Changing Vision (40 page)

“Ah,” she said calmly, stepping forward and giving a light salute. “There you are, Captain.” Her dark eyes narrowed slightly as they took in the collapsed stack of folded plas. “Busy?”

“Which p–part of ‘Do Not Disturb’ escaped you, Officer Timri?” Kearn hadn’t been able to come up with a suitable title for his comp-tech since assigning her virtual control of the
Russell III.

“I thought you’d like to know, sir, that the Feneden have taken the e-rigs you provided and left the
Russ
’.”

Kearn settled back down into his chair, feeling every bone in his body relax until he couldn’t help but smile. “Why didn’t you say so, instead of breaking down my door? Which will come out of your pay, Timri, make no mistake about—”

“The Feneden left the
Russ
’, sir,” Timri continued as if she hadn’t heard him at all, “to board the Feneden starship which landed an hour ago. It set down close enough to scorch our fins. Security Chief Sas has kept watch and reports a considerable amount of activity. Several beings have left the ship.”

Kearn’s smile struggled to stay in place. “Maybe they have business with the Iftsen,” he suggested.

“They don’t believe in the Iftsen. Sir.” She took another step toward him; Kearn tried not to cringe, but lost the smile completely.
Timri was such a very—imposing person when agitated.
“It is our opinion that the Feneden have taken the search for the Esen Monster into their own hands.”

Letting him off the hook
, Kearn thought immediately, and wondered if the scornful look on her face meant she had read it in his expression. He put his hands together, lacing the fingers to keep them still. “Officer Timri. This is very serious. We must inform the Iftsen that they may have armed and dangerous aliens—yes, very dangerous aliens—entering Brakistem.”

“It’s the Festival of Living Art, sir. There won’t be more than a handful of sober Iftsen in the city.”

“Well, if the Feneden don’t believe in the Iftsen, and the Iftsen are too drunk to be offended by the Feneden—we should have no problems, right, Officer Timri? Perhaps,” Kearn added pompously, quite impressed with his own reasoning, “you could arrange for repairs to my door.”

Timri, her mouth hanging open as though whatever she’d imagined couldn’t come close to this piece of brilliant deduction, was shoved to one side as Com-tech
Resdick, usually a very placid, reserved individual, came careening into Kearn’s office at a full run.

“Is my door wide open to everyone now, Timri?” Kearn snapped, aggrieved beyond measure.

Resdick saluted, the effect spoiled as he used Kearn’s desk to stop his forward momentum. “Sir, Sir. He’s back. The Captain!”

“Lefebvre?” Timri almost shouted, grabbing the other by his nearest shoulder as if she had to look into his face. “What do you mean—back?”

“He means,” said the deep, commanding voice Kearn remembered all too well, “I’m back and reporting for duty. Sir.” Lefebvre had lost none of his ability to look and act totally respectful, while immediately conveying the opposite.

Kearn closed his eyes. If he did it long enough, maybe this would turn out to have all been another nightmare.

ALWAYS look a gift horse in the mouth
was one of Paul’s favorite expressions. Although the original Human axiom, as held in Ersh-memory, urged the recipient of a free equine to politely refrain from checking its true age as determined by its teeth—at least until out of range of the giver—Paul’s version was more along the lines of exercising caution before accepting the unexpected. It was a sensible paranoia, I’d found, especially when preparing to open one of Paul’s little surprises.

So
, I told myself in disgust,
why hadn’t I learned by now that the unexpected gift was rarely to be trusted?

In this case the gift had been an unexpected chance to leave Paul behind on the shipcity.
Well, here I was. Alone.
I loosened the belt of my e-rig, wondering why I’d ever thought this was a good idea. This was also something rapidly becoming habit.

The original plan—Paul’s plan—had been for us to take the seventh hour shuttle to Brakistem. There wasn’t much choice in destination or time: all shuttles went from Upperside to Underside, and from there to Brakistem’s shipcity; anything earlier had been booked. It was, we were informed by amused shipcity staff, the opening day of the Festival. We’d considered taking the
Vegas Lass
down, but it seemed cruel and unusual punishment to Largas Freight to subject their lovely ship to Iftsen Secondus’ challenging
atmosphere.
She had
, I’d remarked,
enough to live down already.
Paul hadn’t taken my comment well.

What he did take remarkably well was the news that the
Russell III
was already findown—for some mysterious reason, outside the shipcity. Obviously, this wasn’t the revelation to Paul that Lefebvre and I thought it might be. Lefebvre had used a significant number of our credits to purchase an off-schedule flight down. He was, by a bizarre twist of fate I had yet to reconcile with our usual luck, to act as our being on the inside.

I looked at the chrono’s green gleam within the helmet, below and to the left of the tip of my broad nose. Lefebvre should have made Kearn’s day about three hours ago.

Paul had had the e-rigs ready and our tickets purchased. He’d introduced the new me, Esolesy Ki, to Lefebvre with every look of a being delighted to see an old friend. Lefebvre, I’d noticed, had a certain amount of difficulty adjusting—prone to taking second glances at me, as if to surprise me cycling into something else.

There was movement ahead. I crouched lower, longing to switch on the lamps on either shoulder.

So it was supposed to have been Paul and I, just like old times, ready to investigate the Feneden together.
Which, as any being realized, was a needless duplication and a significant risk to him.
I’d persisted in my arguments with him, as Lishcyn having gained both confidence and a more impressive voice with which to present my case. Paul, completely unaffected by either reasoned argument or bellowing, had said he didn’t care if the rig pinched my ears, there was no way I was going down to the planet without him, and would I stop spitting.

I watched the next group of Feneden enter and did my best to look like a lumpy sculpture.

My golden opportunity had come when we were leaving our rooms. An incoming message had chimed for attention. Paul had frowned at me,
as if it were my fault
, then went back inside to answer it. He’d pointed out the door, indicating I was to go ahead to the shuttle.

It had probably been a ploy to stop my arguments. But
when Paul hadn’t arrived by the time the shuttle conductors were busy asking for last minute boarders, I’d seized the opportunity. My ticket having two seats on it, I’d simply smiled and grabbed the nearest Human waiting in the line for the next shuttle. She hadn’t argued.

So here I was: on Iftsen Secondus, without Paul—which was about the only part of my scheme working properly. I was still in the e-rig, because I’d had no chance to cycle into Iftsen form. It was now distressingly dark outside. And I was surrounded by Feneden thieves.

Next time
, I promised myself,
I would not only look the proverbial gift horse in the mouth, I’d dissect it first.

I’d visited Brakistem during other Festivals—the Iftsen, not surprisingly, found innumerable reasons to celebrate—and knew what to expect when I’d arrived in the late afternoon. The living towers of stacked Iftsen were everywhere, busy doing what they enjoyed most. As usual, those subspecies with incompatible frills found this a little tricky, resorting to artificial wedges to help their mixed stacks stay vertical. I walked past these quickly, knowing such stacks were about as stable as the mind-set of their members and not planning to spend time under a pile of happily squirming Iftsen as the flattened beings sorted themselves out.

Those not so occupied were milling around food carts. In pretech days, the serving of food and drink during any gathering required a large number of First Citizens delegated to miss the fun; needless to say the Iftsen had adopted Human servos in as many capacities as possible and there were almost no First Citizens in sight. Among its other virtues, my e-rig insulated me, and more accurately my tender stomachs, from any interaction with food odors I remembered as rivaling the poisonous nature of Iftsen Secondus’ atmosphere.

During the Festival of Living Art, there were always singers.
Actually, there were singers for every festival.
This particular event, the streets and courtyards hosted meandering choirs, mostly Nabreda, attempting to convince any being who would listen that they had completed a worthy
new stanza for the epic song commemorating the history and significant events of First Citizens’ Gallery of Brakistem.

My magnificent and highly sensitive ears had to be folded in order to fit within the helmet. Listening, especially through the indignity of an external com pickup, was no way to do any song, epic or otherwise, justice. But I lingered beside the singers, making sure I caught every word. It wasn’t pleasant.

Epic song, for the Iftsen, was the equivalent of Human newsmags, political debate, and historical record rolled into one. The Nabreda were singing with intense passion about the pillaging of their magnificent Gallery by aliens. Depending on the choral group, these aliens were portrayed as evil and stupid, incomprehensible and stupid, or simply art thieves with really bad taste. The climax of this particular stanza hadn’t been completed—the singers would wait for a consensus from the crowd to help decide that—but that wouldn’t take long. The most enthusiastic response I heard from those Iftsen currently paying attention had been to a straightforward set of rhymes with a haunting undertone of regret and a thrillingly triumphant fanfare.

The lyrics, unfortunately, sang of the need to eradicate this scourge by destroying the aliens’ birthplace.

Any non-Iftsen I’d encountered as I passed through the throng had looked decidedly uncomfortable by this point, and there were eddies here and there as the more alarmed individuals decided to head back to Underside—presumably to leave before anything more hostile than emphatic rhyming took place.

I, on the other hand, had cleverly decided to head to the Gallery and confirm the singers’ complaints for myself.

They’d been justified
, I now sighed, very quietly, watching from my post inside the main public entrance to the Gallery.

Amber lights made swaths through the murky air, pinpointing rare works so they seemed to float before one’s eyes. Not all of the art was comprehensible, even to the Iftsen, and several of the illuminated pieces weren’t technically
art at all, being exposed parts of the Gallery’s cooling and plumbing systems. No matter: the Gallery’s mandate was to be inclusive and it contentedly accepted any and all works to exhibit, explaining why this building would have been visible from Upperside’s orbit, had the cloud cover ever broken.

There were some local clouds indoors, particularly here in the entrance, where the warm humid night air puffed inside with each upward swing of the doors. As each puff met the cooler air of the Gallery, drops of acid condensed and ran down almost every surface, including the outer skin of my e-rig. The surface of the sculpture forming part of my hiding place was succumbing to corrosion. There were schools of art here in which this effect contributed to a deliberate, somewhat shocking impermanence, but most of the damaged works were contributions from offworld artists who hadn’t done their research.

There were no visitors in sight, at least within my Lishcyn-self’s sight. This might have been due to the attraction of the Festival outside, to the time of day,
or the simple fact that a fifth of the planet’s population could hide in this maze of floors, hallways, and viewing rooms
, I reminded myself, remembering an interesting week spent lost somewhere between the three hundred and thirteenth and three hundred and fiftieth subfloors because Lesy decided to explore Iftsen cave art.

I thought it more likely the visitors chose not to enter, given the steady procession of Feneden streaming in and out through this door.

No trouble spotting them.
E-rigs, especially the rented sort available at the Upperside shipcity, tended to a certain flexibility of design. The basic shape was humanoid, most renters being Human, but, to accommodate a broader clientele, the suits had zips running up the dorsal, ventral, and sides sealing various pouches. The pouches in turn contained your choice of extra sleeves for those body parts that just wouldn’t tuck inside a round, expandable torso. Rented suits turned offworlders into a uniform lumpiness that I’d heard occasionally confused younger Iftsen into believing
they were all one species. Reasonable guess, given the rigs muffled a wide variety of alien shapes into something much less varied than the Iftsen themselves.

The Feneden, however, had brought their own e-rigs. They were skintight, shiny affairs—whether intentionally or not—amply displaying all of the slender grace I remembered. The helmets were even more unusual, being completely transparent although illuminated from within. I could see the rhythmic waving of cilia as each Feneden passed my hiding place. Having a clear view where one didn’t have eyes seemed unnecessary, but I was reluctant to summon Ersh’s past to enlighten my present.

They were clearly robbing the place by any definition—the ones marching from the depths of the gallery and emerging from the lifts across from me were burdened with bags and crates, while the ones entering were empty-handed save for what looked very much like the handle of some type of weapon being carried by every other one.

Not bad
, I congratulated myself. I’d confirmed that the Feneden were stealing from the Iftsen along with very vocal proof the usually easygoing Iftsen weren’t planning to take much more of it. Other species might have confronted the Feneden here and now, and once in a while I did notice an Iftsen peering in the doorway, but then other species had invented locks along the way. Theft was unknown here—since everything was created by all living Iftsen, everything belonged to all living Iftsen. Lesy had run head-on into that aspect of their philosophy, discovering Iftsen artists routinely adding to her work in the years following its display. Ersh had wisely advised the rest of her Web not to look at the changes, probably fearing they’d been improvements and we’d inadvertently share that with Lesy.