Derec looked up. The firing had stopped, and there was no sign of the robot. “Close the panels,” he said, then tongued the radio switch. “Monitor 5, go back to the installation. There’s nothing you can do for me out here.”
Just then, a metallic arm appeared above the lip of the trench, the hand clutching a small silver object. A moment later Monitor 5 struggled out of the trench. Starting toward Derec, Monitor 5 raised the silver object triumphantly overhead in one hand.
“The key is here, Derec. You must take it-”
The robot’s triumph did not last long. The raider ship was now a great ominous mass directly overhead. Monitor 5 had barely taken a step when the laser fire started up again. Red targeting beams danced like spotlights on a stage on the ice around it.
For a moment it seemed as though the robot was going to escape destruction. Then, a dozen strides from the foot of the cliff, a laser tracked a fiery line across the robot’s torso. An instant later, Monitor 5 disappeared in a silent explosion, all blue-green flame and disintegrating metal.
Disappeared-but not completely. The explosion sent pieces flying in all directions. One of the largest, spinning so rapidly Derec could not tell what it was, came cartwheeling toward him. As it struck the ground and skidded to a stop, Derec saw what it was: Monitor 5’s right arm, from the shoulder joint to the fingers.
And still gripped tightly in those fingers was the shining silver object-a rectangle perhaps five centimeters by fifteen centimeters, the size of a remote controller or a memory cartridge.
Could this be the object that the robots were so obsessively searching for all this time? If so, then why had Monitor 5’s last act been to try to give it to Derec?
For a moment Derec hesitated. To retrieve the object was an additional risk in an enterprise which was already too risky. But he knew that it was impossible for him to simply leave it lying there. Ripping the specialized end effectors from the augment’s arms, Derec slapped the general-purpose grapples back in place.
“Power up system twenty-four,” he snapped, and the sole red lamp on the augment’s status board turned to green.
His descent down the slope to where the arm rested was a controlled fall at best. With the leg servos jimmied, Derec could not control a walking gait. But he got there all the same, seizing the arm and the artifact in his right hand and locking the grapple.
Gathering his feet under himself, Derec glanced upward to gauge the distance and angle to the raider ship. He lifted his feet on the control pads, and the suit went into a crouch. He jammed his feet down hard, and the powerful legs of the augment kicked out with all their unrestrained might. Like a tiny spacecraft, the augment launched itself from the surface, carrying Derec toward a rendezvous with the raider ship.
One way or another, I’m coming aboard-
Suddenly the entire surface of the asteroid seemed to shudder and rise up in a convulsion. The robots had triggered their self-destruct at last, and the explosion sent a hailstorm of fragments blasting outward like space shrapnel.
Almost immediately, the weapons pods of the raider ship sprang to life. At first Derec thought that they were aiming at him, trying to get him before he was lost in the deluge of ice and rock boulders which had erupted from the asteroid. Then it seemed as though the gunners were targeting the debris itself, the smaller and faster-moving bits of which were already overtaking him.
Whichever was their goal, the net effect was the same: when he was within about a hundred meters of the nearest part of the ship and beginning to scan for a place to latch on with his free hand, the entire bubble faceplate of the augment lit up with a blue light that crawled in all directions like something alive.
Derec’s limbs went numb and his senses went wild. He had only enough time to thinkNot again! before the light faded and darkness took him away once more.
Despite all the tumult which had surrounded him as he had lost consciousness, Derec came back to awareness calmly and easily. He could not say how long he had been unconscious, but it had to have been more than a few minutes. He was no longer outside the alien ship. For that matter, he was no longer in the augment. Instead, he was lying on his back on hard decking, staring up at a ceiling filled with small doors.
Propping himself up on his elbows, Derec surveyed his surroundings. He was in a narrow room, almost a corridor. The long walls were covered with more doors-storage bins?-and there was an exit at each end-or at least a tall metal ellipse which might be an exit.
Derec did not spend much time wondering about the exits or the contents of the storage bins. A large animal covered with mottled brown and gold fur squatted on its haunches nearby, watching Derec. It reminded Derec of a dog, like an undersized Saint Bernard with the alert eyes of a wolf. But the face was too flat, the ears too high and pointed, and the forelegs ended not in paws but in grayskinned sausagelike fingers.
Whatever it was, he had never seen anything like it before. Moving slowly so as not to alarm the creature, Derec sat up. When he did, the creature sidled forward a step and cocked its head.
“Arr ‘u aw right?” it asked in a guttural voice.
Derec could not have been more surprised if the creature had suddenly molted and turned into a butterfly. Not only speech, but Standard-however curiously accented-
I-I think so,” he stammered.
“That iss good,” the creature said. “Aranimas will be pleased. ‘Ee did not want ‘u ‘armed.”
“The best way to guarantee that is not to shoot at people.”
“Eff we ‘ad been shooting at ‘u, we would ‘ave ‘it ‘u,” the alien said with a tooth-bearing grimace that might have been a smile or a threat display.
Though that message was garbled, other body language was coming through more clearly. The alien’s crouch struck Derec as a posture from which it could spring quickly. Seated, he was at a disadvantage both in agility and reach, a fact which he felt keenly when he met the alien’s gaze. Their eyes were on the same level, but Derec felt threatened, intimidated.
Still moving slowly, Derec felt for the wall behind him and hauled himself to his feet. The alien’s only reaction was to rise with him. When both were standing, the tips of the alien’s ears reached only to Derec’s chest, and the psychological comfort that went with being the taller shifted to Derec.
“What are you?” he demanded.
“ ’Urr friend,” the alien said. “What morr do ‘u need to know?”
“There’s a hundred forty colonized worlds, and there’s nothing like you on any of them.”
“Wherr I come from therr arr two ‘undred colonized worlds, and nothing like ‘u on any of them,” the alien said, grimacing again. Thistime, the circumstances seemed to call more clearly for a smile, and Derec decided that’s what it was. “Come. Aranimas iss waiting.”
“Who is Aranimas?”
“Aranimas iss ship’s boss. ‘Ull see,” the alien said, turning away and starting toward the far door.
“Wait,” Derec called. “What’s your name?”
The alien stopped and turned. It opened its mouth and out poured a torrent of sounds not in any human alphabet-like a growl punctuated with a sibilant hiss and sounds like bubbles popping. Then the alien smiled-grimaced. “Can say?”
Derec shook his head sheepishly. “No.”
“Thought not. Come, then. Not wise to keep Aranimas waiting.”
Taking a brisk loping pace, the alien led Derec through three more compartments identical to the one he had awakened in. Derec wondered briefly about the mismatch between his escort and the design of the ship they were in. The overhead storage bins were far above Derec’s head; he doubted if he could reach them even by jumping. Unless the caninoid alien were as agile a climber as a terrestrial primate, it would need a ladder to get to their contents.