Summerhill (25 page)

Slowly, the dog lifted one hand-like paw and touched it to the barely visible surface of the tube, then pressed his palm flat against it. It had to be some kind of advanced synthetic polymer, as it was far too sturdy to be glass, thin as it was.

There was a quiet, collective gasp from the assembled men in uniform. The darker-skinned one in front held up one hand to silence them, and then he looked intently at Summerhill. “Can you hear me?” he asked.

Summerhill nodded his head, his palm still pressed to the surface of his invisible cage.

The man raised an eyebrow. “Can you understand me?”

“Yes,” Summerhill replied.

Raising his eyebrow further still, the man turned back to look at his colleagues, then cleared his throat and addressed Summerhill again. “How about now?”

“Yes.”

“Interesting. And now?”

“Yes.”

Another murmur rose up among the assembled viewers. Many of them looked shocked, but others looked delighted. The one in front (Summerhill decided he must be the leader) said, “Let the record state that the being has demonstrated an understanding of English, Korean, and Rigelian.”

Summerhill tapped on the partition and then waved sheepishly to the uniformed men. “Excuse me,” he said. “I think there’s been some kind of misunderstanding here.”

The leader began to walk around in a small circle in front of Summerhill’s containment area. Off in the wings, scientists and technicians busily observed readouts and pressed buttons. “What do you call yourself?” the leader asked.

“My name is Summerhill. And if I could just—”

“Where do you come from?”

Summerhill sighed. “Oh, I wish I had an answer for you on that one. It’s actually rather complicated, see, and I’m not—”

Again, the leader interrupted. “
What
are you? What is your race?”

“I appear to be some kind of dog. Maybe I’m part coyote or something?”

“Why have you come here? What is it you’re after?”

“Well, as I’ve been trying to say, I think there’s been some big misunderstanding here,” Summerhill said. “You see, I had somehow wound up at what I think was the beginning of time, and I was trying to find Katherine, and I ended up in her quarters, but—”

“So you
are
acquainted with Warrant Officer Tinsley.” The leader’s voice was grave, and only now did he stop to pause and consider, at last ceasing his rapid-fire questioning. He turned to indicate one of the technicians behind him. “Inform Hermann that his suspicions were correct, and give him authorization to contact me directly if there’s any further change in the resonance field.”

Summerhill chewed his lip. “I promise, whatever you think is happening between me and Kath—Warrant Officer Tinsley, it’s not. I mean, I don’t know what you’re thinking, but whatever it is, it’s not that. Honest.”

“How did you get inside our fleet? Through what means did you—”

“Admiral Choi,” another one of the humans interrupted. He looked younger than the leader, his skin lighter, his uniform’s regalia less elaborate, his face framed with eyeglasses. “Sir,” he added with a quiet clearing of the throat. “The being’s vitals have ramped up drastically. Heart rate and breathing rate are both elevated, and—”

The leader—this Admiral Choi—turned to the bespectacled man and looked him in the eye as he said, “Thank you, I can see that just fine myself.”

“I realize that, sir,” the younger man said. “I only wanted you to be aware that it’s very likely that our—”

“I understand the ramifications, Ensign. Please do not voice tactical concerns in front of the creature.”

Summerhill tapped his claws against the tube. “I said my name is Summerhill.”

The Admiral ignored him, and kept his attention on his subordinate. He didn’t glare, but there was a severity to his look that made the other man shrink pitifully back into his seat. With that taken care of, the Admiral turned to face another of his assembled staff members. This one was tall, bearded, with broad shoulders, his uniform bearing the same gray and silver accents as Katherine’s. “How prepared is Security to deal with the creature at this point?” the Admiral asked him.

“Hi,” Summerhill said, waving from within the tube again. “Look, you’ve just demonstrated that the creature can understand you perfectly. Maybe you don’t need to talk about me like I’m not here?”

The bearded Security officer looked back and forth between Summerhill and the Admiral a few times, and hesitated to speak. “Well, sir,” he eventually said, “assuming that the, uh, being—” He again looked at Summerhill, awkwardly cognizant that his every word was being overheard. “—assuming there’s some sign that he’s about to take threatening action, the vaporization array is ready to fire nearly instantaneously.”

“Oh, now you’re already planning to
vaporize
me?” Summerhill tried to throw his arms up, but the tight confines of his tubular chamber made him smack his forearms to a halt before he got them up past his chest. “If you’re that convinced that I’m dangerous, ask your Warrant Officer Tinsley what she thinks about me.”

Which, Summerhill realized all too late, may not turn out well for him. Katherine had been considering selling him out, he was sure of it, and if confronted directly by her superiors
with the choice to save him or herself, he didn’t
doubt who she’d pick. Well, maybe she wouldn’t tell the Admiral to go ahead and vaporize him, but the prospect of being trapped in an experiment tube for the rest of his life (what sort of lifespan did he even have, anyway?) wasn’t exactly comforting, either.

“Oh, we fully intend to. And I’m sure that what she has to say will be most illuminating.” The Admiral brought a hand to his chin and rubbed it as he paced around in that small circle he’d trod before. Here and there he would briefly raise one eye and fix it on his prisoner. The rest of the room was tense in their silence. Each footstep carried some great weight that everyone, including Summerhill, felt.

“Do you know where you are?” the Admiral finally asked.

“I’m apparently in some kind of tube,” Summerhill replied. “In which I hope I won’t be vaporized.”

Pressing three fingertips against his creased forehead, the Admiral sighed, then said, “I have to wonder if this is all some kind of joke to you.”

“You’re holding me prisoner and threatening me with execution,” Summerhill replied. “I’m taking you seriously, believe me. I’m just wondering why you’re not doing the same.”

“Then answer my question,” the Admiral demanded. “Truthfully, not with flippant remarks.”

Summerhill sighed and looked around. Since arriving in this reality, he’d only been in this tube and Katherine’s quarters. He tried to detect any of the telltale vibrations that would suggest he was still aboard a ship, listening with his ears and eventually feeling a slight buzzing in his fur and through his bones, the sensations muffled, possibly by the tube. “Katherine said her ship was called the
Ajax
.” He made sure to look the Admiral in the eye. “But she also said that it was a science vessel. So, if you’re the Admiral, I can only venture a guess that this is your flagship.”

The officers murmured, and Summerhill tried hard to make out with they were saying, but in the excited hubbub, it was difficult to pick out individual conversations from the inside of the enclosure. The Admiral was either annoyed or bemused at the situation that Summerhill had created; he, unlike the others, remained quiet, and stared at the dog, dubious and mistrusting.

“My science team tells me,” the Admiral said, raising his voice such as to squelch any remaining chatter, “that you shouldn’t exist. That the very matter you’re made of defies analysis.” He locked his eyes with Summerhill’s, and stayed very, very serious. “That you are not merely an alien, but that you cannot possibly be from this universe.”

“And is that important somehow?” Summerhill asked. “Either way, I’m not from here.”

“You recognize that this is a military installation; therefore you understand why I must demand an answer as to what you are doing here and why you have invaded one of our ships.”

“Honestly, I was just trying to find Katherine,” Summerhill said. “I thought that she was in trouble, but it turns out I was wrong. I didn’t know about any fleet or military mobilization and I certainly wasn’t aware of any vaporization array, so if we could just discuss this calmly, I’m sure we could work something out.”

Standing behind the Admiral, the Security officer had turned his attention away from the tube and appeared to be looking at one of the monitors off to one side. The Admiral himself drew closer to Summerhill. “And how is it that you know Katherine Tinsley?” He clasped both hands together behind his back.

“That’s kind of a long story, really. How about you let me out of here and we can talk about it over drinks? Something fizzy, if you have it.”

The Admiral pressed his face close to the tube. “I’m not letting you out until I know for sure that this fleet is safe,” he said, his stern tone brooking no complaint. “You will answer the question.”

“Fair enough. Though I will point out that the extradimensional dog-creature is very naked right now, and that’s making conversation with a man in uniform such as yourself exceedingly awkward.”

A few of the officers chuckled at that, and more than one had to pointedly redirect their gaze. The Admiral shot a quick look over his shoulder to silence his men. Clearing his throat, he resumed his interrogation. “You admit, then, that you are not from this universe.”

“I don’t see the point of denying something your scientists have already told you is true,” Summerhill said. “That, and to be blunt, they probably understand it a whole lot better than I do, anyway. I’m not even sure how I got here.”

“You said you came for Warrant Officer Tinsley. That seems straightforward enough.”

Summerhill thought about his discussion with Shoön, her returning the pocket watch to him, and his dream of the leaf-strewn river before suddenly appearing aboard the
Ajax
. “It’s not as straightforward as you might think,” he told the Admiral. “If it helps, I knew Katherine—Warrant Officer Tinsley—from a long time ago. Before she was a member of your military.” Which was true, as far as he knew. There was no real way of telling how much of what she’d told him before had been an elaborate fabrication.

The synthetic material of the tube started to darken, and
Summerhill’s heart pounded with panic as he feared that the Admiral had grown tired of this game and had decided to just go ahead with the vaporization. A moment later, though, the rest of the room went dark as well, tinted the same shade of blue that Summerhill had seen when time had frozen back in Katherine’s quarters. Sure enough, the hubbub of the officers
and their advanced equipment went silent, and the Admiral, his Security head, and the rest of his underlings went still.

“Oh, Summerhill, something strange is coming, lah.”
It was the same lilting voice as before, and despite the nominal warning, it sounded distinctly amused.
“Your fault? Probably your fault. Naughty dog.”

Anger rose in Summerhill’s chest. If he could have gritted his teeth, he would have. Instead, he imagined doing it as hard as he could.
“Why is everyone trying to accuse me of something terrible when I haven’t even done anything?”
he demanded.
“Because if the problem is just my being here, believe me, I’ll leave.”

The voice clucked a few times, then said,
“Not sure you’ll have the chance, lah. But stay alert, yes? Naughty dogs are clever dogs.”

“Do I even know you?”
Summerhill asked.
“Because you sure seem to know me, and if you’re going to keep insulting me, I—”

“Oh, Summerhill knows Royeyri, yes, yes. And Summerhill can trust Royeyri. Hopefully.”
There was another clucking laugh.

Summerhill uselessly tried to will his hands into fists. Since time had only slowed but not stopped, there was the very barest measure of progress, and that would have to be enough to satisfy his aggravation.
“Look, if you can help me out of this mess, then help me. Otherwise, can you please get out of my head?”

“Tut, Summerhill, tut. Just sit tight—well, not that you have much choice at the moment!”
Chuckling then faded into silence, and the blue ambiance began to lift from the room.

Royeyri? Should that name have rung a bell? Summerhill tried to search the hole in his memory for some sign of it, but as he suspected, there was only frustrating emptiness with too-vague, tantalizing clues that led nowhere solid.

Neither the Admiral nor his crew reacted as if anything were amiss. “Why don’t we see what Tinsley herself has to say about the situation, shall we?” the Admiral said. He turned on his heels and nodded to his Security man. “Bring her in.”

The Security officer brought his hand near his collar and said something too quiet for Summerhill to hear. Seconds later, a door on the far side of the room slid open, its two halves disappearing into the bulkhead to either side.

Two armed guards brought Katherine in. They were dressed like Katherine had been when Summerhill had first seen her over on the
Ajax
. Katherine herself, however, had been stripped of her uniform. She wore a white, sleeveless tee underneath a dark olive tank top, and her hands were bound behind her back. Her head hung low as she was marched in, but she looked up when one of the guards kicked the back of one of her boots as they presented her to the Admiral.

She looked at the Admiral, then past him to see Summerhill in his prison tube. A gesture from the Admiral, however, made her snap back to attention.

“Admiral Choi, please,” she said. “I can explain. I just—”

“Oh, you will explain, Tinsley. You’re right about that,” the Admiral replied dryly. “You will also speak when spoken to. Am I quite clear?”

Katherine’s head fell again. “Yes, sir.”

For the space of several intense heartbeats, the Admiral regarded Katherine in silence, and though Summerhill couldn’t quite see his face from this angle, he had no trouble picturing the dispassionate look in the older man’s eyes as he tried to assess his lowly underling. “This creature,” he said at last, without even bothering to indicate Summerhill with so much as a nod, “claims to know you.” Only then did he look back, meet Summerhill’s eye, then turn back to Katherine. “An entity from outside this universe—something unprecedented, something that no human being has ever encountered before in all our history—claims to know you, on a first name basis, no less.”

He straightened his collar, then paused for a moment before going on. “And Specialist Hermann tells me that your mere presence, on multiple occasions, has caused anomalous distortions in the resonance field that his experiment is producing. A field which—”

“Sir, with all due respect, it was you who had me transferred from the
Agamemnon
to the
Ajax
,” Katherine said. “I couldn’t possibly—”

“I did not ask you to clarify your orders, Ms. Tinsley,” the Admiral countered, and though his voice was sharp and clipped, he didn’t quite snap. He took a deep breath, rubbed at his forehead, and began to pace in a circle around Katherine. “We have a very real security breach here amidst our fleet, and a risk to civilization itself that may well be incalculable.” He stopped after completing a full circuit around her. “And somehow, you, a young woman from one of the colonies, is smack dab in the middle of it.”