Footfall

The rug was spongy and squishy-wet; the prisoners had not been given shoes. Doors in the floor opened upward against the corridor wall.

“I believe,” Arvid said in Russian, “that any aperture big enough for one of the aliens would pass two or three of us at once. Perhaps they will not think to guard small openings that will pass a man.”

Dmitri nodded.

“They are surely not built for climbing. A wall that could be scaled by a man would be impossible for one of them.”

Dmitri nodded again.

“Have you seen anything I might have missed?”

Dmitri spoke. “You waited until we were in a corridor, and moving, before you said any of this. I approve, but are you certain that our trainers do not speak Russian?”

“They speak English and do not hide the fact. Why would they hide a knowledge of Russian? In any case, we must speak sometime.”

“Perhaps. Do you think we could use their rifles?”

Grooves for the branched trunk were far forward on the barrel, and so was the trigger. The bore was huge. The butt was short and very broad. “It would not fit against a man’s shoulder, and it would probably kick him senseless, unless… you’d have to brace it against something, a floor, a wall, a piece of furniture. Difficult to aim.”

“Don’t do anything at all without word from me. What of Dawson ? Will he try something foolish?”

“I—” Arvid cut it off. They had reached their destination.

The wide doorway would be used when the mother ship was under acceleration. The permanently fixed platform elevator next to it would be for use under spin gravity. The room below was big, and more than a dozen aliens were already present.

The prisoners descended; the soldiers remained above.

The aliens stared up. Most of them had their trunks folded up against the top of the heads: evidently a resting position. The eyelids drooped mournfully. The eyes had black pupils fading to smoky-gray whites. They were set wide, but not too wide to prohibit binocular vision. The thick muscle structure at the base of the trunk formed grooves; with the trunk up, the eyes focused along the grooves, like gunsights. Their stare was unnerving.

Nikolai was wire-tense, staring his captors down. Arvid murmured, “Docile, Nikolai. We docile servants of the new regime await instructions.”

Nikolai nodded. His eyes dropped He sounded calm enough. “I saw no air vents. The air may be filtered through the carpeting. And the rug was wet. They like wet feet.”

The room would have held three or four times as many. Takpusseh spoke rapidly to the assembled aliens, then more slowly to the humaqs. Arvid tried to file the introductions: Pastempehkeph. K’turfookeph. Fathisteh-tulk. Chowpeentulk. Fistartehthuktun. Koolpooleh. Paykurtank. Two smaller aliens were not introduced. They stared at the humans and huddled close against larger aliens. Children, then.

He’d have trouble remembering the names. It was the array that was important. The aliens came in clusters; he’d be a long time learning their body language, but that much was obvious.

Pastempeh-keph (male) and K’turfookeph (female), with their child (male), were the top of the ladder, the Chairman or President or Admiral. The similarity in the last syllable meant they were mated; he’d learned that much already. One would hold title. Arvid would not lightly assume that it was the male. Similarly, Fathistehtalk and Chowpeentulk were mated, and they stood with the Admiml. Advisors? The male was doing all the talking. So.

Fistarteh-thuktun (male), Koolpooleh (male), and Paykurtank (female) also formed a cluster. The extra syllables would mean that Fistarteh-thuktun had a mate. He was an old one, with wrinkled skin and pained-looking eyes… like the teacher, Takpusseh. He wore elaborate harness, like tapestry made with silver wire. He studied the humans like a judge. The pair with him were younger: clear eyes, smoother skin, quick movements.

Nikolai said, “I thought the top ranks would wear uniforms. They all wear those harnesses with the backpacks. The colors and patterns, could those—”

“Yes, insignia of rank. Dawson believes that we will not see clothing on any alien. With those bulky bodies they will have trouble shedding heat.”

“I would not have thought of that.”

The room darkened. One wall seemed to disappear, and Arvid realized that he was in a motion picture theater.

Rogachev recognized the huge Invader spacecraft, a cylinder about as wide as it was tall. The aft rim was spiky with smaller craft, and some had not been moored in place yet. An arc of worldscape, blue and white, might have been the Earth, though Arvid could not pick out any detail of landscape. A polished sphere nearby… a moon? No, it was drifting slowly.

Takpusseh was talking. Arvid caught a word here and there, and translated freely to “Watch, don’t move. You see… trip (chtapt) to (Earth?). Build… Thuktun Flishithy.” Arvid smiled. He had thought that was their name for the mother ship, and sure enough, that was what they were putting together onscreen.