The next few weeks were fascinating, if nothing else. Jackie and I recovered steadily and quickly, and while we were doing so, our new "pets" stayed right with us. At first I called mine Douche-bag and her's Toejam. But as we got to know them better, I decided those names didn't fit; they were too formidable for such stupid names. I started calling mine Boy! and her's Big Hooters. And, while these HX creations possessed formidable skills in science, logic and kinetics, they bots were rightly humble about their language skills: their language skills were, in fact, absolutely atrocious. They were limited in what they could say, and they never mastered any subtleties of human languages such as context, pacing, body language or double meanings. They communicated fantastically with each other, but they sounded like dumb hayseeds when they talked with us in human -- they couldn't get an idea across if you laid down a board for them to walk it over on. We, on the other hand, could understand them pretty well when they talked simple and slow Security Bot. It was a language humans had studied intensively for many years. We didn't understand full speed 'bot because it was like a human talking three times normal speed, but with the right equipment to slow down the language to human comprehension speed, we could understand it quite well.
The recovery wasn't steady. Sometimes I would wake up feeling ready to eat nails for breakfast, and other times I would wake up feeling like death-warmed-over. Sometimes I would wake up feeling like death-warmed-over and bleeding from the nose. Jackie was going through cycles, too. I suspect the Auto Docs we were sleeping on where continuing their research into what makes humans tick. Jackie and I did find one way to stop the mood swings: we'd sleep together on the same Auto Doc. That seemed to confuse it, and we would wake up usually feeling fairly normal. We slept together for relief at first, but after a couple nights, we found we were enjoying it. I was finding Jackie was a really nice cuddler.
As we recovered we were slowly introduced to various activities that took place on the HX. It was hard to figure out what to do: we were prisoners, but this wasn't like some sort of war where we should expect to get returned to our own side some day. We were, in fact, not prisoners of war, but either lab rat equivalents or newly minted slaves. We weren't going to be sent back. We would either adapt to being slaves, or die because we were of no use to the system. This meant that taking some sort of, "I won't tell you a thing but my name, rank and serial number."-attitude was tantamount to asking for quick death. We would have to figure out how to make ourselves useful, and pray for some kind of miracle.
Jackie and I started learning languages again. We showed the bots we could understand HX maintenance, and it kind of scared them. They soon thought of encrypting the communications, and tried some of their encryption schemes on us. When we heard about the proposal, we agreed with each other to act duly impressed, no matter what the HX came up with. The results they showed us were laughably simple, but we figured that it was their own business to find that out, and our "free people" would demonstrate their encryption weaknesses quickly enough.
The bots in turn asked us to learn the language of a sub-species I call the Coorlots. This species did a lot of the climate control on HX ships. If we could talk to them directly, we could get our habitation space comfortable very quickly, and not have to wear suits all the time. That sounded good... So far, these HX security bots seemed to be bending over backwards to make our stay comfortable.
After three weeks, the Coorlot learning was coming along well, and Boy! and Hooters had told us quite a bit about the basic layout of the HX. A lot of this was new information, and I was getting excited. We were being given powerful tools, here. If we could only get back to our ship.... Finally, I figured, "What the heck." and I asked Boy about how I would access the communication system.
"Who do you want to call?"
"One of the Coorlots."
"Call them through me." he said. And I did. And I could see that sneaking around the corner to make a quick call at some HX equivalent of a phone booth was not going to be an option. Jackie and I were either going to have to escape outright, or our communication with our fellow humans was going to have to be subtle, indeed.
So I was surprised when one morning about four weeks after our capture, Boy! said, "Would you like to talk to your fellow humans? They are still in the HX."
My jaw dropped, "... Talk to them? How?"
"They have tapped into the HX communications lines. They disguise their location, but we can find a comm channel they are using."
"What would I say to them?"
"Invite them to join us... as you have."
I recoiled, "Invite them to join us, as you have." Shit! I already looked like a happy slave to this HX bot! Maybe that was good, but it probably was bad. If I looked that happy to this bot, how would I convince my friends that I still wanted to escape? The next time we were alone, I talked to Jackie about this.
"What? You don't think our own people will believe us?"
"I'm not sure they will. We've been gone about a month, I recon, gone and not heard from. We could be brainwashed by now."
"That may be. But this is a big chance to get back."
"A chance, but maybe not a big one. We don't know where we are, or where they are. It's more likely just a chance to pass on some helpful information. But... Why are these HX bots giving us a chance to do that?"
"Could it be that they really believe life is that good here?" Jackie mused.
"... It could be something like that. Their thoughts on betrayal don't seem to be anything like ours. If that's the case, we may have a big opportunity, here, but we have to be very careful how we play it."
"Why is that?"
"Well... I've been thinking about their language deficiencies. Part of it is just straightforward, 'I don't understand the words coming out of your mouth, Earthman.' but there is more, too. Part of it seems to be not thinking in certain ways. One of those ways they don't seem to think about is betrayal. They don't seem to have our skepticism."
"Now that you mention it, I can see what you're talking about. They give us a lot of rope, don't they?"
"They do. And I... We've been doing a lot of good for them with that rope. I've been helping them all I can... for a reason. I want a chance to get back. I want them lulled."
"Lulled for what?"
"For an escape. But I think we will get only one chance at that. These bots have pretty much said outright that we are an experiment in domestication. If we betray them, it's likely they will conclude the experiment is a failure, and toss out the experimental materials." I ran my hand across my neck.
Jackie considered my statement, then looked at me, "Do you have any reason to stay? These bots haven't treated us too badly."
"Are you kidding? I agree they haven't treated us badly, but why would I want to stay? All the people I know are back on the ship."
<<<<*>>>>
We planned our conversation with our Earthly teammates carefully. We were going to say wonderful things about the HX. I would do most of the talking. Jackie, meanwhile, would sit quietly and blink a Morse code message with her eyes saying "prisoner". I would be doing things with my body language to indicate what I was saying was full of horse pucky. On the surface, we would be trying to arrange a face-to-face meeting with our Earth friends to get them to come over to the HX side. If our people had any sense at all, they would agree, and then ambush the meeting party, and we would be free. The plan had the virtue of being simple and straight forward; it had the vice that a whole lot could go wrong. But it was the best plan we could come up with.
The time for contacting the Earthers came. I told Boy!, "We are going to be using a lot of technical jargon that you won't understand. Don't get too nervous about that."
"OK." he said to me. He sounded almost like a trusting dog, and that made me relax just a bit.
Over the last couple weeks we had been working closely on several HX-related projects, and they had gone well. I'd always tried to be a straight-shooter with him, except once. Once I deliberately lied to him to see what his reaction was. His reaction was to assume I'd been misinformed. Good! He trusted me. That was going to make this conversation with the Earthers have even a chance of working.
We had the conversation. It went well. I used a lot of slang and idiom, and it seemed that the people on the far end got the drift, and Boy! stayed in the dark. As we were talking I had a flash of brilliance... if you don't mind me saying so. I negotiated to "buy" some of our people coming over. We would bring a wastebasket-size battery, and trade that for two people. I checked with Boy! on this, explained we were going to do a people-for-battery barter trade, and it seemed logical to him.
Whoo boy! If this comes off....
... and it did!
We walked away from our HX security force with a battery in hand. Boy! and Big Hooters came with us. When we got to our people, we turned to them and said, "Good bye, we are leaving now."
I'll admit it: Boy! was real fast to understand. His next words were, "You have an ability to mask defection with cooperation that is hard for us to understand. This makes you powerful, but much harder do deal with than we anticipated. I can see there is more research to be done."
"Well, you're not going to get a chance to do it on us." I said.
"You're right, and I was designed to work specifically with you. Now that you are leaving, I will be recycled. It has been good working with you, Lance."
"Are you serious, Boy!?"
"Quite. With your leaving, my time is near its end."
"Do you want to come with us?"
"Thank you for the offer, Lance. But I would not survive far from the ship. My makers did not design me for that, and may have included elements to preclude the possibility. No, I'm afraid we must say. 'This is the end.' and mean it in many ways."
I admit it. I'd worked with him long enough to feel some sorrow for him.... Some... but not enough to keep me from walking off right then and there!
We all hightailed it for home. God! I've never moved so fast, or felt so good about doing it!