Acts of Conscience (31 page)

Nothing.

What was I expecting, to be able to read the, uh...
facial
expression on something whose evolutionary history was more remote from mine than your average terrestrial rock?

The Kapellmeister said, “Given the political realities on my homeworld, it seems unlikely that data structures exist for these referents within any human database.”

Then more silence, the two of us sitting side by side, watching the long shadows of the dancers crisscross on the open ground. Something, I thought, is going on here. I... Moment of self-directed mirth. No shit, Mycroft Fucking Holmes. The sentence that just came out of that black box held a great deal of information. This Kapellmeister has just said it told me something it thinks no other human knows.

So? Fucking
why
?

Loose lips sink ships?

Christ.

It said, “There has been a great and rancorous debate among my kind about what is appropriate information for release to your kind. The general consensus is that we wish you hadn’t come. We’ve been content, sitting home, these last four hundred million years.”

Sharp prickle in my chest. Well. There’s that number again. An unlikely number. Four hundred million years ago... origin of the vertebrates, perhaps?

The library whispered, Transition between the Devonian and Mississippian periods of the Paleozoic era. The climate was warm and humid, following a more arid period with some glaciation. With lands plants well established, the first forests evolved in the Devonian. These were inhabited by the first amphibians, at the beginning of what is commonly known as the Carboniferous.

So. Have I just been told the... Salierans have been... sitting home, was it? Sitting home, warm and cozy, on 82 Eridani 3, since before the coal swamps formed? The Kapellmeister said, “In the days following the Shock War, we were... frightened. Afraid some remnant of the Instrumentality would come, looking for StruldBugs to kill, and would kill us instead. It was a long time before we found out the StruldBugs had won the war, that there were no remnants of the Instrumentality. Nor much left at all of the StruldBugs themselves.”

I wait in silence for more. Nothing. Finally: “You know, of course, I don’t know what the hell you’re talking about?”

Silence. Then, “Yes. I realize that.”

In the firelight before us, all of the dollies were dancing now, a very complicated pattern that I couldn’t follow at all. I said, “Then why the hell tell me?”

Silence. Then, “I have a decision to make. It’s one I’ve been trying to make for a long time, but...” The eyestalks seemed to wave, beginning to retract, then they extended again to full length, seeming to inspect the stars overhead. There was a sound from the black box on its back, something I could swear sounded like a sigh, though, of course, it was only a soft ruffle of static. It said, “Among my kind, solitary decisions and individual initiative have been long discouraged. This makes the decision making process rather... difficult.”

I can imagine.

I waited patiently for more, watching the dollies dance, but that was it. Thought about opening my mouth and asking the obvious questions, try to encourage this little beanbag of a creature to go on, but... I just sat. Eventually the dollies stopped dancing, and the wolfen, somehow, seemed pleased.

o0o

The next day, following the sun as we skirted the edge of a big, flat glacier near the center of the Koudloft, we made good time, thundering along in tandem, throwing up twin plumes of dust, and glittery bits of ice, Kapellmeister riding beside me in silence. Toward midday we crested a long, low, snow-covered ridge and began driving down a shallow slope, seeming to head back toward the north.

Gone around the south pole now, pole itself somewhere back in that glacier, direction changed even though we haven’t made a meaningful turn.

In the middle distance, the white hills of the Koudloft turned gray, then gave out, turning into a broad green plain that soon disappeared over the horizon. Mountains sticking up, almost invisible, like phantasms in the blue beyond, continuations of the Pÿramis and Thisbÿs, seeming to float above the end of the world, like icebergs in the fog.

There, a faint bolt of silver lightning, rimming the green world. The beginnings of the Somber River, perhaps? One of its tributaries, the beginnings of a drainage system with the length and volume of the Amazon and Mississippi combined. There, by the river’s bend, a low, ramshackle affair, like a fairy castle gone to seed, brown buildings threatening to become towers, never quite making the grade.

The library whispered,
Vapaa
, smallest of the Compact Cities, inhabited by the last genetically distinct descendants of the Saami folk, whom other Scandinavian people referred to as
Ljappa
.

Some imitation of Orikhalkos then, smaller, shabbier, if such a thing was possible... memories of those empty, fallen down warehouse districts, with their wolfen killpits and dollhouses and streetwalking whores and... I thought about my Orikhalkan whore, brief memory of being... transported. As simple as that. Felt a pang of desire, an urge to visit this Vapaa.

The spacesuit said, Contemporary news reports indicate a great deal of gang violence on the streets of Vapaa these days. Few people from the other Cities will visit, or come to do business. A commission once discussed breaking up Vapaa and absorbing its population into the other Cities, but no city officials were willing to have them.

And what else could they do? Where would they go? Out onto the Opveldt, to live among the Groenteboeren? To the Adrianis Desert, with its savage Hinterlings?
Les Iles des Français
, perhaps?

The library said, A recent white paper by the office of the Basileïos of Orikhalkos has suggested the populace of Vapaa might like to found a new colony, on one of the new worlds sure to be found, now that faster-than-light travel is a reality.

Sure to be found.

I wonder.

There, a pale, faded afterecho of desire. Once upon a time, I dreamed that dream. Dreamed myself a great explorer, wandering the byways of an unknown universe, finding the new worlds myself. Now? I have the starship with which to carry out my dream, and yet... who’s going to
pay
for all this voyaging? I could manage to finance three, maybe four such gallivantings, off into the star-spangled yonder.

Would I find a spanking, empty new world in that time?

If not, what then?

Sell the ship, go back to work?

Is that what it’ll come to?

And what if, somehow, I
did
find a new world, a planet of my own? What
then
? In all the old stories, you become a rich, rich man, found your own settlement, leader of the people, die and are remembered as the Father of His Planet. Nice. I pictured myself coming home, surveys in my database. Ready to... what? With whom would I file my claim?

About three seconds after my claim became public, some terrestrial government ship would be on its way. Or, worse, if, by then, the promised B-VEI fleets have been marketed and sold, some other ship, some ship from ERSIE or Harmattan or... hell, almost anybody, would be on its way out, loaded with corporate settlers, ready to stake an unbreakable squatter’s claim.

What instrumentality would protect the rights of a lone Gaetan du Cheyne, master and owner of the starship
Random Walk
? While I thought, we rode on in silence.

o0o

By late afternoon we were out on the plains, moving through nearly treeless country, finally pulling up by the banks of the Somber River, having bypassed Vapaa of the terrible gangs, pulling up on a grassy shore, settling our vehicles in clouds of dust and old grass. I got out and stood by the side of the camper, stretching, arching my back, slightly stiffened from sitting in one position too long. It’ll be over quickly, now that the symbiotes know something’s wrong.

Tau Ceti was already skimming the horizon, beginning to set, blue sky striated with long streaks of red and gold, sun backlighting a few low clouds, turning them dark, sharp rays streaming in all directions like angelic light.

I’ve... gotten used to this. Feels like I’ve been here, or somewhere just like here, living in a natural world forever. Stardock seems lost, fading like some kind of fever dream, the kind of dreams that happen when you fuck up really bad and the symbiotes have to work hard to set things right.

Suddenly, a squeezing hand in my chest, a familiar pang. There, in the long, ruddy grassy, things like horsetails and pussy willows growing at the river’s edge: Shining, mottled eyes, gleaming at me from a flattened face covered with reddish-bronze fur. Long white fangs, curved, serrated-edge teeth set in a permanent grin...

The white wolfen were jumping out of the pickup bed now, jumping to the ground, going over to their red wolfen... cousins. Purring. Purring like so many steel-throated cats. Like cats with ball bearings caught in their throats. The dollies, I noticed, were staying put.

The red wolfen came out, mingling with the white, purring in a different tone, flatter, with a wooden crackle to it. Touching muzzles. Touching tongues. Every now and again I’d notice a red’s eyes on me, teeth flashing, colored pink in the sunset light, and I’d feel my bowels clench, feel an urge to get back in the camper and lock the God-damned door.

Now, the Arousians were getting out of the pickup cab, seeming to bunch together, as though nervous. Well, the wolfen can’t...
digest
them or anything, but a few hard bites would break those skinny arms and legs and... I imagined red wolfen gagging and spitting, growling the wolfen equivalent of,
What the fuck is this shit
? before they got sick and died.

One of the Arousians seemed to be holding a portable camera, recording the milling of the wolfen, red and white getting all mixed up, like some kind of patchwork quilt.

Doing their job, that’s all.

More wolfen looking at me now. Sputtering things to the white wolfen. Answered by their metallic purr, whites looking at me as well. Can they talk to each other? I remembered what they’d told me at the killpit, about how, if they put two from the same species in the ring together, they’d cook something up, spoil all the fun.

The other door of the camper cab popped open and the Kapellmeister jumped down, seeming very springy on its spidercrab legs. The red wolfen, for their part, seemed to recoil, as though ready to run. Imagined:
What the fuck is that
?

But they stood still and waited, looking so obviously suspicious, while it walked over to them. Surely, you could almost see them thinking, this little fucker can’t harm
us
? The Kapellmeister was keeping its three arms well tucked in, those sharp, silvery chelae looking more like a plucked chicken’s wings just now than the deadly shears they really were.

Finally, it marched up to one of the white wolfen...

Limbcracker, whispered the translator AI.

Walked up to Limbcracker and extended its tentacle-hand for a quick headtouch. White wolfen stiffening briefly, until it was released. More crackling wood, clinking steel. Another white was touched and released. More crackle-clink. Another white. More. Finally, one of the reds seemed to slink forward, pressed very close to the ground, like a scared dog. The Kapellmeister touched its head for a few seconds, then let go. The wolfen jumped, seemed to shrink back, looking around wildly, eyes wide, then it said,
Clatterclatterchatter
...

Silence, all the red wolfen looking at me for some reason.

The Kapellmeister’s pod made a soft,
Greekeegreekee
...

One of the Arousians started walking slowly over, limbs rasping on one another like so many dry sticks. Rustmold-on-Pale-Snow perhaps? I...

The translator AI said, His chief assistant, Altostratus-by-Moonglow.

A sudden, stark realization that those two names alone conveyed a fairly detailed image of what the world of Arous, Sigma Draconis 3, must be like. Perhaps I can go there someday, some way, and see rustmold on pale snow, watch altostratus clouds strut their stuff, drifting high in an alien sky, backlit by the glow of a faraway moon...

The Kapellmeister’s pod said, “Gaetan? Perhaps you could come over and meet our new friend now. Her name is
Humanlegs-are-Eaten
.”

Great. Wonderful name. I swallowed hard, squared my shoulders and walked right over, ready to meet my new friend.

o0o

Nightfall, sun sliding westward, gradually getting below the horizon, though at such a shallow angle it seemed to take forever, sky growing redder, then darker, stars coming out slowly, air growing cooler, but never quite cold. We’re already pretty far north, here on the upper Somber, where the Opveldt begins.

If I stood, turned and looked toward the south, I would see the lights of Vapaa shining like so many red-orange torches, beyond, dark against the edge of the sky, the low, rolling hills of the Koudloft. I didn’t stand, instead merely sat in my camp chair, by the side of the pop-up, watching, waiting, eating a sandwich I’d made, some kind of cold, tasteless pressed white meat, chicken perhaps, sipping from a bottle of cheap beer. Watched the yellow flames of the campfire the Arousians had made leap and dance, throwing diffuse shadows this way and that. Listened to the crackle of the fire, which almost covered up the soft gurgling of the river.

Watched the wolfen, red and white, directing...

In this light, the dollies looked even more pathetically like little girls dressed up in party costumes, separated into groups, lined up, facing each other, along the sides of a hexagon. Behind them, the wolfen sat in small groups, red, white, red, white, looking like so many huge, malformed dogs.

The Kapellmeister came out of the darkness, riding its stiff, stalky limbs, from the direction of the Arousians’ camp and settled with a soft crackle in the dry grass beside my chair. There. Outside the circle of the firelight, I could see technicians setting up their cameras and sound equipment.