Dirge - Alan Dean Foster [70]
“What do we have, Miles?” The commander’s eyes were black, small, and intense as a laser. You had to look for them, but nobody wanted to find them.
The captain of the Ronin wore his bemusement as artlessly as his beard. “You read the report from central communications?”
“I’ve heard it.” A flick of the head in the orderly’s direction was sufficient to explain. “Who are these Unop-Patha? I’m not familiar with their kind.”
“I’ll tell you on the way to B hold.” Vaan Leuderwolk smiled through his beard. “I don’t know much about them, either. Just the basics. They have very little contact with us, and we with them. When they popped out of space-plus here a few weeks ago they requested and were subsequently granted permission to do some cultural and scientific survey work.”
Lahtehoja led the way, forcing the captain and the orderly to have to hurry to keep up. “I don’t remember being notified of this arrival.”
Leuderwolk shrugged. “It happened when you were on sleep shift. “Buthefasi over on the Alexander Nevsky didn’t deem it important enough to bother you.”
Lahtehoja muttered something under her breath but did not comment further. She knew it was a failing of hers that she felt the need to know everything about everything that was going on under her command. A good commander had to know how to delegate, a skill that was not among her strengths. Nevertheless, although Buthefasi had acted properly, this was one particular she was sorry she had missed.
Her ignorance was soon to be rectified, however.
Having just listened to as concise a briefing as the relevant department had been able to prepare with virtually no notice at all, vaan Leuderwolk filled her in on what was known about the Unop-Patha as it had been related to him. Occasionally she would nod her understanding or interrupt to ask a precise, terse question. By the time they reached B hold she felt she knew as much about these Unop-Patha as did the captain of the Ronin.
They were waiting for her: half a dozen child-sized aliens with round, almost tubby bodies, big eyes, and no visible ears. What she could see of their bodies was covered with a thick, coarse, green-brown hair. They wore miniature space suits and had removed their headgear. Small black noses with four openings peeped out from near the top of the skull, just barely visible within the dense fur.
Lahtehoja and her small entourage halted before them. A specialist eighth-class wearing the insignia of communications walked over, saluted, and accepted the commander’s admonition to stand easy with obvious relief.
Lahtehoja glanced automatically at the man’s ident. “What do we have here, Mr. Waitangi?”
The specialist was prepared. “Their vessel hailed ours, Commander, and requested permission to come alongside. They claimed to have found and picked up a lone human from a marooned ship drifting in low synchronous orbit on the far side of the nearer moon.” As he spoke the specialist frequently glanced down at the oversized reader he held, the rapid but controlled movement of his eyes automatically scrolling the information it displayed. “We had to run the transmission three times to make sure we had it straight.” He smiled tolerantly at the waiting, curious aliens. “Their communications technology is pretty primitive.”
“Apparently it was good enough to find this person when neither we nor any of our predecessors in this system could.”
The specialist’s smile vanished instantly. “Naturally, they want to transfer him, but they say that they can’t.”
Lahtehoja’s neatly highlighted brows drew together, and her voice fell slightly. “Why not?”
The young man hurried his response. “They say that when they try, he—we’ve determined from their description that the individual in question is male—he resists. Sometimes violently.”
The commander nodded knowingly. “And they’re afraid he’ll hurt one of them or do some damage to their ship. I can understand that,