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By Root 564 0

with things personally. Despite his best efforts to bring about an inconspicuous slowdown, the quantity of cargo in the back of the transport was diminishing at an alarming rate. At this pace they would be done and gone within half a time-part. He invented and discarded dozens of scenarios. He could fake an injury, but Shemon and Ulu would only load him into the rear of the transport and hurry him back to the infirmary in the thranx sector. He could try overpowering the two of them, but while Shemon might prove a less than challenging adversary, Ulunegjeprok was young and fit and might be difficult to surprise. Besides, Des was a poet, not a soldier. And while such a hostile action might gain him a few time-parts of independence, the reverberations of such a gesture would undoubtedly result in his expulsion from the Geswixt hive and the loss of any further opportunity to encounter the aliens.

There was nothing he could do. He was trapped in a web of inexorably contracting time. His abdomen twitched, reminding him that his thoughts did not operate independent of his body.

Revelation congealed like a ripe pudding. Perhaps that was enough.

Passing a self-hovering cylindrical container twice his size to the waiting Ulu, he glanced in Shemon’s direction. “I have to relieve myself.”

She did not even look up from the readout on which she was tallying inventory. Truhand and foothand pointed. “Over there, through that second door. Don’t you recognize the markings?”

Desvendapur looked in the indicated direction. “Those are indicators for a human facility.”

“It is a joint facility, or so the instruction manual claims. But you didn’t see my instructions; you only saw yours, so I suppose your ignorance is understandable. Be quick, and do not linger.” There was unease in her voice. “I want to leave this place as soon as possible.”

He gestured assent leavened with understanding as he hurried off in the indicated direction, all six legs working. The doorway yielded to his touch and granted entry, whereupon he found himself confronted with as exotic a panoply of devices as if he had stepped into the cockpit of a starship—although their functions were far more down to earth, in more ways than one.

In addition to the familiar sonic cleanser and slitted receptacles in the floor, there were a number of what appeared to be hollow seats attached to a far wall. He would have liked to inspect them more closely, but he was here to try to encounter aliens, not their artifacts. Desperately he searched the waste chamber for another exit, only to find none.

Refusing to give up and return to the unloading dock, he eased the door to the service chamber open and peered out, folding his antennae flat back against his smooth skull to create as small a profile as possible. Shemon was focused on her readout while Ulu was preoccupied with the remainder of the unloading. Waiting until his coworker was busy in the back of the vehicle, Desvendapur bolted to his right, hugging the wall of the storage chamber while hunting desperately for another way out. He had to try three sealed portals before he found one that was not locked.

Entering and closing the door behind him, he noted that it was of human design, being narrower and higher than that intended solely for thranx. Ahead lay a ramp leading upward. Advancing with determination, he took in a plethora of alien artifacts around him: contact switches of human design in a raised box; a railing of some kind attached to the wall head-high, too elevated to be useful to a thranx; a transparent door behind which was mounted equipment whose pattern and purpose he did not recognize; and more. Though the ramp was oddly ribbed instead of pebbled as was normal, it still provided excellent purchase for his anxious feet.

A second, larger door loomed in front of him. From its center bulged a recognizable activation panel dotted with unfamiliar controls. Touching the wrong one, or the wrong sequence, might set off an alarm, but at this point he didn’t care. Even if that proved to be the ultimate result of his intrusion,