Ascending (29 page)

“Both of them?” Festina broke off pumping the man’s chest and sat back on her heels. “Shit—the League is going to love this.”

“Yes,” agreed Aarhus. “To lose one opponent may be regarded as a misfortune; to lose both looks like carelessness.”

Festina stared at the man she had just been attempting to revive. “How the hell could we kill them both?”

“Perhaps these Shaddill are shamefully weak and fragile,” I suggested.

“These people aren’t Shaddill,” she told me. “This man is Jhimal Rhee, Admiral of the Brown. The woman is Gunsa Macleod, Admiral of the Orange. They’re members of the navy’s High Council; I’ve met them a few times.”

“Oh goody,” Aarhus said, “I just helped snuff a high admiral. Correct me if I’m wrong, but I’ll bet that’s a court-martial offense.”

“Rhee and Macleod?” Uclod asked. “Killing them isn’t an offense, it’s a humanitarian service. We should all get a bounty.”

The little man was holding Lajoolie, stroking her shoulders…and for once, she was no taller than he, for she had sunk to her knees and was hunched over almost to the floor. She wept piteously—the sort of weeping when the weeper seems terrified to make the tiniest sound, so it is all choked whimpers and sniffles. Uclod squeezed her and spoke gently. “It’s all right, sweetheart, you don’t have to worry. You’ve read the files on these bastards. Rhee and Macleod were two of the worst on the council. Rhee arranged for that colony to starve to death, remember? He tampered with the food shipment schedules. When the colonists were dead, he sent in settlers of his own and claimed the whole planet for himself. As for Macleod, she killed her first three husbands for their money. The files absolutely proved it. Remember that, honey? Rhee and Macleod were both dangerous nonsentients, and the League doesn’t give a self-righteous crap what you do to them.”

“I do not understand,” I whispered to Festina. “If these humans were dangerous non-sentients, how could they journey through space? Would the League not prevent them from doing so?”

“Damn right it would.”

She stared at the man, Admiral Rhee, lying motionless before her. Suddenly, she reached for his jacket, ripped up the slap-tab, and tore open his shirt. In the pit of his stomach, where Lajoolie had struck him so many times, his skin had burst under the force of the blows. Beneath lay a crushed mass of wires and electronic circuitry.

“Okay,” she said to everyone in the room, “I have good news and bad news…”

The Shaddill And The Admiralty

It did not take long to ascertain that the red-faced woman was also a person of mechanical construction—Aarhus rubbed her arm hard against the sharp edge of a sheet metal container and the woman’s skin split open, revealing a collection of shiny steel armatures.

“You see, honey?” Uclod murmured to Lajoolie. “They were just robots. You didn’t do anything wrong. Doesn’t that make you feel better?”

Lajoolie made an indeterminate noise.

“Makes
me
feel better,” Festina said. “I thought I was losing my edge when I socked that bitch in the jaw and damned near broke my fist.”

“Of course,” Aarhus said, “you have to wonder why the Shaddill have perfect copies of two Technocracy admirals.” He touched his fingertips to the robot woman’s cheek. “The skin feels amazingly authentic—best meat-puppet I’ve ever seen. Bet she even had a neck-pulse before we bashed the crap out of her.”

“What I’d like to know,” Festina said, “is whether the real Rhee and Macleod are still back on New Earth…or if they’ve actually been missing for years.”

Uclod blinked. “You think these robots had replaced the real admirals? Like…the originals had been bumped off and these robots were the ones sitting on the High Council?”

“It’s possible,” Festina said. “Your files claim the original Rhee and Macleod were both murderers. Okay: that means they weren’t sentient. The Shaddill could cold-bloodedly kill the two of them without upsetting the League. Once the real Rhee and Macleod were gone, android duplicates could quietly step in.”

“After which,” Aarhus said, “the meat-puppets took their places on the council, all the while working for the Shaddill. Sending their masters Admiralty secrets, and doing their best to influence council decisions.”

“Yeah,” Uclod agreed. “But then the council caught wind of York’s exposé. If it ever became public, every high admiral scumwad would get thrown in jail…at which point, they’d be strip-searched and put through medical exams. An X ray was bound to show that the fake Rhee and Macleod

had gears between their ears. So the Shaddill swooped the robots off New Earth, whisking away the evidence before anyone learned the Admiralty had been infiltrated.”

Festina nodded. “It explains what brought the Shaddill into this whole mess—when the High Council found out about the exposé, the robots did too. They immediately reported to Shaddill Central.”

“Hey,” Uclod said, glaring at the two machine people, “do you think these ratchet-brains killed Grandma Yulai?”

My friend shook her head. “If your Grandma Yulai was sentient, the Shaddill couldn’t kill her. More likely, the murderer was sent by
real
human admirals.”

“Bastards,” Uclod said.

“Utter ones,” I agreed. I had spent much of the past few minutes massaging my numbed arm, trying to wake it up. An unpleasant pins-and-needles sensation had begun to twang through the muscles—most uncomfortable, but any feeling was better than none. Meanwhile, I told Uclod, “We shall bring your grandmama’s killer to justice, all in the fullness of time. For now, however, we must deal with the Shad-dill…who are also utter bastards, and much closer to hand.”

“Good point,” said Festina. She got to her feet and called, “Bell! Where the fuck are you?”

Some distance away, I heard the crackly sound of gristle popping. Lady Bell had obviously folded up again, to protect herself during the fight…and she had remained in that position long after the fisticuffs ended. So much for Aarhus’s claim that Cashlings were excellent kick-fighters. It seemed they were simply cowards.

“What do you want?” Bell’s voice asked weakly.

A moment later, she came into view—hobbling most ostentatiously, as if she were desperately injured. I had no intention of inquiring what was wrong, but my Faithful Sidekick asked, “What happened to you?”

“The stun-grenade,” Lady Bell answered, a theatrical quiver in her voice. “It caught my right foot; I’m sure it shut down at least one of my hearts and three whole lungs.”

“Stunners don’t interfere with hearts and lungs,” Festina said. “Otherwise, they’d be lethal weapons, wouldn’t they?”

“Are you implying—” Lady Bell began, but Festina cut her off. “Don’t start. Just ask the ship what the conditions are like outside the airlock.”

I expected the lady to whine in protest…but for once she did not argue. Instead, Bell muttered a few words in Cashlingese; a moment later, the gusty ship-soul voice answered with a rapid-fire report that would have interested me greatly if I had understood a word of it.

At last, the ship-soul stopped speaking. “Well?” Uclod asked.

“We’re inside the Shaddill vessel,” Lady Bell said. “In a big hangar with lots of other captured ships. Nitrogen-oxygen atmosphere—almost the same as we’re breathing now.”

“And the temperature?”

Lady Bell called to the ship-soul, got an answer, and said, “In human measurements, thirty-four degrees Celsius.”

“Toasty,” Aarhus grumbled. “We’ll all end up sweating like pigs.”

“Speak for yourself, Viking boy,” Festina said. “Where I come from, thirty-four is a nice spring day.” She looked around at the rest of us. “Care for a walk outside?”

“I wish to locate the Shaddill,” I said, “for I have not yet punched
anyone
in the nose.” My right arm was clumsily able to move on its own now—the fingers felt as weak as worms, but I trusted the debility would pass. I am excellent at speedy recuperation.

Uclod said, “I wouldn’t mind kicking some butt myself.” He turned to Lajoolie. “How about you, honey?”

The big woman did not answer. Her eyes and nose were still runny, and her face had a look of haunted guilt. I do not think she found any consolation in knowing the creature she destroyed was only a robot; she had thought he was a living man when she struck him, and her act of violence weighed torturously upon her mind. Perhaps she even realized one other thing—with a few blows of her hand, she had crushed a gut made of metal. How much more damage would she have done to mere flesh and blood?

“Lajoolie does not wish to kick butts,” I told Uclod, “and she does not have to. The rest of us are fully capable of handling dangerous situations.”

“Sure,” said Festina, laying her hand on Lajoolie’s arm, “if you want to take it easy for a while—”

“What?” Lady Bell interrupted. “You’re just going to let her play coward? If you get in another fight, you’ll say, ‘Oh, it doesn’t matter if the strongest person on our side hides in a corner, we don’t care if we win or lose so long as we don’t hurt someone’s feelings!’”

The Cashling was only saved because Uclod and I jumped toward her at the same time. The little orange man bounced against my shoulder, knocking me aside and knocking himself the other way; before we could converge again, Festina and Aarhus had stepped in to stop us from ramming Lady Bell’s head through any orifice it would fit.

“We don’t have time for this!” Festina snapped. “You two,” she said, pointing at Uclod and me, “back off. You,” she said, pointing at Lady Bell, “shut the fuck up. You,” she said, pointing at Lajoolie, “you I trust to do the right thing if it becomes necessary. Even if it means using your fists again. Got me?”

Lajoolie hesitated a long moment, then nodded silently. Her eyes were rimmed with red.

“Fine,” Festina said, “we have an understanding. Now let’s get moving.”

She headed for the airlock door, with Aarhus striding at her heels. As Festina passed the robot of Admiral Macleod, she stopped and picked up the stun-pistol that had fallen from the android’s hand. The sergeant nodded approvingly.

Lady Bell lingered sullenly behind for a count of three; then she must have realized she was standing within arm’s reach of Uclod and me without anyone near enough to intervene if hostilities broke out. She hastened most speedily after Festina and Aarhus.

Uclod took one of Lajoolie’s arms and I took the other. Together we guided her forward. When we reached the airlock, Nimbus was already there, hovering in a foggy ball above everyone’s head.

“All right,” Festina said, “time to attack an entire shipload of hyper-advanced aliens on their home turf.” She sighed. “Why I love being a goddamned Explorer.”

“I too love being a goddamned Explorer,” I said, proudly fingering my black jacket.

“Oar,” Festina said, “you’re a total fucking lunatic. Fortunately, that’s exactly what we need.” She waved a hand at Aarhus, who was standing by the airlock controls. “Push the button, Sergeant. Immortality awaits.”

Lady Bell’s Personal Limitations

The door of the airlock opened—and the first thing I noticed was dirt. The smell of dirt, loamy and cloying; the sight of dirt on the ground, dark and glinting with flecks of minerals; the feel of dirt in the air, gritty and humid and hot. Festina, standing in the airlock doorway, took a moment to inhale the deep soil scent…then she threw herself outside and assumed an aggressive posture with pistol in hand, quickly scanning the area for hostile forces.

After five seconds, she gestured for the rest of us to join her. We clambered out into dank sluggish air that pressed most tepidly against one’s skin—all except Lady Bell, who remained shuddering in the airlock.

“What’s wrong?” Festina asked her.

The lady replied, “It’s horrid!”

She stared at the area surrounding us. It had the appearance of a vast tropical mud flat, simmering in twilight just after the sizzling sun has gone down. It even had some kind of foliage—not close to the ship, but off in the distance, clusters of trees and undergrowth rose high from the soil. Farther away still, dirt-covered walls towered up, up, up; in the dusky light, the top of the walls disappeared into shadow, but I assumed that far overhead there must be a roof closing us off from the vacuum outside. We were, after all, inside the stick-ship, even if this great chamber was so huge it seemed like out-of-doors.

“What is so horrid?” I asked Lady Bell. “The temperature is hotter than one enjoys, but there are no robots trying to shoot us. Also, in a spacious enclosure such as this, one can see potential enemies from quite far off, yet there is no sign of anybody. I believe for the moment we are safe.”

“Knock on wood,” Aarhus muttered under his breath.

“But…but…” Lady Bell said, “it’s so…raw. And open. And
exposed.
”

“Bloody hell,” Uclod said to Festina, “are Cashlings agoraphobic?”

“Now that I think of it,” Festina replied, “they put all their cities under opaque force domes—which is completely unnecessary on most of their planets. And my old partner Yarrun once told me he visited a Cashling city and wanted to leave the dome to see the countryside…but nobody knew if there was a doorway out. He thought it was crazy: they had a constant flow of people shuttling up and down to orbital space stations, but the Cashlings never went sideways, out into the trees and fresh air.”

“We don’t
need
trees and fresh air,” Lady Bell said, clutching one edge of the airlock doorway as if she were afraid we might drag her outside. “We’re
civilized.
Cities have all the necessities of life…and they don’t have insects. Or poisonous weeds. Or trees that might fall on you.”

“If a tree attempts to fall on you,” I told her, “jump out of the way. Trees are famed for their slow reaction times.”

Lady Bell ignored me. “I think…” she said. “I think I should check on my husband. Yes. That’s what I should do. He must be lying unconscious, somewhere inside. The poor
darling
. I’d better find him and make sure he’s all right.”

Without waiting for an answer, she pushed a button on the airlock control panel and the door swished shut in front of her. Uclod stared after her a moment, then made the odd hiss-whistle noise he and Lajoolie had produced just before vomiting. Obviously, this was his race’s expression of supreme disgust. “I was wondering when she’d remember her missing husband. That Rye guy goes off to fetch food, he gets zapped by the Shaddill, and our godly prophet-lady doesn’t give him the least little thought till she decides to turn chicken.”

“Some men don’t like their wives to fuss,” Lajoolie murmured. “And some women learn to hide their concern.”

We all stared at her a moment; then we quickly turned away and gazed at our feet. “Let’s take a look around,” Festina said in a muttery voice. We were glad to follow her forward.

Footprints

The great mud flats stretched in all directions. There was plenty of space to hold all the Cashling ships that had been captured thus far; and even as we watched, another small crusade vessel descended from the sky on a red beam of light, to be deposited a short distance from
Unfettered Destiny
. The other Cashling craft sat close by—no doubt to make it easier for the admiral robots to move from one ship to the next, looking for…well, looking for me.

I had clearly been their quarry. Apart from wondering why that was—and I wondered about it a great deal—one had to ask what the robots were supposed to do after I was secured. If, for example, they were under orders to carry my unconscious body to a place of imprisonment, how long before the Shaddill realized the robots had been waylaid? Perhaps only a few minutes. We must needs act quickly, before an alarm was raised; we had to bring the Shaddill to their knees (if they were such creatures as possessed knees) before they even knew we were coming.

But where to go? We were in the middle of the flats, with no exit in sight. Almost certainly, there had to be a door in the distant wall of the chamber—perhaps many doors. But the wall was curtained off by those thick stands of trees, and in the grayish twilight, it was impossible to see where doors might be hidden. Considering how large this hangar area was (almost the size of the cavern that held Oarville), it would take hours to walk the circumference…perhaps longer if the jungle-ish forests at the edge hindered our progress.

The same thoughts must have passed through Festina’s mind. She had stopped on a clear patch of ground and was turning in a slow circle, peering at the horizon with narrowed eyes. “Wish I had a Bumbler,” she muttered. That was a device human Explorers carried for scanning their surroundings; it had many Scientific Abilities, such as amplifying dim light and magnifying faraway objects. However, we did not possess such a device, so we would be forced to rely on our own ingenuity.

I am excellent at ingenuity.

“Here is what we must do,” I said. “We must spread out to look for tracks. The robots were heavy creatures of metal, and the ground is only dirt. They must surely have left discernible footprints. We shall find those footprints and follow them back to the point where the robots entered this chamber.”

Uclod’s mouth dropped open. “Missy!” he said, in tones of admiration. “Good thinking!”

“Oar’s right,” Festina agreed. “Let’s be quick about this.”

The footprints close to the Cashling ships were too jumbled to read; but when we fanned out a short distance, Sergeant Aarhus found a clear pair of booted tracks leading back in a straight line toward the distant walls. They were like a great big sign saying
THIS WAY OUT
.

Since time was short, we followed the tracks at a run…and since Uclod was short, Lajoolie carried him. (Nimbus showed no apparent difficulty keeping up with our pace—he simply compacted his body into a horizontal raindrop shape and flew right along beside us.)

It took five minutes to reach the trees: five minutes during which we saw nothing but mud, mud, mud. The mud was not the deep mucky kind, and our feet were not completely swallowed with every footfall; nevertheless, the run was strenuous business, especially for one with low reserves of energy. If at the end I was wheezing, it is not evidence I was piteously out of shape—I was in
excellent
shape. How many of
you
could pass four years without food, then run for five minutes on muddy terrain? You would most likely die from exertion…and when you arrived in the afterlife, you would say to the Hallowed Ones, “We are sorry we mocked poor Oar for gasping a little bit. She is clearly a splendid physical specimen, and doubting her was very very wrong.”

Apology accepted.

Mini-Chilis

As we came in under the trees, we were forced to slow down—not because I was panting for air and feeling most fluttery in the stomach, but because the undergrowth was prohibitively profuse. The only way forward lay along a narrow path that had apparently been slashed by the robots; this was not a long-established trail, but a route that had recently been forced through the snarl by dint of brute strength. If there was indeed an exit door somewhere ahead, it must not be used very often.

We had only gone a short distance forward when Festina stopped and craned her head back to look up into one of the trees. Here in the forest shadows, everything was harder to see than in the open…but I could make out yellowish objects hanging amongst the tree’s dark leaves. Festina jumped high and grabbed one, pulling it off its stem with a soft pop. When she held it out for the rest of us to examine, I saw it was a waxy fruit the color of dandelions, two fingers wide at the stem and narrowing down to a point.

“Looks like a half-sized yellow chili pepper,” Aarhus said.

Festina nodded. “Back home, we called them mini-chilis. The trees grew wild all over Agua.”

“This is a tree from your home planet?”

She shook her head. “It wasn’t native to Agua, it was a transplant. Don’t know where it came from originally, but it was brought by Las Fuentes…those aliens who abandoned their colonies five thousand years ago.” She looked down at the fruit. “Everywhere Las Fuentes went, they planted minichilis. Must have been one of their favorite foods.”

My mouth watered. “Are mini-chilis tasty?”

“Don’t know,” Festina told me. “Humans who try to eat them always keel over and die before describing the flavor. Totally poisonous to terrestrial life. Our farm lost dozens of cattle because of the damned things—whenever a cow escaped from pasture, she headed straight for the nearest mini-chili tree and gobbled whatever fruit she found on the ground. I guess animals liked the smell; either that, or our herds were suicidal.”

Festina looked at the chili a moment longer, then folded her fingers over it in a tight squeeze. “Nasty stuff,” she murmured. I thought she intended to hurl it away, but instead she tucked it carefully into a jacket pocket.

Explorers are like that—even in moments of tension, they feel compelled to take plant samples.

Overmany Coincidences

“So,” Aarhus said in pensive tones, “this tree was a favorite of Las Fuentes…and it’s here on a Shaddill ship.”

“Makes you think, doesn’t it?” Festina took a few more steps down the trail, her gaze moving carefully over the jungle. “A lot of these other plants look familiar too—things from the Agua rainforest. That vine…we called it monkey rope. And this thorn bush is
madre sangrienta
. Both came to Agua courtesy of Las Fuentes.” She stared at the
madre
bush a moment longer, then turned back to us. “It would take a laboratory to prove these were the same species as the ones on my world; but at first glance, they seem identical.”

“Which means what?” Uclod asked.

Festina shrugged. “Las Fuentes abandoned their holdings five thousand years ago. A few centuries later, the Shaddill made their first appearance when they removed Oar’s ancestors from Earth. Could be that in those missing years, Las Fuentes became the Shaddill.”

“But,” said I, “Las Fuentes became horrible purple jelly.”

“That’s what the horrible purple jelly claimed,” Festina told me. “It wouldn’t be the first time an alien told a lie.”

She started down the trail again. We followed glumly…and I for one made sure I did not step on the poison fruit.

How To Talk To Doors

It turns out that jackets catch on thorns and nettles. Jackets catch on such things
all the time
. Back on Melaquin, I had never bothered to give wide berth to these hazards, for my skin is impervious to prickly annoyances; now, however, I was constantly getting snagged on passing vegetation, to the point where I strongly considered taking off my jacket and flinging it into the bush. I suppressed this impulse only because Festina had inducted me into the Explorer Corps…and perhaps, if she saw me treating the uniform in cavalier fashion, she would think she had made a mistake. It would be very most sad if Festina said, “Oar, you do not behave like a proper Explorer, so you cannot be one any longer.” Therefore, I continued to wear my jacket and simply yanked it loose whenever it got hooked on grabby undergrowth. Sometimes bits of cloth remained behind on the thorns, but it is not my fault if navy apparel suffers from shoddy manufacture.

Because of the snagging and yanking, moving through the jungle was almost as strenuous as running. It was not out-of-breath strenuous; but the constant exertion made my insides feel watery. Then my head went watery too—not a sudden dizziness but a growing sense of disconnection, as my feet kept walking but my mind drifted off. I found myself dreaming of the lovely brightness in my Tower of Ancestors: how peaceful it had been to lie empty for the past four years, without worrying about thorns, or awful Shaddills, or the many ways my life had never gone
anywhere
…

Muddled blankness crept up on me so stealthily I did not feel it: blankness from fatigue and insufficient food. Time passed in a blur, which is to say, in a discontinuous jump…because the next thing I knew, I was leaning in great exhaustion against a dirt-encrusted wall, with my cheek and nose pressed into the grimy surface.

I turned my head blearily and saw Lajoolie staring at me with fearful concern; the others, however, had focused their attention on a door in the wall a few paces away from me. This door was the metal kind that slides open and shut. At the moment, it was closed…and there was no obvious mechanism for opening it. No doorknob, no latch, no button, no dial.

“We could bash it down,” Uclod suggested. He turned to Lajoolie. “You wouldn’t mind doing that, would you, sweetheart?”

Lajoolie gave me a plaintive look, suggesting she would mind very much: I do not think she wanted to use her great strength ever again. Her face overflowed with relief when Festina said, “No bashing if we can help it. For one thing, it’ll make noise. For another, the door might have defense mechanisms—alarms or maybe stunners.”

“So what do we do instead?” Uclod asked.

Festina ran her hands over the door’s surface, obviously groping for unusual features. As she did, she told the rest of us, “Look around nearby. Maybe there’s a hidden switch.”