Lost and found_ a novel - Alan Dean Foster [88]
Walker wished they had never come across it. Until now, it had been possible for him to entertain thoughts of returning home, however faint the prospect. Cocooned within the vastness of the Vilenjji craft, his mind had been sheltered from the reality of the universe outside. Now that he had looked upon it again, had been forced to contemplate the existence of a cosmos in which Earth was not even visible, the truth of his situation had been driven home with a force no fantasy of repatriation could overcome.
He was lost. Gone, stolen, adrift among the firmament, destined to be treated as nothing more than a piece of walking, talking merchandise intended to fetch a certain price. A commodity to be sold and perhaps traded.
The irony of it did not escape him.
Weighed down by circumstance he sat down on the hard deck, his back to the thick wall pierced only by the port through which the light of unwelcome stars poured relentlessly. Dropping his head into his hands, he lamented his condition. He did not cry. Despondent or not, aimless unhindered wandering through the dark corridors of the alien ship was still better than squirming like a zoo specimen in a cage within the pampering confines of the Vilenjji enclosures.
Walking up to him, George plunked his head down on Walker’s right knee. Eyes as soulful as any rendered by Botticelli gazed up at him. “Feeling low, Marc?”
Walker took a deep breath, composed himself, and indicated the softly lambent port above and to the right of where he was sitting. “It’s one thing not to be able to see a way home. It’s another not to even be able to see home.”
The dog shifted his head to glance up at the port. “Hey, it’s out there, Marc. Somewhere. Kind of like trying to find a bone in a ballpark, maybe, but it’s still there.”
“So what,” he muttered. “Might as well be around the next bend in the proverbial road for all the good it does us.” Looking back down at the dog, he ran his fingers through the thick fur atop his friend’s head. “Did you know that light bends? I remember hearing about that on the evening news one time. In between the other twenty-four minutes of murder and mayhem.”
“Everything bends,” George replied somberly, “or it breaks. That’s been a big-time dog tenet for thousands of years. It’s one reason why we get along so well with you apes.”
A smile leaked through Walker’s melancholy. Using both hands now, he ruffled the brown curls on the dog’s neck. “Another is that you’re good medicine for us, George. I have this feeling that if I hadn’t met up with you I’d have gone stark raving mad by now. We’re not going home, you know. Ever. I think it’s time to start getting used to the idea. Either the Vilenjji will recapture us, or we’ll die in some unused black back passageway like this one—out of food, out of water, and out of hope.”
“Listless biped.”
Walker’s attention snapped over to the maroon-hued alien who was compacted in the shadows on the other side of the window. “I’m not in the mood for your insults, Sque.” Wearily, Walker repeatedly ran a hand through his own hair. “I know you’re too full of yourself to suffer from this kind of depression, but you’ll just have to put up with the rest of us—those of us who are realists and understand the hopelessness of our situation.”
“What makes you think it is hopeless, human?” In the dim light, the flat, silvery eyes of the K’eremu glistened with a metallic sheen that matched the aloofness of her voice.
A glum Walker shifted his backside against the hard material of the deck. “Well, let’s see. We’re trapped on a hostile vessel in deep space; we’re running out of food and drink; we’re undoubtedly being pursued around the clock by greedy, contemptuous Vilenjji who can’t wait to offload us on some unimaginable world where we’ll be treated as no better than property; and the best we can hope for is to keep roaming through the interior of this ship without a destination in mind until they pick us up again. Other than that,” he concluded caustically, “I would have to agree that our situation is not hopeless.”
“You are correct about