Part 3 (2/2)

”I hope you won't blame your own computer, General,” the computer went on. ”After all, she's really quite competent and far more advanced than I am. It's just that the new drive was never really tested under true field conditions and there was no way she could have known.”

”I forgive her! I forgive her!” the general muttered defeatedly. ”So what happened to us when we went in the black hole?”

”Oh-I thought that would be obvious, even to a noncomputer,” came the reply. ”Still, I guess I'm just too optimistic about you organic life-forms. It's hard to adjust to the basic idea that one's creators aren't greater than oneself.”

”All right, I admit defeat, I admit slowness, I admit anything!” the general responded. ”Only where did we come out?”

Pierce thought for a moment that he was going to witness a giant reptilian warrior cry like a baby, but the best the general could do was a plaintive whisper.

”A white hole, of course,” the computer told them. ”All that energy can't be stored forever. It has to come out somewhere, and that somewhere is a white hole. There are a few around, mostly at the centers of galaxies. And since there's no white hole near most of the black holes we know, there is only one place where they could come out.”

”Where?” pleaded the general.

”In a parallel universe, naturally,” the computer said. ”Entropy requires them. You're almost exactly where you left, only one universe over.”

Pierce stood there a moment, digesting this, then decided he didn't like it.

”But-but they're lizards!” he protested..

At almost the same moment the reptilian alien who also called himself Pierce exclaimed, ”But-but he's an ape!”

”So what do you want, everything?” the computer replied to them both. ”An amazing amount of your dual histories is parallel, until quite recently, anyway. What's a little thing like a different turn of evolution between families? You living creatures are so strange, sometimes. Take, for example, their own s.h.i.+p's computer. Strangely different in design, yet, somehow, so attractively different . . .” It lapsed into a wistful sort of silence.

The two Pierces stared at each other, saying nothing, but the human's mind was racing.

Two universes, the same start, yet in one the mammals had risen to prominence after the huge and efficient dinosaurs had died out. In their universe, obviously, only the large ones didn't make it. Maybe the catastrophe or whatever it was that killed off the race in our universe didn't happen in his, Pierce thought. It would explain why the alien s.h.i.+p was so warm and, well, stinking. And yet, somehow, civilizations had arisen on each world that bore an almost uncanny resemblance to the one next to it. Language, perhaps most of the culture, who knew? Perhaps, somehow, they were linked by more than common histories. Perhaps, subconsciously, each individual in this universe was linked, somehow, to his reptilian brother in the other. It opened some fascinating possibilities.

”This is great!” he told his reptilian counterpart, relaxing a bit. ”This makes us . . . well . . .

brothers, I guess.” He put out his hand. The alien slapped him hard and made a menacing gesture with his gun.

”I don't swallow all that for a second,” the alien Pierce snapped. ”In fact, I find the very idea repugnant and, more importantly, beside the point. Even if you looked just like me and everything it wouldn't change anything at all, except maybe get you a little gold star when we take over.”

Chastened, the human rubbed his side and gulped. ”Wh-what do you mean, 'take over'?”

”We set out to conquer, to extend the glorious rule of the Emperor Edsel x.x.xVI to other galaxies. This qualifies as another galaxy to me, bud. It all being so familiar just makes it easier.

Wonder if we have the same defense codes? Hmmm . . .”

”Wait a minute!” Pierce protested. ”You mean-you're still going to declare war?”

”Of course not,” his reptilian counterpart responded indignantly. ”Only weaklings bother to do that. We'll just launch our surprise attacks and destroy everything and everybody we can't subjugate.”

Pierce looked to heaven and sat down, hard. ”Oh, no!” he murmured, more to himself than the aliens. ”Here we go again.”

”Excuse me,” the computer broke in, ”but that absolutely ravis.h.i.+ng computer of yours just asked me to relay a message to you boys.”

The four reptilian warriors looked up. ”What is it?” their leader snapped.

”Don't take that tone with me,” the computer admonished. ”I have feelings, you know.”

It was the alien's turn to look heavenward and mutter. Instead he just sighed and said, ”All right. I'm sorry. Will you please give me the message?”

”That's better,” the computer told him. ”A little respect, that's all I ask. Just a little respect. I don't know why I have to keep going through this with you people again and again. Heaven knows . .

Pierce noted that the temperature of the room was rising once again.

”Would you please, Mr. Computer Sir, just give me the d.a.m.ned message?”

Pierce tried to suppress a smile and wondered if pointy-toothed carnivores could stand teeth- gnas.h.i.+ng for very long.

The computer sighed. ”Oh, very well. I don't know exactly where we are even now, but it certainly is a crowded place. There's a huge s.h.i.+p bearing down on us, armed to the teeth.”

The aliens snapped to attention. ”How big?” their leader asked crisply.

”That's relative,” the computer responded. ”Compared to this s.h.i.+p, for example, it's quite large. Huge, in fact.”

”Compared to ours, you . . .” the general fumed, then calmed down when he realized where he was headed. ”You . . . computer,” he managed.

”Oh, perhaps ten percent of yours, no more,” the machine told them. ”Still, it seems very fast and heavily armed.”

The general turned to the others. ”We have to get back to the s.h.i.+p,” he told them. ”We may be needed in case of a fight.” He turned to Pierce. ”You-don't try anything. You're still hitched to us by tractor beam, remember. Any attempt to disengage will mean your instant obliteration- clear?”

Pierce nodded, but looked puzzled. ”Why go?” he asked them. ”After all, what can the four of you do to help?”

The alien stopped a moment and stared at him in amazement. ”Why, we're the army. The combat arm.”

Pierce frowned. ”All of it? You're the entire invasion army? What do the rest of you on that huge s.h.i.+p do?” ”There are only twenty thousand on the s.h.i.+p,” the general responded. ”There's the naval staff, of course, andthe technical staff, and the lab people, and then there's the rest-the support troops.

You people must be dumb.” And with that, he stormed out.

Pierce was suddenly alone, staring blankly at the wall. Finally he said aloud, ”They're going to conquer our galaxy with four soldiers?”

”Maybe,” the computer responded. ”And then again, maybe it's the three million genetically preprogrammed eggs in their storage bins that will provide the troops.”

Pierce swallowed hard and sat back down again. ”H-how many eggs did you say?”

”Three million, give or take,” the computer con-firmed. ”h.o.r.n.y b.u.g.g.e.rs, aren't they?”

There seemed nothing to say to that, so instead he asked, ”Can you tell me anything about the new s.h.i.+p? Is it one of ours? Is it attacking, ignorant, or what?”

”I can't tell about their intellectual capacities,” the machine responded, ”but I would certainly say that it is from our own universe, is well armed but of no military arm I've ever seen or heard of before, and does in fact appear to be attacking-all of which, of course, is quite irrelevant.”

”Irrelevant? Why?”

”Because there is no way it can stand up to the dreadnought we're attached to. They'll be lucky to be captured at the speed and angle of attack they're using. I'd say they have about seventy seconds before they are blown out of existence.”

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