Ascending (32 page)

“That is excellent,” I said. “It could provide us with important information.”

“Why?” Festina asked. “Why do we care what the Shad-dill put in their fountains? Why should it matter if the stuff is water, blood, or fucking sangria?” She stared at me most piercingly. “You’ve got some idea in your head, Oar; I can tell. That’s scary enough on its own, considering what your ideas can be like. But with you being a Shaddill creation, I also worry the bastards might be influencing you somehow. Beaming notions straight into your cerebral cortex. They could have built your brain with receptors that would let them control you when it became necessary.”

“That is very foolish!” I answered hotly. “I am not being controlled by anyone!” But…was I sure the Pollisand eyes I had seen were actually attached to the Pollisand? He had left no footprints; no one else had seen the dim crimson glows. If the Shaddill had constructed my brain in such a fashion as to delude me with False Sensory Input…

Oh, it was very most irksome being a creature designed by evil aliens!

“All of you, step back,” I told the others with great anger. “Go far away, out of the room…because if I have been deceitfully led here by villainous poop-heads, I intend to find out once and for all. I am going to walk straight up to that fountain, and then I shall do something drastic. If I see a large button labeled
DO NOT PRESS
, I shall press it. If I see a big X scratched into the floor, I shall step on it with all my weight. If the trees come alive and attempt to stuff poisonous mini-chilis down my throat, I shall beat them to death with their own branches. The one thing I shall
not
do is dally in forlorn uncertainty, wondering if I am another creature’s dupe. If something is going to happen, I shall make it happen
now
.”

The others all turned to Festina to see her response to my words. “Well,” she said slowly, “there
is
some benefit in knowing where we stand…and maybe provoking a confrontation is better than wandering forever with no idea where the Shaddill are hiding.”

“Sounds good,” Uclod agreed. “No offense, missy,” he said to me, “but if the bad guys have some hold over you, it’s better you
do
walk into a trap. I mean, the trap couldn’t be lethal, right? The League won’t let the Shaddill kill any of us. And if they’re playing games inside your head, they’ll bloody soon use you against us unless you’re taken out of the equation.”

“That is the sort of logic one expects from a heartless criminal,” I told him, “but it is logic all the same. Now depart to a safe distance…and we shall see if I can cause dramatic events.”

Festina scowled a moment; then, slowly, she nodded. “All right. I don’t like it, but the Shaddill really
can’t
kill you, not out here in space. And maybe if you cause enough ruckus, one of the bastards will show up personally. That’s what we really want: someone we can talk to. The only way we’ll get out of this mess is peaceful negotiation…preferably while we hold a pistol to somebody’s head.”

She turned and left the room. The others followed—with Lajoolie giving me a plaintive look before she disappeared. “I will be all right,” I called to her. “I am practically unbreakable. And quick. And clever. And…”

But by then I was alone; and suddenly I felt less confident about my plan. It is one thing to speak bravely in front of others. It is quite a different thing to stand in solitude, staring at a room filled with dirt and wondering if this is the last sight you will ever see.

Tentatively, I took a step forward. No awful disaster happened.

Taking a deep breath, I counted to five. Then I strode briskly forward, straight toward the fountain.

A Fruit In The Fountain

The moment I passed between two of the mini-chili trees, something gurgled beneath the floor. I leapt back quickly, but nothing attacked. Feeling my heart pound, I waited; and I kept my eyes moving, frequently looking back over my shoulder to make sure nothing was creeping up on me from behind.

There was no motion anywhere in the room…until another rattling gurgle came from the fountain and a stream of reddish fluid gushed out the top. It squirted a short distance up into the air, then fell back down, splashing crimson spatters into the basin. A moment later, the three lower spouts also began pouring liquid—the same reddish stuff that was shooting from the top.

It was not blood…at least not the sort of blood I had seen ooze from human injuries. The fountain’s fluid was more viscous, like the thick liquid resin that maintenance machines on Melaquin employed to fill up ax gouges in the wall. Of course, the resin on Melaquin was pleasantly clear; the liquid in the fountain was transparent, but tinted the crimson of fall leaves. It also had a sweetish smell to it, not at all unpleasant: the scent reminded me of fresh-cut fruit, but which type of fruit, I could not say.

“What’s going on?” Festina called from outside the room.

“The fountain has started on its own. I did nothing to provoke it. The fluid it emits is red.”

A pool of the liquid began to accumulate in the basin. I approached, still watching for signs of trouble. Nothing moved anywhere in the room except for the fountain’s central squirt and the streams pouring through the three lower spouts. All the flows were lazy, without much pressure; there was no chance of me being hit by the tiniest splash. I considered that a good thing—the fountain’s dribbly babble was pleasant to listen to, but I was not yet ready to allow the red fluid to touch my skin. For all I knew, it might be a powerful Chemical that would burn my flesh or render me unconscious at the slightest contact.

Instead, I moved to the nearest mini-chili tree and plucked a low-lying fruit from its branches. Taking great care not to squeeze the little chili, I went back to the fountain and tossed the small fruit into the basin, very near the pool that was filling out from the center. The fruit landed neatly with its pointy end aiming inward toward the middle of the bowl. Bit by bit as liquid continued to flow, the level of the fluid rose and its edge inched up the stone toward the chili’s tip.

“What’s happening in there?” Festina called.

“I am performing an experiment. I am exposing an organic object to the influence of a sinister alien liquid.”

“The organic object wouldn’t be your hand, would it, missy?”

That, of course, was Uclod. “No,” I told him, “I am not such a fool as to use myself for an experimental subject.”

“Oh yeah? Then why are you in there, when we’re all out here?”

One had to admit he had a point. But one did not have to admit it out loud, and anyway, the edge of the liquid was almost touching the chili’s bottom tip. I held my breath in anticipation, hoping perhaps the small yellow fruit would burst into flame when the liquid made contact; but the result was more interesting than mere fire. As the fluid nudged the chili’s surface, the fruit’s yellow skin slowly changed color—not to red, as you might think, but to a dark purple. Even more intriguing, the chili’s waxy texture grew puffy, bulging and bloating with purplish glee…until the sharp tip of the chili had turned to an ill-defined blob of purple jelly.

I stepped back several paces from the fountain. Several
long
paces. Taking care not to let my voice quaver, I called to the others, “Um. You will be pleased to learn my experiment has had a Result. Perhaps it would be useful if some independent observer were to witness this Result, so I may believe my own eyes.”

Festina was inside the room even before I stopped speaking. She came quickly forward, close enough to the fountain that she could see the chili lying half-in, half-out of the clear crimson liquid. The top of the fruit was still recognizable as a chili; the bottom was equally recognizable as a dollop of purple gloop.

“Holy shit,” Festina whispered.

“The holiest,” I agreed.

Gray Foam, Purple Goo

I quickly explained what had happened. All the while, the liquid continued to rise in the basin, turning more and more of the chili into quivering gel. When I finished my tale, I asked Festina, “So…is the chili changing into a Fuentes? And if it is, is it now intelligent and lying there listening to us?”

Festina gave a little laugh. “I doubt that a fruit can become sentient just from getting dowsed with liquid. More likely, the fluid is breaking down the chili’s cell structure—like the Modig powder back on
Hemlock
. With Modig, biologicals always decay into gray foam, whether you start with data circuits or human fingers. With whatever’s in that fountain…I suppose it rips the shit out of something in living cells, and the result is purplish guck.”

“If the Fuentes are also purplish guck, they must have used this fluid to rip up their own cells. Why would they do that?” “Presumably it was the only way to reach the next level of evolution. Maybe you can’t transcend the limitations of physical form unless you break down your body structure. That could be the only way to free your consciousness.” Festina shook her head. “Or I could be full of crap. It’s not like I understand this any better than you do.”

She turned her gaze to the mutating chili. The little fruit was almost entirely covered with fluid by now…which meant it was almost entirely converted to goo. Festina stared at it a moment, then shivered.

I was feeling the shivers myself. “Perhaps I am just an un-civilized one, but I would not wish to turn into jelly. Not even if I became a million times smarter.”

“I’m with you on that,” Festina replied. “But hey, I’m just a dumb old human. Maybe when you’re truly ready to jump up the evolutionary ladder, turning into glup seems perfectly sensible. Easiest thing in the world: wake up in the morning, eat breakfast, say, ‘Shucks, it’s time I evolved,’ and splash, you go for a dip in the nearest fountain.”

“No,” said a whispery voice. “It is not an easy thing. It is the hardest thing in the universe.”

A blindingly brilliant light stabbed down from the room’s ceiling, and suddenly two furry creatures stood shoulder-to-shoulder before us.

Tahpo

The two were no taller than Uclod. One’s fur was brown and the other’s was black; apart from that, they appeared exactly identical. Same height, same width, same pose.

Despite their fur, they seemed more like insects than mammals—each had two faceted eyes as big as my fist, and four mandible attachments arranged in a diamond shape around their mouths. The mandibles were constantly in motion: first, the two side ones would rub together furiously, the way a fly rubs its forelegs before eating; then those side parts would spread wide, giving room for the top and bottom attachments to sweep lightly across the lips, as if wiping off whatever dust might have landed in the past few seconds. After that the cycle repeated, with the same fierce rubbing once more.

As for the rest of their bodies, each alien had two short but muscular arms ending in small hands with three clawed fingers and a thumb. At first glance, the creatures appeared to stand on three legs; but when I looked more closely, I saw that only two of the lower limbs were legs (hinged like a rabbit’s haunches). The third limb was a thick tail that ended in a chitinous scoop: the edges of the scoop looked sharp and sturdy, while the tail appeared muscular enough to move the scoop with great force. One supposed having a shovel on one’s tail would be useful for creatures who burrowed underground…but it would also be a powerful weapon in a fight, especially if someone attacked from behind. Indeed, with shovel-tails at the rear, and claws and mandibles at the front, these creatures would be formidable opponents if encountered in a narrow tunnel.

The instant the beetle-things appeared, Festina dived to one side, rolling across the dirt and vaulting to her feet again with her pistol trained on the newcomers. She stood that way for several seconds, no doubt noticing that the aliens carried no obvious weapons and showed no sign of combative behavior. Without lowering her gun, Festina said, “Greetings. We are sentient citizens of the League of Peoples. We beg your Hospitality.”

The two furry beetles turned in her direction. This required a sort of hopping move on their back legs; but despite the awkwardness of the maneuver, they remained pressed against each other, keeping in physical contact at all times. After they faced her, they said nothing for several seconds—long enough that I wondered if they had understood what she said. Perhaps they only spoke their own language…in which case, it was fortunate I could serve as interpreter. I was preparing to translate what Festina said when the black-furred beetle opened its mouth and a glowing gold ball emerged from its throat.

I had never seen a creature vomit a ball of glowing gold. The ball was not solid, but a tight clot of mist about the size of my head. Its consistency was highly reminiscent of Nimbus (who of course was a product of Shaddill engineering). The mist floated upward to hover above the black beetle’s head…whereupon a voice sounded clearly from the gleaming fog.

“Greetings yourself,” the voice said in English. The sound was identical to Festina’s own voice; and it is most disconcerting to hear what seems like your Faithful Sidekick speaking from a ball of fog perched atop an alien bug. Clearly, the voice had to be a simulation…and when I thought about it, if I were creating a golden mist-ball to communicate with others, I might construct the ball to imitate the other person’s voice as closely as possible. This would not only ensure the mist-ball’s speech was pitched at a frequency the other person could hear, but it would also make one’s words sound agreeably dulcet to the listener. If I were designing a speaking mist, I might also make it float above my head, so people would hear the mist’s voice coming from my direction…but the whole idea was still most icky, and if I were an alien, I would not employ fog as an intermediary for communication. Especially not fog that resided in my stomach when it was not needed.

“I am Immu,” the black beetle’s fog-voice said. “This is my mate, Esticus.”

The brown beetle (Esticus) clacked all four mandible attachments twice. This was probably a gesture of polite acknowledgment, though to my eyes it looked most fearsome. “So you are spouses?” I asked.

“Yes,” said Immu.
¹⁴

“Are you the husband or the wife?”

Immu did not answer; the two beetles just stared with their goggly eyes. Perhaps they were offended by my inability to recognize which was male and which female. Since neither of the creatures possessed obvious gender characteristics, I decided to regard Immu as the wife: she was the one who took a leadership role, and besides, she sounded like Festina.

“Are you Shaddill,” I asked, “or Fuentes?”

“We’ve been called both names,” Immu answered, “but it’s not how we speak of ourselves.”

The other one, Esticus, sighed. It was a soft sigh that breathed out another glowing ball of mist. Even before the mist could drift into position above Esticus’s head, the fog murmured, “We are not Shaddill or Fuentes. We are Tahpo.”

I blinked in surprise, and for two reasons. First, the voice that emanated from Esticus’s fog-ball sounded suspiciously familiar: it was my own! It did not sound exactly like the tones I customarily hear in my head, but I have been told one’s voice never sounds the same in one’s own ears as it does to other persons. Furthermore, it made sense that if Immu imitated Festina, Esticus would mimic me. Even so, I did not like the idea of an alien who spoke with my voice; it was most sinisterly creepy, like the first step in acquiring an evil twin.

The other reason I reacted in surprise was because in my language (and therefore in Shaddill-speak too), Tahpo means “the last”…or perhaps a better translation would be “the dregs.” Whatever Esticus meant by the word, Immu disapproved—she nudged him warningly with her hip. Perhaps she did not intend for us to see her action, but she hit Esticus hard enough to make him flinch.

If Festina noticed, she did not comment. Instead, she told the aliens, “We’re honored to make your acquaintance, but the circumstances are unfortunate. Why did you capture our ship? What do you want from us? If we’ve inadvertently offended you in some way…” She glanced in my direction, as if
I
might have been the one who provoked the Shaddill into reprehensible deeds…which was most unfair, because the Shaddill had started misbehaving first. “If there’s any kind of problem,” Festina said, “let’s discuss it and resolve things amicably.”

Immu made a raspy sound in her throat. I did not know if this was a growl of anger, the Shaddill form of laughter, or simply a clearing of phlegm. “Admiral Ramos,” Immu’s fog-ball said, “we know your reputation—our substitutes for Admirals Rhee and Macleod kept us apprised of all activities in the Outward Fleet. We know you are an intelligent creature; you must realize you have seen too much for us to consider releasing you. This room, for instance.”

She gestured toward the fountain, pointing a claw toward the mini-chili. The small yellow fruit had completely disappeared; now, there was only a mush of jelly. “We don’t know how you found your way here so unerringly,” Immu said, “but it’s a pity we didn’t notice until you had already reached the fountain. Quite possibly, you’ve seen additional secrets on our ship: secrets we can’t let you share with the outside world.”

“Then keep us here, but let everyone else go—everyone in the crusade and
Royal Hemlock
. They haven’t seen any of this.”

“They still know too much,” Immu replied. “For example, they know FTL fields can be hypercharged by entering a star.” The mist above her head reshaped itself slightly—a tiny bit of fog broke off from the main gold ball and circled for a bit before plunging back inside. I realized this was intended to suggest Starbiter looping about the sun before she finally entered the fire…and I was most envious the Shad-dill mist-clouds could not only perform English translations but provide delightful visual effects.

Even as the fog was pretending to be Starbiter and the sun, its voice continued to speak. “This information is something we sought to keep secret. We replaced high officials in every culture we uplifted—like your Admirals Rhee and Macleod—and had them pass laws to prevent disclosure. For example, all starship computers in the Technocracy must be programmed to stay well clear of suns…supposedly as a safety precaution.”

“So,” said Festina, “if someone ever wanted to get near a star, the ship’s computer just wouldn’t let it happen. Simple, but elegant.”

“And yet,” I said, “Starbiter flew into the sun. She was reluctant to do so, but she obeyed me.”

The fog above Immu’s head flared brightly and made a harsh fizzing sound. I do not think the noise was intended to be speech—it sounded as if Immu was transmitting such angry thoughts to the cloud, the translation nanites had caught fire. In a moment, however, the fizzing spittered into silence and the cloud muttered, “We never should have given the Divians living starships.”

“It was part of their culture,” Esticus said softly. “It was what they were used to. They would have been most suspicious of ships made from inorganic parts.”

“I know,” Immu snapped, her cloud threatening to fizz again. “We still shouldn’t have taken the risk.” She turned back to Festina and me. “The moment we gave the first Zaretts to the Divians, we surrendered control. You don’t build Zaretts, you breed them; and in the breeding process, random factors inevitably creep in. The first Zaretts we made would never go close to a sun; we designed them to have an absolute phobia against it. But in every subsequent generation, a few individuals weren’t quite as afraid as their parents. Inhibitions just don’t breed true, especially when they’re groundless. By now, half the Zaretts alive can be bullied into entering a star if you scream at them loud enough. Fortunately for us, no one ever tried it persistently.”

“Until I came along,” I said proudly.

Immu did not answer…but her translation mist gave another angry fizz.

“Why did you do it?” Festina asked the Shaddill. “Why create this elaborate lie about the limitations of FTL fields?”

“To slow you down,” Esticus said. “To disrupt your species’ development. And to make sure our own vessel was always much faster than the craft of lesser races.”

“Surely you’ve realized by now,” Immu said, “everything we do is aimed at weakening you. We approach cultures as they start into space; we offer them technology and flawed but plausible scientific models that completely bypass certain discoveries those races would otherwise make on their own.” The cloud above Immu’s head split into two hemispheres with a slight gap between left and right. “We create a discontinuity in a species’ scientific progress,” she said. “We give them devices they don’t understand and
won’t
understand, because they’ve been deflected from developing the necessary scientific background.”

“And of course,” Festina said, “you place robot agents in positions of authority to make sure the background science is never filled in.”

“Exactly,” Immu agreed, her cloud fusing together again. “Our robot replacements control the purse-strings for almost all research in your sector. If someone begins to investigate topics we dislike, that person is diverted to a different project.” A part of her cloud spun off on its own. “When that doesn’t work—and scientists often prove difficult to sidetrack—we take steps to remove the irritant.” A strand of fog lashed out from the main ball of mist, struck the little separate piece, and pulled it back into the whole again…like a frog swallowing a fly. “The annoyingly keen scientist simply disappears, and ends up in a comfortable holding facility on this very ship: a facility you’ll soon see for yourself.”

Festina lifted the muzzle of her stun-pistol. “Think again.”

Immu made the raspy throat-noise. This time it definitely sounded like laughter. “You obtained that gun from our robots. Do you believe we would arm them with weapons that would affect us?”

“You might,” Festina replied. “For all your fancy technology, you don’t seem very smart.”

“We aren’t,” Esticus whispered. Immu gave him another hip-bump, this time making no effort to conceal it. She also made a hissing sound and clacked her mandibles in a gesture that was clearly a Shaddill short-hand for, “Shut up, you fool!”

“Here’s what I think,” Festina said. “I think five thousand years ago, your people were science whizzes who built this ship and a lot of other fancy stuff. Somewhere along the line, you developed a way to evolve to a higher state of being—to make yourselves smart as all hell, even if you ended up looking like blobs of purple jelly.” She glanced at the liquid spurting out of the fountain. “What’s this stuff called?”

There was a pause. The clouds over both Shaddill heads dimmed, as if they were trying to deal with some difficult concept and had to use all their power for the translation process. Finally, the mist above Esticus spoke softly: “Blood Honey,” it said.

Immediately, both speaker clouds brightened to their usual golden luster…or perhaps a bit shinier than before, greatly pleased with themselves for devising an elegant translation of the actual Shaddill name.

“Blood Honey,” Festina repeated. “Cute. Anyway, your people built Blood Honey fountains so you could all advance together. You carefully cleaned up the worlds where you lived, then you prepared to jelly out. The only problem was, some of you didn’t
like
the idea of turning into purple goop. I think it scared you shitless. So when everybody else went to bathe in the fountains, a bunch of you just turned tail. You buggered off on this ship, and you’ve been running ever since.”

“You mean,” I said, “these Shaddill ones are cowards? All others of their kind pursued Celestial Transcendence, while these turned away in fear?” I glared at the two furry beetles with contempt. Suddenly, I understood why Esticus had called himself Tahpo: the dregs.

“So how many of you are left?” Festina asked the beetles. “Hundreds? Thousands? Millions? Or could it be you two are the only ones who didn’t have the guts to change?”

Immu didn’t answer—just turned her head away and lowered her gaze to the floor. Her mandibles fell still, as if she were paralyzed with shame. Finally, it was Esticus who spoke, his fog-cloud dim and drooping.