Ascending (26 page)

Now those same containers held corpses, many in advanced states of decomposition.

I could not identify any of the species. Some were clearly alien—things with eight legs, or with shells shaped like flat orange octagons. Others might have been creatures I knew, but were too dried and withered to recognize anymore. Skeletons covered with shriveled skin. Mounds of decaying fur still pressed desperately against the wire of the cages where they had died.

All these animals perished from neglect: unfed, unwatered, uncleaned. I suppose they had been brought to the prophets as pious offerings, then simply ignored. They might have been nice
pretty
creatures—fluffy and gentle, or scaly and playful—but the Cashlings apparently could not be bothered to fill up food and water dishes. These “holy sacrifices” had suffered most horrible deaths from sheer lack of attention…and the sight made me sad and angry, both at the same time.

Had Lady Bell and Lord Rye been the ones responsible for such starvation and thirst? Or were these creatures left over from previous prophets—prophets who accepted live offerings from their followers, then left the animals to rot? I did not know. I strongly hoped the two current prophets were not the guilty parties; but even if Rye and Bell were innocent of these animals’ deaths, they were obviously not much different from their predecessors. Whatever awfulness they had inherited, they had simply allowed it to continue: a dirty, messy, stinky ship that made one want to cry.

The most tragic part was that
Unfettered Destiny
was made of glass—beautiful, beautiful glass, so grimy and grubby it broke one’s heart.

The floor tiles were see-through: if you looked past the crusty smudges and mounds of rubbish, you could stare at the next level below (chockfull of machinery that might have been the ship’s engines, its computers, or its entertainment systems). Through the walls, one could see more machines—some with screens that flashed pictures, some with screwlike attachments that spun at high speeds, some that just brooded silently over their dour lack of ornamentation. As for the view through the glass ceiling…the entire length of
Royal Hemlock
rose straight above us, like a great white tower jutting into black space.

It made me dizzy to look at—as if the giant white ship might topple onto my head at any second. I could barely stare up at it without going woozy. Perhaps it might have been easier if I had lain down flat on my back, but I was not about to lie on
this
floor.

Therefore, I closed my eyes, steeled myself, and looked again. This time, I scanned up the
Hemlock
’s length, beginning at the bottom, moving carefully toward the top…until far far away, near the ship’s nose, my gaze fell on a dark object attached to the
Hemlock
like a leech on a trout.

It was a stick; or perhaps I should call it a twig compared to the much bigger sticks of the Shaddill ship. Even so, I could see it was the same type of thing: a flexible tube that had embedded itself in the
Hemlock
’s forward hull. As I watched, it waved back and forth in lazy patterns, like seaweed in a gentle current.

How long had the twig been attached there…and what was it meant to accomplish? Had it perhaps injected Dangerous Substances through the
Hemlock
’s outer skin, horrible gases or diseases that would soon incapacitate those aboard? Or could it have contained horrid alien warriors who were even now creeping through the ship’s pitch-black corridors, ambushing crew members in the darkness? Perhaps the alien invaders could transform their persons into a semblance of those they ambushed, and the entity who appeared to be Sergeant Aarhus was actually a loathsome jelly-thing waiting for a chance to implant me with its gibbering spawn.

But I did not think so. All the aliens I had met since leaving Melaquin were stodgy disappointments who did not shapeshift or
anything
…and what is the point of
being
an alien if you do not have Uncanny Abilities with which to incite terror in other species? If you cannot disrupt the lives and sanity of other races, you might as well stay at home.

But of course, aliens never listen to
me
—the big poop-heads.

The Purpose Of The Twig

“Holy shit,” Aarhus whispered, staring up at the twig. “We got tagged, didn’t we?”

“Apparently so,” Nimbus agreed. “The Shaddill must have shot that at
Hemlock
like a torpedo.”

“What do you think it is?” Aarhus asked. “Maybe a homing beacon?”

“Probably. When Starbiter hit the Shaddill ship, she obviously disabled them somehow—maybe took out their engines. The Shaddill saw us get picked up by
Hemlock
and knew they couldn’t follow until they’d made repairs…so they harpooned your ship with a signal device that would let them track us.”

“Are you sure it is just a signal?” I asked. “Could it not be a tube full of shapeshifting warrior-droids programmed to replace us one by one?”

“Let’s stay with the signal theory,” Aarhus said. “But if we’re lucky, the Shaddill won’t get their ship repaired till everyone’s evacuated and halfway to Jalmut. I like picturing the bastards coming to capture
Hemlock
, only to find it’s nothing but a big empty paperweight.”

Behind us, the airlock made thudding sounds. Aarhus had closed the door once we entered the receiving bay; now the hatch opened again, revealing Uclod, Lajoolie, Lady Bell and Lord Rye, plus my friend Festina, who must have finished making arrangements with Captain Kapoor.

Festina’s nose wrinkled as the stench of
Unfettered Destiny
struck her, but she quickly assumed a straight face. Uclod, on the other hand, doubled over and began making hiss-whistle sounds, clutching at his stomach. A moment later, he disgorged his last dinner with a great resounding splash. Lajoolie placed her hand on his back and bent as if to say, “There, there”…but then, she too began to hiss-whistle, her whole body shaking.

When a woman that large gets the shakes, it is a titanic vibration indeed. I believe I could feel the ship trembling in response. This impressed me so much, I barely had the presence of mind to leap backward; I am fortunate to be an excellent leaper, because Lajoolie’s subsequent spew splattered widely in all directions.

“Divians,” Aarhus muttered, looking down at his dampened boots. “Meticulously bioengineered into thirty-five different sub-breeds, and they
all
have weak stomachs.”

“You pigs!” cried Lady Bell to our friends. “You’re making a mess of my floor!”

We all stared at her for a moment; then even Uclod and Lajoolie started to laugh.

Supreme Impatience

Lady Bell was not such a one as to tolerate laughter. Muttering angry whoosh-whoosh sounds, she tapped a button on her spacesuit’s stomach, making the suit slump off like wilting blades of grass. Underneath, her entire body was identical to the suit, frost green with violet spottles. She paused for a moment with the clothes in a heap around her ankles…and I had the impression she was striking a pose, hoping someone would say admiring things about her unclad person or at least gawk with envy. When none of us did, the lady petulantly kicked the suit loose from her feet and stomped toward an electronic console set into the wall. Using many orifices at once, she began making gushy noises; these must have been instructions in the Cashling tongue because seconds later, the airlock closed and the ship gave a tremendous shudder.

“Finally!” she exclaimed in English. “If everyone’s wasted enough time, may we
please
start recording the broadcast?”

Nobody answered. The Divians were still doubled over, and Festina was staring through the roof at
Royal Hemlock
. I could tell the moment she caught sight of the twig-thing clinging to the hull; her jaw grew tight under the purplish skin of her cheek. She turned to Lady Bell and asked, “Does your ship have long-range scanners?”

“Of course.”

“Can you call up a readout?”

“When we get to the broadcast studio,” Lady Bell snapped. “Let’s
go!
”

Without waiting for a reply, she strode toward a door at the far end of the room. Her elongated limbs let her cover the ground most rapidly indeed—we could not have kept up with her, even if we ran. As it turned out, none of us showed any desire to match her speed; therefore she was forced to stop at the exit, gesturing peevishly for us to hurry along.

Festina was not to be rushed. She crouched beside Uclod and Lajoolie, asking in a low voice, “Are you okay?”

“Yeah, sure,” Uclod mumbled. “Just…getting used to the smell…”

“I’ll stay with them,” Nimbus told Festina. “To make sure they’re all right.”

“No need,” Uclod said, wiping his mouth. “We’ll come with you.” He turned toward Lajoolie. “Right, honey?”

Lajoolie said nothing, but nodded. She looked most miserable indeed; I wondered if she was simply feeling ill or if she was ashamed to have vomited in public. The precepts of “femininity” demanded by her strange upbringing were still a great mystery to me. Nevertheless, I suspected that spewing half-digested
choilappa
was not considered the height of womanly allure.

Thoughts On A Spiritual Vocation

The corridors of
Unfettered Destiny
were no cleaner than its receiving bay—specked with patchy nubbins of substances best unexamined, and cluttered with boxes containing wrinkly clothes, water-stained paper, or cracked ceramic candleholders. Most of these boxes had been shoved against the wall in an attempt to leave a clear path down the middle…but the ship’s passageways were so narrow, one was often forced to step over chunky obstructions. With their long legs, the Cashlings experienced no trouble; those of us with shorter gait did not have such an easy time.

Festina in particular was constantly compelled to hop over ungainly hurdles. She succeeded with admirable grace, for I never noticed the slightest stumble or hesitation. However, the look on her face was not gracious
at all,
and from time to time I heard her muttering imprecations in the colorful tongue of her ancestors.
¹²

On the positive side,
Unfettered Destiny
appeared to be constructed of glass all the way through, not just in the receiving bay. As we walked, I could glance behind my shoulder and see our ship drawing away from the
Hemlock
. We drifted silently into the blackness as another small ship from the crusade took our former position at
Hemlock
’s airlock. Lady Bell must have sent instructions to her followers while she was at that control console back in the receiving bay; now the disciples were hurrying to obey their prophet’s commands.

I could not help thinking,
It must be excellent to be a prophet, if people do whatever you say.
So I spent a brief time wondering how one became a prophet in the Cashling culture, and if there were any negative aspects to a prophet’s calling. Having a flotilla of docile adherents was all very well, but prophethood would not be so fine if one was required to practice overzealous chastity or to cut out one’s heart in a ritual manner at the coming of winter. On the other hand, if one simply declared, “I am prophet,” and people bent themselves obsequiously to fulfill your slightest whim…

That would not be a bad profession for a woman trying to make her way in an unfamiliar world. It would not be a bad job at all.

Reaching The Studio

“Oar? Oar? Oar!”

Someone was tugging on my arm—Festina, gripping me tightly in
Unfettered Destiny
’s corridor.

“What is wrong?” I asked.

“We’re here. At the studio. You walked straight past it.” She stared at me keenly. “Are you all right?”

“I am fine, Festina. I was simply lost in thought.”

“Really.” She did not let go of my arm. “You’re sure you’re okay? Sergeant Aarhus told me you passed out in Nimbus’s room…and I noticed you acting strangely in
Hemlock
’s transport bay.”

“There is nothing wrong with me,” I said, detaching myself from her grasp. “If you think my brain has become faulty, you are quite mistaken.” The look of concern on her face did not lessen. “Truly,” I told her, “I am perfectly well…though I have not eaten in four years, and therefore would benefit from the intake of appropriate nourishment.”

“We’ll get you some food, don’t worry,” Festina said. “Come into the studio and sit down; I’ll ask Lady Bell…no, I’ll ask Lord Rye to bring you something from the galley.”

She attempted to take me by the arm and guide me through a nearby door. I did not wish to be guided—I was not some frail muddle-head whose brain might go blank at any moment, I had simply been distracted by the notion of becoming a prophet. There is nothing sinister about a momentary preoccupation; it was most annoying for Festina to Show Undue Concern. Therefore, I shrugged off her efforts to baby me, and surged boldly through the door myself.

I had never visited a broadcast studio before, but I expected such a place to contain ostentatious banks of Technology. Instead, the room was just a large empty space with jet-black carpet on the floor. The walls were glass, but with a fuzzy feathered texture; this had the effect of suppressing echoes, for the room was extremely quiet, as if some Uncanny Force were muting every sound we made. The very air seemed to press against my eardrums, stifling noises before they reached me: a most eerie and disturbing effect. Compared to the clutter in the rest of the ship, an area with no knickknacks or dead animals should have cheered my heart…but the atmosphere made me most edgy, as if I were cut off from important auditory input that might warn me of danger.

Lady Bell, on the other hand, was clearly glad to reach the place after fretting through so much delay. No sooner had she entered than she threw herself down on the carpet…and the woolly black surface reshaped itself beneath her, the floor acquiring bumps and hollows molded perfectly to the lady’s body. I had to admit she looked striking, the frost green of her skin almost fluorescent against the heavy black background. This might have been why the floor was so dark; she would not have stood out as well against the ship’s clear glass.

“Sit down, sit down,” she said with expansive cheer, gesturing to the floor beside her. “Make yourself comfortable. Can my darling husband get you anything? Accelerants? Placations? Our synthesizers have complete pharmaceutical indices for Earthlings and Divians; it’ll only take a second to whip up your favorite stimulant.”

“How about food?” Festina said, making no effort to seat herself. “Something humans can digest.” She glanced in my direction. “Preferably transparent.”

I lowered my head, trying not to show shame. It is mortifying when your Faithful Sidekick believes you are crazed with hunger and she makes a scene to ensure you are properly fed. I knew I could not die from starvation, but I was not so certain about embarrassment.

Fortunately, Lady Bell was not such a one as could feel urgency about someone else’s problem. She therefore did not make a fuss:
Oh yes, we must quickly bring sustenance for the poor dear and make her lie down in the meantime.
She merely told Rye, “See to that, darling!” and puckered several of her cranial orifices at him. He muttered something in the universal language of unappreciated persons and slunk out of the studio.

“Now everyone just sit down!” Lady Bell said brightly. “I don’t want you pacing during the show. Pacing will upset the audience—not to mention that the lights and cameras will have a hard time following you. Shadows on one’s face can completely ruin credibility. Sit down, sit down!”

“Where are the cameras?” I asked, looking around the blank room.

“Built into the walls, dear.”

“But the walls are clear glass. They do not contain cameras.”

“
You’re
clear glass, and you contain all kinds of things: lungs, kidneys, a heart…pity you only have one of those, but let’s pray it holds out till the recording is over. And your heart will last ten times longer if you just
sit down
!”

Grudgingly, I lowered myself to the floor. I do not enjoy
anyone
offering advice about my health; and I knew I would not enjoy the floor either. Sure enough, the moment my bottom touched the carpet, it began to squirm beneath me. (The carpet, I mean, not my bottom.) A sizable gully sank down to accommodate my feet, while a woolly black hump rose to support my back. I grant that the seat was comfortable—like reclining on a mound of dead sheep whose bones have been softened with hammers. The problem was I did not
wish
to be comfortable. I did not wish to be soothed because…

…I worried I would not retain consciousness.

There. I have said it. Though I told Festina I was fine and resented her suggesting otherwise, I feared my mind would go blank if I allowed myself to relax. Perhaps it would happen even if I did
not
relax. No matter how hard I fought the Tiredness, I still was most terrified I would sink into the cozy carpet and my brain would cease to function. Mental emptiness had swallowed me too often in the past few hours; it seemed as if I could not spend an idle minute without slipping away from the world. Being forced to sit in a comfy place was almost a sentence of execution…but of course I could not say that for fear of being called a coward.

So I sat and cringed and shivered.

“Excellent,” Lady Bell said as the others also claimed sections of carpet. Festina sat right beside me, probably wishing to be within reach in case my brain dribbled out my ears: a gesture which infuriated me greatly.

“Now,” said Bell, “we’ll record everything before we broadcast, so we can edit out slips of the tongue, and perhaps passages of testimony that don’t work…though I don’t want anyone to be self-conscious, just say whatever you want and let
me
decide whether you’re being tedious and pedantic. By the way, I hope you can all take direction. And perhaps it would be best to do vocal warm-ups right now: run through some tongue-twisters, practice speaking from the diaphragm. You all have diaphragms, correct? Except for you, cloud man, I don’t know what you have. Why don’t
you
practice holding a nice solid shape rather than wavering about. Try to look like a
person
instead of a
pukka
-ball. And make your arms bulgy to suggest muscles. Viewers like muscles. Taut lean muscles gleaming with sweat. Perforated with tight puckered orifices and preferably highlighted in at least two of the primary colors. Umm, well…work on that, do your best. Meanwhile, I’ll call a newsbroker I know on Jalmut—have him put out the word that we’ll soon have some hydrogen-hot footage for sale.”

She raised her voice slightly and said something in Cash-lingese. I did not know whom she was addressing; but a moment later, a gusty voice whooshed and fribbled an answer from the ceiling. Either the words came from another person elsewhere in the ship, or it was the voice of
Unfettered Destiny
itself: what humans call the “ship-soul.” I have been told that in the Technocracy navy, the ship-soul is intentionally given a mechanical-sounding voice so it can be distinguished from humans. On
Unfettered Destiny
, the voice sounded more
windy
than Bell or Rye, as if it were powered by huge ship-sized lungs instead of the many little lung-ettes of real Cashlings.

The ship-soul spoke briefly, then fell silent. Lady Bell seemed waiting for more; I suppose she had instructed the ship to contact her newsbroker and was now expecting a reply.

In the meantime, I squirmed in my too-comfy seat. Uclod and Lajoolie still appeared bleary after their nausea in the receiving bay; Nimbus hovered near them while Festina whispered to Aarhus in confidential tones. I disliked my friend speaking in a manner I could not overhear…but it seemed a great deal of trouble to move into a position where I could eavesdrop, especially when she and the sergeant were probably just discussing tiresome navy topics.

It was all too much bother to pay attention. In fact, everything in the world seemed excessively complicated. I remember thinking,
Why can’t I just sleep for a while?
Then I snuggled into the soft woolly floor.

Enough To Wake Me Up

Lady Bell said something sharp in Cashlingese. I sat up abruptly, unsure how much time had passed since my last conscious thought. As far as I could tell, no one had changed position at all. Perhaps it had only been a few seconds.

But I did not know how long I had blanked out, and that terrified me.

“Is something wrong?” Festina asked. I opened my mouth to say,
I am very very scared
…but she was looking at Bell, not me.

I pushed myself up to look at Bell too. Even though the Cashling woman had no face, it was clear she was most upset. In fact, Ms. Prophet was wheezing indignantly from a dozen orifices at once.

“This stupid ship!” Lady Bell said. “The most important day of my life, and wouldn’t you know, the communication system breaks down. We can’t raise a peep from Jalmut; no trans-light communications at all.”

As the human phrase goes, a chill went down my spine. In fact, it felt more as if the chill moved upward from my stomach to my shoulders and thence to my face, but perhaps chills behave non-traditionally in artificial gravity.

“Uh-oh,” muttered Uclod. “I hate to say it, missy,” he told Bell, “but it sounds like you’re getting jammed.”

“Jammed?” Aarhus repeated. “Oh crap.”

“Quick!” Festina said. “We need a long-range scan right now!”

“No, we don’t,” Nimbus answered quietly.

He waved a foggy arm, pointing behind our backs. We all whirled to look through the glass bulkhead.

There, looming across half the sky, was the stick-ship.

Big Bully

“Damn, that’s a big sucker,” Festina whispered.

The Shaddill had appeared alongside
Royal Hemlock
, a vast brown forest beside a single white tree. Every stick in the Shaddill ship seemed larger than the entire
Hemlock:
longer and wider, like oaks crowding in on a paper birch. There were hundreds, maybe thousands, of the brown sticks, one of which telescoped lazily toward the dwarfed navy vessel.

“What are the odds,” Uclod asked, “those bastards will just grab
Hemlock
and fly away?”

“They don’t want to fly away,” Festina said. “They want to capture everyone who knows too much. You. Oar. Anybody you might have talked to.”

“Which means the whole damned crusade.”

“Right. They want to nab every last ship.”

“How the hell will they do that?” Uclod asked. “We’ve got dozens of little ships. If we scatter in different directions—”

“They won’t let us,” Festina said. With sudden urgency, she rolled to her feet. “Lady Bell, is there any way to opaque this ship’s hull?”

“Why would I want to do that?” the lady asked.

A flash of blue brilliance burst upon us like lightning. For a moment, Festina’s face was reduced to pure black and white: white eyes, black pupils, white skin, black birthmark, white anger, black “I knew this would happen” expression. Then her body crumpled limply to the floor.

Everyone else was already lying down.

Another Ship Bites The Dust

I am such a one as thrives on bright light. I did not feel invigorated by this particular light, but I did not slump over unconscious either. Perhaps, as the Pollisand had joked, many types of light just pass right through my body. At any rate, I am not so weak as opaque persons, so it takes more than a garish flash to subdue
me
.

The others, alas, were unconscious…everyone but Nimbus, who still hovered mistlike above the unmoving bodies. It annoyed me that he too had remained awake; one enjoys being special, or at least more special than an entity made of fog. Nevertheless, I could guess why he had not succumbed: a creature consisting of tiny floaty bits might not be affected by Sinister Weapon Beams in the same manner as creatures made from meat…and of course he was nearly as transparent as I, not to mention he too had been designed by the Shaddill.

Perhaps we had both been constructed immune to Shaddill weaponry. If so, the stick-people were greatly foolish—if
I
were designing artificial beings, I would make them
especially
susceptible to my favorite weapons, so I could quell rebellions with dispatch. But then, the Shaddill were villains; and if I had learned anything from the fictional writings of my people, it was that Villains Always Make Mistakes.

“What shall we do now?” I whispered to Nimbus. “If the Shaddill think we are unconscious, this is an excellent time to take them by surprise.”

“Don’t be too hasty,” the cloud man replied. “They know you’re here, right? Catching you seems to be a priority for them. And they must suspect their stun-beam doesn’t work on you—it didn’t work when you were in Starbiter, so why should it work now?” He drifted across the floor a short distance, then drifted back again: the cloudish equivalent of pacing. “Maybe they’re
hoping
you’ll do something noticeable so they can tell where you are.”

“Ahh,” I said. “That is astute reasoning.” I looked up at the glass roof. “Of course, they will see me as soon as they look in this direction. I am harder to notice than opaque persons, but I am not invisible.”

“Don’t worry about that,” Nimbus told me. “In a Cashling ship like this, the hull is only transparent one way; you can see out, but no one can see in. The Shaddill won’t spot you that easily.”