“Provided we surrender our freedom,” Ian said.

  “No.”

  Now Ian was startled, and so were Doane and Catto, in tune with his mood. “No?”

  “That is the nature of our offer,” Mawker said. “We want you to return to manage the project. The three of you; this is a multi-species effort. Under my supervision, the first year, to familiarize yourself with the protocols. Then directly, when I retire.”

  The three of them stared at him.

  “You can continue to live here,” Mawker continued. “This can be a useful outpost. We can pay off the mortgage; that at least is within our means. You can continue to range the local forest as you have been doing. Even finish your education, Ian; you are already close to your degree. You have learned to relate to the larger world; that is a skill we also need. We need to be able to interface with normal folk, without betraying our special skills. Starting with your attendance at the funeral and memorial service for Chloe, a fine generous woman. All three of you.”

  He paused. “I might add that we do have other predator animals there, and other domesticated ones, who need the help of each of you to fulfill themselves. Also a maiden, seventeen, highly telepathic but uncontrolled. She’s rather pretty, but emotionally insecure, as you might imagine. I think you would find her worthwhile in more than one venue, Ian. She truly needs a talented and understanding friend. The pay is low, but there are compensations. What we are doing may some day change the world. It is, actually, a secret but glorious vision. One you surely share.”

  Ian realized that Mawker had come well prepared, and had won the day. Indeed, they could not refuse.

  They were no longer lost things.

  2011

  Medusa

  Feeding time. Erik brought the food for the captive alien creature. She was an elusive marauder, caught mainly by chance; more than one man had died before a sample specimen had been caught. Confined, she had been quiet, knowing she could not get at him, but he remained careful. He set the severed haunch in the apertures compartment, closed the outer gate, then drew the inner gate open.

  Medusa pounced on it, catching the projecting bone with her head tentacles that gave her her name and hauling it onto the floor of her cage. She lay with her four legs tucked under her body, out of play, their devastating claws not showing. Her tentacles held the haunch firmly and fed the bony end into the circular mouth orifice that irised just wide enough to take it in. There was a sound vaguely like that of a meat-cutting saw as her circular teeth sliced into it.

  Slowly the bone disappeared into her mouth, guided by the tentacles. Erik knew that the interior teeth were cutting off thin slices, so fine that the result was virtually powder or liquid. She did not chew in the human manner, she shredded, so that she could then swallow and digest the resulting mash. The process took time, but what else did she have to do here?

  The rest of her food processing was different too. She had no bladder, no anus; her wastes were processed by her feet. One for solids, another for liquid, a third for gas, the last for heat. They could be used defensively, too, flinging out turds, spraying corrosive liquid, blowing a choking stench, or applying a burning paw. Medusa’s captors had discovered such features the hard way. But these weapons were not used indiscriminately; Erik himself had never been threatened. Evidently she was aware that he was harmless.

  She finished the haunch and walked on the sand pit, doing her business. She could eat and assimilate just about anything, whether meat, plant, or mineral, being an omnivore. One reason they fed her well was so she wouldn’t start chewing on the walls or bars, as it were; she might discover a way to break out. That would not be good, because she was a deadly predator, silent and swift. He was learning increasing respect for her; she was a fine creature.

  Then he became aware that Medusa was paying as much attention to him as he was to her. Her three eyes were fixed on him, triangulating in three dimensions. She could see and hear precisely; he had noted the signs. What was on her alien mind?

  Erik had been in nominal charge of her for the past month. He was what was colloquially called a BEM aide: the person who fed and observed the specimens here on the human outpost on Phew 114. The name was for Potentially Habitable Earthstyle World, because of its gravity, temperature, atmosphere, and background life. Soon it would be terraformed, which meant seeding by Earth viruses, bacteria, fungus, lichen, and primitive plant and animal forms. They would marginalize or eliminate existing life forms, making the planet suitable for colonization by advanced life: human.

  Mainly, his job was dull. He had made most of his notes on the captive animal in the first few days; after that he was just a kind of baby sitter, making sure she was healthy and secure. He spent his time reading, playing computer games, corresponding with friends back on Earth, and snoozing. Lonely, he had taken to talking to Medusa as if she could understand, and reading aloud to her. She seemed less restless when he did that. She was especially attentive when he read erotic fiction; maybe he put more feeling into that.

  “Medusa, I wish you were a lovely willing human woman, instead of a vicious alien beast,” Erik said rhetorically.

  In her barred cage, Medusa rolled onto her back and spread her limbs, like a dog wanting a belly rub. But she was no dog. In fact she looked startlingly like a nude human woman, with breasts and a furry genital region.

  Erik blinked, fearing he was hallucinating. He had been too long without a woman. How could a tiger-like animal suddenly seem like a girl? She had not had such body parts before. In fact she was considered female only because she lacked a penis. Her kind evidently did not need such a member for urination, and probably not for anything else.

  Then he stared. Not only did she have breasts, they were visibly expanding, while her thick midsection was thinning into a girl-like waist. Her short limbs were lengthening into humanly-proportioned arms and legs. Her feet were shaping into hand-like extremities, with fingers and toes sporting delicate nails rather than rending claws.

  “Medusa,” he said, awed. “You are shape-changing!”

  “Mmmm,” she agreed. It was more like a purr than a growl, the only vocal sound she made.

  His jaw dropped. “You understand me!”

  “Mmmm.”

  “Medusa, stop! If the authorities knew you could do either, they would destroy you immediately.”

  She rolled back onto her feet, faced him, and nodded her head.

  “You do understand me,” he said. “At least well enough to respond. You never gave a hint before. Are you sapient?”

  “Mmmm?” She could do inflections, and he had learned to pick up on them.

  “Sapient: having human intelligence and judgment. Smart. Savvy. Knowing what’s what.”

  She shook her head.

  “Not as smart as I am, but smarter than an animal?”

  She nodded.

  “Why are you letting me know, after concealing it until now?”

  She was silent. He realized that the question was too complicated for her to answer, since she couldn’t talk.

  He tried again. “You have a reason to tell me?”

  She nodded.

  “Your welfare is affected?”

  She was silent. Too complicated again. But he was able to simplify it by breaking it down into more specific concepts. He had to clarify words and rephrase often, but they were making progress on a dialogue.

  “Is someone treating you badly?”

  Head shake.

  He got an idea. “You can hear things, not just in this room?”

  Nod.

  “You learned our language by listening?” He had given her a lot to listen to.

  Nod.

  “You heard something that made you decide?”

  Nod.

  “Is there danger?”

  No reaction.

  “Is there danger for us—for human beings?”

  No.

  “For you?”

  Yes.

  Now he was getting there. “There is a threat to you?”

  Yes.

  “And I can help?”

  Yes.

  “Do you want me to make a complaint on your behalf?”

  No.

  “Medusa, I am really just an observer. I have no authority. I represent HETA, Humans for the Ethical Treatment of Aliens. The military folk let me work here because they want to show that they are not mistreating alien captives. I am trying to understand you and the other specimens. If I make a ruckus, they will simply ship me out. I do want to help you, but I have to be careful. I need to be very sure of my facts. What exactly is the threat?”

  Medusa did not respond. But further dialogue zeroed in on it. The base was going to be closed in a few days. Because of the coming terraforming. He had not realized that it would be so soon.

  “And that means they will probably destroy the study specimens,” he concluded. “Because they won’t have the time or money or inclination to return them to their places of origin. That dooms you.”

  Yes.

  “Medusa, I can’t just let you out. This planet is doomed. It has air and gravity compatible with Earth life; that’s why the base is here, and why you are here for observation. But outside this base it is going to be burned off and reseeded. You would soon die.”

  Yes.

  “Then what?”

  And in due course he came to it: she wanted him to help her return to her own kind. Because otherwise she and they would die. She was trusting him with the secret of her intelligence and her ability to shift her form, and asking for his help.

  “Medusa, this is impossible! They will not let me simply lead you out of here, let alone let you board a spaceship, assuming there were a refuge for you on some other planet. I can’t just buy tickets for two and escort you there the way I could for a woman. You’re an alien creature!”

  She lay on her back and spread her legs. Her torso was now startlingly humanoid, with full breasts and thighs. He realized that she was emulating the nude figure on the girlie calendar he had put on the wall, and doing it remarkably well.

  Medusa was trying to seduce him into helping her. The thought repelled him. Yet as he looked at her, he also felt a certain guilty temptation. She was trying to be human-sexy, and he had not seen an available young human woman in months, let alone had sex with one. There were only the matronly officer’s wives, and prostitutes he couldn’t afford.

  It was of course impossible. Yet he appreciated her need to try to save herself. Were she a human woman captive, sex with a guard would be an obvious idea. Men would do just about anything for sex. How well he knew it! She was thoroughly alien, but perhaps her mind worked similarly in this respect. Had her captors been male monsters of her species, it would have been a fair ploy.

  He spoke at length, knowing she would not understand every word but should get the essence. “Medusa, I think I understand you. You want to survive, and you are prepared to do what it takes to make it possible. Even if it means prostituting yourself to a horrible alien male, which is what I surely seem to you. You have made your point. I will try to help you. Not for sex, but because you are nearly sapient, and it would be wrong to let you die. But there are things you need to understand. This must be secret. If the human authorities knew you were sapient, they would not only destroy you, they would send a warship to this planet to extirpate your entire species. The relatively gentle terraforming process would be put on hold, in favor of habitat annihilation. Because humans are essentially xenophobic. We don’t want to tolerate any competitive species who might theoretically make war against us and possibly eliminate us. We assume others are like us, so we expect mindless violence from them. I’m personally different, because I’m with HETA. We value aliens, and would love to discover alien sapience and safeguard it from harm. Maybe some day this will be standard for everyone. But right now, no one else must know. You do understand?”

  She understood. In fact, that was why she had contacted him, picking up on his special orientation. It was a remarkably savvy choice.

  “I doubt this will work, but we have to try,” he said. “We must make you emulate a human woman so well it will fool others, at least for long enough. But this will be a challenge, and we don’t have a lot of time.”

  She understood.

  Erik considered. “First I need to know exactly what I have to work with. Do you have any other abilities you haven’t shown me yet?”

  She did not move, but she changed. Her color had been tawny; now it shifted to brown, then to black. And on to red, green, blue, and white.

  “You’re a chameleon!” he exclaimed. “You can change your color!” Then he reconsidered. “But can you do two colors at once?”

  Her hide faded to white in stripes, and intensified to black in the spaces. She was almost like a zebra. Then she became a tapestry of colored blotches. He knew that the only Earthly creature with ability like this was the cephalopod: the squids.

  “One more thing. Can you do a picture?”

  The calendar girl formed on her skin, in full color.

  “And you never showed this to any human being before me,” he said, awed.

  The picture faded to the original tawn.

  He realized that a predator like this might be able to emulate the prey it stalked. A panther mixing with the herd of deer. Presumably she could control her odor too.

  But how could they have captured her? She could have emulated a dog or even a person, and faded from notice. But he thought he had the answer: colors were fast, but a full emulation needed everything together. A shift of form required redistribution of flesh and bone, and that could not be hurried. She must have been caught by surprise, and unable to shift without revealing her ability to do so. So she had remained in the form she was at the moment, with its limitations. It was better than getting killed as a devil thing.

  Now she was revealing herself to him, because the alternative was to die when they closed the base. She was trusting him out of desperation. But he was not desperate; the closing of the base would simply send him back to Earth; could he trust her? Because were he in her cage, she could kill him in an instant.

  “Medusa,” he said carefully. “You are trusting me because at worst I will betray you and you will be killed. That’s the same fate you face otherwise. You are not really gambling. But how can I trust you?”

  She lay on her back, showing her open torso again. It was almost perfect now, supremely sexy.

  “No. You are offering me sex. It would be no good if I got into the cage with you, and you killed me. I can’t help you unless I can trust you not to attack me the moment you have the chance.”

  She considered a moment. Then she got to her feet. She stood against the bars of the cage, facing him, pressing her torso forward. Her breasts projected through, to a degree, and her crotch was accessible. It would be possible to put his penis into her without entering the cage.

  “Medusa—” he protested.

  She let go of the bars with her paws, but kept her body touching. She thought he was afraid she would claw him. Indeed, that was possible, but that would merely warn him of her treachery and end their association. He was sure she would not strike unless by doing so she could escape the cage, and then the base. No, his objection was the idea of having sex with an animal.

  Yet her torso was now thoroughly human, in form and color. Only her head was alien. He also knew that her intellect was closer to human than to animal. She was no beast, and she was tempting.

  It also occurred to him that there was really no way for her to prove herself except by interacting in this manner. It might not be solid proof, but it was a step. If she would do this without attacking him, there was at least the chance that she could be trusted further.

  But how could she know what human sex was all about? As far as he knew, her species did not practice sex. They must have some other way to reproduce. Maybe they budded. So she was simply trying to show her willingness to interact with him in whatever way he wanted. She knew from the calendar that he liked the human female form, so she was emulating it. How would she feel if she knew what he would like to do with such a form?

  Well, actually, maybe she did, because he had read erotic fiction to her, where the women were always lovely and eager. How much of that had she really understood? Maybe more than he had supposed.

  “Medusa, do you know what sex is?”

  She shook her head, then nodded: she had a notion, but knew that there was much she still didn’t know.

  “Do you even have sexes?”

  There was no reaction. That meant that the concept was foreign to her. So her female form was a blind guess.

  “It is a—a coming together of a man like me and a woman like that.” He indicated the calendar girl. “They kiss and stroke, and he puts his penis into her. Do you understand?”

  Again that ambiguous indication. She did not know enough.

  He had to be more specific. “She has a vagina, a—a hole, here,” he said, touching the crotch area of the calendar girl. “He has a penis, here.” He touched his crotch. Then, realizing that this was hardly sufficient, he opened his fly and brought out his member.

  She looked, but still did not understand. He knew why: his penis was limp, in no condition to penetrate anything. In the erotic fiction it was always big, thick, long, and hard. She did not recognize his meager example.

  Then he got an idea. He put his member away and brought out his cell phone. He punched in the code for one of his favorite erotic videos, a remarkably virile bare man having at a marvelously endowed bare woman. “Can you see this?” He held the little screen up before her face.

  Yes.

  “Watch what the man and woman do.” He played the video. The man approached and kissed the woman’s mouth, then kissed her breasts. Her nipples expanded and his penis rose to moderate erection. She took her turn, licking his member and taking it briefly into her mouth. Her attention caused it to swell further. Then she lay down on the convenient bed and he inserted his now fully erect penis into her cleft, slowly at first. When he was well inside, he thrust and thrust, endlessly, in the manner of such productions. She wriggled and moaned, pretending that every thrust evoked almost unbearable pleasure. It was the standard fantasy.