Starbridge (31 page)

When Rob scanned them earlier, they weren't emitting any oxygen. But
when we were in danger of dying, they--or this one at least--started to emit it.

And, just when I was getting ready to pass out, the creature moved closer,
and gave off additional oxygen. That
has
to mean that--

Mahree wiped cold sweat off her forehead, then licked her lips nervously.

That's impossible! This is a
fungus,
one of the simplest forms of life around!

Don't be crazy, Mahree!

She bent over, peering closely at the faintly shining growth. It was completely featureless, except for millions of short, threadlike cilia on its top-side. She lay down on her side amid the moss-plants, then squinted up at the fungus's underside.
It moved, it must have. How the hell can it move?

The blanket's bottom side was covered with tiny appendages nearly the length of her little finger. They moved constantly,

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rippling over the moss-plants like minuscule tentacles. "So
that's
how you get around," Mahree muttered.

Scrambling back up to hands and knees, she cautiously inched closer to the phosphorescent creature, until her nose was only a hand-span away. "Hi, Blanket," she said, feeling ridiculous--
I'm talking to a
fungus?
I
must
have cleared my jets!--"My name is Mahree Burroughs. I really appreciate your helping us out, just now. We desperately needed that oxygen. I hope you folks don't suddenly stop emitting it." She shook her head. "I don't know why I'm talking. You don't have ears, so you can't possibly hear or understand me, can you?"

Slowly, the edge of the phosphorescent growth lifted clear of the mossplants, extending itself toward her face.

Mahree couldn't help it--she let out a startled yelp and jerked back. Her heart slammed in her chest. Biting her lip savagely, she steadied her breathing, forcing herself to inhale and exhale lightly and evenly. There wasn't sufficient oxygen in the hollow to sustain her if she hyperventilated.

Maybe it was just exhibiting some kind of involuntary reflex in response to
movement?
she thought, watching the baby blanket settle back down onto the moss-plants.

Slowly, she leaned forward again. "If you can understand me, Blanket,
don't
move. Stay still, okay?"

Mahree moved so close that her nose nearly brushed the blanket's side, but the phosphorescence did not stir.

"Ohhh-kay," she muttered. "If you can understand me, Blanket, please move
now."

The edge of the creature rippled, then rose until it was a full hand-span above the moss-plants.

"Holy shit," Mahree gulped. "I was right. You're
sentient."

Again the sense of affirmation filled her mind.

"And telepathic, right? You can make what you're thinking and feeling go from your 'mind'--or whatever equivalent you've got--into mine?"

Affirmation.

A human groan interrupted her "conversation." Mahree turned to see that Dhurrrkk' was sitting up, holding Rob's hands, and that the doctor was stirring. "Excuse me a moment, please, Blanket," she said. "I must check on my friend. I will return."

Affirmation.

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Mahree hastily crawled over to put a hand on Dhurrrkk's shoulder.

"FriendDhurrrkk'," she said. "How do you feel?"

The Simiu put a hand on his forehead. "There is pain here," he said. "But otherwise I am fine."

"Just promise me you'll take it easy for a while. You were pretty far gone."

"I promise, FriendMahree." The Simiu's violet eyes were full of emotion.

Slowly, minus his customary ease and grace, he reached over to grasp her hand. "You gave me your own breath, so that I could live," he said, switching to her own language. "I will be forever grateful, my friend. We are honor-bound, you and I. For as long as I may live, your honor and your life will be as important to me as my own."

"Dhurrrkk' ..." Mahree tried to think of something to say, but words failed her.

Instead, she gripped his six-fingered hand hard, nodding.

He motioned to Rob. "Honored HealerGable is awakening."

Mahree hastily turned around, to find the doctor lying there with his eyes open. "Hi," she said softly, bending over him. "How are you feeling?"

"I'm
breathing,"
he whispered, his eyes filled with profound bewilderment.

"Why am I still alive?"

"Because we've found the source of the oxygen emissions, Rob," she told him. "And a lot more besides."

"Huh? You located one of the O2 sources?"

"Yes," she said, seeing that he was still weak and disoriented. The rest of her news could wait.

He put out a hand. "Are you
sure
you're really here?" he mumbled, uncertainly. "I'm not hallucinating?"

For answer, Mahree took his gloved hand, unsealed it, pulled off the covering, then grasped his bare fingers tightly. "I'm really here," she said.

"Feel."

"Feels good," he mumbled, smiling. "Squeeze tight." After a moment, he shakily sat up, then looked at the Simiu. "Honored Dhurrrkk', I'm glad to see that you're all right."

The alien made the formal greeting gesture of his people. "Honored Healer Gable," he said in English, with a twinkle, "I am pleased to observe the same about you."

The doctor shook his head, confusion filling his eyes. "But I don't understand how we got here--wherever we are. I was out of air. I must've passed out."

He glanced down at his side.

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A. C. Crispin

"Waitaminit!
This says I've got twelve minutes left on this pak." He looked back up, glaring at Mahree. "You switched breathing paks, didn't you? Gave me the last of your air?"

"It was the least I could do, after you lied to me," she said acerbically. "One dirty trick deserves another." She returned his glare with interest. "And if you dare to tell me that it was for my own good, you're going to find yourself stretched out on these damned moss-plants again."

"I knew you'd be pissed," he mumbled, obviously deeply touched by his discovery of the switched breathing pak. "But I didn't figure I'd live to hear about it. Forgive me?"

Rob sounded so uncharacteristically meek that Mahree had to laugh. "Let's call it even."

The doctor glanced around him, and his eyes widened as he recognized their location. "Hey, this is the same place as we left Dhurrrkk'!" He scratched his head. "Now, let me get this straight. We came back here to get Dhurrrkk', only this time there was oxygen in this hollow? But how?"

"Thank
them,"
Mahree said, pointing to the blanket-creatures. "They're the things that have been emitting the O2"

"Them?
The fungi?" He blinked. "That's impossible ... Crazy. They can't even photosynthesize."

"You ain't
seen
crazy, yet. Brace yourself, Rob. They're
sentient.
We've just made a First Contact."

He stared at her in silence, no expression on his face. "Sentient," he repeated, finally.

"They
are,"
Mahree insisted. "They knew we needed oxygen, so they convinced me to take off my helmet, so I could breathe. And when I'd taken it off, this one"--she pointed to the closest blanket-creature--"crawled over just so it could give me extra O2 when I was giving Dhurrrkk' artificial respiration."

He hesitated. "Uhhhhh ... that's hard to believe," he said, finally, using a carefully neutral tone. "Are you
sure?"

"Honored Mahree is correct," Dhurrrkk' interjected, in English. "Before I lost my awareness of my surroundings, I was conscious of something contacting my mind, something that touched and questioned with intelligent purpose. It instructed me to take off my helmet, but I was unable to comply."

"That's because it was stuck," she told him.

Rob stared at both of them. Then he looked down at the blanket. "You're telling me this
thing
is sentient," he said, in a

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this-can't-be-happening-to-me tone of voice.
"This
thing"-- he pointed--"this phosphorescent patch of fungus?"

"It's not a
thing,
it's
a person,
Rob. Mind your manners," Mahree admonished. "Watch, I'll prove it."

Turning back to "her" blanket, Mahree ran through the same demonstration that she had earlier. Finally, she said to the being, "This is my friend, Robert Gable--Rob, as he's called. This is what he looks like." She glanced at the doctor's face. "And this is my friend Honored Dhurrrkk'." She looked at the Simiu. "Now, if you don't mind, Blanket, I'd like you to move over and stop in front of Rob, so he'll know for sure that you can understand me."

With surprising speed, the alien creature crawled unhesitatingly over to Rob, stopped, then raised one edge into the air and waved at him.

The doctor paled as he stared at the being, eyes wide, then suddenly he bent forward until his forehead rested on the moss- plants before him. "Good grief, Rob," Mahree exclaimed, "you don't have to
pray
to it! Just say 'hello'!"

He drew several long breaths. "I'm not praying, you idiot," he said crossly in a muffled voice. "If I hadn't gotten my head down, I would've fainted. Give me a break, sweetheart. It's been a long, hard day."

After a minute Rob sat back up, his color much improved. "I'll be damned,"

he whispered softly, eyeing the fungus-being. He cleared his throat. "How do you do, uh, Blanket? It's a real pleasure."

Mahree concentrated, and received a clear sense of inquiry. "It's telepathic--

or something--" she said. "Right now, it wants to know about us. How we got here."

"It is asking me the same thing," Dhurrrkk' said.

Trying to be as clear and simple as she could, Mahree thought slowly, deliberately, of how they had come to this world, aboard
Rosinante,
and why. She tried to make her images of the ship as vivid as possible, knowing instinctively that the creature before her could have no concept of technology or artificial constructions.

Finally, she turned to Dhurrrkk'. "Did you tell it?"

"Yes," he said. "As clearly as I could. Communication with the being is growing easier for me, the more I do it."

Mahree felt a prickle of envy. "It's still pretty hard for me," she admitted.

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Rob was watching them. "I can feel it now, too," he said. "A sense of inquiry, and curiosity, right?" When they nodded, he continued, "But it's sure nothing like what Great-Aunt Louise used to do. She spoke in words,- except they were silent."

"Maybe Blanket can learn words, eventually," Mahree said. "At first it just communicated faint impressions. Now they're getting stronger."

"It would like to help us," Dhurrrkk' announced suddenly.

"It already
has
helped us," Rob said. "Though I have to admit that it might have been kinder if it hadn't interfered when we passed out. Spending the rest of my life here in this hollow, while we slowly die of thirst, isn't a very appealing prospect."

"No," Dhurrrkk' said. "It is giving me images, now. It thinks it knows a way."

Mahree felt an absurd sense of abandonment as she realized that "her"

blanket was now communicating most effectively with the Simiu.
Don't be
stupid,
she thought sternly.
It obviously has discovered that a Simiu brain is
easier for it to reach.

She and Rob waited as the Simiu sat there, an abstracted expression on his face. Finally, he raised his violet eyes to theirs. "I have learned something about these beings. Each of these creatures is very, very old, and each is intelligent. Mostly, they are not greatly interested in much outside of pursuing their own obscure musings, mental games, and philosophical reflections.

However, the one that Mahree calls 'Blanket' is different. For one thing, it is younger--perhaps only a million or so of my years old."

Mahree and Rob gasped sharply. "A
million
years old?" she repeated, and the Simiu nodded soberly.

"Blanket is far more interested in external stimuli and events than its companions. It is intrigued by the notion of our ship, and traveling through space. It likes us. It does not want us to perish, and it is willing to help us safely reach our destination. If we would like it to, Blanket has volunteered to join us aboard
Rosinante,
and provide us with oxygen. In return, we must promise to bring it back here, when it asks to be returned to its own world."

"Can it give off that much oxygen?" Rob said skeptically, after he'd spent a moment assimilating the Simiu's words. "Doesn't it need its oxygen for itself?"

"No, the blankets themselves require very little oxygen. It is a 201

by-product they produce during digestion. It has no part in their breathing process. "o

They fart oxygen?
Mahree thought, wildly, and giggled shrilly before she could stop herself. Rob reached over to put a steadying hand on her shoulder.

"We will need to provide Blanket with native rock and moss- plants, sufficient to allow it ample nourishment for the duration of our journey," Dhurrrkk'

concluded.

"Well, if it tells us how much it needs, we'll be happy to do that," Rob said.

"But there's just one thing. How the hell do we get out of this hollow, and back to
Rosinante?"

"Blanket has asked its companions to assist, and they have agreed. They think their companion foolish for wishing to depart this world in order to aid us," the Simiu paused, then continued, as he evidently received additional information, "but none of them wish to see us perish. As long as they can remain here, the others are willing to help us reach the ship."

"How do they propose to help us?" ¦ "You wil see. Please remain stil . They mean no harm."

Rob started as two more of the creatures stirred, then began moving across the moss-plants toward them.

Mahree's "Blanket" began crawling back toward her. She felt a moment of pleased satisfaction that it had evidently elected to return to her instead of staying with Dhurrrkk', then the creature moved past her, out of her line of sight unless she turned her head.
What is it going to do?