Ascending lop-5

by James Alan Gardner

  It is truly astonishing how a sane and clever one can be torn by ill-founded impulses.

  "Now, Oar," Lajoolie said, "you really should relax." She laid her hand carefully on top of my head, precisely where ear-globes would be attached if I belonged to her species. I suppose that to Divians, this was a comforting gesture — or perhaps a means of determining one’s state of health, like feeling for a pulse. "Are you okay now?" she asked. "You went a bit… out of control."

  "I was not out of control," I answered. "There is nothing wrong with my brain."

  "You’re perfectly clear-headed," said Aarhus.

  "Yes," I said, then realized he had been making a joke about my personal transparency. "But I am clear-headed," I insisted. "I am not dizzy, I am not Tired, I am not filled with irrational fantasies…"

  The ship gave a sudden lurch. I looked at Lajoolie and Aarhus. "You felt that too, correct?" How We Were Found

  Before they could answer, the ship lurched again. This time, there was no possibility of mistake. Aarhus was thrown against the cabin wall, hitting hard with his shoulder. Lajoolie lost her balance and toppled onto me… but I was falling sideways myself, striking the hard cabin floor with a resounding crack. (That was, of course, the floor breaking — I am made of sterner stuff than whatever substance underlies the carpets of the human navy.)

  I shoved Lajoolie off me just as the ship heaved in the opposite direction. She steadied herself by grabbing Nimbus’s chair; the chair was firmly secured to the floor and did not budge, even with Lajoolie’s great weight flung against it. I caught hold of the desk, which was also bolted down — in fact, all the furniture in the room was fastened in place, except for the desk’s chair, which slid on metal railings. This was a Wise Safety Precaution in case of Navigational Upset… for when Royal Hemlock shifted again, the chair slammed forward as far as its rails would permit, going ‹WHUNK› at the end like an ax hitting wood.

  "What is happening?" I cried.

  "Something’s grabbed us," Aarhus answered. The ship lurched again. "Something damned clumsy."

  "Could it be the Shaddill?" I asked.

  "Don’t know," Aarhus said. "My X-ray vision isn’t working today. If either of you can see through the hull, go ahead and have a peek."

  I recognized this as sarcasm. However, it reminded me that Festina said this ship had no windows — only exterior cameras which would not be working now. As a result, no one on board could know what had seized us… which made me feel better, since I was not the only one waiting in ignorance to see what transpired next.

  "It’s likely the Shaddill," Lajoolie said, full of fear.

  "Or our navy," Aarhus answered. "Captain Kapoor thought we got away from New Earth without being noticed… but if anyone spotted us, the Admiralty might have sent a ship chasing close on our tail."

  "It’s not the Shaddill or your navy. Lucky us."

  These words came from Nimbus. With a sudden whoosh, he expanded from hard-rock form to his usual manlike mist, holding the small Starbiter steady as the ship continued to rock. "To be accurate," he continued, "our rescuers don’t look like Shaddill or the Outward Fleet on long-range scans."

  "How could you do a long-range scan?" Aarhus asked.

  "I didn’t. My daughter did."

  Of course, we demanded to know how Nimbus had tapped into Starbiter’s powers; but the cloud man was reluctant to explain. He seemed worried we might think he had taken undue liberties, for he kept saying things like, "I’m completely trained to deal with any medical situation," and, "It’s my most basic function, testing a female Zarett to make sure her systems are working" — all of which made him sound most guilty, as if he had done something improper to the child. When he finally revealed the truth, however, he had not done anything wicked to Starbiter…

  He had merely tickled her.

  Earlier, when we discussed using the little girl to send a distress signal, Nimbus had recognized the worth of our plan, even if he was not so keen about the suggestion to incinerate the baby until she cried, "Wahh!" Instead, he wrapped around her in a protective shell, then carefully eased microscopic bits of himself inside his daughter’s body. The process was similar to the way he moved through Mama Starbiter’s tissues, but on a very tiny scale. A few of Nimbus’s cells worked their way through the child, found the small knot of glands that permitted FTL broadcasting, and stimulated those glands.

  The result was no more than an itch… like a scratch in your throat that makes you go, "Ahem!" over and over. Little Starbiter responded to the itch with a sort of irritable clucking — a cranky collection of trans-light noises which could never be mistaken for words but which were apt to attract attention from anyone close enough to hear.

  And that is exactly what happened. Somebody had heard the signals and came to investigate. Nimbus watched the newcomers’ approach by linking some of his cells to young Starbiter’s long-range scan abilities: hiding inside the baby’s eyes to see what her scanners could see. This was the activity that had caused him shame. According to a whispered comment from Lajoolie, male Zaretts were highly averse to using the capabilities of females in any way — Nimbus and the rest of his sex attended to their women’s health needs, but scrupulously avoided any action which might be construed as Taking Over The Driver’s Seat.

  What an excellent quality that is! They should preach this philosophy to males everywhere.

  "It wasn’t wrong tickling the girl to send a Mayday," the cloud man muttered. "Uclod clearly wanted that, and he’s her owner. So I was just carrying out the owner’s wishes, right? But actually linking myself to her, and seeing through her scanners… well, I had to keep watch, didn’t I? Uclod would want that too, even if he didn’t say so explicitly. He’d want to know if the Shaddill were coming, or the human navy…"

  "So who is it?" Aarhus interrupted. He had allowed Nimbus to ramble in guilt-laden fashion about linking with his daughter, but the sergeant was obviously impatient for a Situational Report. "You only started sending the signal an hour ago," Aarhus said. "Who was close enough to respond in so little time?"

  "I couldn’t see exactly," Nimbus replied. "Starbiter doesn’t have enough control to focus her scanners on anything in particular. And she doesn’t have much attention span either; I tried to keep her looking in one direction, but her gaze kept wandering all over the place." He added defensively, "That’s perfectly normal for a child her age."

  "Sure, sure," Aarhus said. "But what did you see?"

  "Mostly a bunch of blurs. Nothing large enough to be the Shaddill or even a navy ship. I think it’s a swarm of smaller craft: single-person runabouts or family-sized yachts."

  "Hmm," Lajoolie said. "That explains the jostling when they took Hemlock in tow. This ship is so big, we’d have to be grappled by a whole pack of smaller vessels. They must have had trouble coordinating who pulled which direction when." She looked to Aarhus, obviously wondering if he agreed. However, the sergeant had other things on his mind; he was staring upward with an unhappy expression on his face.

  "What is it?" I asked.

  "Trouble," he said. "Unless I miss my guess, we’ve just been rescued by an outreach crusade." He grimaced, then looked around at the rest of us. "Hope you haven’t got anything planned for the next ten years — we’ve just become Cashling slaves."

  Devising A Suitable Ransom

  Lajoolie’s face blanched to an unattractive shade of yellow. "Are you sure?" she whispered.

  "It’s a good guess," Aarhus said. "Before Hemlock got zapped, we were headed for the planet Jalmut. That’s a Cashling world; most likely, the ships that answered our Mayday are Cashling too. But the Cashlings almost never travel in groups — they’re too egotistical. Get a bunch together in separate ships, and five minutes later, they fly off in different directions. The only time Cashling ships stay in a pack is when one of their prophets organizes a crusade."

  "And what is a crusade?" I asked. "A religious pilgrimage?"

  "They get mad if you use the
word ‘religious’ — most Cashlings are devout atheists, and fly into tantrums at talk of deities or souls. But the truth is that Cashlings are religious as hell. Fanatic believers. They just switch beliefs every other day."

  "How can that be?"

  "Doesn’t make sense to me either," the sergeant replied. "But Cashlings believe in something called Pu Naram… usually translated into English as ‘Godly Greed.’ Don’t ask me to define it, because every time you blink, a new prophet shows up to put a different spin on what Godly Greed means. One week, it’s all about taking care of yourself and piss on anyone else; the next week, it’s switched to everybody working in harmony so you can all get rich together; then it’s about compassion and helping others, because tossing pennies to cripples really boosts your ego." He rolled his eyes. "Cashlings always brag how they have a single unified culture, unlike humans and other species at our level of evolution… but the only unity I see is them flitting from one prophet to another, like flies trying to find the smelliest heap of manure.

  "As for their outreach crusades," he went on, gesturing vaguely at some point beyond the ship’s hull, "it’s traditional for a prophet to gather his or her followers and wander through space every few years. Mostly they visit other Cashling worlds, picking up new converts at every stop and losing just as many old ones. The turnover in people is substantial: after three stops, a crusade seldom has anyone it started with… not even the original prophet. Someone new decides he or she is a prophet and takes over the whole flotilla."

  Lajoolie favored me with a weak smile. "My husband once told me crusades have nothing to do with belief. They come from a powerful instinct to homogenize the population: to break up communities that are getting too insular and to shuffle around the breeding pool. Uclod says the Cashlings have had mass migrations throughout their entire history; crusades are just the latest excuse."

  Aarhus nodded. "I’ve heard that too. But never say that to a Cashling either, unless you want to drive the bastard into a rage. Let’s not do that — we’re in enough trouble as it is."

  "Because they wish to take us as slaves?" I said. "We should inform them that nice religions do not do such things."

  "I told you, Pu Naram isn’t a religion; the Cashlings call it a ‘proven economic doctrine.’ " Aarhus made a face. "And even though the working definition of Pu Naram changes ten times a year, it always retains one core principle: screwing aliens, especially ones who can’t fight back. Over the years, outreach crusades have come across a lot of aliens in distress — the Cashlings don’t have a navy like ours, so crusades are the primary source of search-and-rescue. By long-established tradition, a passing crusade won’t save your life until you swear ten years of indentured servitude."

  "But they must save our lives," I said. "Are they not required to do so by the League of Peoples?"

  Lajoolie shook her head. "Not unless they caused our predicament in the first place. They aren’t obliged to help us, and if they do, they can charge whatever price they want."

  "Hmph!" I said. "I do not think much of that policy."

  "But the Cashlings love it," Aarhus answered. "They consider it a wonderful omen when a crusade scoops up slaves — it boosts the prophet’s prestige. Of course, if we’re really lucky, this particular prophet might be liberal enough to take a ransom instead: letting us hand over a bucket of cash instead of ten years’ hard labor."

  He did not sound cheered by that prospect, but I thought it allowed us an excellent means of emancipation. "Then we shall hand over Royal Hemlock." I said. "It is quite large and splendid, even if it is broken. Parts of it even have carpet. The ship must be worth enough to pay all our ransoms."

  "Probably," Aarhus agreed, "but we can’t use it for that. By Cashling laws of salvage, Hemlock already belongs to the crusade — the ship became theirs as soon they took it in tow. They’ll claim everything on board: even the clothes on our backs. If they accept a ransom at all, it’ll have to come from somewhere else." He gave me a sympathetic look. "Somehow I don’t think you have family at home with cash in their pockets." Turning to Lajoolie, he asked, "How about you?"

  She bit her lip. "No one on my homeworld would pay a cent. As for my husband’s family…"

  "I know," Aarhus said. "They’ve gone missing."

  "What about you?" Lajoolie asked.

  The sergeant shook his head. "My only family is the Outward Fleet; and at the moment, I don’t feel like turning to the Admiralty for help. Ten years of slavery is nothing compared to what the High Council intends for us — what they still might do if they hear we’re being held by the Cashlings. The council will swoop in, pay our ransoms, and take possession of us from the crusade… whereupon we’ll all disappear down some deep dark well."

  "Then we must not let that happen," I said. "We shall battle the Cashlings and… and…"

  Sergeant Aarhus just looked at me. He did not have to explain why we could not fight; if we put up resistance, the Cashlings would just go away, leaving us to drift in space. Perhaps we could merelypretend to submit until we were taken aboard the Cashling ships… but by then, they might have locked us in irons. Even worse, the many people of Royal Hemlock would be billeted over all the small vessels of the Cashling crusade. I would likely be separated from Festina and Nimbus and little Starbiter and Uclod and Lajoolie and even Aarhus.

  That would be Just Awful.

  "So what will the Cashlings do first?" I asked Aarhus.

  He thought about it. "With our communications dead, they can’t just call and ask us to surrender. They’ll have to send someone over in person."

  "Where will this emissary arrive?"

  "The only safe way into the ship is our manual airlock. That’s back in the rear transport bay."

  "Then we must go there," I said. "We shall meet this Cashling and discuss terms."

  I picked up a glow-wand from the heap around me. Getting to my feet, I was still quite woozy… so I gathered the other wands too and hugged the whole bundle to my chest. "Lajoolie," I said, "please carry my jacket for me; I do not wish to wear it now, but I shall put it on before we make contact with the Cashlings."

  "Are you sure this is a good idea?" Aarhus asked. "Cashlings are quick to take offense, and we really don’t want to piss them off. Maybe we should let someone else talk to them."

  "If you are afraid to confront them," I said, "you may remain behind. I can find the rear transport bay without your assistance; I have been there once before."

  Aarhus made a face. "All I’m saying is that talking to these guys will take tact and diplomacy."

  "I am excellent at tact and diplomacy. Let us go."

  I strode off down the hall with dauntless determination. Lajoolie fell in behind me, and Nimbus drifted along as well, nestling baby Starbiter in the midst of his mist.

  With a heavy sigh, Sergeant Aarhus joined our little procession.

  19: WHEREIN I ENCOUNTER MORE ALIENS; AND THEY ARE NOT NICE

  The Drawbacks Of Photosynthesis

  Moving through the corridors was a Buoyant Experience. At first, I thought this was simply the result of renewed health and purpose; but then I realized my step was lighter because I was lighter. Gravity aboard the ship had begun to diminish… and though I could not leap impossibly long distances, I certainly possessed more spring than usual. This was a most interesting experience, and it kept me amused (bounce, bounce, bounce!) all the way to the transport bay.

  By the time we got to our destination, Festina had arrived too. This is an excellent trait in a Faithful Sidekick: anticipating where you will be and attending upon you. Of course, Festina feigned surprise to see me, and pretended she had merely come to await the people who had taken Hemlock in tow… but that is what she had to say, because an important navy admiral cannot admit she feels lost and lonely without her very best friend.

  Uclod was in the transport bay too, which meant that he and Lajoolie found it necessary to have a tender reunion.

  Their whisperings and touchings p
roved most vexatious, so I turned my back on them in a very pointed manner; but Festina, Aarhus, and Nimbus were no more amusing than the Divians, because Festina wanted to be told how Nimbus had induced baby Starbiter to cry for help. This led to much repetitious talk about outreach crusades and why it was not at all wrong for the cloud man to tickle his daughter… which was very quite boring, because I had heard it already.

  My only recourse was to walk around the bay on my own, occasionally muttering in the hope someone would ask if I had achieved a brilliant insight. No one took notice at all, which made me annoyed and irritable… but just as I was about to berate them for their churlish lack of attention, the heat of my anger turned to spinning dizziness and I sat down hard on the floor.

  Oof.

  Living on light is a fine thing indeed, but it is not enough to sustain substantial activity. This explains why plants do not perform hand-springs. (That and the fact that plants have no hands.) I still carried an armload of glow-wands, but the energy they provided was not enough to keep me going if I persisted in moving about.

  "Are you all right, Oar?" Festina called from somewhere behind me.

  "I am fine," I said, forcing my voice to be strong. "I am simply…" For a moment, I could not think of a suitable excuse why I might have thumped down hard on the deck; but then I caught sight of the rainbow-colored hemlock tree painted on the wall not far from me. "I am simply contemplating the art," I said — because I did not want the others to treat me as a tottery invalid who could not participate in important activities.

  "All right," Festina called. "You enjoy the art."

  That is easy for her to say, I thought. The tree on the wall was not enjoyable in any way. For True Artistic Merit, a painting should have dried globs of pigment protruding from the surface so that viewers can pick off little bits and sniff what the paint smells like; at least that is what my sister and I concluded as we developed Our Own Personal Aesthetic with the ancient paintings on display in our home village. But the hemlock image in front of me was tediously two-dimensional, with no protruding bits at all. I was about to make an astute critical remark on this lack of texture, when I noticed the tree possessed a feature I had previously overlooked.