Page 14 of Alien Peacock
We’re halfway along the corridor when someone approaches from behind. I turn slowly, ready to defend myself but not wanting to alarm an innocent being.
It’s an alien, short and bony and pale green. It has two arms, two legs and one head, and so must count as highly exotic by most inhabitants of this station.
“Thir,” it lisps in Interspeech, the words barely understandable because the alien has three long tongues that seem to get in the way. “You wanted information.”
“That’s right,” I say slowly. Perhaps my accent sounds as thick to the alien as its own does to me. “About someone who may have been here. A man like me, but orange. Show him the holo, Cerak.”
The hologram of the archmagus hovers in space in front of the robot.
“Yeth,” the alien says. “I heard. I thaw it.”
“You saw that man?”
“How much you pay?”
I take out the credit crystals Maeve gave me. I had no intention of actually taking her money, but she surprised me with her speech, and I didn’t have the presence of mind to give it back. “This much. What do you know?”
The alien reaches out with a seven-fingered hand, and I drop the crystals into his small, green palm.
“I thaw the man. Orange. Jutht today. Thome hourth ago.”
I raise my eyebrows. “Today? Where?”
“Pathing through market,” the alien lisps, tongues waving. “That way.” It points down the corridor with two fingers.
“Was he alone?”
“Alone.” The alien turns and hurries away, clutching the credit crystals.
“He was seen here only hours ago,” Cerak sums up. “He may well still be around.”
Cautious excitement spreads in me. “Indeed he may. If he is, we’re that much closer to triumph.”
We walk on, faster now. The corridor is dimly lit, with several of the light points only flashing intermittently. The ventilation system makes more of a noise here, rattling and groaning like a dyinguariol. Wide doors lead off to the sides, but they don’t react when Cerak tries to open them. At the end of the corridor it opens up into an octagonal junction, with seven other corridors leading out of it.
“Now we just take our pick,” Cerak says. “Such a pity our informer didn’t tell us which one we should choose.”
I peer down each of the hallways in turn. Five of them are dark and probably not in use, with loose trash and debris littering the ground. The two others are much like the one we came from, with flickering lights and a moderately clean floor. There are many faded informational graphics on the walls, but the textisn’t Interspeech and I can’t decipher any of it. “Is that the way to the restrooms?”
Cerak turns his rotund body. “Looks like some kind of machinery room. Or possibly a farm?”
“A farm in a space station?” I stride into the nearest lit corridor. “I doubt it. Let’s not waste time. We’ll check them all until we find him.”
The corridor turns and then ends in a big door. It doesn’t open when I touch the panel. “Can you open this?”
Cerak rolls over to the panel. “Yes, but I don’t want to. It would likely set off all kinds of alarms, and as has been pointed out, robots are not strictly allowed to use their tech to open doors that an organic wishes to keep closed.”
I glance back down the corridor. There’s nobody there. “Is that a derogatory term? ‘Organic’?”
“It’s an accurate term, that’s all. We robots enjoy accuracy a great deal.”
The door won’t budge. “Nobody’s watching, Cerak. And we could just say it was me.”
“There could be all kinds of cameras and microphones around,” the robot says. “So this door will remain closed. I want to point out that if it won’t open forus, then it probably also didn’t open for the man we seek.”
“I don’t think any doors are ever closed for an archmagus. But all right.” I turn and stride back to the junction, choosing the other corridor.
The door at the end of this one slides up well before we reach it, revealing a space lit in red. As Cerak and I pass into it, I hear voices.