if we find the
Helen
, we might never find our way back.”

I hesitated because we might be really close to the
Helen
, and if we found her, we could maybe go and rescue Carl and Alice and Josephine straight away. But Th
saaa
was right. And Lena was so clever, she could probably help.

“Yeah,” I said. “Okay.”

So we doubled back, past the poor naked Krakkiluk and back through the Takwuk baths, trying not to get all giggly and full of ourselves, and through the cargo bay, and the sewage room—but we didn't have to climb up the ladders this time, we used the
lifts
, and finally we were back on the same corridor that led to our cells. And there was the lift that should take us to where the others were being held.

Th
saaa
touched the claw to the panel, and the lift carried us upward. And yes, there was another row of cells like ours. Th
saaa
opened the nearest one.

“It would have been polite to knock,” said a voice.

Lena Jerome was sitting against the back of the cell, her hands folded in her lap, calmly doing nothing at all. And she was wearing not only big fancy earrings but also big fancy bracelets and a big fancy choker necklace that I hadn't seen before; they must have been inside her suit.

She was a very unsurprisable person, but one eyebrow did go up a little bit when she saw the door open and didn't see
us
.

“Ah,” she said. “Well, that puts a different complexion on it. Hello, Th
saaa
.” She snapped her fingers. “Resume,” she said.

Her jewelry poured off her, like it had melted, and split into hundreds of tiny spider robots. They spread into a pool around her before reorganizing themselves into a little gold device which projected a virtual screen on which Lena was soon entering commands, her fingers a blur.

“Wow, that's awesome,” I said. “What are you working on?”

She was, again, surprised enough to raise one eyebrow.
“Noel?”
she said.

I stepped out of the
amlaa-vel-esh
. “It's both of us,” I said.

Lena nodded. “I imagine that must be very uncomfortable,” she said.

“Yeah, it is,” I said. “Can I have a drink of water? Anyway, we're rescuing you. You've gotta come with us.”

“Hmm,” Lena said, getting to her feet. She is
very
tall. “I congratulate you on your escape. But how do you plan on rescuing me?”

There was a pause. Th
saaa
pulled off the
amlaa-vel-esh
, gave it an awkward little shake, and threw it over Lena's head.

Lena's calves and feet stood there looking strange and large and completely visible. “Well, there we are. That won't work,” said Lena. She pulled off the invisibility gown and gravely handed it back to Th
saaa
.

“
Perhaps we can get down to the
Helen
and get a couple more invisibility gowns,” I said.

Lena, already back at work, shook her head once. “It would give them too many opportunities to intercept you.”

The door had slid shut behind us, but a column of gold spider robots crawled under it and joined the others.

“
What are they doing?” Th
saaa
inquired.

“Spying. Infiltrating,” said Lena. “Building on the data from the
Helen
's scans. I'm developing a virtual model of the ship and, at the same time, analyzing its computers.”

“You're
hacking
the ship?” I asked.

“Of course. Why do you think I wanted to delay our capture even when it was inevitable?”

“How can that be
possible
?” breathed Th
saaa
.

“I am a genius aided by thousands of robots that experiment endlessly until they find something that works,” said Lena. “But yes.” She frowned at her virtual screen. “I did not expect to be successful. This is going remarkably well.”

“
Can you open the doors and let the
Helen
out?” I asked.

“It's going to take more than that,” Lena said. “But if this algorithm completes successfully, then yes, perhaps, and I may be able to put out the lights on most of the ship and tamper with the ship's life-support systems.”

“What, you mean, like,
kill
the Krakkiluks?” I asked, alarmed.

“Probably not, but I have some other ideas,” said Lena, staring at her virtual screens. One showed strange shapes and dots that I think must have been the Krakkiluks' writing, and the other was in Häxeri, like it was the translation.

“That should allow you to rescue Mr. Trommler and his daughter and escort them to the
Helen
.”

“What do you mean,
we
can rescue them?” I said. “You're coming too, right? You can turn out all the lights, and then you won't need an invisibility gown and it'll be fine.”

“The lift shaft that leads to the hangar is here,” Lena went on, ignoring what I'd said and bringing up another screen. It showed a map of the inside of the Krakkiluk ship—it wasn't quite complete, there were big blank patches, but a lot of it was there. “I'm labeling this deck 571b for convenience. You'll need to be able to override the systems.”

She looked up. “You'll be going without me,” she added. “When we have concluded this conversation, I will stay in this cell for perhaps another twenty minutes. Then I will head
here
.” She pointed to a detail of her map. “There appears to be a cavity between floors where I can continue to work without being detected.” She reached for the Krakkiluk claw and snapped off a joint. “Do you mind? I can
use the robots to get through the doors, but this will save time.”

“What?” I said, feeling, all of a sudden, very tired and helpless and a bit like crying. “Why would you want to stay on the ship?”

“If they lose their hostages, they lose their power to blackmail either of our species,” Lena said.

“But you toooooo are a hostage,” Ths
aaa
said.

“Only one,” said Lena grimly. “Not very much leverage in only one.” And for a moment she looked down, and her mouth went tight. And I didn't like it.

“President Chakrabarty told Lady Sklat-kli-Slkak that her actions amounted to an act of war. But right now, Earth and Aushalawa-Mo
raaa
have no idea where the enemy is, or where
we
are. We reached the Alpha Centauri system and then vanished, and our captors have succeeded both in sending communications through hyperspace and in disguising the source of the signal so that it is impossible to trace it back to our present location.” She looked at us patiently. “Are you following me so far?” she asked.

“Yes,” I said, feeling a bit patronized.

“They also have Rasmus Trommler, who has supplied ships and weapons to the military for years,” Lena went on, relentlessly. “And he is familiar with Morror technology too; he copied it to build
the
Helen
. He knows more about the military hardware of both our species than anyone. Certainly more than I do. The Krakkiluks already have the advantage. If they learn what he knows, then any attempt to correct that imbalance will be useless if it comes to war. And suppose they torture him. Do you understand that?”

“Yes,”
I said again. “I'm not stupid. I wouldn't want to leave Mr. Trommler even without all that. But I don't see why this means you've got to stay on this stupid ship and probably get killed. I know you've got to open the doors and stuff, but why can't you do that from the
Helen
?”

“I might be able to open the doors of the hangar from on board the
Helen
,” said Lena. “I might be able to disable the tractor beam that brought us onboard in the first place. But I could not
keep it
disabled. Before we were a mile from the ship, I would lose any control over it, and the Krakkiluks would drag us back.”

“Oh,” I said.

“But you could, maybe, leave these robots behind to do your wooooork,” suggested Th
saaa
.

“They'll need my supervision once the Krakkiluks realize they're being hacked and start trying to fight back,” said Lena. “But there is another reason. I think
I can hack the communication systems the Krakkiluks used to telephone Earth. I can contact Earth and Aushalawa-Mo
raaa
. Through hyperspace,
without
the disguise on the signal. I will have to stay on the ship to keep the channel open for as long as possible so that Earth can trace it. I can transmit everything I have learned about this ship and the species that produced it, and all the data I have not been able to analyze. I can show them where we are. Information about the enemy is critical in a time of war.”