Athaclena moaned and buried her face in her hands. Crazy Earthlings! What have they done to me?

She recalled how her father had bid her to learn more about human ways, to overcome her odd misgivings about the denizens of Sol III. But what had happened? She had found her destiny entwined with theirs, and it was no longer within her power to control it.

“Father,” she spoke aloud in Galactic Seven. “I fear.”

All she had of him was memory. Even the nahakieri glimmer she had felt back at the burning Howletts Center was unavailable, perhaps gone. She could not go down to seek his roots with hers, for tutsunacann lurked there, like some subterranean beast, waiting to get her.

More metaphors, she realized. My thoughts are filling with them, while my own glyphs terrify me!

Movement in the hall outside made her look up. A narrow trapezoid of light spilled into the room as the curtain was drawn aside. The slightly bowlegged outline of a chim stood silhouetted against the dim glow.

“Excuse me, Mizz Athaclena, ser. I’m sorry to bother you during your rest period, but we thought you’d want to know.”

“Ye …” Athaclena swallowed, chasing more mice from her throat. She shivered and concentrated on Anglic. “Yes? What is it?”

The chim stepped forward, partly cutting off the light. “It’s Captain Oneagle, ser. I’m,. . . I’m afraid we can’t locate him anywhere.”

Athaclena blinked. “Robert?”

The chim nodded. “He’s gone, ser. He’s just plain disappeared!”

35

Robert

The forest animals stopped and listened, all senses aquiver. A growing rustle and rumble of footfalls made them nervous. Without exception they scuttled for cover and watched from hiding as a tall beast ran past them, leaping from boulder to log to soft forest loam.

They had begun to get used to the smaller two-legged variety, and to the much larger kind that chuffed and shambled along on three limbs as often as two. Those, at least, were hairy and smelled like animals. This one, though, was different. It ran but did not hunt. It was chased, yet it did not try to lose its pursuers. It was warm-blooded, yet when it rested it lay in the open noon sunshine, where only animals stricken with madness normally ventured.

The little native creatures did not connect the running thing with the kind that flew about in tangy-smelling metal and plastic, for that type had always made such noise, and reeked of those things.

This one, though… this one ran unclothed.

“Captain, stop!”

Robert hopped one rock farther up the tumbled boulder scree. He leaned against another to catch his breath and looked back down at his pursuer.

“Getting tired, Benjamin?”

The chim officer panted, stooping over with both hands on his knees. Farther downslope the rest of the search party lay strung out, some flat on their backs, barely able to move.

Robert smiled. They must have thought it would be easy to catch him. After all, chims were at home in a forest. And just one of them, even a female, would be strong enough to grab him and keep him immobile for the rest to bundle home.

But Robert had planned this. He had kept to open ground and played the chase to take advantage of his long stride.

“Captain Oneagle …” Benjamin tried again, catching his breath. He looked up and took a step forward. “Captain, please, you’re not well.”

“I feel fine,” Robert announced, lying just a little. Actually, his legs shivered with the beginnings of a cramp, his lungs burned, and his right arm itched all over from where he had chipped and peeled his cast away.

And then there were his bare feet…

“Parse it logically, Benjamin,” he said. “Demonstrate to me that I am ill, and just maybe I’ll accompany you back to those smelly caves.”

Benjamin blinked up at him. Then he shrugged, obviously willing to clutch at any straw. Robert had proven they could not run him down. Perhaps Jogic might work.

“Well, ser.” Benjamin licked his lips. “First off, there’s the fact that you aren’t wearing any clothes.”

Robert nodded. “Good, go for the direct. I’ll even posit, for now, that the simplest, most parsimonious explanation for my nudity is that I’ve gone bonkers. I reserve the right to offer an alternative theory, though.”

The chim shivered as he saw Robert’s smile. Robert could not help sympathizing with Benjamin. From the chim’s point of view this was a tragedy in progress, and there was nothing he could do to prevent it.

“Continue, please,’ Robert urged.

“Very well.” Benjamin sighed. “Second, you are running away from chims under your own command. A patron afraid of his own loyal clients cannot be in complete control of himself.”

Robert nodded. “Clients who would throw this patron into a straitjacket and dope him full of happy juice first chance they got? No good, Ben. If you accept my premise, that I have reasons for what I’m doing, then it only follows that I’d try to keep you guys from dragging me back.”

“Um …” Benjamin took a step closer. Robert casually retreated one boulder higher. “Your reason could be a false one,” Benjamin ventured. “A neurosis defends itself by coming up with rationalizations to explain away bizarre behavior. The sick person actually believes—”

“Good point,” Robert agreed, cheerfully. “I’ll accept, for later discussion, the possibility that my ‘reasons’ are actually rationalizations by an unbalanced mind. Will you, in exchange, entertain the possibility that they might be valid?”

Benjamin’s lip curled back. “You’re violating orders being out here!”

Robert sighed. “Orders from an E.T, civilian to a Terragens officer? Chim Benjamin, you surprise me. I agree that Athaclena should organize the ad hoc resistance. She seems to have a flair for it, and most of the chims idolize her. But I choose to operate independently. You know I have the right.”

Benjamin’s frustration was evident. The chim seemed on the verge of tears. “But you’re in danger out here!”

At last. Robert had wondered how long Ben could maintain this game of logic while every fiber must be quivering over the safety of the last free human. Under similar circumstances, Robert doubted many men would have done better.

He was about to say something to that effect when Benjamin’s head jerked up suddenly. The chim put a hand to his ear, listening to a small receiver. A look of alarm spread across his face.

The other chims must have heard the same report, for they stumbled to their feet, staring up at Robert in growing panic.

“Captain Oneagle, Central reports acoustic signatures to the northeast. Gasbots!”

“Estimated time of arrival?”

“Four minutes! Please, captain, will you come now?”

“Come where?” Robert shrugged. “We can’t possibly make the caves in time.”

“We can hide you.” But from the tone of dread in his voice, Benjamin clearly knew it was useless.

Robert shook his head. “I’ve got a better idea. But it means we have to cut our little debate short. You must accept that I’m out here for a valid reason, Chim Benjamin. At once!”

— The chim stared at him, then nodded tentatively. “I — Idon’t have any choice.”

“Good,” Robert said. “Now take off your clothes.”

“S-serr…”

“Your clothes! And that sonic receiver of yours! Have everybody in your party strip. Remove everything! As you love your patrons, leave on nothing but skin and hair, then come join me up in those trees at the top of the scree!”

Robert did not wait for the blinking chim to acknowledge the strange command. He turned and took off upslope, favoring the foot most cut up by pebbles and twigs since his early morning foray had begun.

How much time remained? he wondered. Even if he was correct — and Robert knew he was taking a terrible gamble — he would still need to get as much altitude as possible.