Acts of Conscience (26 page)

Silence. Then it said, “Not in the sense you may mean, though... a wise citizen looks out for the interests of its... chosen polity.”

That idea was probably surfacing from memory of some old movie as well, something featuring a Salieran spy, skulking through the sewers of some human habitat, on Luna or Mars perhaps, where the sewers are old and full of ambience as well as shit. I can’t quite pull it up. Something about a Kapellmeister crawling through the dark sewer, coming upon a rat’s nest, gleefully grabbing the baby rats in its terrible chelae, snipping off their heads, sucking their blood...

It said, “Would you like to visit my friends, Gaetan?”

“Well. Sure.”

“It’s quite a ways off. About three days travel.”

I glanced at the camper, wondering if I should explain about the rewiring I’d done.

The Kapellmeister said, “I’m traveling by horse, Gaetan.” The animal, which had been standing quite still in the shadows, looked up, as if it understood the word.

“I wasn’t going anywhere in particular.”

“Excellent. I’ll make camp here for tonight. We can move on in the morning.”

From faraway, came the faint afterecho of a long, complexly modulated howl. Wolfen. “Christ!” Shivering.

The Kapellmeister said, “Oh, dear. Gunbreaker and some of her warriors seem to have killed one of Mr. Takkor’s prize brahma bulls. He’ll be very angry.”

I stood up, feeling slightly short of breath.

“You can sleep outside if you wish, Gaetan. The wolfen won’t come again. It’s a very nice night.”

Both of the moons had set now, my fire died down, and but for the glow from inside the camper it had gotten quite dark. So dark, in fact, that the sky seemed to blaze with ghostly silver light. “I think I’ll go in for the night. Thanks anyway.”

I lay in bed for a long time, lay in the darkness, staring out through my little window at the starry sky, watching the Milky Way’s band slowly rise, trying to sleep, failing, trying to think, failing at that as well. Mainly, I lay there listening to all those scary nighttime noises, remembering what it’d been like to lie awake as a child, buried deep under the Moon, listening to the regolith groan.

My memory is composed of snapshots like that. Snapshots I would’ve preferred to lose, most of them. All that wasted space that could’ve been filled up with useful knowledge, or expansions of the happy memories I did have. I started thinking about those happy memories, and finally fell asleep remembering a girl I’d known on Mars in the time between Jayanne and when I left for Stardock.

God, what the hell was her name? Something with a lot of
sz
s and double accent marks I never did learn how to pronounce right. A tall, fat blond girl whose sole interests in life seemed to be ice cream and sex. It proved to be an... invigorating combination, and I was sorry to tell her goodbye, though she didn’t seem sorry to see me go.

Travel the next day proved to be surprisingly dull. I spent part of the morning floating along above rolling, hilly plains that gradually grew more heavily wooded, bobbing like a captive balloon under an empty blue-green sky, trying to fly my camper at the speed of a walking horse.

Finally, when the spacesuit told me it could indeed track the Kapellmeister through the satellite link it’d established  with his translator box, I took off to look for something interesting the library AI told me it’d turned up on the Orikhalkan InfoNet service.

A couple of hundred kilometers to the west of where I was, where the foothills of the Thisbÿs Bergketen begin ramping up into the main mountain range, there’s an old volcanic throat, atop which sit what appear to be ruins. Research references going all the way back to the original explorer teams that first visited Tau Ceti confirm that these are indeed artifacts, worked stone of unknown age and origin.

There are a few fallen pillars, some pedestals with what look like angular script on them, but could just as easily be weathering marks. A stretch of what looks a lot like abstract stone tilework. The library AI said, No one has successfully theorized about these buildings, because they are unique on Green Heaven, nor do they resemble the old ruins on Groombridge 1618 6iv, commonly known as Snow.

Weathering patterns appear to indicate they are older than the oldest civilizations of Earth and Arous, though much younger, of course, than the extremely ancient artifacts on Snow.

And the Kapellmeisters?

The technological phase of Salieran civilization is of unknown antiquity. They appear to have had space travel for many thousands of years, though it is stated their interstellar flight capabilities have gone unused.

And the Saucer People?

Since the Salieran government categorically states it was not responsible for those “visits,” which have never, in any case, been verified as actually being of extraterrestrial origin, such theorizing comes under the heading of mere fantasy.

Which, until just recently, left no one else. As I settled down to have lunch, sitting on the edge of a cliff, looking westward toward the silvery heights of the improbably tall Thisbÿ Mountains, I wondered if anything more had been heard about the starfish-warship business. Interesting that both the Board of Trade Regents and the Solar System media had let it slide by like that. We...

The spacesuit whispered, The Kapellmeister asks that you visit now.

o0o

It took about an hour to fly back, landing my camper in a swirl of dust and leaves on a rough dirt track that led through a grove of trees almost big enough to be called a forest. The Kapellmeister’s horse was standing there, quietly grazing in a patch of yellow stuff that must have been pretty much the same as grass, looking up briefly as I came down.

When I got out, the Kapellmeister’s machine-voice called through the trees, “In here, Gaetan. Please bring your hunting rifle.” I took down the zipgun and walked into the shadows.

“Christ.”

The womfrog was lying on its left side, ribcage visibly moving in and out, labored breathing, its lower trunk stretched out flat, the other one ripped open, hanging by a shred of thick hide and a hank of bleeding muscle, the ground under it well soaked with blood, the air full of sweet smells, honey and whipped cream, with just a hint of cinnamon.

“Where’s its left hind leg?”

From its perch atop the thing’s skull, the Kapellmeister said, “Taken away. Probably eaten by now.”

So. I tried to visualize a band of wolfen bringing this thing down and tearing it apart, just the way they would have me, but... No. The stump of its left jumping leg was cleanly cut. Knives, not teeth. I started walking around toward its head, stopped short when I saw the eyes were still open. Still open and so evidently watching me. The supple fingers of its surviving hand curled into a fist, held it briefly, relaxed open again.

I remembered the hunt, remembered a desperate womfrog jumping up, trying to grab me from the edge of the cliff, remembered Gretel Blondinkruis’ laughter.

The Kapellmeister said, “If you’ll come around here and shoot it in the back of the neck, you can have the other leg for supper.”

Sharp pang in my chest. I looked up into the thing’s big, empty eyes and stood stock still, listening to the harsh whisper of its breathing.

“Please, Gaetan. The womfrog begs you to hurry.”

I looked up at the Kapellmeister on its perch, saw that it had extended its middle hand, the one that looked just a little bit like an octopus or squid, that the wet black tentacles were splayed out across the top of the womfrog’s skull. I took a deep breath. “All right.” Started walking around toward its back, conscious of the eyes following me until I went out of sight.

Now what?

I aimed the zip gun at where I imagined the womfrog’s foramen magnum would be and thumbed the charge button, listening to the condenser whine, knowing the... animal would be hearing it too. Well. I shut my eyes when I pulled the trigger, but the blood got on me anyway, which seemed to make the butchery a little easier afterward.

After I’d taken what I wanted from the dead womfrog, we moved on, finally making camp as the sun went down, sky a blaze of orange and vermilion, in an open area, flat ground to one side of what could only be called a babbling brook. There was a wide sand bar that looked a little bit like a beach, enough stones clustered in the middle of the stream to make something like a small waterfall and, farther along, a deeper area marked by calm-flowing water, where I suppose I could have taken a bath if I wanted, though there was a perfectly good shower in the pop-up.

I set up one of the camp chairs and built another fire, taking nice, big round stones from the stream, over which to cook my womfrog steaks and bake a potato I’d found in the vegetable crisper, so thoughtfully stocked by the rental agent. As the smells started, I began to wonder if I’d like the combination of candy-meat flavor and traditional tuber-with-butter. Hell. Anything’s worth trying once.

While I was doing all this, the Kapellmeister prepared a bag of oats for its horse, whose name, it turned out, was Graysplotch, after a typical horsemarking between its eyes. It was kind of a remarkable sight, watching the horse stand so still as the Kapellmeister walked up its mane and stood between its ears to mount the feedbag.

After that, it’d simply walked away into the growing shadows of dusk, tossing a clipped “I’ll be back” over its... shoulder? Hell. Over its butt, I guess, since the talking box was mounted in the middle of its back. I have no idea where a Kapellmeister’s shit comes out, or if it even makes anything like shit. Anyway, it went, leaving me alone.

Just before the food was done, there was a rustling among the trees. I jumped, grabbing the zipgun from where I’d left it, leaning against the side of the camper, not far from my chair, finger thrust through the trigger guard, heart thumping harder than I wanted it to, ears straining.

“Please don’t shoot me, Gaetan.”

“Sorry.”

“You shouldn’t be afraid of the wolfen, Gaetan. Gunbreaker has passed the word around that you’re under my... protection.”

It walked into the firelight and I saw with a start that it was carrying something. Something that moved. I kneeled as it approached, trying to get a good look at the little animal. Some native Greenie life form, covered with bristly dark green fur, six limbs, arrayed like a bipedal mammal with an extra set of arms and complex shoulders whose articulations were hidden by the fur.

“What’s that?” The thing’s mottled, pupilless eyes were bugged out and rolling, not surprising since the Kapellmeister had it around the neck, squeezing tightly with one chela, the other one holding its legs. The four arms, if that’s what they were, were limp.

“The Groenteboeren refer to it as a
haaskin
.”

The translator AI said, This is a children’s slang term for a common sort of playroom toy, a rabbit
spieltier
. “Bunny.”

“Yes, I believe so.”

I noticed the Kapellmeister had its third arm draped over the thing’s head. The library AI said, It appears, of course, that Salieran autologous nerve induction works with Cetian as well as Solar life forms. I suddenly remembered the horses on Earth, and their riders. As I filled a plate with steak and potato, pouring
garum
on the womfrog meat in hopes of giving it a more steaky sort of flavor, opening the potato and adding a fair amount of butter and cold sour cream, I said, “What’re you going to...”

The Kapellmeister’s left chela snipped suddenly and the haaskin’s head plopped to the ground. It tucked the carcass up under its body, pushed it in among the juncture of its legs, and something made a neat little sucking sound. The talking box said, “Ah. These things are very sweet.”

I turned away and started in on the spud, thinking maybe I could have my candy-steak for desert. Silence, punctuated by soft sucking, and then the Kapellmeister said, “Do you think the potato plant wouldn’t mind, if she knew you were eating her babies?”

For... “Asshole!”

Somehow, we got through the rest of the meal, fire dying down as the sky grew dark and the stars came out overhead. The steak wasn’t bad after all and the
garum
really did make it seem more like terragenic meat, fish and candy flavor blending into something else entirely. I stopped seeing the injured womfrog’s eyes after the first couple of bites, little voice, somewhere deep inside, telling me not to be any more of an idiot than was absolutely necessary.

After the Kapellmeister finished sucking the haaskin dry, it cut the body up with its claws and ate the pieces, shoving sticky-looking, sweet-smelling bits up under its body, where they went crunch, crunch, crunch, and gradually disappeared.

Finally, it picked up the head, extending a couple of eyestalks, seeming to look into the dead animal’s open, staring eyes. “It’s interesting how Cetian neural activity doesn’t cease all at once, following decapitation.”

How... nice for you. I remembered the way it’d left its third arm draped over the haaskin’s skull while it’d snipped through the neck. The library AI whispered, Human scientific knowledge of Salieran neural induction biology is really quiet limited. We know it exists, and that it’s widespread among creatures of the Kapellmeisters’ taxonomic classification, but little else. It seems to be the product of some natural evolutionary process, rather than technology.

The Kapellmeister flicked its wrist, tossing the dead head away into the undergrowth.

I remember watching educational netvid shows on the subject. Scientist type pissing and moaning because the Salieran government wouldn’t let us wander around on their homeworld unescorted, though we let
them
wander around
ours
. I said, “Do they lose consciousness?”

Silence, then: “Well, yes, in the sense that you most likely mean the word. It’s interesting though, observing those last, dying bits of neural activity.”

I thought about it. “Did you hold onto the womfrog after I shot it?”

Silence, then: “Yes.”

More silence. I said, “Well?”

The Kapellmeister said, “The subconscious imagery of sentient creatures is culturally determined for the most part. Quite complex and difficult to interpret.”