“Tacit approval?” Kosoff roared.
It was early morning aboard Odysseus. Kosoff had risen from his bed and troubled dreams about a dark-haired woman who kept eluding him. After his morning ablutions, as he dressed he called Emcee for a report on what Brad was doing.
The master computer coolly informed him of Brad’s legalistic handiwork.
Half dressed, tugging on his trousers, Kosoff sputtered, “He can’t do that! He’s got no right … he needs our approval … the medical department…”
Dispassionately, Emcee replied, “He’s already on his way to the village, without wearing his biosuit.”
Kosoff pulled up his trousers and fastened the belt, then sank down onto his rumpled bed.
“Get Yamagata,” he said, scowling.
After half an hour of talking with the head of the medical department, Kosoff realized that Brad had threaded his way through the mission protocols very neatly. Yamagata had not forbidden Brad to go outside without his protective suit.
“Indeed,” said the Japanese biomedical director, “the young man seems eager to offer himself as a test subject, a guinea pig.”
“Indeed,” Kosoff growled. And cut the connection.
As the holographic display went dark, Kosoff realized he was still sitting on the edge of his bed, half dressed, flustered and feeling completely stymied.
He’s damnably clever, Kosoff said to himself as he tugged on his slippers. MacDaniels is too clever for his own good. He’s making me look like an incompetent, impotent old fool.
Going out on his own, is he? Kosoff simmered. All right. Sooner or later he’s going to take one step too far. And when he does, I’ll be right there to chop the legs out from under him.
* * *
Brad walked through the bright sunshine, unencumbered by his biosuit. He breathed the morning air, delighted in the strange yet not unpleasant odors of alien flowers and plants. Tiny animals scurried through the grass; the local equivalent of birds swooped colorfully overhead.
As he started up the slope toward the village he remembered an old poem from his school days: God’s in his heaven, all’s right with the world.
So far.
He had taken the communications set and the computer translator from the biosuit and clipped them to the belt of his slacks, together with his laser pistol. The cochlear implants Yamagata had set in his skull picked up incoming transmissions easily enough; no need to wear earbuds. He was ready to show himself as he really was to the villagers.
Were they ready to see him this way?
We’ll soon find out, Brad said to himself.
The villagers were busy at their usual tasks, most of them in the farm fields, a few gathered at the entrance to the longhouse. That must be Mnnx, Brad thought, in the middle of the group.
He was nearly halfway down the hill before any of them noticed him. One of the Gammans pointed, and Brad heard, “A stranger!”
They all turned and gaped at him.
They’ve never shown any trace of violence, Brad reminded himself. The nearest thing to weapons they have are those puny hunting sticks. Still, his right hand grasped the butt of the laser pistol hanging from his belt.
The gaggle at the longhouse seemed frozen, staring.
“Hello,” Brad called to them. “It’s me, Brad.”
Mnnx edged through the others and stared at him.
“You are not Brrd,” he said, his voice sounding low, ominous, even in the computer’s translation.
Brad stopped some twenty meters from them. “I am Brad,” he insisted. “And you are Mnnx … Where’s Lnng, out in the fields?”
Slowly, Mnnx stepped closer. The rest of the Gammans remained rooted where they stood.
“You are a stranger. Yet you know my name.”
Putting on a smile, Brad said, “I truly am Brad. This is my true form.”
“True form?”
“Until today, I wore a different form. I wanted to look as much like you as I could. Now we know each other well enough so that I can show myself to you as I really am.”
Mnnx said slowly, suspiciously, “Your hands look like Brrd’s hands, but their color is different.”
“This is the real color of my skin,” Brad explained.
One of the Gammans said, “You look strange. Very short.”
Before Brad could reply, another villager observed, “Your eyes are very small.”
“There’s a hole in your face.”
Brad said, “That’s where I make the sounds you hear. That’s how I speak.”
“And there is fur on the top of your head.”
Spreading his arms, Brad replied, “I told you that my village is far from here…”
“In the sky, you said.”
“My body is different from yours, in some ways.”
“Your old body was better.”
“My people made that body to look like your own as much as possible. But now I am showing you my true body.”
They stood inspecting him, none of them daring to come closer than several meters.
“It is really me. Brad. Your friend.”
None of them moved.
“I have come to help you get through the coming winter. And to help you build a new village for the new Folk.”
Mnnx blinked his big, bulbous eyes, a nictitating membrane sliding over them and then retreating back again.
“You are really Brrd?”
“I am.” Nerving himself, Brad held out his hand. Mnnx hesitated, staring at it, then at last took it in his own tentacled grip. Brad suppressed the shudder of revulsion at the feel of the alien’s hand. He saw that Mnnx seemed stiff, uneasy, too.
Once they released each other, Brad told them, “Soon there will be others like me to help you live through the winter and welcome the new Folk when they rise out of the ground.”
Mnnx turned to one of the Gammans. “Run to the fields. Tell Lnng and the others that Brrd has returned to us.”
Brad let out a gust of pent-up breath. He’s accepted me! he thought. Maybe not one hundred percent, but it’s a beginning.