Dragon's Egg (34 page)

Soother turned and rejoined her chief advisors, Soother’s-First and Soother’s-Pride, her first two children. She was getting a little tired of the constant egg laying, but it was one of her most important duties as Soother-of-All-Clans.

“Who is the next one?” she asked Soother’s-First.

“There are many choices, Mother,” he said. “However, our merchant informers in the clans to the north have told us that the clan leader Deadly-Sting has been talking about a formal challenge to your leadership, despite the fact that you have forbidden leadership duels. Perhaps a command to him to visit here for a formal mating with you would awe him enough that we could get him to hold off.”

“Then again,” Soother’s-Pride said, “if he gets too difficult while he is here, we could arrange for him to flow.”

“No,” Soother remonstrated, “I don’t think that will be necessary. After all, the whole object of my reign is to soothe away these barbaric instincts in my people, so that in future generations they will act in a civilized manner—as the humans do.”

“Shall it be Deadly-Sting then?” Soother’s-First asked.

“Yes,” Soother said, “we will give that near-barbarian from the north a royal welcome that will make him feel much more important than he really is. Then after the formal mating, we will send him home with so many gifts that he will forget all about trying to challenge my rule.”

“I will arrange it immediately, Mother,” Soother’s-First said, moving off toward the Royal compound.

“I am going to Sky Talk library,” Soother told Soother’s-Pride. “I understand that a new book about one of the early human rulers has been sent down by the humans on one of the alternate communication channels. I want to study it carefully for new ideas. I hope that the ideas on government by the human Napoleon will prove to be as interesting as those of Machiavelli were.”

Soother’s-Pride watched his mother flow off toward the Sky-Talk compound, a squad of troopers automatically shaping a chevron formation about her, their burly bodies acting as pathbreakers for her in both the hard and the soft directions. As she moved off, Soother’s-Pride heard her tread muttering as she moved.

“What shall I name it? Soother’s-Sting? Who ever heard of a soothing sting? Soother’s-Deadly? No—that’s worse …”

As Soother approached the Sky-Talk compound, she headed directly for the library and was careful to avoid the Comm complex. The last thing she wanted to be bothered with was the fawning presence of Soother’s-Worry.

She was very sorry that she had studied only the
GOVERNMENT
sections of the human encyclopedia in her youth. She had applied her new knowledge of government to the naive ruling system of the semibarbaric cheela of her time, and had shortly taken over the Leadership of the Combined Clans. She had forged a mighty state that had conquered the remainder of the barbarian tribes on Egg and had finally brought peace to the entire star. As Soother-of-All-Clans she was now powerful enough to subjugate any unruly band or clan, but her job now was to consolidate her rule by less violent means, and form a hereditary dynasty that would eliminate forever the problem of deciding who
the next ruler would be, for that would be foreordained from birth.

Her first (and she hoped her only) mistake, was trying to form the line of descendants completely from her own flesh. Soother’s-First was a beautiful example of a cheela, and she would be proud to have him carry on her name after she flowed. She had thought that, since he was such a handsome specimen, she could combine her excellent qualities with his by mating with him as soon as he left the hatching pens. Unfortunately, the result was not what she had expected. The Old Ones at the hatchery tried to give the little one extra attention, but it was soon obvious to all that the hatchling was barely smart enough to feed itself. Soother had found the sinecure of Keeper of the Comm for Soother’s-Worry, but the last thing she wanted was to be reminded of her own weaknesses. For according to the human encyclopedia section on
GENETICS
, the weaknesses that were so obvious in Soother’s-Worry were lying dormant in her, only they were masked by other, better genes from her mates.

“If only I had at least scanned the other sections, instead of concentrating solely on the
GOVERNMENT
section,” she said to herself for what seemed to be the dozenth time, knowing full well that if she had done that, she would still be in the library, and would not now be Soother-of-All-Clans.

Actually, Soother had almost gotten away with her scheme. The cheela biophysicists would not determine the genetic coding mechanism for the cheela for dozens of generations, but when they did, both they and the humans would be surprised at how different it was. Because of the high temperatures on the neutron star that attempted to disrupt everything into random chaos, and the all-pervasive magnetic field that lined everything up along the magnetic field lines, the cheela
genetic structure was a triply-redundant linear strand of complex nuclear molecules. As the duplicating enzymes would copy the genetic molecule, the check at each triply redundant site provided an automatically correcting copying mechanism; if one of the three linear strands had mutated, the copying enzyme would be governed by majority rule, and the new triple strand would have the mutation corrected. If two mutations had occurred and all three sites were different, the enzyme would self-destruct, taking the faulty gene with it. It was only when the two mutations were the same that an error was able to creep through. Unfortunately, there had been too many repeated errors in those genes that had formed the nervous system in her son, Soother’s-Worry. He was mentally retarded.

Many, many eggs later, Soother was getting tired, yet her ambition drove her on. Her aging body was now pouring nucleonic hormones into her juices that were designed to make her slow down her aggressive drive and retire to the essential job of being an Old One.

The Old Ones were designed by the cheela genes to carefully tend the clan eggs that the younger females would lay and forget, while they returned to their jobs as warriors protecting the clan from enemies. There were no real enemies anymore, and Soother did not want to be an Old One tending eggs, so she transferred her developing parental instincts to the cheela as a whole and drove herself on, consolidating her rule by using the governmental techniques developed by generations of humans.

Finally Soother began to realize that she could not go on forever. Eventually she would have to flow, and the Soother-of-All-Clans would not be there to keep the quarrelsome clans soothed. Of course, Soother’s-First was quite capable and willing to take her place and
assume his duties as Soother-of-All-Clans, however, her personal ambition kept her from relinquishing her control over her people.

Soother then remembered an old story about the ancient one named Swift-Killer who had first made contact with the humans. The Leonardo da Vinci of the cheela, Swift-Killer had invented the first communication system and was the first Keeper of the Comm. That was long ago when the Keeper of the Comm had to know how to keep the communication and data storage systems operating, and didn’t have a team of communication engineers and library assistants to run things.

Soother went to visit the scientists at Sky-Talk compound. “I understand that Swift-Killer, the first Keeper of the Comm, experienced a strange transformation that rejuvenated her,” she said.

“Yes,” the scientist replied. “Under extreme trauma, her body reverted to that of a dragon plant. She stayed that way for some dozens of greats of turns, and then for some reason the dragon plant reverted back to that of a cheela. However, the new body, having been almost completely rebuilt, was that of a youth, while the scarred outer skin and brain was that of an older one.”

“I want to go through that transformation,” Soother said, “so that I may continue to lead my people.”

“That would be very dangerous, O Soother-of-All-Clans,” the scientist said in alarm. “Shortly after Swift-Killer’s experience, the experiment was tried by many cheela. With most of them, nothing happened, and they finally gave up and went off to tend eggs. With others, they had starved themselves so much that they just stopped living and flowed. There was not enough meat left on them even to bother calling the butchers. A few tried both starvation and a severe heating of the topside. Most of these died from the serious burns, and only one
started the transformation. However, even that one died before he was well started. You may not have learned it in the stories that you read about Swift-Killer, but she was not alone; there were two others with her, and one of those died.”

“Then if it is done properly, the odds are two out of three,” Soother said firmly.

“But Soother,” protested the scientist, “we don’t really know how to do it properly. No one was there to witness the transformation.”

“Still,” Soother continued, “if I do not go through the transformation, I am surely going to flow soon. I want to be transformed, and within the next great of turns. You and the others are to read all that you can and make preparations. I will return when you are ready.”

“It shall be done,” the scientist said with resignation. Soother flowed away from him without further word, her squad of troopers forming automatically around her as she moved off.

There was really little more to learn about the ancient transformation of Swift-Killer. What records the scientists had were mostly old storyteller tales that had been distorted by many tellings before they had been written down. It was well less than a great of turns before the scientists let Soother know that they were as ready as they could be.

Soother came at once. She left Soother’s-Pride in charge of the routine business of running the Empire, while Soother’s-First and a full troop of needle troopers came to Sky-Talk compound to make sure that the experiment was carried out safely. When Soother’s-First and the troop commander heard what Soother would be subjected to, they protested strongly.

“They are going to kill you with that treatment!” Soother’s-First warned.

“First they are going to starve you until you are an empty sac, and then they are going to sear your topside with a bank of X-ray arcs!” the troop commander shouted.

“Yet, that is what Swift-Killer went through, and so can I,” Soother said bravely. “I want you two to see that they do it properly.”

“I can’t see how we can protect you from them,” the Troop Commander said. “What they propose to do to you does not sound like a treatment, but a fiendish torture for a particularly nasty barbarian!”

“But you can protect me,” she replied. “For if I die, you can see that they do also!”

The troop commander hesitated, for to kill unarmed thinkers who had only done their best, and under protest, did not seem like the kind of thing a decent warrior should do, but his sense of duty overcame his principles; after all, the one giving the order was the Soother-of-All-Clans.

“It will be as you say, Soother-of-All-Clans,” said the troop commander obediently.

“And if I do flow,” Soother said to Soother’s-First, “you shall be the next Soother-of-All-Clans. Rule well, my son.” She formed a small tendril and stroked him lightly on the topside.

“I will, Mother,” he said.

“But don’t count on it,” she cut in abruptly. “For I intend to come back—younger than you.” Her tendril whipped off his topside and shrank back into her surface. She moved off toward the waiting scientists.

“You may proceed,” she said.

Although Soother had not eaten for three dozen turns in preparation for the ordeal, it took two dozen more turns before the scientists and doctors felt that she had been weakened enough that her body functions were disrupted to the point where the plant transformation enzymes could begin to dominate the animal
enzymes. They could now start the next phase of the transformation.

According to the legends of the storytellers, Swift-Killer had a blotchy topside after her transformation. Some painful experiments with volunteers who had suffered a small section of their topsides to be seared with lengthening sessions under an X-ray arc had shown that the blotches were caused by blisters that formed on the skin after a certain amount of exposure to X-rays. The timing was critical, however, for too long an exposure caused the blistered surface to char, and then the burn was too severe. The volunteer who had suffered that much radiation still had a nasty scar in the small test spot. He would not have survived if the burn had been over a much larger area.

Soother was barely conscious when the banks of X-ray arcs were struck. The violet-white radiation beamed unmercifully down upon her weakened body. The pain and shock knocked her out and she flowed. The doctors were watching closely, and the arcs were extinguished just as the blisters started.

The troop commander and Soother’s-First stood by, looking with distaste and horror on the flattened sac of blistered skin that lay in front of them. The scientists and doctors hovered around, their tendrils constantly touching the now sleeping body.

“She still lives,” one of the doctors said. “But her body functions are very unusual. Her fluid pumps are not beating as they do when a cheela is struck in the brain-knot and knocked unconscious; instead they are moving very slowly. It is a state that the humans call sleep.”

Soother’s-First moved toward the body and confirmed their diagnosis. “It is indeed fortunate for you that she is still alive,” he said. “Continue your work.”

“There is nothing left for us to do,” one of the scientists said. “It is now up to her body. All we can do
is make sure that she is not disturbed. We can only wait and watch.”

For two dozen turns, nothing much happened, except that the blistered topside started slowly to heal itself. As the healing progressed, Soother’s-First noticed that the muscle tone of the skin, which had been poor at the end of the starvation period, now became almost nonexistent. The skin under the healing blisters seemed to be almost transparent. Then after another dozen turns, a small, twelve-pointed crown started to lift up under the center of the sac of skin.