Part 23 (1/2)

”This we have to look into,” Tamme said. She moved toward the house.

A curtain of fog parted, showing a doorway and a figure in it. ”Inhabited yet,” Tamme murmured. Her hands did not move to her weapons, but Veg knew she was ready to use them instantly.

”Let's go ask directions,” he suggested facetiously.

”Yes.” And she moved forward.

”Hey, I didn't mean -- ” But he knew that she had known what he meant since she could read his emotions. Awkwardly, he followed her.

Up close, there was another shock. The inhabitant of the house was a human female of middle age but well preserved -- with a prehensile nose.

Veg tried not to stare. The woman was so utterly typical of what he thought of as a frontier housewife -- except for that proboscis. It twined before her face like a baby elephant trunk. It made her more utterly alien than a battery of other nonhuman features might have -- because it occupied the very center of attention. It was repulsively fascinating.

Tamme seemed not to notice. ”Do you understand my speech? she inquired sociably.

The woman's nose curled up in a living question mark.

Tamme tried a number of other languages, amazing Veg by her proficiency. Then she went into signs. Now the woman responded. ”Hhungh!” she snorted, her nose pointing straight out for a moment.

”Projector,” Tamme said. ”Alternates.” She shaped the projector with her hands.

The woman's nose scratched her forehead meditatively. ”Hwemph?”

”Flex,” Veg put in, holding out the hexaflexagon.

The woman's eyes lighted with comprehension. ”Hflehx!” she repeated. And her nose pointed to the fog bank from which they had emerged, a little to the side.

”Hthankhs,” Veg said, smiling.

The woman smiled back. ”Hshugh.”

Veg and Tamme turned back toward the fog. ”Nice people,” Veg remarked, not sure himself how he intended it.

”There have been others before us,” Tamme said. ”The woman had been instructed to play dumb, volunteering nothing. But we impressed her more favorably than did our predecessors, so she exceeded her authority and answered, after all.”

”How do you know all that?” But as he spoke, he remembered. ”You can read aliens, too! Because they have emotions, same as us.”

”Yes. I was about to initiate hostile-witness procedures, but you obviated the need.”

”Me and my flexagon!”

”You and your direct, naive, country-boy manner, lucking out again.” She shook her head. ”I must admit: Simplicity has its place. You are proving to be a surprising a.s.set.”

”Shucks, 'taint nothin',” Veg said with an exaggerated drawl.

”Of course, our predecessors were the same: Tamme and Veg. That's why they obtained her cooperation.”

”I noticed she wasn't surprised to see us. I guess our noses look amputated.”

”Truncated. Yes.”