Two glowing red eyes burned dimly amidst the multicolored foliage… as if a certain headless creature was concealed behind the leaves.
Talking To The Painting
"Pollisand?" I whispered softly.
"Who else?" he replied. "The fucking Cheshire Cat?"
He was speaking in his normal raspy-sharp voice. I looked back quickly at the others, but they showed no sign of hearing him. Considering how loud he sounded in my ears, it seemed most strange they had not noticed.
"Nah," the Pollisand said, "your buddies aren’t in on this conversation. It’s just between you and me, sweetums."
"In other words, you are not really here. You are projecting sights and sounds into my mind again…" I stopped. "But I am not connected to Starbiter! How can you contact my brain when I am not linked to anything?"
"Hey," the Pollisand said, "didn’t I tell you I’m seventy-five trillion rungs above you on the evolutionary ladder? Why should I need a Zarett to do my projecting for me?"
"Hmm," I hmmed, thinking very hard. This Pollisand had a most irksome habit of not answering questions — he simply made it seem like he was responding, when he was really evading the subject. In this particular situation, it occurred to me he might be attempting to hide something most important indeed.
"Did you do something to me?" I asked in whispered outrage. "When you took me away and mended my bones, did you do more? Did you perhaps place a Scientific Device in my brain that allows you to link with me at anytime?"
"Ooo," said the Pollisand, "aren’t we clever! At least one of us is. Much cleverer than Dr. Havel. He didn’t find a thing. Then again, maybe there’s nothing to find."
The red eyes grew brighter and pushed out from the hemlock’s painted leaves. Attached to those eyes was the rest of the Pollisand’s body, moving outward too — then thickening from flat to fat and coming straight off the wall. If you have ever seen a large headless alien step out of a two-dimensional painting, this was exactly like that… only better, because it was happening to me.
Since I was still seated on the floor, his huge white body towered above my head. He looked very real as he yanked his rump free from the wall and flicked his short tail to brush flecks of paint off his hindquarters; but no one else in the room even glanced in our direction. This was indeed just a projected image, and my brain was the only one receiving the signal.
"What are you doing here?" I asked, still whispering. "Have you come to observe another dreadful mistake?"
"Hope not," he said. "But let’s see how you handle the Cashlings."
"So you will watch whether we anger them?"
"Of course I’ll watch. I’m always watching."
He gave a full-body shake, and stray bits of paint showered off him onto the floor. They also showered onto my legs, which I had tucked in front of me. Glaring at him, I wiped the tiny flakes of green and red and black off my previously clean thighs. Meanwhile, the Pollisand eased his bulk past me until he stood between me and the other people in the room; only I was in a position to see his eyes, glowing deep in his chest cavity.
Suddenly, the eyes burst into white-hot flame, such as when a forest fire strikes some bone-dry deposit of leaves and pine pitch. The flash of that light flared down upon me, so blinding I shut my eyes… but I could feel the radiance pouring through my body with great invigorating intensity. In less than a second, I was sizzling — the same sort of sizzle one experiences after a full week of basking in the brilliance of an Ancestral Tower.
The heat faded quickly. When I opened my eyes, the Pollisand was back to normal, only a dim crimson glow shining from his neckhole. He reached out a foot and patted me lightly on the cheek. "You’re such a skinny girl," he said with a strange feigned accent, "don’t you know you gotta eat? And not just cotton candy," he added, waving his foot at the glow-wands I still carried with me. "Those things got no nutrition — they’re ninety percent visible light, capiche? They go right through you, and where’s the good of that? A pretty girl oughta put meat on her bones. X-rays, gamma rays, microwaves: the high-energy stuff. Or maybe (such a radical thought!), you might try solid food once in a while. Okay, so a stranger’s cooking can’t match your mamma’s lasagna; you still gotta get some nourishment or you’ll shrivel down to a stick. How you gonna bump off the Shaddill if you keep starving yourself? I’m not always gonna be free to bring you take-out."
He finally paused for breath. Then he asked, "Feeling better now, bright-eyes?"
"Yes," I told him. "However, if this is all just a fiction projected into my brain, how can it affect me as if I was bathed in real light?"
"Oops," said the Pollisand, "look at the time. Gotta go, bambina. Ciao!"
With that, he simply vanished — not in a fancy way, but disappearing as abruptly as a light being turned off. His exit did not make the slightest sound.
I stared at the place where he had been. All those flecks of paint he shook onto the floor were gone, vanished like snow in a bonfire. When I looked at the tree on the wall, no red eyes stared back; there was just flat uninteresting paint.
"Hmph," I said to myself. As always, the Pollisand had proved himself an infuriating visitor… but I felt much better, no longer woozy.
Perhaps he was not quite the utter asshole he pretended to be.
Or perhaps he was simply preserving me for something worse later on.
The Advantages Of Immersing Oneself In Mindless Entertainment
Dumping my now-unnecessary glow-wands onto the floor, I rose to my feet and was halfway across the room when Nimbus said, "Listen!" Everyone went instantly silent; in the stillness, I could hear thumping noises to my right.
When I turned in that direction, I saw a heavy metal door embedded in the wall — the entry to the manual airlock. I had not noticed it before in the dim glow-wand light because it was painted the same flat white as the rest of the transport bay… as if someone wished to pretend the door was not even there. Perhaps the navy preferred to downplay the necessity for their ships to contain an emergency entrance.
"Okay," Festina murmured. "It’s showtime. Everybody on your best behavior."
Quickly I retrieved my Explorer jacket from Lajoolie and slipped it on — one must endeavor to look official when alien guests arrive. As I was fastening the front flaps, Uclod said, "Hey, here’s a wild thought: do any of us speak Cashling?"
"No need," Festina replied. "Cashlings spend every waking hour amusing themselves with entertainment bought from other species: Mandasar out-of-shell fantasies, Unity mask dances, human VR chips, the works. Makes Cashlings very cosmopolitan and knowledgeable about alien races. I guarantee whoever comes out of that airlock will speak colloquial English and understand mainstream human body language… as well as knowing the proper form of address for a Fasskister hetman, how to initiate a Greenstrider sex act, and which knife to use in a Myriapod auto-da-fe."
"Second knife from the left," Aarhus said. "The one with three black barbs and the engraving of the Horsehead Nebula."
We all stared at him.
"Hey," said Aarhus, "I have hidden depths."
Two Cashlings And Their Spacesuits
With another thump, the door opened. Two gawky figures stood on the other side, both wearing spacesuits of eye-watering flamboyance. One suit was a swirl of red and white stripes, the stripes spiraling down from top to toe and daubed with bright blue curlicues that might be letters in some alien alphabet. The decorations were just as thick around the helmet as anywhere else: if the helmet had a see-out visor, I could not discern where it was. The entire outfit seemed opaque.
The other suit was equally opaque and visorless, but sported an aggressive frost green background, with all manner of clashing violet images painted on top — animals and houses and fruit and farm implements… all of which might have been completely different objects than I believed, because with aliens, an item that appears to be a nice juicy peach may turn out to be your host’s nephew in temporary chrysalis form, so it is best not t
o be too hasty at the supper table.[11]
[11] — Or so I have been told by human Explorers. Explorers are extremely prone to lecturing on the Diverse Facets Of Alien Life… and then telling most entertaining stories ("This did not happen to me but to a friend") of instances when an Explorer did dare to eat a peach.
The figures wearing these suits were of course Cashlings; and they had assumed their walking configuration, with long long legs and almost no torso at all. You might think they would look ridiculous, as if their pants were hiked up to their armpits… but in fact, they had a sinister air that made me most queasy. They were all limbs and dangly, like giant spiders who had reared up to human height. Even their garish colors and ornamentation were not as clownish as one might expect — not when most of the light in the room came from the glow-wands I had left in the far corner. The lanky faceless Cashlings stood poised half in shadow, reminding one of flashy-hued snakes about to strike.
When they quitted the airlock chamber, the motion was fluid and fast: two steps and they both had reached us, more speedy than a human could run, though it appeared they were not exerting themselves. The swiftness of their approach was enough to make Lajoolie gasp and back away, tugging Uclod with her. Nimbus retreated too, curling more tightly around his child. Festina and Aarhus did not flinch, but I could see it cost them an effort — they clenched their jaws and silently held their ground as the Cashlings loomed in toward them, shoving their eyeless heads close to my friends’ faces.
Angry at these bullying tactics, I thrust myself forward and declaimed in a loud voice, "Greetings!"
The two Cashlings turned their blank rainbow helmets in my direction.
"I am a sentient citizen of the League of Peoples," I told them. "I beg your Hospitality."
For a moment, there was nothing but silence. Festina’s face looked aghast, as if I had made a hideous mistake speaking the League of Peoples’ words. It struck me belatedly there must have been a reason why she did not proclaim the speech herself; perhaps these Cashling ones took offense at rote recitations. But there was nothing to do except maintain my poise — stand straight with dignity, attempting to project cool confidence. The Cashlings remained motionless for another long moment… then broke into peals of laughter.
First Impressions
It was not true laughter as came naturally to my own race and humans — it was more an imitation, a mimicry from beings who knew the sound of laughter but not the sense. Festina had said these creatures were familiar with human ways from watching entertainment shows… but one had to ask how much entertainment they actually derived if they could put no genuine feeling into their ha-ha’s.
One also had to ask why they chose to respond to the League of Peoples’ greeting with guffaws… and insincere-sounding guffaws at that. But it would be imprudent to punch them in the nose for being discourteous; I did not even chide them as crazed and foolish ones under the influence of inappropriate chemicals in their brains. No, no — I was exercising diplomacy. Therefore, I simply glared at them with distaste, waiting for them to cease their nonsensical noise.
When they did stop laughing, they did not taper off; the laughs died abruptly, as if someone had grabbed the two Cashlings by their throats and squeezed very hard, then knocked their eyeless heads together with a resounding bang. (But that did not happen, because I was being Diplomatic.)
"Greetings yourself," said the red-and-white striped one. Though it spoke Earthling words, its voice was nonhuman: not just one tone but many, as if a dozen people were softly murmuring the phrase in unison. I recalled the pictures I had seen of Cashlings, with a multitude of mouths spread over their bodies.
Clearly, this Cashling could speak out of several mouths at once… and perhaps it had to do that in order to be heard, for its multiple lungs were all much smaller than a real person’s. No single mouth had enough air power to achieve acceptable audibility; the only way to produce sufficient volume was to make one’s mouths speak together.
The red-and-white Cashling had not finished talking. With a single step, it crossed the space between us and thrust its head close to mine. "You are so… so…" It made a whooshing sound that might have been a sigh or a word in its own language. One hand lifted toward my face; I thought it was going to touch my cheek, but suddenly it seized the front of my jacket and ripped the coat open wide. "What are you?" it cried, bending down to press its helmet between my wallabies, as if it were staring straight into my chest. "Apart from being the ugliest alien I’ve ever seen."
Before I could respond in a fitting manner, Festina threw her arm around me in a gesture that no doubt appeared companionable… while serving the purpose of restraining me from committing a Spontaneous Act Of Diplomacy on someone’s intrusive face. "Oar’s ancestors were human," Festina told the Cashling. "But her race was redesigned several thousand years ago."
"As some sort of punishment?" the frost green one asked.
"No," I said. "As a gift."
The other one was still peering into me, as if it could actually discern something within my glass anatomy. Perhaps it could; Festina had said these Cashling ones could see far into the infrared and ultraviolet, and I have been told I am not transparent on those wavelengths. The red-and-white creature with its face against my chest might be watching my lungs breathe and my heart beat… which was outrageously impudent, since I could not see those things myself. "What are you looking at?" I snapped, stepping back and haughtily fastening my coat again.
"I was looking at you," the red-and-white Cashling said. Once more it stepped in close, but this time it leaned to one side and thrust its helmet within a hair’s breadth of my ear. I had the uncomfortable feeling it was staring straight into my brain; and that made me feel most soiled, for all my parts are supposed to be invisible, and I did not want some hideous alien implying I was actually opaque.
"Most fascinating," the Cashling said, one whispery voice at my ear, while more voices murmured the same words up and down its body. "I always thought humans were the ugliest creatures in the galaxy, but at least they have some charms." It lifted its head and turned toward Festina, who was still quietly holding me back from delivering a lesson in manners. "You, for example," the Cashling said. "Lovely purple splotch on your face. Blazingly conspicuous. Are you splotchy all over?"
This time, it was I who had to prevent an outburst of Extreme Diplomatic Behavior.
The Giving Of Names
"Perhaps," said Nimbus, gliding forward with dispatch, "we should begin by introducing ourselves. I am—"
"A vassal species," the striped Cashling interrupted. "Who doesn’t know his place. If I ever need to know your name… well, I’ll cut out all my hearts and immerse myself in acid before I sink that low, so the problem will never arise. As for the rest of you — my human name is Lord Ryan Ellisander Petrovaka LaSalle, and this is my wife, the Lady Belinda Astragoth Umbatti Carew."
"Those sound like Earth names," I whispered to Festina.
"They are," she replied, with a wary glance at the aliens. "Cashlings have a fondness for acquiring names and titles from other cultures. Sometimes through legitimate purchase, sometimes through… different means."
Festina gave me a pointed look, as if I could guess what these "different means" were. I suppose she wished to imply theft or some other manner of crime… but I could not imagine how one went about stealing a name. Names are not the type of thing one can stealthily remove from another person’s room. Then again, these aliens enslaved hapless victims of space accidents; perhaps they had devised a Science technique for expunging a slave’s name from his or her brain so the Cashling could acquire the name instead. If so, it was a fearsome violation of personal identity… and something this pair of aliens must have done frequently if they had acquired such lengthy appellations as Lord Ryan Ellisander Petrovaka LaSalle and Lady Belinda Astragoth Umbatti Carew.
"And of course," the frost-green Lady Belinda added, "we have different names for interacting with different races.
Human names for handling humans, Divian names for dealing with Divians…"
"By the way," the striped Lord Ryan said to Uclod and Lajoolie, "my name is Proctor-General Rysanimar C. V. Erinoun and my wife is Detective-Sergeant Bellurif Y. J. Klashownie."
Uclod opened his eyes wide and mouthed the phrase Detective-Sergeant. Perhaps he was scoffingly dubious… or perhaps, as a criminal, he was disconcerted to encounter someone who claimed a connection with the constabulary. Then again, he might simply have been impressed by anyone who could pilfer the very name from a detective-sergeant.
"Which brings us to you," the lady Cashling said, turning in my direction. "What sort of names do your people use?"
I stared back at her. "If you are Belinda to humans and Bellurif to Divians, on my planet you might be called Bell. A bell is a metal object that makes a melodious sound."
"I know what a bell is, you idiot." Only half her usual voices spoke the words — the rest of her mouths hissed angrily, as if I had demeaned her intelligence. "And what sort of honorifics do you use? Princess Bell? Queen Bell? Saint Bell?"
"None of those," I said. "You would just be Bell. A bell is a metal object that makes a melodious sound… when struck."
Festina placed her foot heavily on my toe in a Gesture Of Admonishment.
"So," said the stripy male Cashling, "I suppose my name would have to be Rye."
"Yes. Rye is a type of grain that can be made into a beverage."
"A good beverage?"
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