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CHAPTER SEVEN - WARNING

Just as they returned to the shallow waters, close to the beach where the Falcon had landed, Cinnamon and Loud Red were met by Richard, Sam, Shirley, Thomas, and Jinjur striding slowly along the ocean floor. The flouwen stopped and let Cinnamon work her way through him and out into the open water to join her friends.

"Wow, Richard, you brought the whole crew!" Cinnamon had expected that some of the others would want to come out and play, but she hardly expected such a turnout.

"What we brought is spare air tanks," Shirley chided. She was still shaken from her exchange with Carmen, but the safety of the crew was one thing she would never neglect. Cinnamon had been working in her exploration suit all day and, while she might still have a couple of hours of air left, it was never a good idea to run low. Too many things could unexpectedly go wrong, as she well knew.

Loud Red was broadcasting their position out into the water, considerately focusing the calls away from the humans, knowing that they found the loud, long-range calls painful. Still, the cries were intended to travel many miles in the quiet ocean and all the humans winced as the infrasonic roars rattled their teeth.

"Jupiter? For humans only?" Cinnamon requested. The computer stopped the translation of her words to the flouwen and broadcast them only to the suit imps.

"I have been talking to Loud Red and have learned a good deal more about the implications of the mating of the flouwen. When they co-mingle at the beginning, the thin strands of themselves share nonspecific tastes with the others. Since normally they mate within the pod, these tastes are of memories that they all have in common anyway. To taste one's own thoughts and memories echoed through the perspective of other pod members, serves as an emotional bond, comforting and making easier the losing of hard won bulk.

"Now, for the first time in decades, a flouwen is desperate to lose some mass. If there were a famine, he might be willing to let some of his podmates devour part of him, but naturally this idea is repugnant to all concerned. Instead, they are going to get others from another pod to join in the mating."

As Cinnamon had been filling the others in, Shirley replaced the first of Cinnamon's nearly exhausted air tanks. The suits filters worked to remove any traces of the nastier gasses in the Eau oceans that might have leaked in during the switchover, but still, a tiny whiff of ammonia entered Cinnamon's helmet.

"Ugh!" she complained and sneezed violently.

"Bless you," said Shirley automatically.

*What was that 'fizzle' sound?* Loud Red was curious.

"Some of the ammonia got into my suit," Cinnamon explained. "Ammonia causes violent reactions in humans."

*Why? What are you made of?*

Cinnamon laughed. "Water mostly, and a handful of other inexpensive elements, but not ammonia. Although your bodies are used to ammonia, our bodies find it most unpleasant, and react violently to even small amounts."

*But, ammonia makes one feel good, think more clearly . unless, of course, there is too much ammonia in your body. Then one feels too good, and is liable to do foolish things.*

"We have the same trouble with alcohol," Shirley muttered as she tried to figure out the best way to get the second tank onto Cinnamon's suit without repeating the slight leakthrough.

*Why don't you do that inside me?* the flouwen offered. *I can filter out the ammonia that makes you fizzle.*

"Jupiter? Do you think that they can do that?"

"It would make sense that a creature that lives in a world where the chemical mix of the ocean varies greatly from one part to another, would not only be able to survive in all variations of the mixture of water and ammonia, but be able to adjust internally to provide the most healthful combination. Fish in the oceans of Earth adjust the salt concentration in their blood to match the salinity of the sea at the time their ancestors evolved into a new species."

Loud Red surrounded the two women, and after a moment they found themselves inside a bubble of clear fluid within the alien. "As closely as the suit's exterior sensors can tell, you are now in a pocket of pure, distilled water." Jupiter informed them through their suit imps.

Cinnamon filled a vial with a sample as Shirley screwed the second air tank onto her back.

"Can you go further and make a pocket of air?" Shirley asked.

*A gas pocket? I doubt anyone has ever tried such a thing.* With his great size aiding him, the flouwen considered the idea. *If a gas were produced inside of me, I would not be able to generate the pressure needed to contain it. The bubble would float to the surface of me and escape. Even if the bubble formed just as I started to rock up, it would not be trapped. We solidify by forcing the fluid from inside individual cells, not by crusting over.*

Loud Red was interrupted by the return of O.J. to the group.

†I have brought with me three of the members of the counter-spin pod. They were intrigued with the idea of mating with members of another pod, especially when I told them that there would be enough mass for two younglings. No one still liquid in their pod remembers seeing a double forming.†

Behind the greenish orange flouwen hovered three rather large newcomers. They introduced themselves one by one.

@I am Bittersweet@Blue@Bubbler,@ said the first. A bright, almost electric-blue in color, this flouwen's voice had a tremolo tone to it that sounded like a human talking underwater.

&I am Odoriferous&Ocher&Ooze,& said the next flouwen. His flouwen's color was the oddest that the humans had seen yet, a fluctuating combination of reddish-yellow that seemed to change with the alien's depth. His voice was low and slow.

The next flouwen announced itself with a harsh, staccato voice. %And I am Piquant%Pink%Popper. I am the best hunter and the strongest fighter in the pod.% The belligerence of this shockingly hot pink flouwen made it clear that, while he was here to mate, he wasn't here to make friends.

Just then, Warm§Amber§Resonance and Clear«»White«»Whistle joined them. Now the humans were so completely surrounded with color that the underwater seascape was hidden from view.

†Have you two come to join us? You don't look big enough to mate yet.†

«We don't want to mate, just watch. I have never seen twins being formed. Besides, the humans want to take samples during the mating process, and I thought that it might be easier if I did it for them.»

%What do you mean samples!% asked the pink counterspinner. %When he came to us, Bitter†Orange†Chirr gave us a taste of your interactions with the Stiff¤Movers. Your pod may be friends with these strangers, but don't think that the members of our pod will tolerate their presence in our ocean just for a few new ideas.%

@Don't listen to him. We don't mind helping the humans learn more about us. We all love learning and new ideas. Only Piquant%Pink%Popper would rather fight than think.@

*Very well, then, we will get started.* The huge red flouwen and the others moved off a little way, so that they were apart from the humans, while Clear«»White«»Whistle stayed with the observers. The humans all tried to get in good viewing positions; Thomas even lay on his back on the bottom in order to get pictures from underneath with his video camera.

The six amorphous blobs of color, floating a few meters off the bottom, concentrated a portion of their bodies near their outer edges and put down anchors, fixing their positions in a rough circle. The newcomers initially seemed hesitant in touching their sides to their hosts, but finally each filled a sector of the circle, Loud Red's sector being larger than the others. The multicolored blob came together at a point in the center. Then, center started to rotate slowly around, winding up the six threads from each sector into a multicolored spiral.

«Something is wrong,» White Whistler said quietly to Cinnamon.

"It looks just like the videos I saw of the forming of Blue Boy," objected Cinnamon.

«That was the first mating of Sweet•Green•Fizz. We went very slowly so Sweet•Green•Fizz would not be nervous. All these flouwen have had plenty of experience in making young ones and the swirling should be much faster. I think mating outside the pod is what is holding them back. They can not lose themselves in the moment when the act is not a reaffirmation of pod membership.»

The spiral in the center was forming, but it seemed to lack cohesiveness. Instead of becoming a twisted disk with thin ribbons of equally spaced colors, it was more like a poorly wound bobbin of lumpy different-colored yarns. The longer the process went on, the worse the spiral looked and the more confused the participants seemed. They finally came to a halt and pulled their individually colored threads out of the tangle and back into their bodies. It looked like this mating was going to be a failure.

Clear«»White«»Whistle, who had been watching the participants with a continuous series of low intensity sonar pings, spoke to Cinnamon. "«I can see that their insides are all tense, because they are mating with strangers. You said that music affects the emotional state of humans. Maybe if they listened to some of that music of yours, it would help them relax.»

Cinnamon thought quickly. Most of her repertoire was old pop music, and while most of it dealt with love songs, it was not the sort of song that was written to appeal to jelly-like aliens. She had to make them forget their differences and remember the things they all had in common. Then it came to her.

"Jupiter, use our suit imps to play something by Bach!"

An instant later, resounding through the sea came the first strains of "Jesu, Joy of Man's Desiring'. Under the influence of the music, the flouwen stopped withdrawing, and slowly came together once again at the center. As the magical mathematical form of the music flowed through them, the central point of the six flouwen began to spin, faster and faster. This time, the coil of multicolored threads was tight and smooth, thinning as it twirled to the tempo of the song.

"White Whistler! Get a sample from the center of the new ones before they take back their color," Cinnamon said, holding up a syringe and a sample bottle.

Clear«»White«»Whistle, having used the syringe before to take samples from his own body, expertly formed a hand-shaped pseudopod, grasped the syringe, and swirled out under the canopy of mating flouwen to suck up a small sample from the middle of the swirl of colors that was now almost as large as an adult. As Cinnamon examined the tiny multicolored blob that White Whistler squirted out of the syringe into her sample bottle, the group of red cells separated itself from the others, and being much larger, proceeded to absorb the other clumps of colored cells, one by one. Cinnamon sighed and tucked the sample away in a pouch. She realized that by the time she got it back to the ship it would just be a tiny subset of the set that was Loud Red.

By now, the six had stopped intertwining. They were now withdrawing the colored fluid "nerve" essence that resided between the transparent unit cells in their bodies, leaving the cells behind as a clear blob. This liquid-crystal essence, that gave each flouwen its distinctive color, contained the portions of the genetic code and the memory that made up the "personality" of the flouwen. Loud Red had given up more cell units than the others, so as all of Loud Red's colored fluid was pulled back into his now average-sized body, his flesh turned a deep rich red in color.

The music continued to wash over the flouwen, all of whom were becoming darker and more vibrant in color as they pulled in their essence and left behind the clear blob of units that would make up the new younglings. Just as the colored essence in each thread reached the outermost ring of the spiral, the last command the flouwen gave their now-joined flesh was to split down the middle. The large clear blob bisected just as the last bit of color vanished into the adults. Now, with no personality essence residing in them, the two clear blobs were alien to each of the other flouwen. The mating flouwen felt no sense of loss as each broke their connection to what had used to belong to them.

Moving quickly, White Whistler used the syringe to take another sample from each clear twin. Then they all waited and watched, expectantly. Finally, deep within the two colorless blobs, busy enzymes used the randomized bits of genetic information embossed as patterns on the surfaces of the transparent cellular units, and began to generate a new colored personality essence for each youngling. Despite the similarities of their joint formation, the twins came out different. Tiny random differences in the organization of the genetic patterns had lead the enzymes within to generate two different individuals.

In the middle of one of the twin flouwens, a rosy redness grew and spread out from the nucleation point until it suffused through the entire multi-ton glob of floating jelly.

"It looks like cherry Koolaid," said Richard.

%Hello*Hello@Hello†Hello@Hello&Hello!| the cherry-red new flouwen cried in a mixture of its parent's voices. Then it found it's own voice. |Hello, hello, hello!|

At that same moment, the voice of the other twin made itself heard. *Hello&Hello%Hello@Hello@Hello†Hello!= They all looked hard at the new one, but in the blue-green waters of the ocean it was hard to tell if it had any color at all.

=Hello, hello, hello!= it chirped again, having found its own distinctive high-pitched voice. White Whistler moved around behind the young one to look at him better, and now, against the white body, the new flouwen's color was easy to see. "He's a clear bright canary yellow," called Thomas from under the child. "He looks like liquid sunshine!"

The members of the local pod gathered around and examined the new youngster with low level sonic pulses. He chirped in return, looking at and inside the adults surrounding him.

§Such a nice clear chirping voice. It should carry well through the ocean.§

«He is yellow like you are, Warm§Amber§Resonance, but clear instead of opaque.»

†Clear in voice and body.†

•What shall we call the young one?•

*He is clear, he is yellow, and he chirps. Let's call him Clear=Yellow=Chirp.*

 

In the meantime, the counter-spinners had surrounded the red-colored twin. They soon named him Delicious|Dark|Crimson after his color and the delightful taste he left in the water around him.

The members of the counterspin pod reluctantly allowed Clear«»White«»Whistler to take a final sample from Delicious|Dark|Crimson, and then they headed back to their own territory. As they swam away, they surrounded the new member of the pod, protecting and teaching it even as they traveled. They started his education by crooning simple addition problems, correcting his pronunciation of the numbers as he answered.

@One plus TtWwOo is ThththRrrEEeeee.@ enunciated Bittersweet@Blue@Bubbler carefully, carefully controlling his normal tremolo so as to set a good example for the youngling. Each number had its own multiple tonal and pulse-code pattern that was a living example of the concept of the number it represented. The word "Three" was a melodic triplet of sounds with each note given its own triple-tongue beat. Each number also had its own set of overtones that were distinctive as bell, violin, and brass.

|One plus two is three.| replied the youngster, using a simple single tone for each word.

%I knew it! He's turned out stupid! I knew nothing good would come of mating with strangers!%

&You weren't any smarter than Delicious|Dark|Crimson when you were that new, Piquant%Pink%Popper. I remember trying to teach you your eight by eight times tables. Perhaps I should have taught you some patience and tolerance instead.&

@That is not quite correct, my little one. The proper way to say the number two is with two tones and two pulses. The number three requires three harmonizing tones and three pulses. Try it again.@

|One plus TtWwOo is ThththRrrEEeeee.|

&I do believe he's got it!&

 

With the other pod of flouwen moving off into the distance, the humans converged on their own pod group to see its newest member. As they approached, Cinnamon spoke to Jupiter.

"We are going to visit Sunshine now, Jupiter. The music from our suit imps might bother it, so you'd better turn it off."

The music cut off as they arrived. Almost immediately a wail of pain and loss rang through the water. The humans stopped and backed off, fearing their approach had scared the young flouwen.

=Hello? hello? hello?=

Warm§Amber§Resonance, trying to distract the young one, started in on his training.

§One plus one is TtWwOo.§

Clear=Yellow=Chirp ignored the elder.

=Hello? hello? hello?=

*It's dumb!* cried Loud Red in disgust. Cinnamon was amused to note that Loud Red had his old boisterous personality back.

§It is not dumb! Give it a chance!§ The gentle amber-colored flouwen tried again. §One plus One is TtWwOo?§

=Hello? hello? hello?= Sadness and confusion came through the young flouwen's answer. He seemed to be pleading for a response.

*It is dumb! I knew it was a mistake to mate with strangers!*

=Chee-chee-chee; Chee-chee-chee; Chee-chee-chee .= chirped the youngster. He was making a series of tone pulses, but nothing that either the flouwen or the computer could translate into words. Shocked at this unflouwenlike behavior, the adult flouwen moved away from this strange youngling.

Cinnamon felt the hair rise on the back of her neck. "Is it twisted? Will you have to destroy it?" But even as the question left her mouth, Cinnamon knew the answer. The pulse pattern of the youngster's cries suddenly clicked with something she had recently heard.

"Jupiter!" she called. "Play the Bach music again!"

As the music began to dance through the water, the clear yellow flouwen answered back; first following, then accompanying, then harmonizing with the dreams of a composer long dead on a planet far away.

 

Over the next two days, the landing party continued to explore the surface of the island. With the exception of the life found in the land-locked lake, the Hawaiian Islands proved to be barren. Little Red, Little White and Little Purple accompanied them on these overland visits, but it was clear that their main interests concerned the interior of the Dragonfly and the Falcon.

When the flouwen were finally winched up into the airlock on the Falcon, and cycled through into the alien oxygen atmosphere, their first reaction was puzzlement that they were getting so little information back from their natural sonic sensors.

*All I can see is the surface of things!*

‡There are so many echoes from every direction it is hard to see.‡

«That is because this pet is designed for use by the humans. They can only look at the surface of things. You must learn look at things with your helmet lenses instead of trying to see around you with body chirps.»

Surrounded with metal for the first time in their long lives, the flouwen had trouble accepting the idea that there was wiring and plumbing hidden within the walls. Still, they were eager to explore all the possibilities that the interior of the Falcon offered.

*What do these green things do?* asked Little Red, using his lenses to look at a control console. he reached out with a pseudopod and stroked the tell-tail lights that glowed green along the top of the console. Jinjur was following close behind the inquisitive alien. Although Jupiter had been instructed ahead of time to ignore any command the flouwen gave, or any inputs they made through touching a console, she was still concerned they might cause some sort of problem during their visit.

"Those lights just tell us that all the parts of the vehicle are working properly. The pictures on this touchscreen are controlled by these icons along the side. It is similar to the touchscreen you use in Agua Dulce." Jinjur punched up a replay of the descent of the Falcon onto Eau. The flouwen watched the screen avidly as the animated image's perspective changed and the lander swung around and hovered over the Hawaiian Islands.

«That is this island!» cried Little White amazed.

*Dumb!*

«I am right! If you were looking at only the part which is above the surface . Look!» the white flouwen insisted as he used a pseudopod to point out the curve of the North shore. «This is where you like to surf! Just remember that you are not seeing the slope up to the beach but only the beach itself!»

There was a pause. Jinjur watched to see how Little Red would cope with being proved so wrong.

*It is stupid to look only at the top of the water when there is so much that is under the water .* little Red grumbled.

Silently touching an icon, Jinjur changed the view on the screen to add the contours of the ocean bottom.

*Yes! That is better! That is what it looks like!*

"But now the screen is filled with information that is irrelevant to the landing of the spacecraft. That's why we use the simpler model," Jinjur explained. She went on to show them the difference, fingers flickering over the icons around the edges of the screen as she went through another simulated landing. Soon, she could no longer reach the keyboard. The three suited flouwen had watched her closely and instantly memorized which icons she had touched. They were soon trying landing approaches of their own, hooting with laughter as they made various fatal mistakes. Their interested waned as soon as they mastered the descent. In fact, Little Purple soon showed that he could have landed the rocket using less rocket fuel than Tony had used during the actual landing.

"They remind me of my kid brother," Shirley complained to Jinjur. "I had just received my masters degree, and was home to celebrate. My brother was a prickly thirteen year old and challenged me to play a game of Quantum Nintendo with him. He wiped the floor with me. I still won't play that Mario game. I'm afraid that I still won't be able to jump over that damn flowerpot!"

*What other things do you have?* asked Little Red, looking around. Having assumed that Clear«»White«»Whistle had overestimated the delights the humans could hide within such a small space, Little Red was simply amazed by human technology. Dealing with people so different meant that even the questions where beyond Roaring*Hot*Vermillion's experience. Imagine living in separate private places, and the concept of sleep confused the flouwen totally. Upon seeing the water tank that filled the central column of the Falcon, the flouwen wanted to go for a swim, but Jupiter insisted that the ammonia they carried would be hard on the purification filters. Privately, Little Red decided to purify himself before suiting up for his next visit to the craft. Then it would be okay to zip open his drysuit on board and get a taste or two of the human environment.

Although pleased with the flouwen reactions to the ship and the information the aliens were giving them about the planet, Jinjur was plagued with worries about Carmen. Juno reported that the communications expert was eating everything that was suggested, and John insisted that there was nothing physically wrong with her, but the normally spicy woman was obviously not herself. Carmen did what she was told, manned her shift, and wrote her reports, but she hardly spoke to anyone. She was behaving too well. Still, it was not as important as the rest of the mission. Jinjur decided simply to keep Carmen away from any important things and to generally keep an eye on her. The important thing for Jinjur to be concerned about was that the human race had met a new species and together they were going exploring.

"Now that you have seen the inside of the Falcon, we will take you over to see the inside of the Dragonfly."

 

Carmen was lying on her bunk, waiting out her rest period in the dark. She slipped in and out of sleep, forcing herself awake as soon as the dream came back. No longer even wishing there was someone to talk to, Carmen knew that once again she would have to deal with this on her own. She now knew the visions that were blinding her, were memories. Memories repressed for sixty years. Memories that had been coloring her feelings and reactions all her adult life. Again and again Carmen was forced to replay the abuse her uncle had inflicted on her, to relive his sexual use of her from the time she was six. She had gone to her mother the first time, and was told that she must have liked it to allow it, and from that time forward Carmen had tried to reconcile the idea that something that made her feel so worthless was what she was supposed to enjoy.

Never having studied psychology, Carmen nonetheless knew that all her life she had been forcing herself to accept her sexuality both as something sinful and as something one was supposed to exalt in; even when it felt as if it were ripping your soul apart. Her uncle, trying to rationalize his own sickness, had always forced her to orgasm. By the time Carmen learned how and what to fake, she had decided that this overwhelming sensation was something he used to control her, and was not the gift from God that he claimed legitimized his abuse of her. For as long as she could remember, the climax of her partner always gave Carmen the only real satisfaction she experienced with sex; the idea that she had gotten from them what he had always forced from her. Now she could see that what she had always thought was sexual arousal was fear—fear of losing herself, fear of becoming as horrible as her abuser. But this time Carmen was an adult. She could look back at her memories objectively and see that she was not at fault. The little girl in her past that had had no one to turn to, now could turn to her adult self.

Carmen knew that there was no one in the crew that she could talk to, no one she felt she could trust. How could she go to any of the men, all of whom she had slept with, and tell them that she had been using them, even trying to hurt them when she had slept with them. Jinjur would be afraid to trust her to do her job, Shirley was gay, and Cinnamon was still a virgin and would never understand. The rest of the women were either people Carmen hardly knew or people she worked with every day. For now, all she could do was listen to the objective voice of Jupiter, recognize, accept and forgive herself her past, and do her job as best she could. Sleep came and Carmen found herself back in her uncle's room; he was calling to her softly and beckoning. Then, she was looking down over his shoulder at the face of herself as a child, tears filling the young eyes as he strained against her. Carmen sensed that the child knew she was there, and, within the dream, she tried to show her younger self how her uncle would die, drowned in a tidal wave. She felt as if the picture of his blue, bloated, body gave the girl some comfort. She couldn't stop the rape in her dream, she couldn't stop it when it had happened, but she had survived the ordeal and had lived to see this animal dead.

 

Jinjur had called a planning meeting in the lounge on the crew quarters deck of the Falcon. She was sitting in the reading chair in the corner where everyone could see her, while most of the rest of the crew were gathered on or behind the large lounge sofa that faced the two-meter-diameter viewport window that looked out over the oceans of Eau from forty meters up. The tall ones; Sam, Richard, and Shirley, stood in the back against the blank videowall; John, Thomas, and Caroline were seated on the sofa, Tony perched on the broad back of the sofa where it met the corner, and Carmen and Cinnamon sat on the floor. At Jinjur's request, Cinnamon got up and stood in the door to the galley to start the meeting.

"Since we have decided that the flouwen could be useful partners in exploring with us, we will have to make plans for their health and safety. For example, if we take the flouwen up to Prometheus so they can go exploring the moons of Gargantua with us, then we are going to have to feed them while they are there. To do that, we will need to find and bring in some live samples of their normal prey. Nels can breed or clone these samples and keep a good supply in a tank onboard Prometheus, but the initial selection will have to be broad to make sure we have a varied diet for them. We have no vitamin supplements for flouwen."

Secretly Cinnamon was overjoyed. She knew Nels would be thrilled to have so many live samples of alien life to study. He had all ready started reworking some of the hydroponics tanks aboard the Prometheus for the Rocheworld life forms.

"Good!" said Jinjur, pleasantly surprised that this normally quiet girl was getting the ball rolling. She had called this meeting in the hopes of uniting the landing party into an efficient fighting unit. Up to now, they had been acting alternately like tourists and tour guides. They needed to get their goals stated and accomplished.

"OK. Tomorrow and the next day, samples will be taken," Jinjur ordered. "Then I want to get Dragonfly flown over into a good position in the air neck between the lobes to watch the flood as the top of the water mountain of Eau goes over to Roche. The last time that happened George was a bit too preoccupied to get good pictures."

The rest of the crew laughed dutifully.

"Cinnamon, John, Richard, and Carmen will go out in the ocean with the flouwen and collect whatever samples can be of use. Anything that is not appropriate for cloning can be dried and used to feed the Littles during our expedition flight over to Roche after the flood season is over. Thomas, Shirley and Caroline will continue to check out the Dragonfly, and Tony, Sam, and I will keep the home fires burning here on the Falcon.

"The Littles have spent enough time learning about us and the ships to be feeling at home here. I know that their inquisitiveness can be a bit trying, and I want to commend you on your patience. But remember that they still think rather like children, and even though they are technically our guests, I want you to let them know when they are getting in your way. They have no sense of discipline or manners and need to be kept in line. In time, when they want to go to space badly enough to be willing to take orders, we will allow them to take a more active part in the running of the ship. In the mean time, no matter how smart they are, no matter that they seem to know what they are doing, I don't want these aliens to be allowed to take control of any of the ships systems, even under supervision.

"Remember, these creatures live for centuries and, rather like teenagers, they have no real sense of their own mortality. Besides, they know that back in the ocean is the rest of themselves, and that other part will survive even if the Little version dies. The computer will respect any human decision, but for the time being, the decisions of the computer will outweigh the judgement of the flouwen."

"Wait a moment!" Caroline objected. "They may be alien, but they are living, thinking people. How can we give the computer authority over them? Jupiter is well programmed, but it is just a machine."

"That machine has the human's best interest at heart. The flouwen, from what I have seen, care only for the interest of the moment. I believe they would cheerfully try and force the ship into the next dimension if they thought of a mathematical theory that would get them there."

"They would probably make it," Caroline muttered to herself. She knew that Jinjur was right, but she felt an affinity for the flouwen personality. She had hopes of introducing White Whistler to good science fiction; if anyone could discover the hypothetical hyperspace, she figured that flouwen could.

"For now, even if they are smarter than we are ."

"I don't want to know!" interrupted Shirley with a laugh and covered her ears.

"For now, we are in charge. All clear?" Jinjur finished, rising.

As the meeting broke up into the groups that would go forth on the morrow, Jinjur reexamined the impulse that made her include Carmen on the sample gathering team. She wanted to tell herself that the group might be going far afield and that a communications officer would be helpful cutting through any interference that they might have contacting the ship, but she knew the high tech laser comm links in the suits would not need much help. Far afield, away the ship, Jupiter would not be able to control the imp's movements, but there was enough computer power in their suits to translate and keep the parties in touch with each other, even if separated by hundreds of miles. In fact, the best place for Carmen was with Jinjur, waiting back on the Falcon. Jinjur rationalized that the sample-gathering party would need many hands to bring back all the different plants and animals, but with all the flouwen to help, they didn't need Carmen simply to be a pack horse. Had she assigned Carmen there to be with her closest friends in the hopes that they could help with whatever was troubling her? Jinjur had to realize the real reason she didn't keep Carmen alone here with her was that the silently obedient seorita was giving her the creeps!

 

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