Inside my skull, the Lyranian came to life--struggled briefly--and
then quit. Barger, Allardyce and I spent the rest of the trip home
in the air-conditioned, radiation-resistant, germproof, dustproof,
escape-resistant brig. Alex, of course, wasn't aboard. There aren't
many places on a starship where a man can hide, and the crew searched
them all.
Even so, I kept worrying about the ship's safety all the way back.
It was a miserable trip. I suppose it was just as miserable for the
Lyranians in my two companions who kept worrying about how to destroy
us. It didn't do them any good either. They never got a chance, and
ultimately we reached Decontamination.
Barger and Allardyce are up there now. The medics think they can erase
the Lyranians with insulin shock, but it'll take time. Mine, being a
nice, tame one, was considered to be more valuable in me than out.
We're going to have to know a lot about Lyrane in a hurry if we're
going to do anything about those people, and my Lyranian can tell us
plenty.
But I'll bet we'll find things different on Lyrane when we go back.
They'll have at least ten years, and with the brains they've got--and
Alex's brain to pick--they'll do just fine from an engineering point of
view. I'll bet they'll even have spaceships.
From what I can gather from my alter ego, they checked Alex's brain
and didn't like what they saw. That's the trouble with romantics. They
always remember the wars and the fighting, never the stodgy, peaceful
interims. But you simply don't spring that sort of stuff on a culture
like Lyrane's. And I suppose my anger didn't help things any, but if
not for that anger and my primitive bull-headedness, we might not be
here.