Tears running down her pudgy face, Mei-mei slunk toward him and squatted down a few feet away. She shot him a venomous glance. Her underwear wasn't very clean. Jameson didn't envy Maggie her hour in the commandeered s.p.a.cesuit and liner.

Chia and the four in her party filed into the cylindrical barrel of the air lock, stooping under the extended shafts. One of them was an American-Smitty. Klein shoved on the round manhole cover and sealed the barrel. A moment later, as somebody inside pushed the outer lid, the thick disk slid inward another six feet and stayed there.

Klein sauntered over, his helmet tucked under his arm and the machine pistol dangling at his side. He surveyed Jameson, ignoring the Chinese girl.

"I'm going to enjoy this, Jameson," he said. "You've given me a lot of trouble."

"I thought you promised Maggie you'd let me stay alive."

"That Privie b.i.t.c.h! I had to keep her quiet. She'll be making out her own report when we get back. And they'll be debriefing the rest of them for months."

"But now there aren't any witnesses."

"Right. Except. b.u.t.terball here."

"You don't have to shoot her. n.o.body on this ship is ever going to see Earth again."

"She's just a slimy ChiCom. I wish I could kill them all."

Mei-mei had just figured out what they were talking about. She began backing away on all fours. "No, no!" she wailed. "Comrade Chia say-"

"Shut up!" Klein ordered.

Jameson raised himself on one elbow. "Listen, Klein-"

"You shut up too. I don't like you, Jameson. You know you got me a reprimand on my record when you complained to Boyle at the beginning of the mission? When I get back I'm going to be a hero. The man who saved Earth from the Cygnans. I've got it all figured out. You and Ruiz say the Cygnans are planning to leave the solar system. I believe you. But not about it being dangerous if they're delayed. You just want to protect your slimy worm friends. Well, when they start moving out of the system, everybody is going to think it was because they got a taste of a couple of nukes. And I'll be the man who did it!"

"You'll never see Earth, you d.a.m.ned fool! It won't be there when you get there!"

Klein wasn't bothering to listen. He raised his flat little weapon and moved back about ten feet so he wouldn't get his suit splattered with blood.

Jameson wanted to sneeze.

While he was making up his mind about it, Kleindid sneeze, a huge explosive spasm that jerked his otter-slick head back and made his little eyes water. He rubbed a sleeve across his nose and aimed the gun again.

Jameson felt awful. His throat was sore, and there was a weight like cement on his chest. His eyes itched. Behind him he heard Mei-mei coughing.

Klein staggered backward, still trying to aim the gun. In the s.p.a.ce of a few seconds, his face had gone puffy and splotched. His nose was running. His eyes were squeezed to tight slits.

Jameson hardly noticed. He was hacking away, and his vision was blurred by tears. His head felt like a balloon.

Klein dropped his helmet. He clawed at his throat and eyes. He seemed to be having some kind of ma.s.sive histamine reaction. His swollen tongue protruded like a red rubber ball. He made choking sounds. The skin stretched tight across a face that was so distended as to be unrecognizable. He fell over on his back. The dreadful whooping sounds stopped. The hand that had been clawing at his throat went limp. It too was swollen, looking like a blown-up rubber glove.

Jameson's vision began to clear. The sneezing fits died down. He felt awful. He looked past Klein's body toward the shadows of the machinery. He detected movement there. The two pink humanoids stepped out from where they had been hiding.

Behind him, Mei-mei gasped. Then he heard her snuffling. Her head sounded as stuffed as his own.

The elfin beings bounced toward him, their silky coats lifting and falling dreamily, in the weak gravity.

When at last they stood before him, he could see that the pink gossamer was being ruffled by a breeze.

They exuded a cool mintlike smell. He immediately began to feel better.

They plucked at his bonds with clever fingers. He got shakily to his feet and went over to look at Klein's body.

The skin had stretched so tight over Klein's face that it had split like an overripe melon. A straw-colored serum oozed out of the cracks. Klein's features were invisible, buried in the bloated ma.s.s.

"Acute anaphylactic shock," a voice said. "He died of an allergic reaction."

Jameson looked up. Dmitri was emerging from behind one of the bulky metal boulders. His right arm dangled limply from his shattered shoulder. His eyes were red-rimmed, and he was sniffling. He approached Jameson in a low-gravity shuffle.

"The humanoids?" Jameson asked.

Dmitri nodded. "Evidently they've been around us long enough to manufacture human allergens. A whiff of some exotic protein, probably. Unstable molecular structure that breaks down in seconds-just time enough to make the human body go wild activating chymotrypsin enzymes. You were lucky to be ten feet upwind of him. It was just enough to save you."

"How about you?"

"I was upwind too-and a good deal farther away from our pink friends. The movement of air must have been toward that lock Klein was standing in front of. These little pixies tested the wind first. So that's what those feathers are good for. They may be cute as kittens, but they're dangerous carnivores-or their ancestors were. They not only can tranquilize their pray, they can kill it at a distance, with something a lot more deadly than fang or claw."

"Why didn't they help us before Ruiz got killed, then?" Jameson said bitterly.

Dmitri tried to shrug, then went white with pain from his shattered shoulder. When he recovered, he said, "We were out in the open. Nothing to hide behind. And there were probably too many of them."

"Can you stay on your feet a while longer?"

Dmitri nodded. "I took a couple of Hernando's pep pills. His stuff was at the bottom at the other side, where I fell. They got me all the way here. It was a h.e.l.l of a climb with one arm, even if Ido weigh only a couple of pounds."

"Can you use your good arm to help me get Klein out of his suit? Time's running out."

Dmitri was aghast. "You're going after them?"

"I'll have Klein's machine pistol."

Jameson tried to pry the gun out of Klein's bloated hand. The finger was swollen in the trigger guard.

Jameson closed his eyes and pulled, but it was no use. The humanoids saw his problem. One of them made excited chipmunk noises and bit the finger off with its needle teeth. It handed the gun to Jameson.

Dmitri was being sick. When he was finally able to talk he said: "I don't think we're going to be able to get Klein out of that suit, Tod."

The humanoids were trying to be helpful. One of them ran and got a butcher knife that Chia's party had left behind. It c.o.c.ked its head and stared at Jameson with its enormous violet eyes, then gravely offered him the knife.

Dmitri, his face ashen, said: "Youcould butcher him inside the suit, take him out in little pieces."

Jameson said savagely, "And I'ddo it if it would get me through that air lock. But the suit would be unusable." He sniffed the stench leaking from Klein's neck ring. "In fact, it's probably unusable now."

The humanoids had disappeared while they were talking. When Jameson realized that fact, despair hit him like a fist. They'd probably sensed the proximity of Cygnans. It was going to be all over, any minute now. Chia and Yao's bomb crew must be miles away by now, jetting toward the Jupiter ship. Without hope or purpose, he continued to try to shoehorn the body out of the s.p.a.cesuit.

Ten minutes later, Dmitri cried, "Look!"

The humanoids were emerging from the recesses of the machinery again. They were herding a single Cygnan between them. The Cygnan acted drunk. It wobbled toward them on rubbery legs, its tail and head raised in a shallow U-shape, waving in befuddled fashion.

"Oh, fine!" Jameson said.

"Wait a minute," Dmitri said. "They must have something in mind. They're very bright-brighter than us, I'll bet-and they want to get off this ship in the worst way."

They watched the humanoids put the Cygnan through some incomprehensible exercises. The Cygnan seemed very anxious to please.

"Appeas.e.m.e.nt syndrome," Dmitri said. "Every social species has them. Baby-biting inhibitions, submissiveness to the pack leader, food-offering to the young or the helpless. Who knows what the Cygnan equivalent is? But our feathered friends know how to trigger the hormones that cause it. And they've doped that creature up to the eyestalks, too. All it wants to do is make us all happy."

The humanoids walked the Cygnan up to the airlock, pulled it open and hopped inside. They showed her Jameson, trying to pry Klein's body out of the suit. They patted her and caressed her and ran their feathery fingers over her snout and tail, and chattered at her in their piping voices. They weren't using any approximation of Cygnan language, Jameson could tell, but somehow they were communicating.

The Cygnan, stumbling and falling, managed to get to one of the bulbous housings near the lock.

Jameson had a.s.sumed they contained some kind of machinery. But at her manipulations, the whole face of the thing opened up.

"A tool locker!" Jameson breathed. "Look, Dmitri, some of those plastic sacks they ferried us here in.

And those globular air canisters. And a rack of those broomstick scooters. And the plastic sheaths they wore over their heads and tails."

"How are you going to use them?" Dmitri said. "You still need a s.p.a.cesuit."

One of the little pink creatures was urging Jameson over to the locker. It plucked at his clothing with little quick movements. In a moment of shock, he realized that it was undressing him.

"Don't be shy," Dmitri urged. "It has something in mind. Go along with it."

Jameson turned his back to Mei-mei and dropped his shorts. The humanoid was peeling off his shirt.

When he was stripped to the buff, the Cygnan waddled over to him on four unsteady legs, carrying an object shaped like two cones, one large and one small, joined at their narrow ends. It pointed the open end of the small cone at him.

"What's it going to do?" Jameson asked uneasily.

"Don't worry," Dmitri replied. "Itloves you."

There was a violent hiss, and Jameson felt the shock of something cold on his body. The Cygnan was spraying him with some foaming liquid.

It scooted round and round him, spraying every square inch of his body methodically, all the way up to his chin. It made him lift both feet, one after the other, and did the soles. It paid special attention to the crevices between the toes. Then it sprayed him all over again, with more personal attentions that would have made him blush if the Cygnan had been human. The stuff made all his cuts and sc.r.a.pes sting. He stood there, feeling foolish, covered with bubbles from neck to foot. In seconds, the bubbles began to collapse. He felt unpleasantly sticky for a few moments, as if he'd been coated with mola.s.ses. Then the stings and hurts on his back faded and disappeared. The stuff hardened on the surface of his body, forming a transparent rubbery membrane that showed every mole and freckle. You couldn't tell the film was there, except for the fact that it gave his skin a silvery cast, like scar tissue, and plastered down his body hair. On a Cygnan's mottled hide, it would have been entirely invisible.

"So this is why the Cygnans didn't need s.p.a.cesuits," he said.

"A spray-on s.p.a.cesuit?" Dmitri said admiringly.

"Why not? What's the function of a s.p.a.cesuit, except to seal in an atmosphere, regulate temperature, and pressurize the surface of the body so that blood vessels won't rupture? If Cygnan skin works anything like ours, it's already a gas-tight membrane and an efficient temperature-regulating system. Except for a breathing mask, all you really need is' a kind of support hose for the entire body."

"Why didn't the s.p.a.ce Resources Agency ever develop some kind of a stretch suit, then?"

"Too hard to get into. It would have to be some kind of shrink plastic that could only be used once. A spray-on's the perfect disposable!"

"Tod, that thing could kill you! You don't know if that membrane's permeable to moisture! I don't even know if Cygnans sweat!"

"I'll have to take that chance, Dmitri." Jameson flexed his arms and legs. The membrane stretched over his joints like a second skin. "I don'tfeel overheated. I'm going to trust the Cygnans. I'm betting that the stuff conserves just the right amount of body heat and transmits the rest to maintain a balance."

The Cygnan was earnestly trying to fit a plastic bag over his head. He waved her off while he stepped back into his shorts, less for modesty than for the built-in support they provided. Human anatomy needed a bit more help than the Cygnans' smooth contours did.

Jameson turned to Dmitri. "Dmitri, I-"

"I know. I'd only be in the way. Don't worry about me, Tod. I'll stay here with Mei-mei until the Cygnans come along and put us back in the zoo. It won't be a bad life for an exobiologist. It's a fascinating opportunity, actually."'

He grimaced, then carefully sat down. The pain of his smashed bones was getting through to him, despite the pills.

"Janet will set that for you when you get back. Can you hold on till then?"

Dmitri nodded. "Sorry I can't help. Sorry I flubbed it up on the ridge with my little hatchet, too."

Jameson laughed. "You've more than made up for it. Thanks."

Dmitri looked thoughtful. "There'll be a lot for me to do here. We're going to have to learn how to get along with the Cygnans. If they don't have the empathy, we'll make up for it. They're going to learn a thing or two about human beings, too. We won't stay zoo animals forever. We'll breed-we've always been good at that. Too good. In another six-million years, who knows? Maybe there'll be a new partnership out there among the stars-the descendants of free-living flatworms existing side by side in technological symbiosis with the descendants of parasitic roundworms."

The tranquilized Cygnan finally put the plastic sheath over Jameson's head and inflated it from one of the globular canisters. It was a tight fit, rather like a stocking mask, but it stretched. The canister stuck between his shoulder blades with an adhesive disk. A simple transparent hose connection, part of the sheath, plugged in to it. There was no provision for removal of wastes; Jameson suspected that the sheath was selectively permeable to heavier gas molecules. A careful squirt around the neck of the sheath sealed it to him.

Jameson sniffed the air. It smelled good.

The two pink pixies were urging the Cygnan into a sack. It crawled inside and curled up peaceably. The two humanoids crawled in after it, with a collection of air canisters.

They wanted to take it along!

After half a minute of futile gestures, Jameson gave in. He sealed the neck of the sack and turned to Dmitri. Dmitri's lips were forming the words "Good luck." Mei-mei was huddled next to him, big-eyed.

Jameson looked over at where Ruiz's crumpled body lay. The gaunt profile, skin stretched like parchment over the sharp cheeks and the beak of a nose, stared past the metal ceiling, perhaps a mile overhead, to something unseeable beyond.

"So long, Hernando," Jameson said. "You tried."

With Klein's gun in his belt and a Cygnan broomstick in his hand, he picked up the transparent balloon with its two or three pounds of alien life inside, and stepped through the lock into the dark.

Chapter 29.

A necklace of people stretched across the stars. Jameson counted: twenty-seven of them, all holding hands. They'd turned off their thrusters long since. They were falling raggedly toward the spoked wheel of the Jupiter ship a couple of miles away-a circle drawn round a Y, shining with reflected Jupiter light.

He was riding the Cygnan broomstick backward, braking at a reckless quarter g, gripping it with both hands and clamped thighs to keep from sliding down the slender shaft toward the deadly beam of light that fanned out from its business end. The four-foot bubble with the Cygnan and the two humanoids curled inside was snubbed securely to the shaft.

The necklace was mostly blue, with nine white human trinkets s.p.a.ced along it. Six of them would be the American prisoners, each sandwiched between two guards. That left twenty-one of them to deal with-including Maggie.

He eased down the thrust, matching velocities. The broomstick had only one control, a sliding stud that turned it on and graduated the thrust all the way up to one g. You pointed it where you wanted to go, and you judged your turnover point, by eyeball and by the seat of your pants.