"Not exactly, but I feel as if I were limping."
"That's to be expected. I changed the angle of the heel tendon and the
muscle of the arch. You're using a different set of muscles when you
walk; until they harden up, you'll have some assorted Charley horses.
Have any trouble hearing me?"
"No, though I'd hear better without all these bandages," Bart said
impatiently.
"All in good time. Any trouble breathing?"
"No, except for the bandages."
"Fine. I changed the shape of your ears and nostrils, and it might have
affected your hearing or your breathing. Now, listen, Bart: I'm going to
take the bandages off your hands first. Sit down."
Bart sat across the table from him, obediently sticking out his hands.
Raynor Three said, "Shut your eyes."
Bart did as he was told and felt Raynor Three's long fingers working at
the bandages.
"Move each finger as I touch it." Bart obeyed, and Raynor said
neutrally, "Good. Now, take a deep breath and then open your eyes."
Impatiently Bart flicked his lids open. In spite of the warning, his
breath went out in a harsh, jolting gasp. His hands lay on the table
before him--but they were not his hands.
The narrow, long fingers were pearl-gray, tipped with whitish-pink claws
that curved out over the tips. Nervously Bart moved one finger, and the
long claw flicked out like a cat's, retracted. He swallowed.
"Golly!" He felt strangely wobbly.
"A beautiful job, if I do say so. Be careful not to scratch yourself,
and practice picking up small things."
Bart saw that the long grayish claws were trembling. "How did you
make--the claws?"
"Quite simple, really," Raynor beamed. "I injected protein compounds
into the nail matrix, which speeded up nail growth terrifically, and
then, as they grew, shaped them. Joining on those tiny muscles for the
retracting mechanism was the tricky part though."
Bart was moving his hands experimentally. Once over the shock, they felt
quite normal. The claws didn't get in his way half so much as he'd
expected when he picked up a pen that lay beside him and, with the blunt
tip, made a few of the strange-looking dots and wedges that were the
Lhari alphabet.
"Practice writing this," said Raynor Three, and laid a plastic-encased
folder down beside him. It was a set of ship's papers printed in Lhari.
Bart read it through, seeing that it was made out to the equivalent of
Astrogator, First Class, Bartol.
"That's your name now, the name your father would have used. Memorize
it, get used to the sound of it, practice writing it. Don't worry too
much about the rating; it's an elementary one, what we'd call Apprentice
rating, and I have a training tape for you anyhow. My brother got hold
of it, don't ask me how--and don't ask him!"
"When am I going to see my face?"
"When I think you're ready for the shock," Raynor said bluntly. "It
almost threw you when I showed you your hands."
He made Bart walk around some more briefly, slowly, he unwound the
bandages; then turned and picked up a mirror at the bottom of his
medic's case, turning it right side up. "Here. But take it easy."
But when Bart looked in the mirror he felt no unexpected shock, only an
unnerving revulsion.
His hair was bleached-white and fluffy, almost feathery to the touch.
His skin was grayish-rose, and his eyelids had been altered just enough
to make his eyes look long, narrow and slanted. His nostrils were mere
slits, and he moved his tongue over lips that felt oddly thin.
"I did as little to your teeth as I thought I could get away with-capped
the front ones," Raynor Three told him. "So if you get a toothache
you're out of luck--you won't dare go to a Lhari dentist. I could have
done more, but it would have made you look too freakish when we changed
you back to human again--if you live that long," he added grimly.
_I hadn't thought about that. And if Raynor is going to forget me, who
will do it?_ The cold knot of fear, never wholly absent, moved in him
again.
Watching his face, Raynor Three said gently, "It's a big network, Bart.
I'm not telling you much, for your own safety. But when you get to
Antares, they'll tell you all you need to know."
He lifted Bart's oddly clawed hands. "I warned you, remember--the change
isn't completely reversible. Your hands will always look--strange. The
fingers had to be lengthened, for instance. I wanted to make you as safe
as possible among the Lhari. I think you'll pass anything but an X-ray.
Just be careful not to break any bones."
He gave Bart a package. "This is the Lhari training tape. Listen to it
as often as you can, then destroy it--_completely_--before you leave
here. The _Swiftwing_ is due in port three days from now, and they stay
here a week. I don't know how we'll manage it, but I'll guarantee
there'll be a vacancy of one Astrogator, First Class, on that ship." He
rose. "And now I'm going back to town and erase the memory." He stopped,
looking intently at Bart.
"So if you see me, stay away from me and don't speak, because I won't
know you from any other Lhari. Understand? From here on, you're on your
own, Bart."
He held out his hand. "This is the rough part, Son." His face moved
strangely. "I'm part of this network between the stars, but I don't know
what I've done before, and I'll never know how it comes out. It's funny
to stand here and look at you and realize that I won't even remember
you." The gold-glinted eyes blinked rapidly. "Goodbye, Bart. And--good
luck, Son."
Bart took his hand, deeply moved, with the strange sense that this was
another death--a worse one than Briscoe's. He tried to speak and
couldn't.
"Well--" Raynor's mouth twisted into a wry grin. "Ouch! Careful with
those claws. The Lhari don't shake hands."
He turned abruptly and went out of the door and out of Bart's life,
while Bart stood at the dome-window, feeling alone as he had never felt
alone before.
* * * * *
He had to wait six days, and they felt like six eternities. He played
the training tape over and over. With his Academy background, it wasn't
nearly so difficult as he'd feared. He read and reread the set of papers
identifying him as Astrogator, First Class, Bartol. Forged, he supposed.
Or was there, somewhere, a real Bartol?
The last morning he slept uneasily late. He finished his last meal as a
human, spent part of the day removing all traces of his presence from
Raynor's home, burned the training tape, and finally got into the silky,
silvery tights and cloak that Raynor had provided. He could use his
hands now as if they belonged to him; he even found the claws handy and
useful. He could write his signature, and copy out instructions from the
training tape, without a moment's hesitation.
Toward dusk, a young Lhari slipped unobserved out of Raynor's house and
hiked unnoticed to the edges of a small city nearby, where he mingled
with the crowd and hired a skycab from an unobservant human driver to
take him to the spaceport city. The skycab driver was startled, but not,
Bart judged, unusually so, to pick up a Lhari passenger.
"Been doing a little sight-seeing on our planet, hey?"
"That's right," Bart said in Universal, not trying to fake his idea of
the Lhari accent. Raynor had told him that only a few of the Lhari had
that characteristic sibilant "r" and "s" and warned him against trying
to imitate it. _Just speak naturally; there are dialects of Lhari, just
as there are dialects of the different human languages, and they all
sound different in Universal anyhow._ "Just looking around some."
The skycab driver frowned and looked down at his controls, and Bart felt
curiously snubbed. Then he remembered. He himself had little to say to
the Lhari when they spoke to him.
_He was an alien, a monster. He couldn't expect to be treated like a
human being any more._
When the skycab let him off before the spaceport, it felt strange to see
how the crowds edged away from him as he made a way through them. He
caught a glimpse of himself in one of the mirror-ramps, a tall thin
strange form in a metallic cloak, head crested with feathery white, and
felt overwhelmingly homesick for his own familiar face.
He was beginning to feel hungry, and realized that he could not go into
an ordinary restaurant without attracting attention. There were
refreshment stands all over the spaceport, and he briefly considered
getting a snack at one of these.
No, that was just putting it off. The time had to come when he must face
his fear and test his disguise among the Lhari themselves. Reviewing his
knowledge of the construction of spaceports, he remembered that one side
was the terminal, where humans and visitors and passengers were freely
admitted; the other side, for Lhari and their Mentorian employees only,
contained--along with business offices of many sorts--a sort of arcade
with amusement centers, shops and restaurants catering to the personnel
of the Lhari ships. With nine or ten ships docking every day, Raynor had
assured him that a strange Lhari face would be lost in the crowds very
easily.
He went to one of the doors marked DANGER, LHARI LIGHTS BEYOND, and
passed through the glaring corridor of offices and storage-warehouses,
finally coming out into a sort of wide mall. The lights were fierce, but
he could endure them without trouble now, though his head ached faintly.
Raynor, testing his light tolerance, had assured him that he could endure
anything the Lhari could, without permanent damage to his optic nerves,
though he would have headaches until he got used to them.
There were small shops and what looked like bars, and a glass-fronted
place with a sign lettered largely, in black letters, a Lhari phrase
meaning roughly HOME AWAY FROM HOME: MEALS SERVED, SPACEMEN WELCOME,
REASONABLE.
Behind him a voice said in Lhari, "Tell me, does that sign mean what it
says? Or is this one of those traps for separating the unwary spaceman
from his hard-earned credits? How's the food?"
Bart carefully took hold of himself.
"I was just wondering that myself." He turned as he spoke, finding
himself face to face with a young Lhari in the unadorned cloak of a
spaceman without official rank. He knew the Lhari was young because his
crest was still white.
The young Lhari extended his claws in the closed-fist, hidden-claw
gesture of Lhari greeting. "Shall we take a chance? Ringg son of Rahan
greets you."
"Bartol son of Berihun."
"I don't remember seeing you in the port, Bartol."
"I've mostly worked on the Polaris run."
"Way off there?" Ringg son of Rahan sounded startled and impressed. "You
really get around, don't you? Shall we sit here?"
They sat on triangular chairs at a three-cornered table. Bart waited for
Ringg to order, and ordered what he did. When it came, it was a sort of
egg-and-fish casserole which Bart found extremely tasty, and he dug into
it with pleasure. Allowing for the claws, Lhari table manners were not
so much different from human--_and remember, their customs differ as
much as ours do. If you do something differently, they'll just think
you're from another planet with a different culture._
"Have you been here long?"
"A day or so. I'm off the _Swiftwing_."
Bart decided to hazard his luck. "I was told there's a vacancy on the
_Swiftwing_."
Ringg looked at him curiously. "There is," he said, "but I'd like to
know how you found it out. Captain Vorongil said that anyone who talked
about it would be sent to Kleeto for three cycles. But what happened to
you? Miss your ship?"
"No, I've just been laying off--traveling, sight-seeing, bumming
around," Bart said. "But I'm tired of it, and now I'd like to sign out
again."
"Well, we could use another man. This is the long run we're making, out
to Antares and then home, and if everybody has to work extra shifts,
it's no fun. But if old Vorongil knows that there's been talk in the
port about Klanerol jumping ship, or whatever happened to him, we'll all
have to walk wide of his temper."
Bart was beginning to relax a little; Ringg apparently accepted him
without scrutiny. At this close range Ringg did not seem a monster, but
just a young fellow like himself, hearty, good-natured--in fact, not
unlike Tommy.
Bart chased the thought away as soon as it sneaked into his brain--one
of those _things_, like _Tommy_? Then, rather grimly, he reminded
himself, _I'm one of those things_. He said irritably, "So how do I
account for asking your captain for the place?"
Ringg cocked his fluffy crest to one side. "I know," he said, "_I_ told
you. I'll say you're an old friend of mine. You don't know what
Vorongil's like when he gets mad. But what he doesn't know, he won't
shout about." He shoved back the triangular chair. "Who _did_ tell you,
anyway?"
This was the first real hurdle, and Bart's brain raced desperately, but
Ringg was not listening for an answer. "I suppose somebody gossiped, or
one of those fool Mentorians picked it up. Got your papers? What
rating?"
"Astrogator first class."
"Klanerol was second, but you can't have everything, I suppose." Ringg
led the way through the arcades, out across a guarded sector, passing
half a dozen of the huge ships lying in their pits. Finally Ringg
stopped and pointed. "This is the old hulk."
Bart had traveled only in Lhari passenger ships, which were new and
fresh and sleek. This ship was enormous, ovoid like the egg of some
space-monster, the sides dented and discolored, thin films of chemical
discoloration lying over the glassy metallic hull.
Bart followed Ringg. This was real, it was happening. He was signing out
for his first interstellar cruise on one of the Lhari ships. Not a
Mentorian assistant, half-trusted, half-tolerated, but one of the crew
themselves. _If I'm lucky_, he reminded himself grimly.
There was Lhari, in the black-banded officer's cloak, at the doorway. He
glanced at Ringg's papers.
"Friend of mine," Ringg said, and Bart proffered his folder. The Lhari
gave it a casual glance, handed it back.
"Old Baldy on board?" Ringg asked.
"Where else?" The officer laughed. "You don't think _he'd_ relax with
cargo not loaded, do you?"
They seemed casual and normal, and Bart's confidence was growing. They
had accepted him as one of themselves. But the great ordeal still lay
before him--an interview with the Lhari captain. And the idea had Bart
sweating scared.
The corridors and decks seemed larger, wider, more spacious, but
shabbier than on the clean, bright, commercial passenger decks Bart had
seen. Dark-lensed men were rolling bales of cargo along on wheeled
dollies. The corridors seemed endless. More to hear the sound of his own
voice, and reassure himself of his ability to speak and be understood,
than because he cared, he asked Ringg, "What's your rating?"
"Well, according to the logbooks, I'm an Expert Class Two,
Metals-Fatigue," said Ringg. "That sounds very technical and
interesting. But what it means is just that I go all over the ship inch
by inch, and when I finish, start all over again at the other end. Most
of what I do is just boss around the maintenance crews and snarl at them
about spots of rust on the paint."
They got into a small round elevator and Ringg punched buttons; it began
to rise, slowly and creakily, toward the top. "This, for instance,"
Ringg said. "I've been yelling for a new cable for six months." He
turned. "Take it easy, Bartol; don't let Vorongil scare you. He likes to
hear the sound of his own voice, but we'd all walk out the lock without
spacesuits for him."
The elevator slid to a stop. The sign in Lhari letters said _Level of
Administration--Officers' Deck_. Ringg pushed at a door and said,
"Captain Vorongil?"
"I thought you were on leave," said a Lhari voice, deeper and slower
than most. "What are you doing, back here more than ten milliseconds
before strap-in checks?"
Ringg stepped back for Bart to go inside. The small cabin, with an
elliptical bunk slung from the ceiling and a triangular table, was
dwarfed by a tall, thin Lhari, in a cloak with four of the black bands
that seemed to denote rank among them. He had a deeply lined face with a
lacework of tiny wrinkles around the slanted eyes. His crest was not the
high, fluffy white of a young Lhari, but broken short near the scalp,
grayish pink showing through, the little feathery ends yellowed with
age. He growled, "Come in then, don't stand there. I suppose Ringg's
told you what a tyrant I am? What do you want, feathertop?"
Bart remembered being told that this was the Lhari equivalent of "Kid"
or "Youngster." He fumbled in the capacious folds of his cloak for his
papers. His voice sounded shrill, even to himself.
"Bartol son of Berihun in respectful greeting, _rieko mori_."
("Honorable old-bald-one," the Lhari equivalent of "sir.") "Ringg told
me there is a vacancy among the Astrogators, and I want to sign out."
Unmistakably, Vorongil's snort was laughter.
"So you've been talking, Ringg?"
Ringg retorted, "Better that I tell one man than that you have to hunt
the planet over--or run the long haul with the drive-room watches short
by one man."
"Well, well, you're right," Vorongil growled. He glared at Bart. "On the
last planet, one of our men disappeared. Jumped ship!" The creases
around his eyes deepened, troubled. "Probably just gone on the drift,
sight-seeing, but I wish he'd told me. As it is, I wonder if he's been
hurt, killed, kidnaped."