Ascending (36 page)

“Then I should still punch you very hard.”

“Oh come on, darlin’,” he said, “it’s the cleanest solution to your problem. Sure, I could toss you onto an operating table and rewire your whole brain…but that’d leave you a completely different person. Certainly not the warm and generous bundle of joy we’ve all come to love.”

I narrowed my eyes at him and balled up my fist in a meaningful way.

“On the other hand,” he said quickly, “if we just dab some honey on your skin, a tiny patch of you will go transcendent—uplifting just enough of your consciousness to get you past the Tiredness.”

“Uplifting her consciousness?” Festina asked. “Sounds like bullshit to me.”

The Pollisand growled at her. “Give me a break, Ramos. If you want, I can give a ten-hour lecture on how it’ll release certain hormones to overcome certain other hormones that tend to suppress yet another group of hormones, and blah blah blah. But the long and the short is if she accepts a teeny-tiny-eensy-weensy transformation, it’ll be enough to offset the physiological processes that are gradually deadening her brain. And,” he added, winking at me, “it’ll kick in a long-overdue maturation process that the Shaddill artificially repressed. My little girl,” sniffle, “will start growing up.”

Festina glared at him. “Are you sure this isn’t just a prank for your own amusement? Are you sure, for example, you might not have arranged for a delayed-action cure when you saved her life four years ago? Maybe you implanted a curative something in her brain while you were repairing her broken bones…and you just want to smear her with Blood Honey because you like the idea of making her purple?”

The Pollisand gave a soft chuckle. “I like you, Ramos; I like the way your paranoid mind works. But if I
did
foresee everything and set up Oar with a brain implant, I’d surely make certain the implant wouldn’t activate until a patch of her glassy-ass skin turned to goo. How else could I consolidate my position as the most annoying creature in the universe?” He turned to me. “I assure you this
is
necessary if you want to save your brain. A teeny-tiny-eensy-weensy bit of you has to become jelly.”

“All right,” I said, gritting my teeth. “If that is what I must do…”

“It is,” the Pollisand said. He went to the fountain and dipped his toe into the honey. Of course the toe did not turn purple—no doubt Mr. Foul Annoyance had such evolutionarily advanced skin, it did not succumb to the honey in the same way as lesser beings.

“Where do you want it?” he asked, walking back to me on three feet to keep his damp toe from touching anything. “Bottom of your foot so it’s hardly ever visible? The tail of your spine so it’s covered by your jacket? Atop one breast like a purple tattoo?”

I turned to Festina, thinking I might ask her advice…but as soon as I looked at her, I knew what it had to be.

I lifted my finger and pointed to my right cheek. The Pollisand moved before Festina could stop him.

Dealing With Tedious Details

Being the captain of a huge alien starship is not so much fun as you might think, because there are many fearsome burdens. The greatest burden turns out to be one’s Faithful Sidekick, who is constantly worried one will speak carelessly to the ship’s computer and thereby Precipitate A Tragic Incident. Festina dictated to me exactly what commands I should give the stick-ship, and forced me to recite the instructions several times in English before allowing me to say the same in Shaddill-ese. Even then, she required me to think and think and think about the proper Shaddill-ese translation for each word; she would not let me speak until I had pretended to ponder for at least ten seconds over each instruction.

Of course, I did not
really
think about the translations that much—I was more concerned with contemplating the new appearance of my face (which reflected quite nicely in the fountain’s basin). The Pollisand had only brushed my cheek lightly with his toe, no more than a casual dab…yet he had created a precise duplicate of Festina’s birthmark in both size and shape. Immediately thereafter, he had produced a strip of clear plastic bandage which he slapped over the jelly smear to prevent it from slopping off my face. The bandage instantly bonded with my skin and is (supposedly) permanent.

Festina, of course, was anguished at the change in my features—she is a very nice person, but she has a Deep Psychological Fixation about her appearance which renders her a bit crazed. In her heart of hearts, she believes her birthmark makes her very very ugly…whereas she is actually ugly because she is opaque, and the birthmark has little effect, pro or con.

I hasten to point out that the jelly now composing my cheek, while undeniably purple, is a
transparent
purple; if I wiggle my fingers behind my head, you can see the movement quite easily, staring straight through my cheek and my brains and all. So the blob on my face is not a disfigurement, but merely a Colored Highlight that adds an extra-special accent of beauty. I am even more ravishing than ever…which I know is hard to believe, but after all this time listening to my story, you must surely realize I would never tell you falsehoods.

Nor will I tell you all the finicky arrangements we made in the next few minutes. Of course, we ordered the stick-ship to stop swallowing the little Cashling vessels, and to put back everything it had captured. We also released the crew of the
Royal Hemlock
from the stick-ship’s sinister holding cells. The cells contained many other individuals of various species, all of whom had been kidnapped by the Shaddill due to these individuals being too smart for their own good. Captain Kapoor promised he would transport the prisoners back to their homeworlds as soon as possible…or to any other world they wished to visit, as a pleasant consolation prize for being locked in Durance Vile by wicked fur-beetles.

Speaking of fur-beetles, their jellied remains disappeared from the fountain while we were busy with other matters. I hoped they had merely gone slurp down the drain, but Festina suspected they had used some newborn mental power to transport themselves to wherever the rest of their people lived: an alternate dimension (whatever that means), or perhaps a distant Jelly-Planet where all the furniture jiggles. It seemed most unfair that these monstrous villains should simply ascend to their own nirvana without suffering retribution; but then I realized it could not be a very
good
nirvana considering that everyone there was all googly…and perhaps it was not a nirvana at all, but a horrible awful hell, where the only entertainment was persuading others to join you. So I decided not to make myself glum over never punching a Shaddill, and I regarded this as a sign of my Growing Maturity.

I believe I shall be excellent at maturity.

An Annoying Au Revoir

The Pollisand disappeared about the same time as the jellied Shaddill—again while our attention was distracted by more pressing business. He left behind a slip of paper with words written in glowing letters exactly the color of his eyes:
HEY KIDS
,
IT WAS TRULY SPLENDIFEROUS WORKING WITH YOU
,
I MEAN THAT IN THE SINCEREST POSSIBLE WAY
.
AND GUESS WHAT
?
MY CRYSTAL BALL SAYS I
’
LL BE SEEING ONE OR TWO OF YOU AGAIN REAL SOON
.
BET YOU
’
RE LOOKING FORWARD TO THAT
.
HUGS TO YOU ALL
,
AND BIG WET KISSES
.
OH WAIT
,
I FORGOT
;
I CAN
’
T KISS YOU BECAUSE I DON
’
T HAVE ANY GODDAMNED LIPS
!
COUNT YOUR BLESSINGS
,
SCHMUCK
-
HEADS
.—
THE P
.

As soon as we had all read this, the letters on the message blazed brighter and set the paper on fire. No one made any effort to extinguish it.

“Do you think he really knows what’s going to happen?” Lajoolie asked most fearfully, staring at the burning note.

Festina made a face. “He obviously gets a kick out of jerking our chains—and whether or not he’s prescient, he’s definitely a first-class schemer. If he wants us embroiled in his machinations, he’ll manage it somehow.”

“Ah, Admiral, ever the optimist,” said Aarhus. “Some see the glass half full, some see it half empty, and some see it crawling with toxic alien parasites who want to devour your pancreas.”

Festina shrugged modestly. “Hey…it’s a gift.”

Final Dispositions

So here is how we all ended up.

Lady Bell and Lord Rye never left
Unfettered Destiny
while it remained in the hold of the stick-ship. They cowered like cowards until we told them everything had been resolved in our favor. After that, Bell insisted we still must pay the “ransom” we agreed to—so we recorded our testimony as originally promised, and the result was broadcast to the entire sector.

This caused much stir amongst the peoples of the galaxy. It also caused a torrent of broadcast money to flood into the Cashlings’ pockets…whereupon Bell and Rye bade adieu to their vocation as Prophets and set off to become producers of sensationalistic VR extravaganzas. Apparently, this was not an uncommon career path for persons of their race.

Because of our broadcast, the admirals of the navy’s High Council found themselves the targets of Public Outrage, not to mention repeatedly being invited by civilian police to “assist in criminal inquiries.” Each high admiral tried to shift the blame for the reported atrocities onto his or her colleagues, while he or she claimed to have been kept “out of the loop.” A few of the villains also managed to disappear before being apprehended by authorities. Despite such developments, Festina felt certain the majority of the council could not possibly escape incarceration, even if a few managed to wriggle away from the clutches of the law.

It has not yet been determined who murdered Uclod’s Grandma Yulai; but as Festina predicted, that particular crime garnered a strenuous reaction from the Technocracy’s civilian government. With the League of Peoples forever watching, humans cannot allow a homicide to go uninvestigated. If necessary, Festina says she will look into the matter personally when she returns to New Earth.

As for the rest of the Unorr family, they had already gone into hiding by the time Grandma Yulai was slain. They realized the High Council might commit drastic deeds in order to conceal their crimes…so the Unorrs removed themselves to a place of safety until all was well. It was only the grandmama who voluntarily remained in the open so as to coordinate the Admiralty’s ultimate exposure.

Therefore, Uclod and Lajoolie had a family to which they could return: a family who eagerly awaited the couple in order to congratulate them on a job well done. Apparently, Uclod’s relatives were vociferously telling everyone how wise they had been to purchase Lajoolie as Uclod’s wife—Lajoolie had “made the boy a man,” had “helped him fly right,” and had achieved many other goals expressed in hackneyed phrases. The Unorrs swore they would recommend the same Tye-Tye marriage broker to all of their friends…which was not a pleasant prospect to contemplate, but at least it ensured that the broker would not wreak vicious acts upon Lajoolie’s brother.

It turned out that one of the vessels in the outreach crusade was a female Zarett with a male Zarett on board. Using monetary credit from his family, Uclod purchased the couple and put baby Starbiter into loving Zarett care…where I imagine she was tucked into a soft spherical crib each night and spoiled with hydrocarbons of excessive sweetness. Uclod also promised to erect a monument to Nimbus in the Unorr family cemetery on the Freep homeworld. Starbiter (the mother, not the daughter) will receive an even larger memorial in the same place—perhaps a life-size model with a special fungal coating to mimic a Zarett’s gooey-ness. I think that sounds most icky indeed; therefore, I have resolved to visit it immediately if ever I find myself on that planet.

Before I go there, however, I shall have to visit New Earth. When all the navy villains are brought to trial, I shall be required to give testimony…which I shall do most prettily and with great condemning vigor.

Alas, Festina tells me it will take a long time for any admirals to wind up in court. First there must be an Extended Media Circus, then an Orgy Of Knee-Jerk Recrimination, then some Somber Universal Soul-Searching, followed by a Period Of Desensitization Due To Massive Overexposure, leading to a Backlash Of Cynical Indifference, then Collective Amnesia And Perversely Partisan Revisionism, finally culminating in Cattle-Call Jury Auditions wherein hundreds of out-of-work actors vie for “cushy all-expenses-paid gigs with a high exposure quotient and very few lines to memorize.”
¹⁵

So my presence will not be required on New Earth for months or even years. Festina will go there immediately, of course. Sergeant Aarhus will accompany her, for he intends to serve as her personal bodyguard. When he spoke of this to Festina, she contended she needed no bodyguard…but he said she did, since many powerful admirals now hate her and wish her harm. Anyway, Aarhus feels most guilty about Nimbus’s death—the sergeant believes that if he (Aarhus) had only done a better job as a security mook, Festina would never have found herself choking and the cloud man would still be alive. This line of thinking does not make sense; but grief makes fools of us all, and even I sometimes catch myself wondering if there was something I could have done to save the cloud man’s life.

Nimbus was my brother and my friend. I have not had so many friends in my life; I could tell you the exact number, but the count is so low I do not wish to reveal it for fear you will think there is something wrong with me. There is nothing wrong with me
at all
—except that at the moment I am sad Nimbus will not see his daughter grow up big and strong.

Even happy endings have little tears in their eyes.

And So…

Festina and I stood together in the receiving bay of
Unfettered Destiny
, staring out at the vastness of space. Cleaning robots from the stick-ship were beeping in disapproval as they fastidiously scrubbed the floors around us; the Cashling ship still smelled most disgusting, but the worst of the odors were fading. Moreover, the walls were all glass, so I felt quite at home…and it
was
my home, for I had appointed myself the new Prophet of this crusade.

Outside in the blackness, the ships of my disciples jostled for positions close to my magnificence. More arrived every hour; the entire Cashling Reach apparently regarded me as a delightful novelty, and untold numbers of supplicants were on their way to join my congregation.

“It won’t last, you know,” Festina said as we watched another ship appear in its faster-than-light way: popping into existence, with a stream of afterimages trailing out behind, as light from where it had been caught up with where it
was
. “You aren’t the first non-Cashling to set yourself up as a Prophet. People will flock in for a while, then lose interest as soon as something new comes along.”

“But in the meantime,” I said, “I will use them to accomplish great deeds.”

Festina nodded and turned back to the starry expanse before us. I had ordered
Destiny
to turn in such a way that we could only see a tiny edge of the mammoth stick-ship…or, as it had recently been christened,
The Giant Vessel Propelled By A Single Oar
.

The name was my idea. It was an excellent joke.

A small communication device chirped on Festina’s belt. Sergeant Aarhus’s voice said, “Admiral…ready to leave at your convenience.”

“I’ll be there in a minute.”

She glanced at the airlock. A borrowed Cashling yacht was docked there—supposedly the fastest vessel my followers could offer. A band of science persons from the
Hemlock
’s crew had adjusted the yacht’s computers to make it possible for the ship to charge its FTL field inside the nearest sun. Festina and Aarhus would fly back to New Earth at speeds no human had ever reached before.

“Aarhus tells me,” I said, “that when you reach New Earth you will become commander of the entire human fleet.” “Sergeant Aarhus has always had an exaggerated opinion of my importance,” Festina replied with a rueful chuckle. “Even if the entire High Council is thrown in jail, there’ll be plenty of admirals left, and they all outrank me. But Aarhus insists everyone else is tainted by association with the old guard; I’m the only one whose reputation is still squeaky clean. He thinks the second I walk into navy HQ, I’ll be made the fucking council’s president.”

“You will make an excellent fucking president, Festina. Will they give you a bigger gun?”

“No,” she said, “they’ll give me a great load of headaches. Even if I don’t get named to the council, I’ll have a million things to do. First and foremost, I’ll set my people to figuring out what the Shaddill did to make
Homo sapiens
stupider. If anything.” She stopped. “Damn! I wish we’d had time to ask them about that.”