Ascending lop-5

by James Alan Gardner

  I do not know how he could tell which openings led into lungs, which into stomachs, and so on. However, the cloud man had the lady awake in under a minute… after which she howled most piteously. I opened my mouth to ask why she made such an appalling racket; but I closed it again when her head sank into her body as if being sucked down the neckhole. The skull fit exactly into her tiny torso.

  This was something one did not see every day.

  The now-headless Bell shifted her position on the floor to lie flat on her spine. Immediately her legs lifted up from the hips, slanting back and arching above her body until her toes touched the carpet near her shoulders — her legs completely covering her torso like two logs laid lengthwise down her chest. Reaching up, she wrapped her arms tight around her thighs, then bent her knees so that her calves were on top of her arms, on top of her upper legs, on top of her headless body. She held that tucked-up position for a brief moment; then the whole stack of Bell crushed in on itself with a sound like knuckles cracking. In a moment, she had reduced herself to a tight little basket of a person, a bundled-up woman who lay on the ground in a heap that reminded me of a discarded turtle shell.

  This was the Cashling defense configuration I had seen in pictures. It may have been quite excellent for protecting vital organs under a thick arrangement of bones… but I did not think it clever to reduce oneself to a form that practically demanded other persons use you as a kickball.

  Our Turn Next

  All this time, the Shaddill ship had been snatching crusade vessels out of the sky. It did this with an extendible tube-stick, a big hose that reached toward one little craft after another and slowly sucked them in. None of the ships tried to flee or dodge the hose — the Cashlings on board must have been unconscious, everyone brought low by the blue-white flash.

  Though I despised the Shaddill, I had to admit they built excellent weapons.

  Each time a ship was captured, the mouth of the hose-stick squeezed shut for a few minutes. I suppose it took that long to swallow what had been eaten, to clear the stick’s mouth so it could gobble up more. In my imagination, I pictured a huge stomach inside the stick-ship, where little crusade craft bobbed listlessly amidst foul digestive juices. Well, I thought, I shall give those great poop-heads a tummy-ache to remember.

  No sooner had those words passed through my mind than the great sucking hose turned its mouth toward us.

  "Uh-oh," I said. "Uh-oh."

  Blacking Out Destiny

  "We must now be very brave," I announced to my comrades.

  Festina lifted her head, saw the oncoming hose-stick, and staggered to her feet. She required a moment to steady herself once she became wholly upright; then she tottered her way to Lady Bell, who was still closed up tight in her basket configuration. "Hey," my friend said, nudging the Cashling woman with her toe. "Open up."

  "Go away," muttered a mouth in the lady’s back.

  "No," Festina said. "Not till you talk to your ship-soul."

  I told Festina, "It would be unwise for Unfettered Destiny to take evasive maneuvers. We would only give away that we were conscious."

  "I know; but we still have things to do." Festina gave Bell another nudge with her toe… though perhaps it was less a nudge and more of a kick.

  "Leave me alone!" the lady hissed… which is to say, a small number of her mouths spoke the words while the rest did the hissing.

  Festina took no notice. "I won’t leave you alone till you do what I want. It’s in your best interests too. If they take you prisoner, you’ll never be seen again. Do you want to go down in history as the prophet who lost an entire crusade?"

  Lady Bell made a barking wheeze. I suspect this was a rude word in the Cashling tongue. However, as Festina prepared to deliver a kick that showed every promise of being full strength, Bell said, "All right, all right." An eye opened in the middle of her back. "What do you want?"

  "Tell the ship-soul to opaque the hull. As thick as possible so we can’t see out."

  "Why?" Lady Bell asked sullenly.

  "In case the Shaddill flash us again."

  "They’ve already flashed us once. What’s the point of a second shot?"

  "Insurance," Festina said. "If I were the Shaddill, I’d keep shooting the whole damned crusade every five minutes, just to avoid surprises. They haven’t done that, so maybe the weapon draws too much power to let them bang away indiscriminately. Even so, they might have a smaller version of the weapon inside, and they’ll zap us just before they board our ship."

  "You think blacking out the hull will protect us?" The lady’s voice sounded most sneerful. "I bet that beam isn’t real light at all — it’ll affect us even if we can’t see it."

  "You’re probably right," Festina said. "But I’d feel stupid if we could save ourselves with simple measures and never bothered to try. Do it."

  Lady Bell muttered something in Cashlingese. I thought it might be an insolent retort, but it must have been a command to the ship; a moment later, the glass roof went completely black. "There," Bell said. "Happy?"

  "Ecstatic," Festina replied.

  I myself was not so cheered by the change — without the see-through ceiling, the recording studio felt confined and glowery. It did not help that the floor was black… and the muted silence of the room added to the air of oppression that encompassed me.

  "Let us go a different place," I said to Festina. "It is not pleasant here."

  "I don’t like it much myself," she replied, "but the place is soundproof. That might be important."

  "You think the Shaddill are listening for us?" I asked. "How can that be? We are surrounded by the silence of space."

  "Yes… but if we weren’t soundproofed, any noise we made would be conducted throughout the ship, eventually making tiny vibrations in the hull. If the Shaddill bounce a laser off the ship’s outer skin, they’ll be able to detect those vibrations. They’ll know we’re in here talking."

  Lady Bell made a disgusted whoosh. "Are you always this paranoid?"

  Festina glared at her. "Usually I’m more paranoid, but right now I’m still hungover."

  The ship gave a sudden lurch. "What was that?" Lajoolie cried out.

  "I think we’ve just been swallowed," Festina answered.

  "Do not worry," I said, patting her shoulder. "This happens to me all the time."

  My Plan

  "All right," Festina said, "we need a plan."

  "To do what?" Lady Bell asked.

  "To escape. Or at least, to survive."

  I said, "The villains will come through the receiving bay, will they not? So we should lie in wait behind the boxes cluttered in that area. When the Shaddill arrive, we shall leap from concealment and punch them in the nose." I paused. "Provided they are such creatures as possess noses. If we leap from concealment and do not see nose-like facial features, we shall have to improvise."

  "Sounds good to me, missy," Uclod said. "Of course, if the Shaddill do have noses, they’ll probably pass out the second they get a whiff of this place."

  "Watch your tongue!" Bell snapped.

  Sergeant Aarhus cleared his throat. All this time, he had been sitting on the carpet, no doubt gathering strength after being unconscious. Now he rose and told Festina, "I hate to admit it, Admiral, but Oar’s plan sounds as good as we’ll get. We sure can’t stay in the studio here — it’s got see-through walls and nowhere to hide. We’ll be sitting ducks."

  "I know." Festina made a face. "All right — an ambush in the receiving bay. Everyone ready to fight?"

  Uclod, Lajoolie, Aarhus, and I all chorused yes. Nimbus floated delicately forward. "I won’t be much use in a scuffle… and I have to protect my daughter."

  "Understandable," Festina said. She glanced at me; I still held the little Zarett girl in one hand, and gooey though the infant was, I did not mind the feel of her so much. She was very most delicately soft, a small light person who seemed so fragile and breakable that Deep Adult Instincts made me want to take care of her. To
be honest, I wanted to snuggle her a little while longer… but time was short, and I could not throw punches with a child in my fist.

  "Here she is," I said, cupping her in both hands and holding her out to her father. Nimbus swirled forward, and for a moment, I felt his cool dryness playing around my fingers. It might have been a nudge of forgiveness; one cannot tell with fog, but I do believe it was more than just the bare minimum of contact required to take the girl. Then he was gone, and baby Starbiter was gone too, wrapped in a thick ball of mist.

  "All right," Festina said, "now what about you, Lady Bell? Are you up for some fisticuffs?"

  "I’ve heard," Aarhus put in, "that Cashlings are excellent fighters. Stunningly powerful kicks."

  He said this so unctuously, even naive baby Starbiter must have recognized his words as purposeful flattery. Lady Bell, however, was not so perceptive; she loosened slightly from her wrapped-up form, with orifices fluttering all over her green skin. It looked like the Cashling form of simpering. "I can handle myself quite well," she answered in a creamily smug tone of voice. "If it’s absolutely necessary…"

  "It is," Festina said. "Now let’s get down to the airlock. And once we’re outside the studio, no talking. The engines make enough background noise to cover our footsteps, but let’s not get sloppy."

  "Sloppy!" Lady Bell said, continuing to unfold back to her more person-like configuration. "I am never sloppy."

  Sergeant Aarhus opened the door and the odor outside assailed my nostrils. I believe we all wished to take exception to Lady Bell’s last statement; but it was too late for cutting remarks.

  Silently, we headed for the receiving bay.

  22: WHEREIN I BATTLE THE ENEMY WITH PRECIOUS METALS

  Waiting

  When I say we headed out silently, I mean as silently as possible. Though I am excellent at stealth in natural settings, it is most unreasonable to expect hard glass feet not to clack on solid tiles. The noise was enough to make me self-conscious; I also believe Lady Bell was glaring at me, though her lack of a face made it difficult to be certain. I mouthed the words, I am doing my best, then spent the rest of the journey staring down at my feet… which was just as well, considering the quantity of vile substances I had to circumnavigate on the floor.

  Once we reached the receiving bay, we chose separate hiding places close to the airlock door. I took a strategic position between a chest-high crate stacked with platinum ingots, and a container made of blue sheet-metal whose interior was littered with fish skeletons. At one time, the container must have been filled with sea water — the metal was crusted with salt deposits and the dried remains of lacy seaweed — but the water had evaporated and the fish had died of dehydration… or suffocation… or starvation… or sheer lack of hope. I found myself staring at their withered carcasses and feeling most teary-eyed over their undeserved fate; so I forced myself to turn away and grabbed a chunk of platinum from the other box, promising the ghosts of those fish I would hurl the heavy ingot with great strength at someone who truly deserved it.

  I settled down in my place, squeezing the cool platinum while I waited for Shaddill to arrive. It was too bad the hull was no longer transparent — I would have liked to observe the process of being sucked into the bowels of the stick-ship. But such was not to be. I could only crouch in Nervous Anticipation, trying to guess what was going on outside and doing a poor job of it. In my head I would say, Ten seconds from now, I shall hear something; but then I did not hear something, so I thought, Another five seconds and someone will come; but the five seconds passed without incident, whereupon I started counting to see how long it did take for something to occur, but I lost patience when I reached fifteen, so I crossed all my fingers and even my thumbs to force the Shaddill to do something, and I squeezed my eyes shut and everything… then I counted some more, then stared at my reflection in the platinum ingot to see how I looked when I was Fraught With Expectation, but there were too many smudges from my fingers on the metal, and I was just cleaning the ingot on my jacket sleeve when Unfettered Destiny struck something with a thud.

  Hah! I thought to myself, this is it! And despite the terrible wait, I did not let my brain become Tired And Distracted at all.

  The Enemy Arrives

  Events did not transpire immediately. After the bump (which I assumed was our ship settling onto a landing pad), there was a tedious delay of at least ten seconds before I heard noises in the airlock. Then the airlock took an unconscionably long time to perform its function, so that I just knew the awful Shaddill were playing foolish games punching the control buttons for their entertainment rather than Getting Down To Business. At last, when I was so keyed with frustration I was ready to dash over and rip open the airlock with my bare hands, the door gave a resounding click and swung ponderously inward.

  An object was tossed into the room: a dull silver orb the size of my fist, sailing in a lazy arc upward, then down toward the floor. The object had WEAPON written all over it… not literally (as far as I could see) but I knew something unpleasant would happen when it struck the ground. I squinched quickly behind the crate of ingots, putting all that heavy platinum between me and the silver ball. However, because I was still trying to keep silent, I did not move quite speedily enough — my right arm and shoulder were still exposed when the ball hit the floor with a clink.

  I did not see or hear any spectacular result — no flash, no explosive boom. My unprotected arm simply went numb from shoulder to fingertips. I could see the arm was still there, but it had no sensation at all. Even worse, it had no strength; and that was the hand which had been holding the platinum ingot. Before I realized the danger, the ingot slipped from my limp fingers and dropped to the ground.

  Clunk!

  So much for lurking in secret. Without hesitation, I let forth a gasp of Poignant Distress and slumped into an aesthetically pleasing sprawl on the floor. Since I had accidentally revealed my presence to the Shaddill, I would let them believe they had bested me with their numbness device; that way they might not embark upon more drastic action to overpower me or my comrades. When they came to collect my unconscious body, I could still take them by surprise and rain punches on their villainous noses.

  I lay where I was, cleverly opening my eyes in tiny slits to observe what was going on. At first, I saw nothing; but I heard heavy footsteps walk cautiously out of the airlock and advance in my direction.

  None of my hidden comrades attacked. I did not know if they had fallen victim to numbness themselves or if they had been sufficiently shielded behind crates and were simply biding their time, waiting for the Shaddill to advance farther into the room. It was also possible there were multiple Shaddills to consider — if a single one ventured into the receiving bay while others remained in the airlock to provide covering fire, the situation required delicate handling. As for me, all I could do was lie still and wait… until I saw a pair of feet step around a box some four paces away.

  They appeared to be human feet. More precisely, they were feet wearing human-style boots — very much like the boots both Festina and Aarhus wore.

  Sturdy navy-issue boots.

  A Ghastly Realization

  The boots took a step toward me. My head lay at an angle that prevented me from seeing more than the person’s legs… but they looked very much like human legs enclosed in human trousers. Gray trousers. Gray trousers exactly like Festina’s — the color that denotes an admiral in the human fleet.

  I suspected this was not just an Eerie Coincidence.

  The person in gray made rustling noises: I could not see what this person was doing, but it sounded as if he or she was rooting inside a jacket pocket. Then a man’s voice said in conversational tones, "It’s Oar. We’ve got her."

  No doubt he was speaking to someone else via a communication device. This in itself was enough to give me chills — confirmation that these people were looking for me in particular. But even more terrifying was how he spoke: not in English, but in my own language. The tongu
e I had learned from infancy, the language of my mother and my sister and all the teaching machines on Melaquin.

  Suddenly, I had a terrible thought. Those teaching machines had been built by the Shaddill… and I knew our current language was not what my ancestors spoke when they first arrived from Earth.

  What if all this time — from my very birth and from the births of untold generations of my glass predecessors — we had been speaking the Shaddill’s own tongue? What if they had created the teaching machines to make us over in their own image? Our flesh-and-blood ancestors could not have prevented it; they were mortals who died in their natural time, and after that, our only instructors were the machines. Perhaps somewhere on Melaquin, in some well-lit Ancestral Tower, members of the first glass generation still remembered words from ancient human tongues… but those ancestors had not made sufficient effort to pass on the words to subsequent generations, and now we were thoroughly immersed in the language of our enemy.

  In a horrid way, I was a Shaddill.

  I hoped that beneath the gray pants, the man in front of me did not have glass legs.

  I Make First Contact With The Shaddill

  The man stepped closer. Indeed, he came near enough to nudge me with his foot. I let him do so; he gave a satisfied grunt, then turned away. That was the moment I swept my right leg in front of his ankles, while kicking at the back of his knees with my other foot. His knees buckled most satisfactorily — he fell backward on top of me, his head striking my stomach with a satisfying thump.

  It was an Earthling head with genuine hair. Not my lovely glass species at all.

  My right arm was still entirely numb. However, I threw my left around the man’s throat in an arm-bar and squeezed tight. He tried to yell, but could draw no air. Desperately, he grabbed my arm with both hands and tried to pull it away. If I had possessed a functional right hand to reinforce the armbar, he never would have pried me loose. As it was, he still had to work hard for it — after five seconds, he was just able to inhale, readying himself for a shout, when a large orange hand clamped down hard on his mouth.