A Close Port of Call
A Close Port of Call
by Altivo Overo
"What beast couldst thou be, that were not subject to a beast?"
--William Shakespeare, Timon of Athens, Act IV, Scene 3
Dockmaster Mark Partine looked up from his terminal when the proximity chime sounded. He expected it of course, but he liked watching the traffic pull into the station and he had a good viewport. The class two galactic skimmer glided smoothly toward a docking port with the usual flashing lights and associated comm chatter. He looked across the room to his communications officer, Lora Rojo, and she nodded to him with a little smile. The vixen was always competent and controlled, and sat erect on her stool with her tail curled around her legs. The dull clunk of the dock making magnetic contact with the skimmer vibrated through the flooring.
Lora pushed the boom microphone on her headset aside, saying "That's Captain Teftawn with the Leonia, Mark."
Mark nodded, returning his attention to the terminal where he had already called up the skimmer's registry record. The ship was in the diplomatic service, a courier with top clearance and no crew other than the captain himself. Usually diplomatic corps had all the latest computer rigout, so it was surprising that Teftawn had messaged for computer service, saying his navigation system was out. Knowing that the courier's captain would be in his office promptly, the master stood and shook out his tail and mane, though they were always well kept and black as polished ebony. He straightened his uniform jacket too. Valden 4 didn't often get important traffic like this.
Valden's station was not large, and only had docking for eight ships. Most traffic was made up by trade freighters, bringing in manufactured goods or carrying out grain and other agricultural produce from the planet below. It took only minutes for the Leonia's captain to reach the offices, and the portal slid aside for him with its automated rush of air.
The dockmaster watched curiously as Captain Teftawn, a Leandrine of exceptional height and mass, stepped briskly into the room and let the door slide shut behind him. The leonine descendants were noted for their aloofness and attention to protocol, but Teftawn smiled and winked at Lora before turning to Mark and offering his identicap. "Teftawn with the Leonia," he said in a quiet purr that was nonetheless perfectly clear and businesslike. "I hope you have a good computer tech on staff."
Mark accepted the capsule and slid it into the terminal's validation port, then offered his hand in the traditional gesture of friendship and respect. "Mark Partine, dockmaster here," he nickered, trying to keep his voice in the lower register. "Yes, sir, we have an excellent chief engineer with a computer specialty. What exactly seems to have happened?" The terminal blinked acceptance of the identicap and spit it back out, filling in sketchy information on the screen about Teftawn's current mission even as the lion captain accepted Mark's offered hand in a brief but warm grasp. Trade agreements and loan documents en route from Cassiopeia to the Cascade system appeared to be his only commission.
The Leandrine shook his head, blinking, heavy mane and beard rustling against the peculiar shiny material of his uniform jacket. "Damned if I know," he almost growled. "I was planning a stop here anyway because I've earned a few days off and the documents I have are not urgent. Navigation was locked on and confirmed, but I came out of the jump way inside planetary orbit and headed right for Valden's Star. The alarms were coming up all over my board and the helm wouldn't respond. I hit the manual override and it didn't catch until the second try, but then the nav program dropped out and I still had time to steer out of the gravity well. I called in here and used the backup programs to get into the station. Thanks to your communication specialist for letting me right in." He nodded again toward Lora, with a little smile.
We don't usually have a traffic problem here, Captain," Mark said. "And of course an emergency call gets top priority in any case. I'm glad you were able to use your overrides to get out of that." He tapped a couple of keys on the terminal keyboard, trying not to let his nostrils flare and quiver at the oddly arousing musky scent that clung to Teftawn. His hindbrain told him it was something dead and yet in some way, it wasn't that unpleasant. He looked up into the lion's gilt-backed eyes and added, "I've booked you for immediate repair services, but it will still take at least 24 hours for engineering to run full diagnostics on your computer systems. We have some pleasant guest quarters if you'd like to take a room here on the station, or would you prefer to stay with your ship?" The desire to reach out and stroke the visitor's jacket, to feel the odd material was almost overpowering.
Teftawn met Mark's gaze openly, appraisingly. It looked as if he were counting the Zebrine's stripes, in fact, and an odd thrill ran down the dockmaster's neck as the lion ran the tip of his tongue over his teeth before answering. "Quarters on a skimmer are tight and sparse," he grinned. "If your rooms have a proper bath and bed, I'll accept that offer regardless of price."
Mark blinked, reawakening from the odd feeling that had crept over him, and laughed nervously. "It's only a hundred credits added to your repair bill, Captain. No great expense." He tapped keys, and a repair authorization slid out of the printer. Placing it over a signature pad, he offered Teftawn a stylus.
The lion captain signed without reading the document. He let his paw drift lightly over the dockmaster's fingers as he handed the stylus back. "This is a small station," he said quietly. "I'm sure you aren't that formal with each other here. Call me Tef instead of Captain and I'll feel more comfortable."
The zebra morph let his eyes run over the white diplomatic sash of Teftawn's uniform before nodding slightly. He held out the printed document and the captain's identicap. "Your copy... Tef. You're right. Call me Mark, please." He pulled a plasteel badge with a neck chain from a drawer and handed that over too. "This badge will let you into all publicly accessible areas of the station. It's also the key to your rooms. You have suite 3 at the end of the beta corridor. That's to your left as you leave this office. We have a self-service mess hall, and there's a small gymnasium between the guest area and the crew's quarters. You're welcome to make use of those facilities if you wish. Station gravity is set to one half gee, but the gym has an independent axis so you can increase it to as much as one and a half if you prefer. Tap your intercom button to reach Lora here or whoever is on the comm panel if you have questions or need anything. Our chief engineer will be in touch with you about the repairs as soon as he can look over your systems."
Tef accepted the documents and the badge gravely. Then he laughed, a warm and not unfriendly sound. "Relax, zebra," he said, looking Mark right in the eye. "I'm not going to eat you. I'm not here on a formal mission either. As far as I'm concerned, we're just two guys stuck out here in space. Thanks for your help." He made a little bow to the vixen at the communication panel, and headed for the door. "I'll leave you to your work, dockmaster," he added, pausing. "But when you get off your shift, I'd like to talk to Mark about Valden 4. You're a native, I take it."
The dockmaster swallowed nervously and nodded. "I'll be free in two hours, and usually go to the mess for something to eat then," he volunteered.
"Good," Tef answered, and swiveled on a velveted footpaw to pad out the portal.
After the door whooshed shut, Lora was taken with a fit of giggles. "You'd think you had never seen a lion before, Mark," she chuckled.
The zebra actually blushed, easily visible through the short white nap of his muzzle. "There were Leandrines at university, Lora. Of course I've seen them before." He blinked and twitched one ear, thinking. "But there was something about this one. What was that odd scent?"
The vixen laughed again, loudly this time. "Trust a vegan not to know," she said, smiling. "It was leather. That uniform jacket he was wearing probably cost him 50 thousand at least."
Mark raised an eyebrow. "Real leather huh? You're right, I've never seen it before. Ostentatious but interesting."
"I thought he smelled good, as well as looking good," Lora offered. "But... he's obviously more interested in zebra boys than he is in fox girls." She ducked behind her terminal console as Mark threatened to toss his stylus at her, dartlike.
The rest of the shift passed uneventfully. Mark filed reports and analyzed cargo vouchers while Lora handled routine communications, passing doppler-shifted mail between long haul ships and planetside below them. About 30 minutes before watch change, the chief engineer, who was actually their only fully qualified engineer, called in to report that his assistant was going to begin the diagnostics on the Leonia. Mark relayed the details Tef had given him.
"That's just weird, Mark," the badger's voice croaked over the comm link. "You know as well as I do that couriers have the best computers and nav systems there are."
Mark nodded, even though the engineer couldn't see him over the voice intercom. "Yes, I know, Rob. But something happened to it. See what you can find out."
A few minutes later, the relief crew arrived. "Heading for the mess, Lora?" Mark asked.
The fox girl shook her head and yawned. "I'm on a diet," she told him, "and I need some sleep."
Mark chuckled. "You? The day you need to diet is the day this station takes off at FTL speed heading for Vega. Sweet dreams, lady."
Lora grinned widely, displaying her teeth and teasing with her tongue. "Enjoy your date with Teftawn," she countered, and scurried off toward crew's quarters, leaving Mark blinking and rattled in the corridor. Shaking his head, he turned toward the messroom, where he found Teftawn lolling at a table, waiting for him. He nodded and went to the counter, keying up tossed salad, warm bread, and a vegetable juice cocktail before taking his tray to join the lion.
Tef had shoved aside a plate that still held a patty of synthetic meat with only a small notch taken out of it. He was nursing a cup of tea or maybe broth of some sort, and eyed the gray meat substitute suspiciously. "What is that stuff made from, anyway?" he asked.
"Vegetable protein, I guess," Mark answered him. "I'm sorry. I didn't promise top quality food. Most of us are used to this stuff and don't think about it. Culture-grown flesh is expensive and difficult to ship and store."
The lion waved a dismissive paw. "Oh, I understand," he growled. "But at least it could be seasoned with something to disguise the taste."
Mark laughed and slid open a panel in the wall next to their table, revealing squeeze bottles of dressings and condiments. "This keeps them from floating away if the artificial gravity goes out," he grinned. "Maybe one of these would help." He uncapped a container of salad dressing and squirted some onto his greens.
Tef brightened a bit, and selected a spicy sauce which he applied liberally to the soy patty. "Duh," he said. "I missed the latch for that door entirely." He took a tentative bite and chewed, wrinkling his nose in an amusing fashion. "Well, that's tolerable, if not actually good," he said after swallowing. "Gotta eat something I guess."
Mark applied himself to the salad and bread. He was always hungry, but fortunately also young and active enough to stay trim in spite of his appetite. The bread was fairly tasty, since Valden was a grain producing planet.
Tef watched with mild curiosity. "You really like that green stuff?" he asked, sticking out a pink tongue in amusement.
The zebra laughed in spite of himself. "Actually, yes," he smiled. "It's in my genes of course." He broke off a large chunk of the bread and offered it. "Try this with your protein. It's quite good."
Accepting the proffered bread, the lion sniffed at it. "Smells good," he agreed. "Sort of like Denebian ale, in fact." He took a healthy bite and chewed for a while before swallowing. "Chewy but not bad," he declared.
"Local produce," Mark nodded, pushing his own tray aside. "Fresh stuff, fresh made. Deneb imports our grain for the brewing industry in fact. So what else did you want to know about Valden 4?"
"I understand there's a little tourist attraction planetside. Some kind of hunting resort?" Tef finished his imitation meat patty and washed it down with the hot beverage, making a face. "Is it difficult to get a reservation or license or whatever?"
With a surprised blink, Mark eyed the lion uncertainly. "You want to go hunting?" he asked. For some reason, that made him feel uncomfortable, even though he knew that hunting on Valden was more like playing laser tag with wild animals than anything else. No animals were actually killed.
It was Tef's turn to look surprised. "Is that so strange? Well, as you say, it's in my genes." He held out a paw and flexed the digits, allowing razor-like claws to emerge and then retract once more.
"OK, I see." The young dockmaster smiled weakly. "I've never been there, of course, but the southern continent is almost entirely a game preserve. Species from Old Terra, both grasslands and forest. The ecology is carefully balanced, and preserving the gene pool is the main purpose of the preserve. Visitors are allowed, and can either shoot photos or use special laser rifles to play hunter. Wildlife are tagged with serial numbers that respond to a laser flash and the rifle records the serial number of each hit. Trophies are awarded for stalking and shooting various numbers and classes of game. It's all rather pricey, but the funds go to keep the preserve operating."
Tef nodded, smiling. "That's pretty much what I heard about it. I'd like to give it a try. I'm entitled to a few days of leave and no one is pacing the floor waiting for my arrival in the Cascades." He hesitated. "Listen, Mark. Would you consider going planetside with me for a few days? I know as a dockmaster you have a substantial education and as a native of Valden you are more familiar with the planet than I am just from reading about it. My treat as far as expense goes."
The zebra coughed. "Tef," he said, "you can easily hire a trained guide down there." Teftawn shifted his position as if nervous about asking, and a cloud of the leather scent enveloped Mark, distracting him briefly.
"I know that," the lion blinked. "But I like you. I already know you a little. Think about it, OK?"
Before Mark could come up with a reply, the lights flickered and went dark. Dim emergency lighting clicked up at the two exits from the windowless dining area, and his pocket communicator beeped. He pulled it out and opened it. "Partine here," he answered.
"Susan at communications, dockmaster," came the distant response. "We appear to have lost everything but emergency power. No departures or arrivals scheduled at the moment."
The soft hiss of life support recirculating air went silent. "I'm on it, Susan," Mark said. "Hold the fort for a few minutes." He pressed two buttons, and before engineering could answer him, nearly brayed into the communicator. "Rob, what's going on?"
"Main computer shut the power down, apparently," the badger's dry voice responded. "We're on it."
"How long are we good for on emergency power?"
"At least eight hours," Rob said. "No need to start evacuating yet."
"Keep me posted." Mark closed his device and pocketed it. "Looks like your repairs may be delayed a bit," he said, peering at Teftawn through the gloom.
The lion captain's eyes had a definite glow to them, whether just from reflected light or actually from inside was hard to say. They blinked once. "Does this happen often?" he asked, with an air of amusement.
"Never before during my two years here. Let's go up to operations. At least there's a window there." They went out to the corridor and proceeded up to the room where they had first met, Mark leading the way since he was most familiar with the station, but also feeling Tef's glowing eyes fixed on the back of his neck. For the first time since his earliest spacer training, he felt trapped inside the cavern of the station, as if the walls were closing in on him and something threatening from behind. The zebra quickened his pace, his rubber non-slip soles squeaking on the plasteel of the floor. It seemed to take forever to cover the hundred meters or so until the operations room came around the horizon, but at last it appeared and they used the manual release to slide the portal aside and enter.
Susan, communications second and a vixen as dark as Lora was fair, was at the panel and looked up calmly as they walked in. Tef slid the port shut behind them without being asked, and Mark twitched, feeling suddenly trapped.
"I've notified planetside control of the emergency, sir," Susan advised. "They're standing by for our instructions. They want an hour's notice if we intend to evacuate, so they can send a shuttle to pick us up."
Mark nodded. "Tell them it isn't that serious yet, but we'll let them know if it becomes necessary." There were only two ships in dock. Leonia wouldn't be going anywhere with her computers presumably down. The other was an empty freighter waiting for a load of grain to be shuttled up from the surface. It took about 16 cargo shuttles to do the job, and only two had arrived so far. "Have you notified the Beltane of the emergency?" he asked.
"Yes, sir," said Susan immediately. "Captain Andrus volunteered the services of his engineer if we need him. I let engineering know and they've been talking to Beltane directly."
"Good," Mark said and took a step backward toward his own desk only to bump into Teftawn, who was still behind him. He wobbled for a second and the lion put a paw on each of his shoulders to steady him and, forgetting where he was, the zebra startled and jumped.
"Easy there, dockmaster," rumbled Tef. "These are tight quarters." He slipped quietly to one side to allow Mark access to his console and the zebra wasted no time putting the desk between him and the big captain. The room seemed full of the leather smell, and Mark's head was spinning. He sat in his chair and stared at the blank monitor for a second. Then he pulled out his communicator again and punched the two digit code for engineering.
When Rob answered, Mark simply said "Status, Rob?"
"Still working on it. The problem hit shortly after we hooked the diagnostic lines to Leonia's computer. There may have been an interaction. Our system is still live and running something, but I can't figure out what. There's processing going on, but no output. Jeff here thinks it's some kind of trojan or worm," the badger reported. "We've unhooked Leonia for the moment and are trying to pin it down."
"All right, Rob, keep us informed."
Teftawn's eyes were glowing again in the dimmed emergency lighting. "Damn!" he exclaimed. "I knew better. Those encrypted diplomatic packets were delivered by a kid with no ID badge. The pouch looked authentic, and the cartridges loaded, so I figured they were legitimate. The computer is supposed to recognize the sealed wrappers and know if they are forgeries, but now I wonder. You know there have been hostilities between Cassiopeia and the Cascades for a couple of generations. Not open warfare, but trade interference, piracy, that sort of thing."
Mark looked at his wrist chronometer. Almost an hour had passed since the lights flickered and dimmed. He looked at Susan. "Give Captain Teftawn a line to Rob so he can explain that."
The dark vixen punched buttons and handed a communicator to Tef once she had engineering on the line. The lion explained what had happened, and Rob gruffly acknowledged the information. The badger's voice came over the link. "That may be it," he agreed. "We'll go ahead with a disinfection procedure then. Halt the main computer and restart it to flush the worm or whatever it is out of memory. I have a dump captured already so we can analyze it later."
They waited, watching Valden 4 rise and set twice as the station revolved. Another hour had passed before the comm panel beeped. Susan acknowledged the signal and put Rob onto the speakers.
"It's the damnedest thing I've ever seen," the badger told them. "The computer reboots, and then halts with a prompt on the console here. It says 'Conan of Cimmeria' with a question mark as if waiting for a response. No matter what we do, it just keeps giving back that same prompt.
Tef immediately laughed out loud. "That's the passphrase for the Leonia's computer. What's it doing in your system?" he asked.
"I have no frickin' idea," Rob answered gruffly. "Will you tell us the correct response then?"
"Sure," Tef said. "Give it 'King of Aquilonia by his own hand' and see what it does. He spelled out "Aquilonia" in phonetics.
Susan was giving them a blank look and then Mark recognized the name. He turned to Teftawn. "You're a fan of ancient literature?"
The lion nodded, smiling. "Robert E. Howard, to be exact. Ancient Terra. Twentieth Century."
They waited for a minute, and finally Mark called out "Rob?"
"I've got another cryptic message on the console," the badger told them. "It doesn't make any sense to me."
"Read it off," the zebra said.
"All right. Here it is: 'Now could I, Cascadian, name to thee a man most like this dreadful night, that thunders, lightens, opens graves, and roars as doth the lion in the Capitol.' What in hell does that mean?" The badger's frustration was very evident.
Everyone looked at Teftawn, who shrugged. "No idea," he said. It was now two hours and thirty minutes without full power and computer systems.
"Is there another prompt, Rob?" Mark wanted to know.
"The same question mark. It expects a response," was the reply.
"Hold on, we'll query ground control," Mark told him. He looked at Susan, who began pressing buttons to bring up the planetside link again. She patched engineering through to a ground administrator, who in turn queried the computer there. No link for the quote was found.
Mark rubbed his forehead, closing his eyes. "Yet it sounds familiar," he murmured. "Cascadian, of course, must have been inserted to refer to the Cascades. I wonder what was there originally."
Tef nodded. "The lion in the Capitol," he said slowly. "The Cascades are no longer under Leandrine control, but they were up until twenty years ago."
Mark was still sitting with his eyes closed, trying to think, only an ear twitching now and then, when the portal opened slowly and Lora entered. "I couldn't sleep any more," she said, pushing the sliding door closed behind her. "No lights, no air. Played back the emergency messages on my communicator and thought I'd better see if you needed me."
Mark read off the cryptic message to her and she frowned. "Sounds downright archaic, at least in the language. How old is it?"
"If that's the original English, it goes all the way back to Terra, before space travel and before the gene wars," Mark told her. "I'm guessing it might be 17th Century at the latest."
Susan pursed her lips. "Not much surviving from that era is there?" she asked.
"More than you might think, actually. I think it's probably Shakespeare, though, and not the bible or Milton. The question is, which play and what context."
Tef nodded. "I think it's Shakespeare too," he said. "But without any computer access..."
"You asked ground control to check?" Lora wanted to know.
"Yes. They couldn't find it," Susan responded.
"Wait!" Tef exclaimed. "Of course. I have a pocket reader in my cabin on the Leonia that has, among other things, the complete works of Shakespeare on it. If I can get there to retrieve it..."
"Should be able to," Mark said, raising his head. "It will take a couple of manual overrides, but we can get there."
"OK, let's go then," Tef growled.
Mark nodded to Lora. "Take my place here in case things come back up," he said. "Let Rob know what we're doing. It's not dangerous, just slow with no power or security."
Tef opened the portal and waited for the zebra to step through before following him again. Mark continued in the other direction around the rim of the station, away from ops and the sleeping quarters and toward the docking bays. Before they had covered a fourth of the distance, he began to feel closed in again, and sensed the lion right on his tail. He shivered and stopped, expecting Tef to bang into him, but nothing happened. Turning around, he saw the captain standing about six feet behind him, not following that closely at all. However, his glowing eyes were uncanny in the dim light. Mark mumbled something about hearing things and continued forward. He could smell the leather material of Teftawn's jacket. In fact, he imagined, surely, that he could smell Teftawn, a carnivorous predator riding his trail. No, that was ridiculous. The courier captain was a gentleman and a diplomat. Mark wanted to trust him, not to fear him. The ruff of hairs at the base of his mane insisted on standing anyway. He shivered as they reached the Leonia's berth.
Teftawn noticed the shiver, evidently. "Chilly?" he asked. "No wonder. You don't have that much fur do you? And that uniform wasn't made for an unheated station." The lion laughed softly and Mark realized that their breath was visible now, misting the air before their muzzles. "It will be even colder on board Leonia. Everything is shut down there," Tef continued. He unzipped his leather jacket and placed it around the zebra's narrower shoulders. Mark wanted to refuse it, unwilling to wear the hide of anything dead, but it was warm with the heat of the lion's body, and lined with something soft and insulating. He acquiesced, and let Tef operate the manual override to open the hatch to his own ship.
"Wait here," the lion said, his heavy mane spreading now over muscular shoulders and chest. The hatch squeaked as it opened, and Tef climbed into the opening, three steps up, his tail following and vanishing into what seemed like total blackness to Mark's eyes. Well, the old sayings claimed that cats could see in the dark, didn't they?
After what seemed like an age, but was only 15 minutes by Mark's chronometer, Tef returned and slammed the hatch behind himself. He handed a miniature electronic reader to the zebra, smiling. "Old Earth literature," he said. "Almost four thousand volumes' worth."
The dockmaster touched the key to illuminate the tiny screen, and realized that he had seen one like it before. "I used one at the university," he said. "Borrowed. I couldn't afford to buy it."
"Get the lights back on, and it's yours," Tef smiled. "I'll pick up another one eventually. You studied ancient literature?"
"I took a full minor in diplomacy and another in history," Mark told him. He was shivering from the cold and had difficulty entering the search terms to find what he wanted.
Teftawn stood behind him in the near darkness, and wrapped massive arms around him gently, letting his mane hang down around Mark's shoulders. "There," the lion whispered, his greater height bringing his whiskers right against the zebra's ear. "That should be warmer for you." His tail curled around so that the tufted end lay against Mark's hooves.
It was warmer all right. It would have been a blessing, but Mark's nerves were already on edge. His reaction made him want to panic, struggle, break free. With force of will, he contained that instinct and focused on the tiny reader. The answer appeared. "It's from Julius Caesar," he said. "Cassius to Casca. Of course. All these names that start with CAS are what was rattling my brain back in ops."
He had to dig under the leather jacket to get to his communicator, but he found it. Still shivering, he punched up engineering. When Rob answered, Mark told him what to try. They started back toward operations, moving slowly, and were still on their way when the lights came back on and the soft hiss of air circulation returned, blanketing the silence with white noise that sounded like thunder after such a long period of time.
The door to operations slid open for them automatically, as it should. Both vixens looked up expectantly as they entered, and Lora raised a quizzical eyebrow, staring down her pointed muzzle at Mark's attire. He blushed and hastily removed the leather jacket from his shoulders, passing it back to Teftawn.
The lion captain grinned at the two foxes. "It was damned cold out there, and I didn't want you to accuse me of letting your dockmaster be frozen into a ponysicle."
Without missing a beat, Lora asked, "So what was the answer?"
Tef made a bow and gestured grandiosely to Mark, who recited it: "A man no mightier than thyself, or me, in personal action; yet prodigious grown, and fearful as these strange eruptions are."
The vixens stared at him blankly. "Julius Caesar, Act 1, Scene 3," he told them. "It's the scene where they are plotting the assassination of Caesar."
Tef nodded. "Julius V was the Leandrine dictator over the Cascades System until about 20 years ago," he said. "He was an isolationist, and blocked all trade agreements with the outside. My guess is that someone wanted to remind the Cascadians not to fall back into their old ways, and set this up to do it forcefully."
"But..." Susan wondered, "how does interfering with the computers on your ship or this station achieve that?"
"It doesn't," Mark answered her. "When Rob's crew made their link to the Leonia's computer, they naturally validated the encrypted seals on the diplomatic data packets. Normally that wouldn't have happened until the packets were transferred to the systems on Cascade 7. The worm was supposed to shut down the government systems in the Cascadian capital, not ours. Call ground control and tell them the emergency is cleared and I'll give them a full report in four hours. Then you're relieved. Lora will take the watch here while the rest of us get some sleep."
"Absolutely, I will. Go find a warm drink first, Mark. Your teeth are chattering," Lora said.
Walking back down the now lighted corridor to the mess room seemed only a tenth of the distance it had been in the dark. Nonetheless, Mark was still acutely conscious of the lion's presence just behind him. "This is ridiculous," he wanted to tell himself. "Lions haven't been predators upon zebras for over four hundred years back on Terra. And lion morphs were never really predators. Sure, they need to eat flesh or a reasonable facsimile, but we grow that in culture now. He even said he wasn't going to eat me..." Wait, where did that come from? Oh yeah, Tef did say it, didn't he? Yeah.
Finding the reader in his pocket, the dockmaster offered it back to Teftawn who only waved a paw in refusal. "I meant what I said. It's yours now, so enjoy it," the lion told him.
Mark selected hot cocoa, a rare indulgence for him, and Tef got himself some coffee. They sat facing each other, sipping the hot liquids.
"Well done, dockmaster," Tef said to him, smiling so that his sharp fangs showed and Mark shivered again. "You really do know your ancient literature. I hope we get a chance to discuss it when we go down to the surface. I really meant that offer, and I hope you'll accept it." The soft pads of a pawfoot found Mark's fetlock under the table and stroked it slowly.
Mark froze, about to refuse, and then decided that he had to learn to override his fearful instincts if he wanted to have a real career in space. He sipped cocoa, relishing the bittersweet warmth of it and wrapping his hands around the cup. Finally he nodded. "I have R&R time coming," he said, "and now I need it. I'll go."
Teftawn smiled, set his cup down on the table, and reached out with his right paw to stroke Mark's cheek. "Those stripes are fascinating," he said softly. "I've wanted to do that all day. How do we book our time hunting and camping then?"
"Susan or Lora can do it. They are masters of any kind of reservations or communication," the dockmaster answered. He put down his own cup, and laid his hand on the tabletop. It was immediately covered by a big furry paw.
"Good," said Tef. "I can't wait."
***
The shuttle landed smoothly on the southern continent of Valden 4. Mark watched Teftawn sorting out their two packs from the jumble of luggage in the forward racks, and followed him down the gangplank. He hadn't set hoof on solid ground for about a year and it felt good in spite of the excess of gravity. Fortunately, all station crew were required to work out in the gym regularly, so he was not overly weak for the nine-tenths gee of Valden's only habitable planet.
They followed signs to the ground transport that bumped over a couple of miles of road to the main resort hotel, Tef keeping up a constant stream of questions about Mark's foalhood and family on the planet, and how he came to choose a space career. Obviously, the lion wasn't bothered by either the gravity or the heat of the heavy atmosphere.
The reservation clerk checked their identicaps and pulled out a packet of maps. "Camping out are we?" the burro asked brightly, as if she didn't know it already from what she had just read from her screen. "Here are your maps, and the rule sheets. You can pick up your kit in room four down the hall. Just use these badges." She handed them each a plasteel badge with their name and a number on it. "Oh, and don't miss the restaurant. I hear the trail food they provide is pretty meager, so you may want to have a good lunch before starting out."
Mark trailed behind Tef to the restaurant, where the lion smoothly negotiated a pleasant and private booth for them. A waiter arrived and took their orders. Mark had a very large salad with bread and olive oil, while Tef ordered cultured beef in gravy and a glass of wine. The zebra wrinkled his nose when the plate of meat was set on the table, and Tef laughed.
"Oh come on, Stripes," he said, having taken to calling Mark by that nickname. "You don't have to eat it, and nothing was hurt making it."
"Well, that's true, I guess," Mark had to agree. He tried not to watch the lion appreciatively devouring the roasted flesh, but it fascinated him. Tef only raised an eyebrow at him and stole a chunk of his bread to soak up the gravy.
After lunch they picked up their rental gear and took another bumpy transport to the trail head. Mark was glad he had eaten lightly because the jolting of the ground car was quite upsetting to him. Still, he recovered quickly once his hooves were on the ground again and they hiked about ten kilometers into the grassland and up to a hilltop before making camp.
Mark prepared a meal from freeze dried rations while Tef laid out bedrolls and played with his laser rifle, sighting at imaginary animals in the distance. Mark himself had chosen the camera option, and took several shots of Teftawn playing with the rifle and grinning toothily. They ate, and slept the sleep of the justly tired.
It was only on the third full day, when Teftawn had already exceeded a thousand points with his laser and Mark had filled an image chip with photos of wildlife, that the fears began to return. The lion was enjoying himself immensely, full of energy and curiosity, large of appetite, and broad of gesture. He continued to quiz Mark about the fauna, the culture, and the history of Valden 4, until Mark had to say he knew no more.
Tef got a blister on his paw from pressing the rifle trigger so often, and produced a sharp beltknife to puncture and drain it. Mark stared, because all weapons, including knives, were forbidden. They had been warned of it repeatedly. Tef noticed the zebra's gaze. "Oh, this?" he asked. "It's just a little manicure tool. I refuse to be caught in the wilderness barepawed." He grinned, showing his fangs, and Mark remembered the razor claws in those big paws. Tef was hardly weaponless, even without the knife.
Late that afternoon, they found a herd of zebras: the original, Terran species, with four hooves and a nasty attitude, from which Mark's ancestral genes had been derived back before the gene wars put an end to morphic experimentation on the human homeworld. Mark had a telephoto, and snapped a dozen photos while Teftawn discovered that the herd was just out of range of his laser rifle.
"Let's stalk them and get closer," the lion whispered. So they crawled through tall grass, Mark leading and watching for snakes which might possibly be present. The thought of the lion right at his tail almost gave him pause, and as the stalking dragged on for an hour and more, the feelings from the dark corridors of the station came back and crept up from his hindbrain into his consciousness. No matter what you might say, Tef was a predator. He moved like one,thought like one, had the powerful muscles and speed of one. Mark caught himself imagining what it would be like to feel those fangs at his throat, or Tef's claws on his flank, and shivered.
The lion had moved a bit to one side, and they were very close to the unsuspecting herd when a stallion raised his head and tested the air, then gave a scream of warning. Almost as one, the herd of a hundred or more striped creatures wheeled and took off across the grassy plain at a gallop. Mark smelled their fear, and heard them calling to one another. In an instant, he was running after them, and swiftly for a biped. Tef stared for only a second, and followed.
The zebra morph was closing the distance between himself and the herd, but the lion was catching up to him as well. He looked over his shoulder and saw Tef running straight for him, open mouthed and roaring, and picked up his speed when he thought he could do no more. He turned to the side, toward a tumble of rock and brush, hoping that the lion morph's enthusiasm would make him follow the larger herd, but to no avail.
Terrified, with his instincts raging and shouting down all rationality, Mark plunged in among the rocks and hid himself, listening to Tef rustling through the grasses not far away. His heart was pounding like a huge hammer, and he was sure the sound of it alone would give him away. Convinced that the lion must have brought him out here into the wilderness only to kill him for reasons unknown, the zebra lay still, panting as quietly as he could.
There was silence, and he had almost relaxed when the heavy weight of Teftawn's larger body enveloped his back, and he felt those fangs on the back of his neck right through his own heavy mane. Mark squeezed his eyes shut and tried to prepare himself for what he thought was coming.
Tef nipped the zebra's neck lightly, growled with laughter, and turned Mark easily in his arms, only to kiss him full on the mouth. The lion's tongue was soft and smooth, not like a feline at all. He kissed very well indeed, and Mark melted into his arms, wondering what on earth he had been running from.
They broke the kiss, and Teftawn pinched Mark's cheek with his paw. "That was a fun game," he said. "But I like this one better." He kissed the zebra once more, before asking softly, "Now why have you been running away from me ever since I set paw on your station?"