Footfall

Again he looked through one-way glass at the prisoners. “We’ve watched their ships take off. Chemicals: hydrogen and oxygen, energetic and difficult to handle, but still chemical fuels. The expense must be formidable. We must assume that these prisoners are the best they breed; else they would not be worth the cost of lifting them.”

His assistant twitched her ears in assent. “Language first. We must make them teachers for future prisoners.”

“You say that easily, Tashayamp. It will be difficult. It may be impossible, with most of our team lost to the military mission.” Breaker-Two turned to the stacked cloth from the space station, then to cloth that had been cut from the prisoners. It was oddly curved; it had fastenings in odd places. Designed to fit an odd shape. These stiffened cups for the hind feet were thicker, padded. Takpusseh found nothing that might protect the fragile-looking foreleg digits.

“Pretheeteh-damb, did you search this detritus for weapons?”

“Yes. There were none, not even a bludgeon.”

“The prisoners were all covered with cloth, weren’t they?”

“They were. So were the corpses.”

“It isn’t a rank symbol and it doesn’t hold personal weapons. They were in a space habitat; they’d regulate the temperature. Could they be so fragile? I think we had better give them cloth to protect their skins.” He looked back into the padded room.

Could the cloth be used for humidity regulation? If they didn’t exude enough moisture to be comfortable … Well, that would be tested.

Hunch prodded him to add, “And get the cloth off the corpses, Tashayamp. Start with this one.”

“The Herdmaster for you, Breaker-Two.”

Takpusseh took the call. The Herdmaster looked tired, in the fashion of those whom exhaustion turns nasty. “Show them to me, Breaker-Two.”

Takpusseh turned the camera toward the one-way glass wall. The Herdmaster was silent for two or three breaths. Then, “And these you must integrate into the Traveler Herd? I don’t envy you. Breaker-Two. What do you know so far?”

“Their skins are fragile. They need cloth for protection.”

“Will they survive?”

“One seems near death … and it isn’t the legless one. That one seems active enough. As for the rest, I’ll have to be careful. We have their stored food, thanks to the troops, though we will have to identify it.”

“How soon can I expect—”

“When I tell you so. You have heard the sounds they make. They will never speak well. Another matter: We do not have a representative sampling here. That may be to the good; they may be more easily taught than their dirtyfoot kin.” Takpusseh glanced at the smallest of the half-frozen corpses, now denuded of cloth. Eyes protruding, mouth wide open, distress frozen in its face. The protected area between the legs …

His guess had been right. The genitalia were oddly placed. He tried to imagine how they might mate. But this was a female; the breasts confirmed it. “Our survivors are all adult males. Before we can understand anything about the natives we will need to study females, children, the crippled, the insane, the merely adequate—”

“Do what you can, Breaker. We won’t be able to furnish you with other prisoners for some days yet. Unless you would prefer to stay behind with the digit ships?”

Takpusseh’s ears flattened against his head. Had he just been named a coward? “At your orders, Herdmaster.”

“I wasn’t serious, and neither are you. You’re needed here.”

“Sixty-four of us are needed here, Herdmaster! You’ve taken all but three of us for the digit ships, and you expect—”

“They must be near the battle to advise our warriors regarding the prey’s mentality, and to learn. Do what you must.” The Herdmaster’s face faded.

The prisoners were not very active now. The one who spoke a known language was prowling, exploring the restraint room. The rest were talking in their own gibberish. They must belong to Land Mass One, the largest land block, and not to the herd that was so free with their radio noise … all but the prowler, and possibly the dark-skinned one, who might almost have been dead.

Might that be a disease, a lethal skin condition? Could the rest catch it? Leaving the Breakers without a profession again. One more thing to worry about.

He assumed, and would continue to assume, that Breaker-One Raztupisp-minz was listening via intercom. They would talk later. Meanwhile — “Pretheeteh-damb, your attention.” Takpusseh pointed through the one-way transparency of the wall. “That one. He’s talking now; do you see his mouth moving?”

“I see.”

“Take your octuple and fetch him to me.”

“Breaker-Two, I would have no trouble fetching it myself, save for fear of crushing it by accident.”

“Take your octuple.” Takpusseh felt no need to justify himself. They were an unknown. Best to be wary. At worst the show of strength might impress the aliens.

They did look fragile. Fragile enough to make him queasy.

He couldn’t afford to think that way. He was Breaker-Two, and these alien beings constituted the only career open to him. We must come to know each other well. Without you I’m nothing.