Omega

“Not anywhere near you.”

It struck Digger that the fact the creature was traveling alone said a great deal about the kind of society in which it lived. In early Europe, strolling about the highways without an armed escort would have been an exercise in recklessness.

Digger felt Kellie’s hand on his shoulder. Here we go.

Jack waited until the traveler was immediately adjacent. Then he switched on the projector. Digger’s avatar appeared gradually atop the crest opposite, as if striding up from the far side, paused on its summit, and waved.

The traveler swung his large head in the avatar’s direction. “Hello, friend,” the avatar said cheerfully, in English. “How are you doing?”

The Goompah stared.

The avatar raised its hand and waved again.

The Goompah’s eyes widened, grew enormous.

The avatar started slowly down the slope.

The Goompah growled and showed a set of incisors Digger hadn’t seen before. It retreated a step, but quickly found its back against a tree.

“How are you today?” the avatar asked. “What a lovely day this is. I just happened to be in the neighborhood and thought I’d pop by. Say hello.”

“Careful,” said Kellie.

The Goompah edged away from the tree, back in the direction from which it had come. It bowed its head, and Digger could see its lips moving although he couldn’t hear any sounds. It was, if he was reading the signs correctly, terrified.

“What’s happening?” asked Wi

Kellie told her to wait a minute.

The creature was shaking its head from side to side. It moaned and choked and spasmed. It threatened the avatar with its staff. It waved its hands, odd gestures, signs almost.

“This isn’t going well,” said Jack.

“Where are you headed, friend?” asked the avatar, oblivious of the effect it was having. “By the way, my name’s Digger.” It waved yet again, in the friendliest possible fashion.

The Goompah opened its mouth and said “Morghani,” or something very much like it. Then it turned and sprinted back the way it had come, moving far more quickly than Digger would have thought possible. It swayed wildly from side to side, tumbled but picked itself up without breaking stride, charged up the hill at the end of the road, and disappeared behind it.

When it was gone, the avatar said, “It’s been good talking with you.”

Kellie couldn’t resist snickering. “You are pretty fearsome,” she said, “now that I think of it.”

DIGGER THOUGHT THEY should go back to the lander and rethink things. But getting back there would be a battle, and Kellie told him he was giving up too easily. Jack agreed and that was the vote that counted.

“The problem,” Jack argued, “was that the image wasn’t responsive. The thing got scared, and the avatar can’t shrug, and say, ‘Hey buddy, it’s okay, don’t worry.’ ”

“But who here can speak Goompah?” asked Digger.

“Don’t have to,” said Jack. “All we need is a rational reaction. A sign that we can deal with them on a one-to-one basis. Nonverbals will do it.”

“What are you suggesting?”

“We dispense with the avatar.”

IT DIDN’T MATTER. The second attempt, with Digger in the flesh trying to be friendly, went pretty much the same way. They passed on a couple of single travelers, selecting instead a group of four, bouncing along in a wagon pulled by one of the rhinos. Should have been enough to grant a sense of security to the proceedings. But they took one look at Digger, the real Digger, safely perched atop his hill so that a quick retreat was feasible, and went screaming back down the road, abandoning their wagon and the rhino.

“Well,” he told Kellie, “I’m begi

“Eye of the beholder,” she said, turning to Jack. “What do we do now?”

“I’m not sure.”

“How about walking in through the front door? Just stroll right into the city.”

“I don’t think so.”

He asked Wi

“Do you want to say that we’ll try again?”

“Yes,” he said, but Digger knew that tone. He’d decided it wasn’t a good idea.

“Having successfully completed phase one,” said Kellie, “we should turn our attention to figuring out how to plant the pickups.”

They brought up images of the cities and looked through them one by one. All had waterfront areas, and that’s where the shops tended to be. And where the population clustered. “I say we go into downtown Athens,” Digger said. “How many pickups do we have? Six?”

“Five,” said Kellie. “Including the notebooks.”

There was one other assignment: The Academy wanted information on Goompah nutrition. During the past two weeks, they’d seen the Goompahs eating a variety of fruits, vegetables, meat, and fish. (At least, that’s what it looked like through the telescopes.) Some of the fruit they’d seen hung on trees in their immediate area. Red pears, large golden melons that looked delicious, small silver apples. They picked up samples of everything.

In addition to buildings that appeared to be ordinary cabins or dwellings for housing individuals or small families, there were structures clearly intended to be living quarters, but they were big, rambling places, with wings and upper floors, large enough to provide shelter to fifty or more. And the places looked occupied and busy.

When they had seen enough, they retired to the lander to await the coming of dark.

IT DIDN’T TAKE long. A twenty-two-hour rotational period created a short day. Jack napped, while Kellie watched for intruders and Digger watched Kellie. But the woods stayed quiet, and the afternoon passed without incident. Wi

Clouds gathered, and rain began to fall. By sunset it was a steady downpour. Ideal weather for strange creatures that needed to get out and do some lurking.

When night came, it grew absolutely dark. Back-of-the-basement locked-in-the-storage-bin dark. There wasn’t a speck of light out there anywhere. There was no way to judge, of course, the quality of the locals’ ability to see at night, but they did have large eyes.

Jack, however, had a substantial advantage: night goggles. Kellie got them out of the supply locker, and ten minutes later the lander, operating in silent mode, drifted through heavy rain over Athens and its harbor.

Athens was medium-sized, compared with the other Goompah cities. It was located on the eastern side of the isthmus. Four piers jutted out into the harbor, where a few ships lay at anchor. Tumbledown storage facilities lined the waterfront. Lights flickered in one or two of them. The streets were deserted. “A part of Athens you don’t usually hear about,” said Digger.

Jack smiled in the glow of the instrument panel. “Nobody uses Doric columns to build warehouses,” he said. His tone suggested it was wisdom for the ages.

Kellie brought them down alongside one of the piers. Jack turned in his seat and looked back at Digger. “Listen, if you want, I’m willing to do this.”

Digger would have been happy to turn the job over to him. But Kellie would never have approved, would have seen it as an act of cowardice. Jack was not young, was slow afoot, and would have a difficult time if the mission went wrong. This was a rare chance for Digger to show off. And he suspected there was no real danger. Goompahs were terrified of him, so what did he have to fear? “You don’t have the build,” he said laconically. “Or the clothes.”

He stuffed the pickups and the notebooks into a bag and headed for the airlock. “Be careful,” Kellie said. She surprised him with a quick embrace.

He slipped through the hatch, looked around, saw nothing moving, and stepped out onto the pier.

The sea was high, and the wind tried to push him into the water. The e-suit kept him comfortable but he knew it was cold out there.

He signaled to Kellie, and she began to pull away. “Good luck, Champ,” she said.

Digger hurried off the pier and slipped into a narrow street. There were small wooden buildings on either side, mostly sheds. But there was noise ahead: music and loud gargling sounds and pounding like the pounding he’d heard on the road. He rounded a corner and saw an open-front café.

It was half-empty, but the Goompahs inside were drinking, eating, dancing, and having a good time. The café was located in a dreary four-story stone building. A stout wooden canopy was erected to protect daytime patrons from the sun. He stood beneath it, peering into the interior, when two Goompahs he had not seen passed behind him and wandered into the café without giving him a second look.

He strolled closer, squeezing down inside his shirt and pulling his wide-brimmed hat down over his face.

The pickups, because they were jury-rigged, were of different sizes and shapes. Each had a strip of adhesive affixed that would allow him to attach it to a flat surface.

The café was an ideal spot, and the obvious flat surface was in the juncture of cross-fitting wooden beams supporting the canopy. Digger wandered casually close to it, and was able to stay out of sight of the customers while he put one of the notebooks in place. He’d have preferred to install it higher, where it would be less visible and out of everyone’s reach. But it was reasonably well hidden, and he thought it would probably be okay for a while.

He withdrew into the shadows and away from the noise. “Jack,” he said. “I just planted number four. How’s it look?”

“Good. Perfect. One thing, we won’t have any problem hearing them.”

The area was lined with wooden stalls hung with skins. Rain poured down on them. Somewhere, down the street and around a corner, there was more noise. Another drinking establishment, obviously. He tried to look in a couple of the shops, but they were locked.

The streets were becoming a swamp. Occasionally, figures hurried along, bundled against the downpour, too intent on keeping dry to think much about strangers. One of these came out from behind a wall without warning and almost collided with Digger. The creature said something, glanced at him, and its eyes went wide. Digger smiled back and said, “Hi,” in his best falsetto.