Changing Vision (7 page)

What a shame I couldn’t accept it as such.

It was the way of my kind to hide in plain sight, with the key word being hide. We shunned any possible exposure of our true nature to alien eyes. That had been the Rule which kept Ersh and her Web safe for millennia, until I’d
managed to reveal myself within a day of meeting Paul, during my first—and only—mission for my kind.
Ersh
, I remembered rather wistfully,
hadn’t been impressed.

She’d tasted friendship to the Humans in those memories I’d been brave enough to share with the Web, understanding its significance before I had, warning me about further entanglements with ephemeral species.

Yet in the end, it had been my ageless web-kin who had died, and the fragile ephemeral who remained at my side as I fled the unwelcome attention of the Commonwealth and its alarmed Humans. I’d tried to stop Paul from accompanying me, to keep his life intact. He’d followed our friendship instead, a choice I, for one, had never regretted. If he had, on occasion, I’d never known.

We remained safe here because we were hidden, I as Esolesy Ki the Lishcyn trader, Paul Ragem as Paul Cameron, exporter.
Hide.
That Rule hadn’t changed with the loss of the others; it had been driven deep into my soul, and I’d insisted Paul learn it.

The wind moved up a notch, ripping apart the clouds overhead to show a tattered-edged wall of stars. I focused my optic cluster on the dimmest of these, pushing my thought processes along, quite grateful to feel little or no emotion beyond a vague regret. If I were Lanivarian, I would have howled.

“What have you done, old friend?” I whistled to the storm, my voice arising from disks which turned within the flow of air moving in and out through the vents. It was a low whistle, easily missed, but I could tune it to a minor key, well-matched to my feelings.

To make my gift, had Paul made contact with his family?
Once his mother died, we’d never discussed it again; before that, he’d rebuffed my every attempt to suggest it as too dangerous, an unhappy but absolutely necessary consequence of our life together. But how else could he have gathered so much information?

I sighed, rumbling like so much thunder in the storm’s darkness, feeling a little darkness of my own. The gift had only revealed itself to my paw print. It had destroyed itself
once received. These were wise precautions against discovery—against identification of the being who formed the apex of this genealogy—by anyone but me.

Would these protections be enough?
Only, I acknowledged to the wind, the future would tell us. For if anyone suspected Paul Ragem lived, who might suspect I did as well?

Was his gift worth this risk to us both?

Dawn washed itself clear of the surrounding mountains, a brightening I noticed barely in time to cycle, dumping mass, and hurry back inside. Wz’ip were not known for their quick reactions.

Once inside, I sniffed in appreciation. Paul was cooking some egg dish or other. A shame it was a delicacy a Lishcyn literally couldn’t stomach, but I was tied in that form by the business ahead as well as my growing interest in caution. Still, I remembered the smell as a favored meal of some other me.

“You could cycle and have some. I made enough,” the Human offered.

I resisted the temptation to glower at him, something the Lishcyn did poorly anyway. The broad-lipped head with its rosettes of hair-trimmed scales wasn’t good for much facial expression beyond flashing a tusk or two and a debonair wink. “No, thank you. It’s this Esen you are taking to annoy Captain Chase this morning, remember?”

Paul scooped yellow fluff onto his plate, topping it with some seared bread and a dollop of spice before taking his seat at the table. This nook was our favorite spot of the house, especially when the storm blinds could be retracted and the three windowed walls offered their spectacular view, as now. The mounded surfaces of cloud might have been continuations of the white tile floor. Birds, or rather the Minascan insectoid equivalent, flew within insubstantial valleys. The sky above was so clear a blue as to bear a seductive hint of space black at its far edge.

In all, a view that scarcely hinted at the distance one
would drop if careless enough to assume those mounds of white could support any weight at all.

A Lishcyn’s multiple stomachs could do interesting things with heights, particularly when those stomachs were arguing about which deserved the first crack at some nourishment. It wasn’t advisable to let all five become empty. I hurried to grab my favorite bowl from the counter and begin filling it up with whatever was nearest from the leftovers in the cold cupboard.

“For breakfast?” At Paul’s skeptical question, I paid closer attention to what I was doling into the bowl.

“There’s nothing wrong with prawlies,” I asserted, inwardly wincing at the sight of the highly-spiced, many-legged delicacy I’d distractedly ladled over a pile of Meg Sirsey’s Choco Surprise. Some foods required the consumption of alcohol before they were remotely palatable. “Plenty of—protein.”

He raised one brow, but let the matter of my food choices go. I settled into the chair across from him and studied my breakfast the way a general might plan an attack: how to get at the chocolate and underlying vegetable matter without alerting the prawlies—or Paul—to my complete intention to avoid them.

Paul’s own breakfast sat apparently forgotten as he gazed at me intently. “You think I’ve been a fool, don’t you?” The question was too quiet, startling me. “That’s what this is about, isn’t it?”

“What what’s about?” I said, inadvertently shoveling exactly what I’d tried to miss into my mouth. My salivary glands went into overtime trying to dilute the sudden burst of spice on my palate. I grabbed the very large and absorbent napkin from my lap to stem the outward flood before it dribbled between my stiff lips. Paul passed me the pitcher of water in response to my frantic gesture. I gulped down the liquid, succeeding in at least moving the burning sensation to my first, and largest, stomach, and asked innocently: “Didn’t you sleep well?” An interrupted rest frequently made Humans irrational in the morning.

“No.” Paul put his cup down, rattling the other dishes on the table. “And I wasn’t the only one awake.”

I almost asked him how he knew, then realized there was, of course, only one way. “You watched me on the vid.” Our home was surrounded by surveillance equipment: essential warning for me to return to the Lishcyn form whenever guests or Paul’s family arrived unannounced. We didn’t use it to spy on one another—until now. I felt my scales swelling along their edges, the hairs on each itching unbearably as they began to retract out of sight, a sure sign my own temper was rising as my outer hide assumed its defensive configuration. Knowing it was already too late to cycle into a less revealing form, I tried glaring at Paul with honest outrage instead.

It didn’t work. He merely returned my look, his gray eyes narrowing in what I belatedly recognized as the rousing of his own rare and formidable temper. “Yes, I watched you. Funny reaction to our celebration—and my gift. What kept you awake, Esen-alit-Quar?” The Human’s voice developed an edge I’d never heard before. “Tell me it wasn’t some worry I revealed myself as back from the dead just to grab a few holoimages. Tell me you know me better than that—tell me you know I would never risk exposing you even to see those I love—because, by now, you damn well should.”

I swallowed twice: once to clear my mouth of drool and then again to move the sickening prawlies farther from any attempt to return to the bowl. My first stomach was notoriously quick to react. “Paul—” I began, then found my stomach completely settled and solitary. Again, I’d cycled involuntarily.
I had to stop doing that.

“So you don’t,” the Human said flatly, putting his own interpretation to my change of form. He stood as if to leave, shaking his head at me in utter disgust. I spotted a glint of silver under the edge of his shirt collar. He wore my gift. And concealed it.

Paul noticed my attention and, hooking a finger under the chain, pulled the tiny medallion into the open. He didn’t let it drop to hang freely, instead capturing the medallion
within a tight fist he thrust toward me. “Do you want to talk about fools?” he said bitterly. “I know you, Es. Well enough to know how much this means as a gift—and appreciate it. And well enough to know you’d miss how dangerous this is for me to wear.”

“There’s no chance the web-mass will leak—” I began uncertainly.

“I don’t mean of itself,” he interrupted, planting both hands on the table so he could lean over it and glare down at me. His posture brought up the hackles on my neck, but I restrained my Lanivarian instincts with an effort. Biting Paul wasn’t going to improve his temper.

He continued, from the stern line of his eyebrows fully aware of my reaction and willing to dare it. “I warned you the Kraal didn’t stop working on a scanner to detect web-mass. Or weren’t you listening?”

Oh. That.
I forgot all about biting, feeling my ears press flat against my skull and a whine try to slide up my throat. “Don’t worry,” Paul said, but not sympathetically. His fist opened, the palm flipping the medallion over. A device similar to one of the tiny scramblers we used on public com systems had been glued to the back. “This should suffice until I can do something better.” Finally, his face softened from anger to something closer to disappointment. I wasn’t sure it was an improvement. “I value your gift, Es. Honestly I do. But I wish you’d thought of all the risks you were taking with our secret, instead of mistrusting me. And it is our secret.” With this last, a corner of his mouth twitched upward, bringing a sudden, familiar warmth to his face.

So I was forgiven.
I couldn’t say I enjoyed the feeling. I rose slowly from my chair, distracting myself with the problem of whether to return to the Lishcyn form or continue this conversation as I was. If I cycled, I’d have safely empty stomachs: inanimate matter wasn’t retained in the form-memory, hence the puddle of water on the tiles beneath my paws. But I felt closer to understanding Paul in this arrangement of flesh.

“Esen,” Paul continued as if he could read my thoughts, “we’ve misunderstood each other often enough over the
years. I’ll be fair: more times than not it’s been my fault. You’re very good at interpreting me; I can’t always do the same with you.” He paused, putting out one hand as if his Human nature needed touch, but thinking better of it. “This time, Es, you were wrong about me. Can’t you admit it?”

I felt my lip trying to curl over a fang, not a caring expression in this form. “I admit I hadn’t considered the Kraals’ experiment—if it continues at all—or that they could somehow use my gift to find you. Anyway, it’s all so unlikely as to be ridiculous. They’d need their scanner right on top of you.”

The not-so-ridiculous thing was that Paul was very close in his suspicions. There was someone who could conceivably use the medallion’s contents to find him—me—an ability I’d desperately wanted each and every time he’d left Minas XII and my protection. Which was regularly. This being the last thing I wanted the proud Human to suspect, I changed the subject. “I see no point in worrying about some phantom technology. I’m concerned with the First Rule.”

“To be hidden is to be safe,” Paul said, as if repeating a lesson by rote. “It isn’t hard to remember, Es. I do agree.”

I let the lip do what it wanted. “Then how did you obtain those images if you didn’t contact anyone from your—former life?”

I thought his skin turned pale, as though I’d inadvertently struck him. “I’d have thought it obvious, Es,” my friend said in too even a voice, “since you were the one to insist we have the capability to dig into any database in the Commonwealth without being caught.”

Oh, dear
, I said to myself, belatedly realizing many things, including how readily the system in my office could be turned from its secret search for others of my kind to something more focused. Simply collecting images of individual Humans, who were prone to bureaucracy and redundant records, would have taken almost no effort at all.

As Paul said, we’d had our share of misunderstandings. I looked down my shaved muzzle at him, remembering each and every instance in exquisite detail, knowing he hadn’t
really been fair to himself: many had been my fault. I tended to jump to conclusions, to assume I knew exactly what he or any being would do simply because I understood their physical natures so thoroughly.
Just like this time
, I confessed in the privacy of my own thoughts.

Paul stifled a yawn suddenly, then held up his medallion on its chain once more, letting it swing lightly. “I really do appreciate the honor you’ve paid me with this, Es.” A wave at the table, with its bowl of deserted leftovers and surely cold eggs. “We have time for another attempt before Chase will be ready. If you are hungry?”

This was like my friend, not to insist on an apology I’d find difficult to frame, to move us along. My stomach growled, and he smiled. “I take it that’s a yes?”

“As long as I can dump the prawlies,” I agreed, suddenly lighthearted and ready to accept what was given. As I had all those times before, I promised myself to think more carefully before judging his or any being’s actions.

A promise I unfortunately failed to keep.

As shipcities went, the one on Minas XII was a patchwork quilt with a rotting hole at its center. There had been no plan or grandiose vision behind its beginning, middle, or future. The world had breathable air and potable water for most theta-class species, including Humans. That made it cheap. And Minas XII lay within a day translight of a growing number of valuable mining settlements, while remaining comfortably distant from existing systems—and their taxes. That made it very appealing to freighters and other entrepreneurs looking for a fresh start.

Minas XII herself dictated the terms. Her storm-ridden climate and jagged, geologically-active surface severely limited the amount of flat, firm ground suited to those trying to land. There were deep irregular valleys, smooth-floored by virtue of not too recent lava flows. The largest of these, branched like some nightmare version of a fallen tree, became the site of Minas’ capital and only shipcity, Fishertown.