Honor - Kevin Killiany [16]
The zookeeper pulled her combadge from his pocket and held it in the flat of his palm. Eyes fixed on Pattie, he stepped closer to the cage. For a moment she dared hope he was actually going to give it back and let her out of the cage, but he stopped a meter beyond her reach.
Why is it never the easy way?
“Who are you?” the zookeeper asked, bending toward her. “What is this thing?”
Not wearing the combadge, Pattie could hear both the zookeeper’s words and the translation. She was surprised by the liquid sibilance of the language. Given his gray skin and dark clothing, Pattie had expected her captor’s speech to sound like Cardassian. A silly bit of prejudice, she realized.
“My name is P8 Blue, though I’m known informally as Pattie,” she answered the literal question. “The device you took from me is my combadge.”
“How does it work?”
“As you can hear, it’s a translator,” Pattie said, keeping her tone pleasant. She wasn’t going to lie; lies were too hard to keep straight. But she wasn’t going to volunteer any information, either.
For a moment the zookeeper seemed to accept that noninformation as an answer.
“Where are you from?” he asked.
“Pretty far away,” Pattie said. “The vehicle I was traveling in sank in the bog. Were you the one who rescued me?”
“Yes,” the zookeeper seemed surprised to be asked a question. “My name is Solal. I am a [student animal husbandry authority].”
Pattie recognized the awkward phrasing of a term the universal translator couldn’t render exactly.
“Either you’ve lost some arms and legs,” Pattie said, diverting the conversation, “or you’re not from around here.”
In fact, Pattie had a pretty good idea where Solal was from. If she was right, the Prime Directive was in full effect; do or say nothing to indicate civilizations on other planets nor interfere with civilization on this one. Aided by the eight-extremitied physiology of the local fauna, she was going to play Zhatyra II native.
If possible, she was going to get her combadge and disappear into the forest until the da Vinci arrived. Failing that, she was going to focus on avoiding vivisection until Captain Gold rescued her.
And Commander Corsi.
“I come from beyond the sky,” Solal was saying.
“Really?” Pattie asked, packing the word with amazed interest. “Literally? Not metaphorically? Fascinating. Pull up a chair and tell me about it.”
Whatever Solal would have said died with the sound of a distant door opening and closing. Suddenly tense, he leaned close to the cage.
“Do not speak,” he hissed. “Animals that speak are killed.”
Pattie nodded, shocked.
Solal stood, then as quickly stooped again.
“What do you eat?” he asked. “Do you need anything?”
Student animal husbandry authority, Pattie thought. Keep the livestock healthy.
“Just distilled water,” she said aloud. “Local food doesn’t agree with me.”
Solal nodded and rose again. Wrapping Pattie’s combadge in a rag, he shoved it deep into the back of a drawer in a nearby cabinet just as another of his kind arrived.
Pattie held perfectly still, making no move that might attract the newcomer’s attention.
She guessed from his build that the new arrival was also male and, from the texture of his skin, older. His hair was a darker red than Solal’s, almost a brown, and he seemed to have about twenty percent more mass, most of it girth. Perhaps Solal was an adolescent.
The newcomer, folio of some sort in hand, seemed to be reviewing information it contained with Solal. If Solal was a student, the newcomer’s attitude indicated he was a teacher animal husbandry authority. Senior zookeeper at any rate. Apparently satisfied with whatever Solal had to report, the elder zookeeper then issued what sounded like a series of instructions or list of tasks.
He turned his back to Pattie, evidently pointing in the direction of something beyond the walls of the menagerie.
Taking advantage of his distraction, Pattie lowered herself to all eights, making no sudden moves that might attract his attention. Carefully, as silently as possible, she backed into the packing case shelter Solal had provided.