Barsk (39 page)

After half of forever, the door opened and admitted his new friend, the Sloth. With a whimper, Pizlo buried his face in the folds of her kaftan, clinging to her with his trunk, his useless hands trying to hold on as well, there in the open doorway.

“It's about to happen!” he sobbed.

She dropped a hand to lightly touch one of his ears but otherwise focused all her attention on the senator standing in a passive slump deeper in the room. Her mouth executed a flat, frowning line on her face as she said, “Sir? Your biosigns have jumped to a pattern I've not seen before. Do you feel all right?”

The Bos made no reply.

“Don't look at him. Please, we have to go. It's too horrible. We shouldn't be here when it happens.”

“What are you going on about? Is this something you saw? Your own readings are peaking again.”

“I can't tell you. I mean, I can, but it won't help. It won't make sense to you now, and later it still won't make sense but in a different way. But it's horrible.”

“Is he hurt? Did he have a stroke?”

“No, no, please, can we just find Jorl? They'll be able to help us. I know they will.” He lifted his head from her clothes to dare a quick look back at the Yak. “Please, he's going to get too quiet. No one should get so quiet.”

“Quiet? Who, Jorl?”

“No, no, Senator Bish. He's going to go all quiet. Quieter than anybody ever.”

She pulled him a half-step into the room and did something to the threshold. The door closed tight again, with them still inside. Pizlo wailed in terror.

“Hush, Little Prince. I know you don't want to stay here, but you're too important to leave roaming on your own, and I have to take care of the senator. Just sit here by the door. Close your eyes. It won't take long to run a full scan on him. Shh.” She disengaged his trunk from her clothing, patted it twice, and crossed the room to the senator, her long arms wide and the many shiny bits on her clothes blinking as she began her work.

Pizlo curled up, knees to his chest. He tucked his bandaged hands around his ankles as best he could and draped his trunk over his crossed wrists, looping up behind them. He squeezed his eyes tight and rocked in place, ignoring the soft sounds of the Sloth's questions, knowing the Yak couldn't answer. The part of him that talked had left. Pizlo knew that, even if he didn't understand it. That wasn't the scary part. Right now the senator was just like a man walking in his sleep. But all the bits and pieces the moons had shared with Pizlo were coming together now. When Bish woke up everything would be wrong and different.

And then he remembered he had to do one other thing first.

“Druz? Can you pick me up?”

“Can I … Be still, Little Prince. I'll come get you in a moment. I'm still trying to determine what's happened to the senator. He seems entranced, but it's more than that.”

Pizlo bit his lip and pushed away from the door, heading to the Sloth where she stood alongside the Yak.

“He's just talking with Jorl. And this is important. I have to do it now. I'd climb him like a tree, but my hands don't work right and I can only use my trunk.”

“Climb him? Who, the senator? What are you talking about?”

He tugged at her clothes. “Please, we're almost out of time. Pick me up.”

Frowning, Druz swept her diagnostic sleeves back and carefully lifted Pizlo, bracing the boy against her side, until he was positioned between her and senator Bish.

“Thanks!”

“Now, what was so important that—”

Pizlo's whipped his trunk across the Bos's chest and into his robe, darting and questing until his nubs closed around the object of his desire.

“Here now! What are you doing? Stop that!”

Pizlo pulled his trunk back, coiling it against his chest. In its tip he gripped an odd ring of metal and wood like stone. He squirmed and wriggled and pushed against the Sloth with both feet until of necessity she had to let him go. He careened to the floor, changing the fall into a shoulder roll at the last moment and ultimately ended up on his feet. He scurried back to his place by the door.

“That was the last bit. I almost forgot, but now it's done. He'll go all quiet now.”

Druz frowned. The senator hadn't moved or changed in any way since she'd arrived. She shifted her attention back to the young Fant and went to join him at the door. “You said that before. Why?”

“He's going to wake up soon. But when he does, you won't remember him. Nobody will.”

“What do you mean, Little Prince?”

“You know how you're talking to me? And how, later on, even if I'm not there, you can remember us talking? It's cuz a bit of my voice stays with you.”

The Brady smiled. “That's a funny way to describe nefshons and memory, but I think I follow you.”

“And you've got little bits of voices of everyone you know, right?”

“I suppose.”

“When Senator Bish wakes up, it will be because everyone who ever had a bit of his voice will have had it taken away. It's horrible. He'll be more quiet than anyone ever. And no one will remember him at all.”

“That can't happen.”

“It can. It will. You won't even remember me saying these things, because it's about him, and you can't even think about him without hearing that little bit of his voice. Everything it touches will go away with it. Everything.”

“Nothing like that is possible.”

“It
is
. Because of what Arlo did.”

“You know Arlo?”

Pizlo sobbed. “He's … he's my dad.”

Druz blinked, paused, and regrouped before his eyes. “Little Prince, what are you holding in your trunk? Did you take something from the senator?”

“Yes…”

“Show me.”

“I had to. He's not going to need it now, and I do.” He uncoiled his trunk and held up Bish's ring of office.

The Sloth's gasp of surprise trailed off at the same moment that the Yak began shouting.

“Ha! I knew that coward would give up. Druz! Very good that you are here. Contact the
Resolute Purpose
. Instruct Nonyx-Captain Selishta to ignore previous orders and activate contingency plan B.”

The Sloth pulled her gaze from the child by her side and stared at the Yak in the middle of the room. “How do you know my name?”

Pizlo brought his bandaged hands up to cover his eyes, whispering, “Horrible.”

“Now, Druz, before that miserable freak tries any more of his tricks. And take the boy with you. If half of your findings are accurate, with a bit of training he'll grow up to be a grand addition to my staff … Wait, what are you playing at? Why does he have my ring?”

The Brady scooped up Pizlo under one arm like a bag of grain and pointed with the other straight out at the Bos, the gleaming trio of steel talons visible within her voluminous sleeve.

“Stay back. I don't know who you are, or what you're doing on the senator's vessel, but if you take so much as a step I will drop you where you stand.”

“What nonsense is this?”

She pressed a hidden release high on the door and out of Pizlo's reach. They backed out while it was still sliding open. Bish ignored her warning and came forward but she had it closed before he had crossed half the distance to the door. She dropped the Fant and pressed both hands to the threshold. Several slivers on her sleeves glimmered as spoke to the air. “Seal this door from all internal access. Emergency override.”

“He can't get to us?”

“You know him? Who was that? How did he appear on this ship?”

“You worked for him.” Pizlo, wiped at his eyes with his trunk. “But you don't remember him.”

The Sloth frowned. “I don't work for him. I'm the senator's personal aide.”

“Which senator?”

“Don't be silly, Little Prince. I work for Senator … Senator … Oh my. I don't understand. How can I not know that?”

“I tried to tell you. Come on. Let's go find Jorl. He's really good at explaining stuff.”

“Jorl? Is there someone else on my ship I don't know about?”

“No, he's on the station.”

“What station?”

“That's where your ship is docked. You remember telling me about that, don't you?”

“Actually, I do. I just don't remember what station.” She looked down at him. “And I don't remember how we met.”

“It's not important. What's important is that you're my new friend. And I'm going to introduce you to my oldest friend.”

 

THIRTY-EIGHT

LOOSE ENDS

“
I HAD
it wrong. Three different times, I had it completely wrong.”

Castleman knelt next to Jorl, hands to his arm and shoulder helping him sit up. “What are you saying? What just became of Bish?”

Jorl struggled to his feet and steadied himself, ears fanning briskly.

“You remember Senator Bish?”

“What? Why wouldn't I. He was just here.”

“Who was here?” Senator T'Minah stepped from the line of committee members. “What just happened?”

The other senators murmured in agreed confusion.

“Senators,” said Jorl, “Do you remember why I brought you here?”

“You brought us this human from Before, upsetting some of my fellow senators,” answered Welv, now the ranking member on her committee, whether she knew it or not. “And you yammered on and on about that Fant prophet of yours and her vision of the Silence.”

“Hmm. Well, I was wrong about that. Margda's Silence wasn't the secret you've been harboring about our origins. It was what just happened to Senator Bish.”

“Who?”

Jorl sighed and spread his hands. “Your committee has twenty-five members, yes? Look among yourselves, all of you. Can any of you tell me who is missing?”

The senators' murmuring grew louder as they gestured at one another.

Castleman whispered to Jorl, “Why don't they know Bish any longer?”

“Because I've stripped all his nefshons away, and with them their memories of every interaction.”

“So none of the senators can remember him?”

“Not just the senators. Almost no one. I still do, because I did it. And you, I think, because you have no physicality; your knowledge of him exists only in this construct I created for you. There are doubtless thousands of physical records that refer to him, but the people who created them don't remember doing it. Nothing he did that touched another person remains in memory.”

The Prairie Dog erupted with a shrill whistle to get Jorl's attention.

“We concede you have stumped us, young man. And we stipulate to being impressed, both by your ability to summon us all together here, and with your display of the human. But to what point?”

“There are gaps in your memory. The missing member of your committee committed crimes against my planet and people, admittedly without your knowledge. All of that is moot now. You know, I thought it was a mistake that the Eleph and Lox accepted being locked away, and I deliberately left home to be out in the rest of the galaxy and meet different peoples, but right now I just want to go home. Before I do, I want your assurance that you'll continue to honor the Compact and leave us alone.”

“And will you observe your side of the agreement?”

Jorl nodded. “As we have for the past eight hundred years.”

The senators formed a huddle and argued among themselves for a time. Most of the debate passed in hushed tones, though Jorl could make out a few phrases like “precedent of paradox” and “engagement without representation” from one or another of the pair of Marmo senators; Woodchucks being notorious for getting loud when excited. The Urs senator from Marbalarma dropped a heavy hand on the Marmo's shoulder, which friendly reminder took the volume back down below the threshold of even a Fant's excellent hearing. When they at last broke apart, Welv stepped over to Jorl and stared up into his face.

“I speak for this entire committee. Unusual circumstances require unusual—and atypically swift—decisions. After eight hundred years, none among us is surprised that some have grown … chafed by the arrangements codified by your Compact. But that is the way of most compromises, and it continues to bring more benefit to the Alliance than discomfort. The Compact stands. Further, we will set in motion a subcommittee to ensure that any attempts to rally support to abolish or otherwise break this agreement will themselves come under our scrutiny and be … ah, discouraged. With prejudice.”

Jorl's ears fell limp as the tension slipped from him. Ensuring Barsk's status quo was as great a prize as he could hope for. “Thank you. I think that's the best solution for everyone.”

The elderly Prairie Dog favored him with a flat smile. “I'm pleased you approve, but there is more. Your people's isolation will continue, but with a change. We are concerned that a world possessing such importance to the Alliance has operated so long without direct input to the senate. Further, that this committee which defines itself as knowledgeable of all things could be so ignorant. Therefore, we specifically require something of you, Jorl ben Tral.”

“Me?”

“Who better? You've trained as a scholar, but your actions today show you are capable of more than just producing academic publications. You are a manifestation of your people's traditions, but nonetheless stepped beyond them to leave your world behind.”

“But what do you want of me?”

Welv's smile vanished. “It is not about ‘want,' but rather, as I have said, ‘require.' You have brought us together across galactic distances, puzzled us with our own number, and threatened us with your knowledge of our greatest secret. These are troubling points, but a solution presents itself.”

“Which is?”

“We have agreed to add you to our committee. You will swear to keep our secret of the time Before, because it is now your secret as well.”