Already several steps down the staircase, Drrm stopped and turned. Brad still stood in the middle of the circular room, the rain pounding on him and the others. Some of the Gammans had flattened themselves against the curving wall in a pitiful effort to get out of the downpour.
“You are not a Sky Master,” Drrm said. “You cannot speak for the Sky Masters. Their commands are eternal.”
Thinking on his feet faster than he had ever done in his life, Brad countered, “The Sky Masters send the monsters from Beta, don’t they?”
“Yes.”
Raising his pistol above his head, Brad said, “I have killed many of the monsters. And I can kill many more.”
“But that is wrong,” Brrd argued.
From the rear of the column of Gammans, Mnnx asked, “Did the Sky Masters send you to us, Brrd?”
Brad leaped at the excuse. “Yes! The Sky Masters sent me to save you.”
“No!” Drrm gasped. “That cannot be. Their commands are eternal.”
The rain was slithering down his helmet, and Brad could hear his suit’s air-circulation fans whining like angry insects. Pointing at Drrm with his free hand, Brad challenged, “You told me that there was a time before the Sky Masters brought on the death time, a time of many villages.”
Drrm hesitated before finally answering reluctantly, “Yes, long ago.”
“Then their commands are not eternal. They change their commands.”
“Yes, but…” Drrm fell silent.
“I bring you the new command of the Sky Masters. Live! Do not submit to the monsters from Beta. Save yourselves.”
The Gammans muttered among themselves. This is a lot for them to swallow, Brad knew. But he also knew that he had one powerful force working in his favor. They didn’t really want to die. Like all living organisms they had an innate drive to survive, to struggle against death.
At last Drrm said, “You bring us the new commands of the Sky Masters.”
Careful, Brad warned himself. Don’t carry this so far that you can’t get free of it.
“You don’t have to die,” he repeated. “You don’t have to give yourselves up to the monsters from Beta.”
* * *
Aboard the Odysseus, Kosoff glared at the holographic display with anger boiling deep inside him.
“He’s interfering with their basic beliefs!” he growled. “He’s breaking every rule we’ve established for contact with an alien civilization.”
Littlejohn, sitting to one side of Kosoff’s desk, pointed out, “Unfortunately, there’s nothing we can do about it.”
The two men were watching the video transmission from Brad’s biosuit, knowing that what they were seeing had happened minutes earlier.
“He’s taking it upon himself to appear to them as a savior, a god!” Kosoff rumbled. “That’s reprehensible.”
“He’s trying to save their lives,” Littlejohn said.
“Reprehensible,” Kosoff repeated.
Abruptly, Emcee’s face appeared in the three-dimensional display. “Dr. Abbott wishes to speak to you, Professor. Urgently.”
“Not now,” Kosoff snapped.
“Dr. Abbott has traced the means by which the felines of Beta are transported to planet Gamma, sir.”
“Not now, dammit!”
“As you wish, sir.”
The view from Brad’s helmet of the Gammans standing in the rain-soaked upper floor of the village’s largest building returned to the three-dimensional display.
* * *
Mnnx came up to Brad. “Are you truly from the Sky Masters, Brrd?”
Nodding inside his helmet, Brad replied, “I come from a village in the sky, my friend. I’ve come to save you from the monsters.”
Still standing several steps down the staircase, Drrm insisted, “No, that cannot be. It is wrong. We must do as the Sky Masters commanded.”
“If it cannot be,” Brad challenged, “how could I kill the monsters? Why would the Sky Masters allow me to kill them if they didn’t want you to live?”
“There will be more monsters from Beta.”
“And I will kill them, too,” Brad retorted, hoping his pistol had enough charge to do the job.
Mnnx said to Drrm, “Don’t you see, Drrm? The Sky Masters have sent Brrd to save us.”
“And what do we do when the death time passes and the new Folk arise from the fields?”
Brad said, “We go beyond the hills that surround this village and build a new village for them.”
For several long moments Drrm stood frozen on the staircase, with the rain pouring down so hard that Brad could hardly make out his figure. The other Gammans who had started down the steps with him had backed away slightly, leaving the village leader standing alone, drenched, looking forlorn.
Brad asked, “Is everyone here? Are there any of us missing?”
Lnng answered from the head of the staircase, “Grrl and his hut mates. I was going to get them and bring them here when you appeared, Brrd.”
Starting for the stairs, Brad said, “Let’s go get them. I’ll go with you.”
Drrm seemed to stiffen. Drawing himself up to his full height, he said, “I will go with you.”
Grinning inside his helmet, Brad said, “Good.”
And the three of them started down the stairs.
Kosoff’s voice grumbled in Brad’s earphones, “You’re violating every ethical rule in the book.”
Switching to his suit’s intercom mode, so the Gammans couldn’t hear him, Brad replied, “The alternative is to let them be killed, and I can’t do that.”
Then he clicked back to the translating computer’s channel, happy that Kosoff couldn’t bother him again for almost four minutes.
With Drrm in the lead and Lnng behind him, they sloshed through the floodwater on the ground level and stopped at the building’s only door. It was wide open and outside the rain was teeming down more heavily than ever. The wind was roaring like a wild beast. Mithra’s glare and the eerie light from Beta were all but obliterated by the freshly growing clouds boiling across the sky. Brad could barely see across the village compound to the buildings on the other side.
“Which one is Grrl’s hut?” he asked.
Drrm pointed. “There.”
Like all the other buildings, the hut’s door was wide open.
Turning, Brad shouted up the stairs, “Close the door behind us. Keep the monsters out.”
Drrm started out into the rain, but Brad held him back. “Wait. Look for cats first.” And he hoped that the computer translated “cats” to a word the Gammans could understand.
He switched on the helmet’s infrared night-vision optics. The compound looked clear, although the wind was blowing so hard that twigs, brush, entire tree limbs were tumbling across the compound.
Drrm stepped out into the downpour as if he had no fear of monsters from Beta.
“This way,” he said.
Brad grinned inwardly. Drrm’s trying to recapture the leadership of his people. Well, he’s welcome to it.
Gripping his pistol, Brad stepped out beside Drrm. Lnng followed behind them.