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Authors: Alan Dean Foster

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BOOK: Dark Star
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"Awwww," Pinback groaned, shuffling one foot and looking down at the floor, "I don't wanna do that now."

"May I remind you, Sergeant Pinback," the computer continued inexorably, "that it was your idea in the first place, and no one else's, to bring the alien on board. If I may quote you, you said, 'the ship needs a mascot.' "

"Yeah, but—" Pinback tried to protest. The computer rode over any objections.

"It was your idea, so looking after it is your responsibility, Sergeant Pinback."

Boiler gave him the sinister ha-ha.

"Rats," grumbled Pinback. "I've gotta do everything around here. It's everybody's mascot—why can't they help out?"

"It's your pet, buddy. I don't even like looking at it. Gives me the galloping quivers. Even Doolittle thinks you should toss it out the lock."

"No feelings, any of you. So it isn't the perfect pet, so what? We all have our faults."

Boiler greeted that with another ha-ha and turned back to adjusting the laser.

Pinback walked off down the corridor muttering to himself. Lazy, care-for-nothings, insensitive—a good thing at least one person on this ship was interested in something besides destruction. Wait till they got back to Earth and everyone got a look at
his
alien. Not much question who would get the medals then! He had intended to share the glory with the others, but if they didn't care enough to help look after it, well then, they could just go find their own mascots!

He muttered to himself in this manner all the way back to the compartment they had sealed off for the live alien specimens. On the way he stopped and picked up a dustpan and broom. A sanitary portable vacuum would have been more practical and more efficient, but some insane psychometrician back on Earth had decided that a dustpan and broom would be the better choice.

They'd feel less lonely with a few familiar tools around, and the extra exercise would be desirable. Pinback wished the psycher were there now, so he could exercise the dustpan and broom over his skull.

Over door was a crude stenciled sign that read
WATCH IT
! The admonition had firm foundation in previous happenings, and he opened the door carefully.

His particular pet alien had grown more and more adventurous as it had become acclimated to the ship. The last time he had gone to look after it, it had been waiting just inside the doorway to pounce on him.

Then there was the time the luminants had gotten loose. Brilliantly hued geometric shapes of pure light, the most alien life form they had ever encountered, the luminants had allowed themselves to be docilely convoyed on board and into a cage of lucite. Once in free space, they had proceeded to saunter out of their "cage" as though it were not there—which for them was quite true. There followed a hectic week of pursuing them all over the ship, with dark panels, flashlights, and anything they thought might induce or force the luminants back into their cage.

It was all frantic and impossible. How do you capture something made out of pure light? It was Powell who finally hit on the idea of using mirrors. A complex arrangement of hidden mirrors made their new cage into an honest one. They could still slip out any time they wanted—but the internal mirror arrangement insisted otherwise. So they stayed put, inside the glass prison.

Pinback stepped into the room and quickly looked around. No sign of the Beachball.

The room was empty except for the luminants' big smoked-glass cage. Four of the luminants responded immediately to his presence. Pity they weren't intelligent. They were peaceful, even friendly—and extremely stupid.

Now, as he hunted for the Beachball, the four light-creatures floated close to the glass wall of their cage. They might have made nice pets . . . but how could you pet a thing you couldn't even be sure was there? It would have been like trying to be affectionate to the beam of a searchlight.

Pinback didn't like them.

"All right, where are you?" He bent over and started peering under tilted crates and empty shelves. "Come on, ball, quit playing around." Beachball was an accurate description, if not a particularly dignified name for the alien. Boiler, typically, had named it, and despite Pinback's best efforts to the contrary, the label had stuck.

It was better than naming it after Pinback, which had been the corporal's initial suggestion. At first Pinback was flattered. Then, as the nature of the alien became more obvious, he was considerably less so.

"Come on, quit hidin'." The luminants swarmed over to the side of the cage nearest him, and he waved his arms irritably at them. "Go on, beat it."

They scattered to the back of the cage. Even their total alienness could be tolerated if they would only make a
sound
of some sort—something to indicate a bare hint of the sentience that was probably there.

"Come on, come," he muttered. He set the broom and pan down on a huge crate and started snapping his fingers. "I haven't got time for this. Come on."

There was a sudden flash of spotted red in front of him, followed by a loud thump. Startled, Pinback jumped back. Then he recognized the source of the sound. He put hands on hips and glared down at the alien angrily, covering his nervousness. "And to think when I brought you on the ship I thought you were cute."

The alien twittered engimatically back at him.

Well, to a man who had been away from home and all other companionship save that of his crewmates for as many years as Pinback had, the alien
might
have seemed cute at one time.

It was about a third the size of a grown man, neatly spherical, and colored bright red. Large blotches of yellow, black, and green concentric circles mottled the pulsing body. It also sported a set of clawed, lightly webbed feet. That was all. It possessed nothing resembling hands, arms, a multipart torso, or even a face.

It could distinguish sounds and sight, though the organs carrying out these functions were well hidden beneath the bulbous body. Occasionally it made sounds like a querulous canary. These were matched by deeper moans which sounded suspiciously like Pinback sounded when he had a bad bellyache.

The sergeant had moved to a nearby cabinet and was rummaging inside it. After a bit he came out with a large, somewhat frayed head of alien-world cabbage. They had run out of food from the alien's own home world a long time ago, its appetite proving to be far greater than even Pinback could have imagined.

"All right, soup's on." He held out the battered greenery. "Come on, this is no time to get picky. We don't have any more of the other stuff."

The alien made no move to come forward. "Here, eat it," Pinback yelled. He tossed the vegetable toward the alien. He was about fed up with this "pet."

The cabbage bounced a couple of times and came to a stop in front of the Beachball.

"Eat it, damn you. Take it or leave it. It's all we've got."

The alien seemed to pause, then leaned forward over the food as if inspecting it with invisible eyes. Both multiple claws tapped at the floor, an imitation of a gesture it had observed in Pinback. Whether or not the alien had any real intelligence was questionable, though at times it performed actions apparently unexplainable in any other way. But that it was imitative, like a parrot, was undeniable. Certainly it hadn't displayed anything which could be interpreted as an effort toward communication.

Eventually the tapping stopped. The claws reached out, grabbed the cabbage, and shoved it back toward Pinback. It twittered noisily.

"Oh yeah? What am I supposed to do now, huh? Whip you up a twelve-course RD-Three gourmet dinner? I don't know anything about the kind of food you like. These old specimen vegetables are the only nonconcentrates we've got aboard, and I don't think you would like concentrates—we're not crazy about them ourselves."

The Beachball quivered, twittered mindlessly.

"Ah, go ahead," Pinback finally said disgustedly, turning his back on the alien and picking up the broom and dustpan. "Starve—see if I care." He started muttering to himself again. "Do all the work . . . damn unappreciative alien twit . . ."

Moving on short, powerful little legs, the alien took a leap and jumped onto the cabinet to Pinback's right. It might have been trying to draw his attention. If so, it failed. Pinback continued to sweep, gathering alien excrement into the dustpan.

"I do my best to prepare your meals, I clean up after you, and do you appreciate it?" He snorted, spotted another dirty area, and swept again.

The alien paused at its post on the cabinet and appeared to consider the situation. Either it had a definite plan in mind, or else Pinback's bent-over form was just too tempting a situation. It leaped.

Twittering violently, it landed, claws first, square on Pinback's back. Pinback yelped and straightened up, but the Beachball hung on, scratching and bouncing ferociously against him.

"Hey, come on," Pinback yelled, dropping both the pan and broom and trying to swat behind himself. "Get off . . . get offa my back, damnit!" But while the alien was large and didn't weigh much, it was also smooth-surfaced and extremely difficult to get a grip on. Pinback couldn't.

"All right . . . all right, now," he shouted, 'that's enough! Come off it. That's—hey!"

The alien had shifted its position slightly higher onto his back and now was in position to pull at Pinback's shoulder-length tresses.

"My hair . . . quit pulling my . . . ouch!"

He staggered, aware for the first time that the Beachball might not be playing now. Still clawing at the thing on his back, he stumbled into a wall, turned, and staggered away. The alien reached around and started to paw his face.

Now frantic, Pinback finally managed to get a hand between himself and the alien and shoved it free. Immediately the being fell off, bounced on the floor, and scampered out the open door while twittering loosely in what might have been interpreted as a pleased fashion,

"Goddamn son-of-a-bitch, ungrateful, stupid, rotten, alien tomato-thing!" Pinback finally got the hair out of his eyes, then moved to the door and peeked out into the corridor.

It was sitting about halfway up the hall, panting like a happy puppy and, despite the absence of obvious eyes, no doubt watching him intently. Pinback sighed.

Well, the thing just wanted to play, after all. "All right, fun is fun. Get back in here." He stepped into the corridor and started toward it, snapping his fingers. "Come on, come on." The alien didn't budge.

"Come on now . . . good boy . . . good Beachball . . . that's right." He was closing in on it. Now he leaned forward to give it a reassuring stroke—and it made a violent lunge at him. Despite its not having a mouth in sight, or teeth, Pinback drew his hand away fast.

He knew enough about alien life-forms now to realize that it might have other, less visible but nonetheless potent, forms of defense.

Those unattractive yellow and black spots, for example, occasionally showed suspicious signs of moisture around the rims. Maybe the alien could secrete something unpleasant when angered. Why, it might even be toxic; and here they had been harboring it all these weeks.

Come to think of it, nobody
had
run any extensive tests on the alien. It had seemed so friendly and blatantly harmless at first that the thought had not occurred to him—or to anyone else. He sort of regretted that little oversight, because now he didn't know whether the Beachball was bluffing or not.

Its claws were another proposition entirely, of course, though his skin was more irritated than broken.

Well, he wasn't going to take any chances. Its twittering as it had lunged at him had risen to a sound that bore more than casual resemblance to a growl.

If it just want to play, he was going to have to try something else to get control over it. Perhaps the subtle approach.

It ought to be inside his jumpsuit . . . ah, there. This had always worked with the creature before. He leaned over cautiously, shoved the object toward the Beachball, and squeezed it.

It was a tiny gray mouse with pink ears and a big pink nose. It made satisfying squeaking sounds. These didn't seem especially erudite to Pinback, but maybe they were close to Beachball talk. He squeezed it again.

"Here, boy . . . want the mousey? Nice mousey, pretty mousey . . ." This was a helluva occupation for a grown technician. "Want your mouse? Here, boy."

The Beachball didn't appear inclined to move any closer, but the violent pulsing seemed to lessen. Pinback dropped the rubber toy just in front of it. Again the claws tapped on the floor in imitation (or was it imitation?) of Pinback.

Coming to some Beachballian decision, the alien took a short hop forward and covered the mouse. Non-twittering sounds began to issue from it—crunching, swallowing sounds. Pinback interpreted them correctly. The alien was eating the mouse.

"Idiot!" he screamed, and reached down to recover the mouse's remains.

The Beachball lunged forward again and this time made contact with Pinback's bare hand. There was a searing sensation as if he had waved his hand over a low flame, and the alien almost hissed at him. Pinback jerked away, holding his hand and sucking at the injured member to try and lessen the pain—a purely reflexive, not too bright action on his part. Fortunately, the substance had already sunk into the skin and so didn't transfer to his tongue.

So much for subtlety and psychology. Now it was time for less Freudian approaches.

He disappeared inside the alien-holding room, and reemerged moments later hefting the broom firmly in one hand. It would have been easier with someone else to help herd the Beachball, but Boiler would only have laughed and he doubted that the oh-so-superior Doolittle would have bothered.

It didn't matter. He could handle the alien by himself. He'd show the others he could. Turning up the corridor, he prepared to give it fair warning . . . and stopped.

The alien had disappeared.

It still wanted to play? All right! He started up the corridor, looking behind him at every odd second. You had to watch out for the alien. It was tricky. Not intelligent, but tricky. There was a definite animal cunning in that Beachball. It reminded him of Boiler.

BOOK: Dark Star
12.93Mb size Format: txt, pdf, ePub
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