“Anyway,” the Human continued, a bit too briskly and with his face turned away from me. “Want and like aren’t even close to where we are at the moment, are they? We’ve a lot to do first, my jelly-faced friend.”
I didn’t disagree.
I watched the display. The last of me trailed outward from the
Ahab,
adrift and alone. “That’s the end of it,” Ragem announced awkwardly. He knew, if couldn’t comprehend, the strong attachment I felt to even these tiny insignificant bits of myself.
“Then it’s time,” I said. “Do you want to land her, or should I?”
Ragem looked at the automated controls, then at me. “If it’s all the same to you, Esen, I think neither of us should.”
“Auto it is,” I agreed.
There wasn’t a shipcity or spaceport to receive the
Ahab
on our chosen landing site, the very lack a reassurance that we weren’t endangering other intelligent life.
The organisms coating this lush little world would just,
I thought looking at the display,
have to get out of the way.
As landings go, ours wasn’t bad. I cycled into the Lanivarian the moment I felt the ship’s gravity switch off. Ragem was already in motion, pulling on the hooded suit I’d bought for him.
“Could you have found anything more conspicuous for me to wear?” he complained again.
True, the suit fabric was gaudy enough to use as evening wear in a Denebian saloon. Its dark surface might conceivably blend in to some underbrush, if it didn’t flash with its own light every so often. Such was the nature of a senso-screen. “Do you want me to check it again?” I asked him.
The hood nodded.
I cycled into web-form.
Perfect.
To my web senses, Ragem was gone. The screen and its power outlay were right before me, but felt painful to even examine closely. “Good,” I said, cycling back after snatching a bit of mass from one of the few remaining plants. There were lots more outside.
Which was why I had decided to make my stand on Inhaven’s latest colony, Ag-colony 413, a project abandoned during the recent escalation of the dispute with the Tly since there hadn’t been any major investment in time or effort here for Inhaven to protect. We had carefully spread our chum lines leading to this world from six directions; the concentration gradients would peak here, in the system, as every particle obeyed the dictates of velocity we’d given it and continued on its course until crashing into atmosphere or rock. If I’d wanted to paint an immense sign advertising my presence, I couldn’t have done better.
There could be no time, or days until my Enemy tasted the trail and came to me.
But it would come,
I knew.
If there was any justice, maybe we’d have enough time to prepare.
Out There
SAFE at last. No pursuers, no energy weapons, no tricks.
Death flung itself past yet another uninhabited system. There were living things, but no life-forms worthy of its hunger.
Ah!
A shell. It took up the chase, reveling in how its quarry tried in vain to twist and evade. Death gathered itself for the kill, ready to rip out the softness hidden within—
What was this?
Death stopped, senses aflame. The shell, ignored, accelerated out of reach, its occupants escaping with a tale to use at the next barside gathering.
Death tasted.
Death
knew.
56:
Colony Night
“I AM not, I repeat, not, going to sleep in this.”
“Yes, you are.” I couldn’t believe this was going to be the failing point of all my plans.
Stupid Human!
“You wear it, then!”
“I don’t need it!”
“Says who!”
This was ridiculous.
I reached for the hood Ragem had just thrown at me, picking it up carefully from the grass. “Please, Paul. You’re being unreasonable.”
“Unreasonable?” the Human pulled himself up to his full height to better glare down at me, an effect spoiled by the way his hair, wet with sweat, stuck up in all directions. I tried not to twitch my nose, but he did smell. The senso-screen fabric had turned out to have one slight disadvantage as a disguise.
It was hot.
Ag-413 being a semitropical paradise and our landing at the equator hadn’t helped matters.
“Esen, I’m going to pass out in this thing,” he said, wilting again. “There’s got to be some other way.” Before I opened my mouth, Ragem shook his finger at me. “And I’m not taking off in the
Ahab.
”
I looked overhead, as if I’d be able to spot a blue projectile heading our way through the looming clouds and leafy giant ferns. “Give me your force blade,” I said, shaking my head at him.
“Killing me isn’t an option either,’ he quipped. I gave him a look he could interpret however he liked.
The suit had been crudely sealed together from three large pieces of senso-screen. Working together, Ragem and I were able to salvage enough still-functional material to make a sort of tent. I made him crawl into his sleeping bag, then draped the odd-shaped thing over him, propping up the end over his head with some branches. “It’s more comfortable,” he offered.
I cycled. He was invisible to my web sense, except for his feet. It was certainly confusing to detect nothing but appendages, but not confusing enough. They resonated as Human to me.
When I told Ragem, he tucked his feet up under the fabric just to be sure. “I still don’t understand why you aren’t wearing one of these. You’re the one it’s after.”
I looked upward again and didn’t bother answering.
We’d made camp at the edge of an artificial clearing. Inhaven had started work here; there had been signs of experimental crops and a rudimentary road system around the crude landing area as we’d dropped down. Any buildings and machinery had been removed, an orderly evacuation rather than a rout.
I walked back and forth, sometimes dropping to all fours for old times’ sake, sniffing the living messages on the night air. I’d already found what I was after, a magnificent giant fern, almost as old as I was, daunting in its mass and stillness.
Ersh,
I thought to myself,
this had better work.
I reviewed my planning for flaws, found dozens, and decided it was a pointless exercise at best. Shivering despite the warmth of the air, I turned and trotted back to where Ragem rested. I knew by the gleam of his eyes as I approached he was no more inclined to sleep than I was. So I lay down against him, tucked my nose under his arm, and tried to be a good example.
I’d never had a nightmare before, beyond a restless worrying about cliffs, not that I remembered anyway. Ersh had explained to me once that dreams were closer to the waking mind in ephemerals and so were sometimes experienced as the truth. In us, they lodged deeper, distinguishable only in that they faded while memory remained vivid and alive.
But this had the feel of nightmare to it.
I didn’t know my form. It wasn’t that I had none, or that I wore some new and unassimilated shape, both were patently impossible. I simply couldn’t recall anything about the thing I was.
I knew where I was, however. I was in Ersh’s room, her inner sanctuary. It was intact again, the way it should be. Then, as if the recognition distorted the image, it was in ruin. I choked on dust, yet didn’t know yet if I breathed air.
This couldn’t be true memory,
I realized, helpless to do more than live in it.
The air cleared again.
Ersh.
There she rested, in the perfection of her web-form, a message ready to taste in the air. I tried to cycle, to be able to understand.
I couldn’t. I was locked in this, this, thing!
Ersh’s surface became mirror-bright. I found myself staring at Ragem’s face, using his hands to touch it, to run down his body. Yet it was mine!
What was happening? What did it mean?
Suddenly, Ersh formed a mouth, with ragged sharp teeth framing it top, bottom, and sides. She advanced toward me. I screamed in horror and saw Ragem’s face—my face—screaming in the reflection. I couldn’t move. The mouth enlarged, bigger, bigger. It was larger than I and coming closer . . .
“Es!” Something pounded on my rib cage. “Wake up!”
I fought my way out of the lingering horror of the dream, finding myself blinking at the small handlight Ragem—properly himself—shone between us. He was looking at me with concern. He was also a good arm’s length away and from his position, it had been his foot in my ribs.
“Sorry. But you were snarling in your sleep,” he explained. “Are you all right? I thought you were going to bite me.”
“Keep under the screen,” was all I managed to say.
Neither of us found it easy to fall back to sleep. I’d almost drifted off when Ragem said out of the darkness: “You know, you’ve never told me where you live.”
“Where I live?” I repeated, trying to make sense of the comment.
“Well, do you live on Picco’s Moon?”
Not any more,
I said to myself, controlling a shiver. Ragem, seeming in the mood to hear his own voice, kept going in a slow sleepy way when I didn’t reply. “The others had places of their own. Where is yours? On Lanivar?”
“It takes experience and training to live within another species’ culture,” I admitted quietly. “Ersh hadn’t felt I was ready.”
“Oh.”
The silence and the dark didn’t help my thoughts. “It wouldn’t have been long,” I continued, almost to myself.
Another hundred years or so, at the rate I made mistakes.
“She’d likely have sent me to one of the Fringe worlds, a colony or perhaps a mining operation. There’s few questions asked in new settlements. I’d have started an identity of my own, something innocuous and dull. Safe. Maybe a small import business, so I could travel without attracting any notice. To live like the others—it takes a lot of preparation to create an identity that fits into an existing society.”
I paused. From the even sound of his breathing, he’d fallen asleep somewhere during my explanation.
Just as well,
I thought, settling myself to do the same if I could.
For if I survived my Enemy, my new life must start with an identity and a place secret from everyone—including my only friend.
Out There
“YOU want us to what?”
“Hush, Char,” Joel admonished his eldest. The small man across the gleaming desktop had thus far failed to impress either his offspring or himself. Funny how people seemed larger than life when you were only talking through a com link. Joel Largas was also unimpressed with the reason they were standing in the office of Acting Captain Kearn.
“Three ships. Two,” Kearn temporized, his hand stealing up to rub frantically across his balding head. “That’s all. Two. A short jaunt with us and you’re back on course.”
“And what do we get in return for these two ships and your short jaunt?” Char demanded. She was a captain in her own right, at least when the
Largas Loyal
had been one of a fleet instead of a sole survivor, and refused to be cowed by Kearn’s Commonwealth uniform or his nonhuman security officer standing alertly to one side, whiskers flicking back and forth with the conversation.
Kearn looked at Joel Largas in appeal. Joel raised one eyebrow. “A fair question, Acting Captain. You’re asking us to disrupt the convoy, slow it down. There’s a lot of tired, hurt people on those ships and ’pods. They aren’t patient with delays.”
“We know, sir,” the voice belonged to a tall woman, an engineering specialist if Joel read the bars on her uniform correctly. Something in her face told him this one had seen trouble in the past and had no patience for fools of any rank. He felt sorry for her on this ship.
“You’re the one who came on the
Best,
” Denny said. “You patched her up in no time.”
“Lawrenk Jen,” she acknowledged with a nod. “My pleasure.” Lawrenk had a stack of plas sheets in one hand. She held them up, as if for Kearn to notice as well as those from the
Loyal.
“These are confirmations from Inhaven, welcoming you and your families to the colony of your choice. I also have settlement vouchers for everyone in your convoy, entitling you to land and supplies once you’ve decided on a destination.”
“We have a destination. Minas XII.”
Lawrenk raised a brow at the firmness in Char’s voice, then glanced at the pages in her hand. “Spectacular scenery. But you can’t use these land vouchers there—”
“We aren’t farmers,” Denny broke in, offended as only the young could be. Joel gave his son a stern look.
But the engineer smiled broadly, understanding lighting her eyes. “Of course not. You’re spacers. And Minas is the last permanent colony between the major shipping lanes and the mines of the Fringe. I’d imagine they could use their own freighter fleet.”
“We think so.” Joel paused and looked at Kearn, suspicious of the turn in the conversation. The man’s face was too smug for comfort. “So you’ve taken care of our immigration. What are the conditions to this generosity? The loan of our ships?”
“No conditions.” Lawrenk passed the sheets to Char, the Largas nearest to her. From Kearn’s strangled gasp, Joel decided this was not in the original script. He did like this woman.
“We can offer further incentive,” Kearn recovered quickly. “I think you’ll be interested.” He drummed his fingers on his desk. “Very interested. And I’d settle for one ship; that would do, I believe.”
Joe, about to refuse any further discussion, lifted his eyes to meet Lawrenk’s abruptly somber look. Something was going on. He changed his mind in that instant. He sat back down in the chair, ignoring Char’s stiffening.
“I’m listening.”
57:
Colony Morning
THE sounds of wild, exuberant singing woke me. The sun, still below the horizon, was burnishing the bottoms of the clouds with touches of pale gold. I kept motionless as I tried to decide on the nature of the singers. Small and harmless, experience told me.
Loud enough.