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Authors: James Alan Gardner

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BOOK: Ascending
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He made another loud hawking sound and spat out a blob of stringy gray and white. “Besides,” he continued, “I
like
people thinking I’m an asshole. Being an asshole is my life’s vocation; I’m a goddamned asshole professional. When other people act like assholes, they’re doing it on their own time, but me, it’s my
job
.”

“Is that why you have come then? Someone is paying you to annoy me? Because you are very most irritating indeed, and I do not wish to spend time with you unless you promptly explain what you want.”

The glowing eyes in his throat burned brighter. Before speaking, he glanced toward Starbiter; but the little Zarett had got herself distracted with the two-headed slugs that swam in the lava pools. It appeared she was
bouncing
on the vermin with great delight, splashing up fierce hissing splutters of magma each time she smacked the boiling surface. The heat did not bother her a bit…but then, she had already traveled through a sun, so how could she be harmed by mere molten minerals?

“All right,” the Pollisand said, turning back to me, “let’s talk business. I don’t often make deals with lesser species, but you’re in a unique position, even if you don’t know it.” The Pollisand’s eyes flared brightly. “Oar, my sweet, my sugar, my sucrose-based carbohydrate, suppose I had a way that your brain would never get Tired? Would that interest you? Hmm?”

Temptations

I stared at him speechless for several heartbeats. More out of reflex than conviction, I said, “My brain never
will
get Tired, you foolish beast. I am not such a one as succumbs to mind-numbing ennui.”

“Unlike your mother?” the Pollisand asked. “And the hundred generations before her? They all swore they wouldn’t turn into mental rutabagas, but now they’re cluttering up a thousand glass towers.”

He stomped his foot and suddenly the world changed. There was no garden, no lava, no scarlet-ash sky; we were back in Oarville with mute snow swirling through the air.

The Pollisand and I stood atop the Tower of Ancestors where I had suffered my great fall. Some distance off, near the edge of the roof, the small figure of Starbiter gave a surprised yelp, then bounced speedily toward us. Within seconds, she was pressed fearfully against my leg, clearly disturbed by the sudden change of scenery.

I knelt and gave her a reassuring pat. A tiny amount of goo came off onto my hand, but I could not feel it—this was still a simulation, giving me sight and sound but not touch. Continuing to stroke the worried Starbiter, I glared at the Pollisand. “Why are we here?”

“Just a visual demonstration, lass.” He stomped his foot again, and the city changed. Instead of the many different buildings it had held before, now it was filled with Ancestral Towers exactly like the one beneath my feet: tens of thousands of them, shining brightly but somehow not illuminating the cavern around us.

“Oar,” the Pollisand said, “this is your world and your people. Damned near comatose—as good as dead. Only a few dozen of your species haven’t gone zombie; and how soon before they give in? How soon before
you
do?”

He lifted one foot and waved it casually at the vista: tower after tower, stretching back as far as I could see, much farther than the actual wall of the cavern. “Up till now,” he said, “there’s only been one way to keep your gray cells from turning to zucchini—throw yourself over and go
KER
-
SPLAT
. Smash your body to mush before your brain mushes out on its own. You’ve taken the high dive once, Oar; it’s still there for you. Cast your cares to the wind and die a decent death. This time I promise I won’t sew you back together. Nor will angels appear to bear you up safely.”

I stared at him. “Why would I imagine angels should appear? That is a most absurd notion.”

The Pollisand gave an ostentatious sigh. “Classical allusions are just lost on you, aren’t they? I suppose there’s no point my even
suggesting
you turn stones into bread.”

“You may suggest such a thing, but I cannot do it. Can you? I would be most happy if you did, for I have not eaten in quite some time. But if you do bake bread from stones, make sure it is
good
bread—not the horrid opaque substance Explorers are so proud of cooking.”

“Okay,” the Pollisand muttered to himself, “scratch the three-temptations scenario. Didn’t work the last time I tried it either. On to Plan B.”

He stomped his foot more forcefully than ever, and in the blink of an eye, we were back where we started: in the garden, surrounded by steaming lava. Starbiter bleated with excitement and bounced off to bother the wildlife. Meanwhile, the Pollisand kicked the heads off a couple flowers and ground the blooms under his heel. “All right,” he said. “We were talking business.
Deals
.” He gave the plants one more whack, then turned back to me. “I was proposing you could avoid rampaging senility, if only you play ball with me.”

“What sort of ball do you wish to play?”

“It was only a metaphor, damn it!” The Pollisand squashed another patch of flowers, leaving his foot red with their juices. “I’m suggesting a simple agreement. An exchange of favors. My favor is I’ll ensure your brain doesn’t go Tired.”

“And what do you wish in return?”

“I wish…” He took a deep breath. “I want…well, to put it in terms you’ll understand, I want you to tell the League of Peoples it’s okay if I accidentally get you killed.”

The Deal

“It is
not
okay if you get me killed! That is very much not okay at all!” I glared at him in outrage; he had red flower sap all over his foot and I hoped it would stain
forever.

“Why isn’t it okay?” he demanded. “Point one, you’ve already died once and I was the one who brought you back to life; you owe me big-time, lady. Point two, your brain’s almost curdled to gorgonzola, and when it goes, you’re as good as dead anyway. Point three, I’m so far above you on the ladder of sentience my IQ can only be measured with transfinite numbers, and I promise there’s only the teeniest-tiniest-eensiest-weensiest chance my plan will go wrong enough to get you killed.”

“Hmph,” I said. “Tell me your plan and let me judge for myself.”

“Tell you my plan? I can’t tell you my plan. My plan is so complex, your brain doesn’t have the capacity to comprehend it. This entire
universe
doesn’t have the capacity to comprehend my plan—there aren’t enough quarks to encode the simplest overview. I’ve got fifty-five million backup universes grinding away at figuring out what I have to do next, and that’s just the underlying logic, not the user interface. No way I can tell you my plan.”

“In other words,” I said, “you do not
have
a plan.”

“Well, I’ve got a few rough ideas. My greatest strength is improvising.”

One of the red eyes in his throat disappeared for a moment, then blazed back to life; I had an eerie feeling the Pollisand had just winked at me. “Seriously, kiddo,” he said, “I have plans upon plans upon plans, reaching all the way down to the end of time. I have agendas both social and temporal, I have schemes both simple and ornate; I create conspiracies and tear them apart; my name is a byword for foresight and I have honed the blade of strategy to a razor’s edge.”

“If you always talk this much,” I said, “it is a wonder you have time for planning at all.”

“Damn, but you’re a stick-in-the-mud,” he grumbled. “All right, I do have a plan, okay? It’s a good plan, aimed at a noble purpose…but there’s a teeny-tiny-eensy-weensy chance that at a particular point as events unfold you’ll die rather permanently. Under circumstances where I won’t be able to patch you up like the last time. And that’s where I run afoul of the League of Peoples: cuz if I have this foreknowledge, which I do, of a lethal danger, which there is, to a sentient creature, which you are—borderline sentient, but you’re still on the civilized side of the ledger—then I’m morally obliged to ask if it’s okay I might get you murdered. Basically, you have to agree you want to achieve the same lofty goal I do…at which point it ceases to be
me
putting your life at risk, but
you
accepting the risk yourself because you’re so doggone eager to do the right thing.”

“And what is this right thing I so recklessly wish to do?”

“Um. Well.” The Pollisand stubbed his toe bashfully into the dirt, a gesture no doubt intended to appear winningly ingenuous. “Do I really have to tell you? Couldn’t you just take my word, as a being seventy-five trillion rungs higher than you on the evolutionary ladder, that I’m honestly pursuing the greatest good for the greatest number?”

“I do not care about the greatest good for the greatest number,” I said. “Most people are poop-heads; I do not care about them
at all
. And I have no confidence you are as clever and advanced as you claim to be—all I have seen you do is simulate visions using Starbiter.”

The Zarett heard her name and began bouncing toward me…until she became distracted by a bug flying by, and bounced after it instead. I turned back to the Pollisand. “Zaretts do not seem so high on the evolutionary ladder. I have seen no evidence that you are either.”

“Ah,” the Pollisand said, “but perhaps my facade is an act. A truly advanced being might realize it’s best to approach lesser species in a nonthreatening way—as a ridiculous-looking creature who comes across as a pompous jerk barely able to keep his foot out of his mouth. It puts you at ease, doesn’t it, when you say,
This Pollisand guy isn’t so scary; he’s not the swaggering staggering supergenius the rest of the universe thinks he is.
You catch me making a few goofs, you throw my words back in my face, and after a while, you relax cuz you think I’m not smart enough to pull the wool over your eyes.”

If this was an attempt to disconcert me, it nearly worked. A vastly intelligent beast who controlled what I saw and heard might indeed present himself as a silly buffoon so as not to be taken too seriously. On the other hand, a silly buffoon might boast of himself as a vastly intelligent beast who was merely play-acting. Which was more likely?

“The most important point,” I said, “is that I wish to know the direction of your plan. What is your goal? What is your purpose?”

The Pollisand shuffled his feet. “All right. The part of the plan that concerns you—the
immediate
part of the plan—is related to the race you call the Shaddill.”

“Are you
for
them or
against
them?” I asked.

“I fervently want,” the Pollisand said, “to wipe them off the face of this galaxy. And your part in the plan will help accomplish that.”

“Why did you not say so?” I reached out and laid my arm across the alien’s back in a comradely manner. “Of course I shall help you defeat the Shaddill…especially if you fix my Tired Brain too. You should have known I would say yes if you put it like that.”

“I
did
know,” the Pollisand said in a soft voice totally unlike his previous obnoxious tone.

Suddenly, I realized I could
feel
my arm lying on the Pollisand’s hide…and as soon as I realized that, I could feel the ground beneath my feet too. A hot stinking wind blew around me, and the crimson flowers brushing my legs felt scratchy against my calves. Nearby, little Starbiter yelped in fright and bounced fearfully toward me, leaping high at the last and jumping straight into my arms. I caught her and held her; when she pressed her gooey body against my chest, I felt her warm trembling stickiness.

The Pollisand turned toward me and the fire of his deep-buried eyes blazed hotter than all the lava pools around us. A wave of scorching heat struck me square in the face, a blistering slap so fierce I feared my cheeks would melt…and suddenly, I had the terrifying suspicion this was all
real
, that the Pollisand had truly transported me across untold light-years to this lava world, and shrunk Starbiter to the size of a puppy, and kept me from feeling the boiling temperatures so I would believe it was only an illusion…

Then everything went black: black with lonely stars. My body was back in its former position, seated rigidly upright. When I looked around, all I saw was Starbiter’s stringy physique, returned to its normal size: big enough that she could hold me in a tiny corner of her lungs, instead of being cradled in my arms.

One might think it had all been a dream; but my face still burned as if it had been shoved into searing flame.

4
Although I had never seen a living rhinoceros, the teaching machines in my village had shown me many excellent pictures of them. Also elephants. And kangaroos. And many other creatures who did not make their homes in my part of the world but had endearing qualities such as being eaten by their mates or spitting lethal venoms.

8
WHEREIN I CANNOT FIND A GOOD PLACE TO BE

Back To The Mundane

A few minutes later, someone groaned beside me. “Uclod?” I whispered. “Pollisand?”

A voice muttered garbled words. I did not recognize the language, nor did I recognize the voice—it was too deep for Uclod, too guttural for the Pollisand. “Lajoolie?” I whispered. Perhaps this growling baritone was what she sounded like when not putting on her false soprano. I strongly hoped that was the explanation, because I did not want to deal with another unknown visitor. “Lajoolie, is that you?”

“Unh…unh…” Unfocused moans came out in the same baritone. Then the voice forced itself to a higher pitch: “What happened? What did you do to me?”

It
was
Lajoolie—past her initial grogginess, and now remembering to feign more missish tones. More missish questions too: when she said, “What did you do to me?” she did not sound like someone who truly believed I had worked some devilish trick on her. I got the feeling she spoke as she thought a certain type of woman would; a flighty
helpless
woman, not a woman whose body was covered with more muscles than a dead squirrel has flies. Clearly, Lajoolie possessed a confused self-image I would have to investigate when I had the time…but for now, I was simply happy not to be alone anymore.

“There was a terrible stick-thing,” I told her. “What you called a Shaddill ship. It shot you with a Diabolical Weapon Ray, leaving me to effect an escape single-handed. Which I did most proficiently. Since then, I have flown through the sun and defeated the human navy, not to mention meeting…”

I stopped myself. Perhaps it would not be so prudent to disclose my encounter with the Pollisand. Someone like Lajoolie (or even worse, Uclod) might chide me most scathingly for entering into a poorly defined pact with a powerful alien of dubious motives. Therefore I resolved not to speak of the Pollisand until I had time to ponder the ramifications on my own.

The Vexation Of Newlywed Sentiments

Off to my left, a noise went click. The next moment, something crawled up my face—the icky intestine covering my head. It had been in place so many hours, I had forgotten it was there. My vision went black for a moment, then returned; only now I was seeing with my own eyes, where Uclod sat slumped in his chair and Lajoolie was just straightening up from the bumpy controls in front of her seat. Obviously, she had pressed a release that withdrew the linkage attached to our heads…and had also disengaged the straps holding us to our chairs. I felt myself being freed as the straps slithered back into the chair’s jellyfish upholstery; and it was a good thing I was not such a one as stiffened from periods of inactivity, or I would now be a Solid Mass Of Discomfort.

The straps around Uclod unclasped too. He would have toppled onto his nose if Lajoolie had not leapt to catch him. In that instant, I could see she was extremely fast as well as strong—especially for one who had just lain unconscious many hours. She eased Uclod back into his seat and spent an inordinate amount of fuss arranging him: positioning his body just so, with his head propped up instead of lolling to one side, his hands folded neatly in his lap, and so on…whereas
I
might have started by checking his pulse to see if other actions were worth the effort. It took at least a minute to convince myself Uclod was even breathing; but at last, when Lajoolie stopped fretting with him, I saw a definite rise and fall in his chest.

Once Lajoolie had composed her husband to her satisfaction, she seated herself on the floor at his feet and leaned against his legs. I believe she would have liked to lay her head on his knee or rest it in his lap—she was just the type to seek the most submissive posture available. However, she was too tall for either of those positions, so she contented herself with settling her arm across his thighs and huddling tight to his body. I watched her for a count of five, then said, “Should we not try to wake him?”

She lifted her head, meeting my gaze with large brown eyes. “How?” she asked.

“In stories,” I answered, “it is customary to slap the face. Beginning lightly, then with increasing force.”

“I don’t want to do that,” Lajoolie said.

“You would rather he stayed unconscious?”

“I’d rather he woke on his own. There’s no hurry, is there? You said we’ve escaped from the Shaddill. And Starbiter doesn’t need to be piloted—once you stopped giving her direct orders, she automatically adjusted her course toward New Earth. The heading was preprogrammed: I checked. So we’re going home and we can take our time.”

“But waiting is irksomely tedious. It is better when you make the next thing happen
right away.

Lajoolie stared at me a moment, then shook her head. With a slight smile, she hugged herself tighter to the unconscious little criminal and closed her eyes.

She was obviously doing this to vex me. Rather than stay and watch her pretend to be patient, I stomped out of the room to explore the ship.

Obstinate Doors

I did not do so well as an Explorer. There was only one way to leave the bridge: down the long tubular corridor whose floor had those corduroy ridges over bluish-white skin. The corridor led back to the room where I had landed after sliding down the throat…and I could see no other direction to go from there. Uclod said the Zarett had eighteen rooms, but I did not know where they were.

“Starbiter,” I said aloud, “we are friends now, are we not? We have ventured together into the sun…and far from home, in a place of lava, we nestled together for comfort. Therefore you know I am trustworthy, and you may safely open concealed doors to reveal your hidden depths.”

Silence.

“You may open them any time now, Starbiter. My comrade. My ally in times of distress.”

But nothing happened. I did not think my bouncing bleating friend would completely ignore me so soon after we had shared precious moments of closeness on an alien plain; more likely, she just could not hear me speaking. Few of us, after all, have ears in our lungs. If I wanted the Zarett to admit me to her inner recesses, I would have to find the proper places to rub my hand or tap my foot.

Therefore I experimented with rubbing the walls at random: palpating the soft mushiness, leaving fingerprints all over the yellow fungus that lit the room. From the first, I felt most foolish…but as time went on without success, I could not help a sense of betrayal—as if Starbiter was deliberately shutting me out like some unwanted cast-off.

That made me very sad. Besides the standoffish Zarett, the only people within light-years were in the other room, deliberately being husband and wife together…which was a most appalling spectacle of Married Sentimentality, and I would never want a person to sit at
my
feet, nor would I willingly sit at someone else’s. But I did not enjoy being all by myself inside a large creature’s lung. I did not even have the Explorer jacket I had brought from Melaquin; it was back in the bridge, and I refused to go get it. What would I say as I entered the room? “Excuse me, I wish something to hug for I am feeling glum?”

So I seated myself in the middle of the floor and squeezed my legs tight to my chest. I did not cry, not even a single tear; but I kept my eyes tight shut. My eyelids are a lovely silver, almost the only parts of my body that are opaque…and at that moment, with my face pressed against my knees, I did not wish to see
anything
.

(My legs act as distorting lenses. Sometimes, when I look through them, the world appears most strange and threatening indeed.)

One Does Not Expect Hauntings To Occur Inside Lungs

Something brushed my shoulder. I jerked in surprise—I had heard nobody approach. When I turned, I expected to see Uclod or Lajoolie, or perhaps some icky polyp protruding from the wall and trying to attach itself to me for unknown alien purposes.

I did not expect to see a ghost.

It was a thing made of mist, like the spooky patches of fog that form in hollows at sundown. Unlike our milky-white FTL field, this mist had no color: clear as a spray of water, and thin enough for me to see right through to the wall on the far side. But this was no random vapor wafting through Starbiter’s lungs like breath on a winter’s day; it had a vaguely human shape, with legs and arms and head. Nothing was distinct—the feet had no toes, the hands had no fingers, the face had no features at all—but this was definitely a coherent entity leaning over me. It had touched my shoulder with its barely substantial hand…and I could not help flinching, swatting the hand away.

My swat passed through the thing’s arm with no resistance: like sweeping my fingers through smoke. Though the mist looked like fog, it felt dry, and neither cold nor hot—just a tiny bit gritty, like dust.

“Go away, ghost,” I told it. “Go haunt someone else.” I waved my hand through its chest, trying to scatter it to bits. The particles of its body, droplets or ashes or soot, swirled on the wind of my movements, but did not fly apart. As soon as I stopped stirring up breeze, the thing drifted back to its original shape, a person leaning over me.

“Sad woman…sad woman…”

The words were a whisper, coming from the entity’s entire body: not just from its mouth area, but resonating completely from head to foot. “What is wrong, sad woman?” the creature whispered. “What hurts you?”

“Nothing hurts me,” I answered. “But I am easily annoyed by intrusive beings of unknown origin. What are you?”

“The ship’s mate…”

“What?” I said in outrage. “I was forced to drive this ship myself when there was a high-ranking crew member aboard? Were you incapacitated by the stick-ship’s weapon?”

“No,” the entity replied, “but I know nothing about…flying Starbiter. She would surely…not obey me…if I tried. I am not…a crew member; I am…the ship’s
mate.”

For a moment I just glowered at him. Then I realized what he was saying: that he was Starbiter’s
spouse
. The male of her species. Her
lover
. Which suggested that some or all of the tiny particles making up his body were Zarett
seed
—designed to fertilize whatever eggs Starbiter produced.

Quickly, I wiped my hands off on the floor.

Conversing With A Cloud

“What are you doing here?” I demanded. “We are in the lungs. Should you not be in another organ altogether? Doing whatever foul things a cloud man does to make babies?”

“I visit every organ on a regular basis,” the ghostly entity answered. “In addition to my…husbandly duties…” (he sounded most amused) “…I am also what you might call…a veterinarian. Or perhaps the ship’s engineer. I patrol my mate’s airways and bloodstream in search of…metabolic imbalances…” The misty figure gestured in my direction. “Which led me to you.”

“I am not a metabolic imbalance!”

The cloud man pointed to the place I was sitting. “You’re creating a hot spot,” came the whisper. “And I sensed the presence of…unfamiliar chemicals…”

“My chemicals are very familiar! Have you never heard of glass?”

“There are many kinds of glass,” the cloud said, “and you’re none of them. Your skin is…an amalgam of transparent polymers, serviced by an army of…sophisticated agent-cells…that perform general maintenance and…ward off external microbes. There are also…trace fluids on your exterior, the purpose of which I can’t identify. Not conventional perspiration—possibly just a light body wash to prevent you from caking with dust…possibly something more complicated. All such…biochemical compounds are cause for concern, given the slight but real chance they may have a detrimental effect on my…patroness.”

“Do not be foolish,” I told him. “You can see I have had no detrimental effect—Starbiter is healthy and happy.”

“At the moment, yes,” he answered. “But you’re a stranger with an alien biochemistry, and I find that troubling.”

“I am not a stranger,” I said, “I am Oar. An oar is an implement used to propel boats. Who are you, you poop-head cloud?”

“Nimbus,” he replied. “Or if you want the complete mouthful from the Bloodline Registry books,
Capella’s Coronal Nimbus of Lee-Thee Five.
” His mist suddenly went blurry…as if every particle of him was shuddering with distaste. “In my grandfather’s day,” he said, “Zarett males were called
Lucky
or
Fogbank
or
Rain Cloud
; but then our owners made contact with
Homo sapiens
and picked up the Earthling fondness for giving thoroughbreds ridiculous names. My previous mate was called
Princess Fly-in-Amber Heliopause,
whatever that means. The person who christened her didn’t speak a word of any Terran language, but he gave her a gobbledygook title to impress human buyers.”

The cloud man’s voice had gradually risen from a whisper to normal speaking volume. His new tone sounded a good deal like Uclod…as if Mr. Zarett had taken the little orange criminal’s voice as a model. I also noticed Nimbus was no longer hesitating between phrases. When he spoke his first words,
Sad woman,
it seemed he knew almost no English; now he spoke it overfluently. Perhaps Starbiter carried Ingenious Language Devices such as a mist man might employ to learn a new tongue within seconds. If so, it was most unfair—I put in weeks of diligent work to acquire my English, and disapproved of persons who bypassed the wholesomely tedious education process by using mechanical aids.

“I do not care about Zarett names,” I told him, “but if you dislike what people call you, choose something else.”

“It doesn’t work that way,” he answered. “We Zaretts have an unshakable instinct to defer to our masters, even when we’d dearly love to do otherwise. The compulsion is too strong to overcome, no matter what the rational part of us thinks about it. Being a good and obedient slave is hardwired into my genes.”

“You are not good and obedient if you complain about your master to someone you have just met. Do you think I will now go to Uclod and say, ‘Please change Nimbus’s name to Fluffy’?”

“It wouldn’t matter,” the mist man replied. “Uclod isn’t my owner. He’s just renting me…for stud purposes.”

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