Two Mode

The ageing doe tucked Cola into bed with an only just quite not overbearing matronly manner. She smiled as her hand smoothed the sheets over Cola's belly.

"Not long now, I'd say - maybe five days, a week at most." She looked at Cola staring deeply into her eyes. "It's not a large litter, only two or three..." She said quietly as to avoid hurting Cola's feeling - most does dreamed of a large family.

"Only two." Cola said firmly, thinking of her dream. "I've known for a while now." Cola stroked her belly herself, smiling.

"You get some sleep now," The old doe told her. "You'll have scant chance for that in a week."

She stood up and. as if just deciding said, "You'd best stay here until they are old enough to travel. I'm not letting you rush off so close." As she said this she turned away to stop Cola getting a last word in.

Cola was relieved, in a way. If she hadn't been asked to stay she'd have felt obligated to get back home for the birth, and she didn't even know how long it would take her to get back home from here. She wasn't exactly sure where here was.

She closed her eyes and looked at the little blinking light in the corner.

She sub-vocalised a command and navigated to the next chapter of the journals.

---*---

I felt as if my head had been jerked out of molasses and then kicked around an airless room. I fought for breath, but didn't understand why.

Then I understood.

---*---

We had landed far from the city.

"I have a job for you two," Spiron said, his eyes flickered from me to Malcolm and back again. "A simple courier job for some delicate materials."

"I'm more your Helvetica man, myself." Malcolm sparked. I muffled a snigger. Spiron ignored him. Spiron had got good at ignoring Malcolm this last month since he'd joined us.

He tapped two boxes. "Take these to our contact in the city." He held one up and pointed at a squiggle on the side. "This is the delivery address. The locals and their transportation have 'readers for this encoding and they won't think it strange you asking for aid."

Scant minutes later, Malcolm and I were trotting away from the ship towards the nearest roadway.

"Very superstitious." Malcolm sang then adopted a more serious tone, "They could have just sent one of us with a bag big enough for both boxes."

"You think we're being used in some way?" I replied. I'd not thought about it but our task was strangely menial.

"Some of them want to use you." Malcolm replied. "Some of them want to abuse you." He smiled, "Just working out which can be helpful."

Ahead of us we watched a vehicle of some sort race along the roadway. We hadn't spied another.

"I'd say we were about another half-hour walk from the road." Malcolm said, "Let's hope we see more vehicles as we get nearer."

"Um," I agreed, "We don't even know how far from the city we are."

Malcolm then blew up and suggested, well insisted that we return to the ship and ask them to ferry us nearer.

I managed to persuade Malcolm to keep going. There had to be a good reason why the ship had to land so far out of the way.

By the time we reached the road we'd not seen another vehicle and the one we had spied before was far out of sight.

We headed off down the centre of the road in the direction that Spiron had pointed out.

A strange whirring noise interrupted my train of thought and I turned around to see a vehicle rapidly approaching us. "Quick!" I said grabbing Malcolm's arm and starting for the road's edge.

Malcolm resisted and shook my hand off his arm.

"How are we supposed to make it stop for us?" He said taking up a pose in the dead centre of the road, facing the vehicle.

I grabbed his arm again and attempted to drag him out of the way of the speeding truck, whatever. "How do we know it is supposed to stop for us?" I asked frantically trying to drag him to safety.

"Because." He said with an infuriating grin.

The truck was nearly upon us. I let go of Malcolm's arm and took a few steps towards the side of the road and then turned and raced at him.

I hit him with a rugby tackle and knocked him flying - he rolled right clear of the road. I stood up and realised that I was still in the middle. I turned around to see the vehicle bearing down on me.

"Oh Roger!" I swore. Like all good rabbits since the dawn of time I stood eyes wide at the impending doom.

There was an almighty squealing noise.

I was greeted by an enormous, stationary, truck bare inches from my nose.

"Meep" I said.

Malcolm rushed up to me and grabbed my arm. He dragged me around the side of the vehicle where an opening had appeared. We jumped on. It appeared to be some sort of personnel transport - there were seats and the sides were mostly transparent.

A mechanical voice trumped up "Present destination".

"The city!" I said boldly. Malcolm waved his box around and a positive-sounding beep issued from the bus.

With a lurch the bus started off.

We sat down. Having a pick of the seating, we sat right at the back.

After a few minutes I realised that something was happening to me. I tried to turn to talk to Malcolm and then realised that I hadn't turned. I felt vague and disjointed, as if I wasn't me anymore.

The rest of the journey was a blur.

The vehicle made a number of stops and took on a full load of passengers - the locals were a very coninoid life form and we didn't look out of place at all.

The bus wended its way into the city - which consisted of a large number of absolutely huge buildings with wide spaces between.

I seemed to be seeing this all from outside myself.

I was unable to communicate with Malcolm or the other passengers. None of the passengers spoke at all. Finally the bus stopped in a large piazza and all the occupants left. Except for us. We just sat there.

A uniformed figure alighted and walked to us. He looked us over then read the boxes.

"Come with me, Bucks." He said. Amazingly I watched as I stood up and followed him out of the bus. I assume that Malcolm followed too, but my body wouldn't respond to any idea of looking back to check.

The guard took us to one of the buildings and we followed obediently inside. He spoke to a doe behind a desk and she pointed at a far door.

We followed him through this door. It was some sort of elevator as I felt, from a million miles away, a familiar weight gain after the doors shut and then a weight loss just before they opened again. The guard took us into this room and then he left. We stood stock still until someone came for us.

A dark, nearly black-furred, figure; hunched over but still tall; beavered around us for a while.

He spoke to himself, I heard the words as if from a thousand years away.

"Two coney subjects. Totally subjugated by the field as expected." He prattled on for a few minutes then went off to a bench and returned with a small tray.

"Subject A. Control, being given normal orannuous."

He slipped a ring on my hand and I felt as if my head had been jerked out of molasses and then kicked around an airless room. I fought for breath, but didn't understand why.

Then I understood.

I stared at my hand, counting the hairs. I caught myself before I passed two thousand.

I looked up at the coney who had placed the ring on my finger.

"You're from my warren." I told him. "I can place your accent. You were born in the southern burrows."

He smiled at me. I looked around this laboratory and marvelled at the speed at which I took it all in - I could work out what each piece of equipment was for, but I didn't know what they were called.

On a far bench was a gleam of gold in a mass of wires. I wanted to see into that!

"Please, there will be a time for questions." The scientist said, "But I'm not the one to answer them." He then turned to Malcolm.

"Subject B, experient, being given new nano blocker."

He pressed a small pellet to the back of my friend's neck.

Malcolm collapsed to the floor.

The scientist walked off.

"It'll just take a few moments for the nano to integrate with his systems." He said as he left the room through a door.

Malcolm seemed like a puppet whose strings had been cut. I sat down next to my friend and held his head as it twitched from side to side.

Malcolm was drooling, real globules of Homer drool. He was, in fact, drooling over me. My arm was getting wet and I estimated, based upon the humidity and warmth of the room that I'd have a wet arm for a good thirty seven point eight minutes.

He just sat there and moaned, his head flopping from side to side, his ears flapping wildly. His eyes went in and out of focus. Nine point seven three minutes later I heard a noise.

Behind us a door whooshed. I turned around to see a familiar, robed, figure walk into the room followed by two others that I wasn't familiar with.

The two followers were well dressed natives, each with a high and mighty look on their faces, each wearing a gold ring that seemed the brother of the one I wore.

Fader was talking to them.

"You are happy with the results so far." I could hear the two natives nodding. "Your populace has a single goal - to work hard. The device has sublimated their personal desires and allowed you a very high degree of control of the city. The only worry you have is the fragility of the orannuous and your concerns that you could lose control of a ring and accidentally wake up as your proles."

He had brought them to our side. "Soon we will have the results of our latest experiment in a nano-blocker. These two aliens were brought gently into the field, neither of them was protected and so arrived here in the normal half-waking state your workers do so well with." He pointed at me, "Subject A was given a normal orannuous and exhibited the expected, normal, behaviour. Subject B has been given a single nano-pellet of my latest design. This is currently wiring itself into his consciousness. I expect a few more minutes and he should come round." He turned his back on me. I thought about trying to throttle him at that moment, but the odds of my subsequent survival were less than one in a hundred. "Rather than needing to ensure that he never looses the ring from his finger he will be completely immune to the calming effect and fully in control of the heightened faculties that you enjoy without needing to worry. The nano is even lower-powered than the rings and so doesn't need the heat/power-sink that normal comms and storage nano require. He is, in effect, now naturally immune to the sublimation but completely enhanced, well, whilst within the 'field."

"What happens outside of the field?" One of the natives asked. A good question, I thought. The answer came not from Fader, but a voice from my side spoke.

"The nano is acting as a dampener on the calming effect of Fader's field, but it is designed not to have any other effect." Malcolm turned to me. He'd stopped drooling too. "I can read the 'specs. It's a master-work." Fader was looking at us, his masked-gaze a mystery to me.

Malcolm rose to his feet, staring at the back of his hand. "Do you realise how many hairs I have on my body? Of course you do. It's probably the first thing anyone counts." His eyes were wide with amazement. "I feel like I could plot a Translation without needing a computer!"

The two natives were chattering to each other. I realised that, after a few words, I was picking up what they were saying without any reference to my translator. This was amazing!

Fader ushered them out of the door then turned back to us. He stared at us for a moment or two, as if pleased with his work, or that of the black bunny. "Go." he said with a shake of his head.

We rushed towards the lift that had brought us here, but I stopped myself before we got there and I had a quick scan over the contents of the desk.

The device generating Fader's field looked like a huge, golden carrot. Did this mean he had some sort of sense of humour?

"Come on," Malcolm said tugging at my arm, "I've had an idea on recalibrating the targeting sensors and I just can't wait."

I hummed a little, staring at the golden carrot as it sat in that mass of wires. It looked to me like he'd taken the technology of the platinum pear we'd rescued from the 'Bugs and make something that worked on conies instead. I shivered as the lift doors shut and a faint feeling of weightlessness imbued our bodies.

We worked out the transportation system and managed to, persuade, a bus to leave early so that we could get back to the ship sooner.

As the bus approached the spot where we'd hitched a lift on the way in I felt a little dizzy, then clear again. I frowned. I felt sure that I was going to do something, but I couldn't remember what. I heard a groan from my side. Malcolm had keeled over and was lying on the ground, his fists to his head. Luckily the bus stopped or else I'd have had no idea how to make it stop.

I felt like I'd fell into treacle, but this time, I realised, it was just because I was back to normal.

I was, anyway. Malcolm was doubled over in agony, singing to himself.

"It's the lowliest of metals."

"It's the lowliest of metals."

"It's the lowliest of metals."

His record was stuck.

I kicked the doorway until it opened and I dragged Malcolm into the ship. He was back to drooling and was still talking about gold. Vestock met us just inside and helped me with Malcolm.

I burst onto the flight deck, with fire in my soul, I was dimly aware that we were gently taking off as I lunged towards Spiron.

"Bastard!" I screamed, "What has Fader got on you? How can you treat us like this? He's like a vegetable now!" I spend a couple of minutes incoherently venting my spleen.

Spiron just stood there, taking all my abuse with a slight smile. I though he was going to say something when Kurl spoke up. "Incoming transmission, sir."

Fader's face filled the view-screen. I didn't give him a chance before I started at him. "You bastard!" I was on a roll, "Malcolm is a vegetable! You and your scientist rabbit have burnt his brain with that nano you gave him."

Fader laughed, then looked at Spiron, "This is as expected. The high council have not seen the side effects of the treatment, they are all visiting over the next two or three days. Then I will own this city."

I wouldn't let Spiron reply, "How do I get the nano out?" Fader just laughed.

Spiron spoke. "It's not an effective control mechanism if it can be removed without damaging the host."

I spun on Spiron and launched a fist at his face, an inch before hitting his hand caught mine and I realised exactly how much stronger than me he was.

I stared into his eyes and pushed my hand at him. Then I kneed him in the groin.

I have no idea whether his groin is where his delicate spots are, but it winded him and my other fist was able to hit him.

I was about to start pummelling when I heard Fader laughing behind me and my anger at Spiron faded. Fader and his black coney were responsible.

I turned to leave the room. I needed to calm down.

Kurl suddenly shouted, "Ships approaching on an attach vector!" He minimised Fader in the viewer and showed us five ships bearing down on us. "And there's more from behind!"

Spiron stood up, "Kurl, Buck, get to the guns. I'll fly."

We raced out of the cockpit towards the side gun-turrets.

---*---

The words faded to black as the implants detected Cola's gentle snoring.