Ascending lop-5

by James Alan Gardner

  As for the rest of their bodies, each alien had two short but muscular arms ending in small hands with three clawed fingers and a thumb. At first glance, the creatures appeared to stand on three legs; but when I looked more closely, I saw that only two of the lower limbs were legs (hinged like a rabbit’s haunches). The third limb was a thick tail that ended in a chitinous scoop; the edges of the scoop looked sharp and sturdy, while the tail appeared muscular enough to move the scoop with great force. One supposed having a shovel on one’s tail would be useful for creatures who burrowed underground… but it would also be a powerful weapon in a fight, especially if someone attacked from behind. Indeed, with shovel-tails at the rear, and claws and mandibles at the front, these creatures would be formidable opponents if encountered in a narrow tunnel.

  The instant the beetle-things appeared, Festina dived to one side, rolling across the dirt and vaulting to her feet again with her pistol trained on the newcomers. She stood that way for several seconds, no doubt noticing that the aliens carried no obvious weapons and showed no sign of combative behavior. Without lowering her gun, Festina said, "Greetings. We are sentient citizens of the League of Peoples. We beg your Hospitality."

  The two furry beetles turned in her direction. This required a sort of hopping move on their back legs; but despite the awkwardness of the maneuver, they remained pressed against each other, keeping in physical contact at all times. After they faced her, they said nothing for several seconds long enough that I wondered if they had understood what she said. Perhaps they only spoke their own language… in which case, it was fortunate I could serve as interpreter. I was preparing to translate what Festina said when the black-furred beetle opened its mouth and a glowing gold ball emerged from its throat.

  I had never seen a creature vomit a ball of glowing gold. The ball was not solid, but a tight clot of mist about the size of my head. Its consistency was highly reminiscent of Nimbus (who of course was a product of Shaddill engineering). The mist floated upward to hover above the black beetle’s head… whereupon a voice sounded clearly from the gleaming fog.

  "Greetings yourself," the voice said in English. The sound was identical to Festina’s own voice; and it is most disconcerting to hear what seems like your Faithful Sidekick speaking from a ball of fog perched atop an alien bug. Clearly, the voice had to be a simulation… and when I thought about it, if I were creating a golden mist-ball to communicate with others, I might construct the ball to imitate the other person’s voice as closely as possible. This would not only ensure the mist-ball’s speech was pitched at a frequency the other person could hear, but it would also make one’s words sound agreeably dulcet to the listener. If I were designing a speaking mist, I might also make it float above my head, so people would hear the mist’s voice coming from my direction… but the whole idea was still most icky, and if I were an alien, I would not employ fog as an intermediary for communication. Especially not fog that resided in my stomach when it was not needed.

  "I am Immu," the black beetle’s fog-voice said. "This is my mate, Esticus."

  The brown beetle (Esticus) clacked all four mandible attachments twice. This was probably a gesture of polite acknowledgment, though to my eyes it looked most fearsome. "So you are spouses?" I asked.

  "Yes," said Immu.[14]

  [l4] — Of course, it was Immu’s fog-ball speaking, but I assumed the beetle was transmitting its thoughts to the mist in some way, whereupon the mist provided an appropriate English translation.

  "Are you the husband or the wife?"

  Immu did not answer; the two beetles just stared with their goggly eyes. Perhaps they were offended by my inability to recognize which was male and which female. Since neither of the creatures possessed obvious gender characteristics, I decided to regard Immu as the wife: she was the one who took a leadership role, and besides, she sounded like Festina.

  "Are you Shaddill," I asked, "or Fuentes?"

  "We’ve been called both names," Immu answered, "but it’s not how we speak of ourselves."

  The other one, Esticus, sighed. It was a soft sigh that breathed out another glowing ball of mist. Even before the mist could drift into position above Esticus’s head, the fog murmured, "We are not Shaddill or Fuentes. We are Tahpo." I blinked in surprise, and for two reasons. First, the voice that emanated from Esticus’s fog-ball sounded suspiciously familiar: it was my own! It did not sound exactly like the tones I customarily hear in my head, but I have been told one’s voice never sounds the same in one’s own ears as it does to other persons. Furthermore, it made sense that if Immu imitated Festina, Esticus would mimic me. Even so, I did not like the idea of an alien who spoke with my voice; it was most sinisterly creepy, like the first step in acquiring an evil twin.

  The other reason I reacted in surprise was because in my language (and therefore in Shaddill-speak too), Tahpo means "the last"… or perhaps a better translation would be "the dregs." Whatever Esticus meant by the word, Immu disapproved — she nudged him warningly with her hip. Perhaps she did not intend for us to see her action, but she hit Esticus hard enough to make him flinch.

  If Festina noticed, she did not comment. Instead, she told the aliens, "We’re honored to make your acquaintance, but the circumstances are unfortunate. Why did you capture our ship? What do you want from us? If we’ve inadvertently offended you in some way…" She glanced in my direction, as if I might have been the one who provoked the Shaddill into reprehensible deeds… which was most unfair, because the Shaddill had started misbehaving first. "If there’s any kind of problem," Festina said, "let’s discuss it and resolve things amicably."

  Immu made a raspy sound in her throat. I did not know if this was a growl of anger, the Shaddill form of laughter, or simply a clearing of phlegm. "Admiral Ramos," Immu’s fogball said, "we know your reputation — our substitutes for Admirals Rhee and Macleod kept us apprised of all activities in the Outward Fleet. We know you are an intelligent creature; you must realize you have seen too much for us to consider releasing you. This room, for instance."

  She gestured toward the fountain, pointing a claw toward the mini-chili. The small yellow fruit had completely disappeared; now, there was only a mush of jelly. "We don’t know how you found your way here so unerringly," Immu said, "but it’s a pity we didn’t notice until you had already reached the fountain. Quite possibly, you’ve seen additional secrets on our ship: secrets we can’t let you share with the outside world."

  "Then keep us here, but let everyone else go — everyone in the crusade and Royal Hemlock. They haven’t seen any of this."

  "They still know too much," Immu replied. "For example, they know FTL fields can be hyper-charged by entering a star." The mist above her head reshaped itself slightly — a tiny bit of fog broke off from the main gold ball and circled for a bit before plunging back inside. I realized this was intended to suggest Starbiter looping about the sun before she finally entered the fire… and I was most envious the Shaddill mist-clouds could not only perform English translations but provide delightful visual effects.

  Even as the fog was pretending to be Starbiter and the sun, its voice continued to speak. "This information is something we sought to keep secret. We replaced high officials in every culture we uplifted — like your Admirals Rhee and Macleod — and had them pass laws to prevent disclosure. For example, all starship computers in the Technocracy must be programmed to stay well clear of suns… supposedly as a safety precaution."

  "So," said Festina, "if someone ever wanted to get near a star, the ship’s computer just wouldn’t let it happen. Simple, but elegant."

  "And yet," I said, "Starbiter flew into the sun. She was reluctant to do so, but she obeyed me." The fog above Immu’s head flared brightly and made a harsh fizzing sound. I do not think the noise was intended to be speech — it sounded as if Immu was transmitting such angry thoughts to the cloud, the translation nanites had caught fire. In a moment, however, the fizzing spittered into silence and the cloud muttered, "We never shoul
d have given the Divians living starships."

  "It was part of their culture," Esticus said softly. "It was what they were used to. They would have been most suspicious of ships made from inorganic parts."

  "I know," Immu snapped, her cloud threatening to fizz again. "We still shouldn’t have taken the risk." She turned back to Festina and me. "The moment we gave the first Zaretts to the Divians, we surrendered control. You don’t build Zaretts, you breed them; and in the breeding process, random factors inevitably creep in. The first Zaretts we made would never go close to a sun; we designed them to have an absolute phobia against it. But in every subsequent generation, a few individuals weren’t quite as afraid as their parents. Inhibitions just don’t breed true, especially when they’re groundless. By now, half the Zaretts alive can be bullied into entering a star if you scream at them loud enough. Fortunately for us, no one ever tried it persistently."

  "Until I came along," I said proudly.

  Immu did not answer… but her translation mist gave another angry fizz.

  "Why did you do it?" Festina asked the Shaddill. "Why create this elaborate lie about the limitations of FTL fields?"

  "To slow you down," Esticus said. "To disrupt your species’ development. And to make sure our own vessel was always much faster than the craft of lesser races."

  "Surely you’ve realized by now," Immu said, "everything we do is aimed at weakening you. We approach cultures as they start into space; we offer them technology and flawed but plausible scientific models that completely bypass certain discoveries those races would otherwise make on their own." The cloud above Immu’s head split into two hemispheres with a slight gap between left and right. "We create a discontinuity in a species’ scientific progress," she said. "We give them devices they don’t understand and won’t understand, because they’ve been deflected from developing the necessary scientific background."

  "And of course," Festina said, "you place robot agents in positions of authority to make sure the background science is never filled in."

  "Exactly," Immu agreed, her cloud fusing together again. "Our robot replacements control the purse-strings for almost all research in your sector. If someone begins to investigate topics we dislike, that person is diverted to a different project." A part of her cloud spun off on its own. "When that doesn’t work — and scientists often prove difficult to sidetrack — we take steps to remove the irritant." A strand of fog lashed out from the main ball of mist, struck the little separate piece, and pulled it back into the whole again… like a frog swallowing a fly. "The annoyingly keen scientist simply disappears, and ends up in a comfortable holding facility on this very ship: a facility you’ll soon see for yourself."

  Festina lifted the muzzle of her stun-pistol. "Think again."

  Immu made the raspy throat-noise. This time it definitely sounded like laughter. "You obtained that gun from our robots. Do you believe we would arm them with weapons that would affect us?" "You might," Festina replied. "For all your fancy technology, you don’t seem very smart."

  "We aren’t," Esticus whispered. Immu gave him another hip-bump, this time making no effort to conceal it. She also made a hissing sound and clacked her mandibles in a gesture that was clearly a Shaddill shorthand for, "Shut up, you fool!"

  "Here’s what I think," Festina said. "I think five thousand years ago, your people were science whizzes who built this ship and a lot of other fancy stuff. Somewhere along the line, you developed a way to evolve to a higher state of being — to make yourselves smart as all hell, even if you ended up looking like blobs of purple jelly." She glanced at the liquid spurting out of the fountain. "What’s this stuff called?"

  There was a pause. The clouds over both Shaddill heads dimmed, as if they were trying to deal with some difficult concept and had to use all their power for the translation process. Finally, the mist above Esticus spoke softly: "Blood Honey," it said.

  Immediately, both speaker clouds brightened to their usual golden luster… or perhaps a bit shinier than before, greatly pleased with themselves for devising an elegant translation of the actual Shaddill name.

  "Blood Honey," Festina repeated. "Cute. Anyway, your people built Blood Honey fountains so you could all advance together. You carefully cleaned up the worlds where you lived, then you prepared to jelly out. The only problem was, some of you didn’t like the idea of turning into purple goop. I think it scared you shitless. So when everybody else went to bathe in the fountains, a bunch of you just turned tail. You buggered off on this ship, and you’ve been running ever since."

  "You mean," I said, "these Shaddill ones are cowards? All others of their kind pursued Celestial Transcendence, while these turned away in fear?" I glared at the two furry beetles with contempt. Suddenly, I understood why Esticus had called himself Tahpo: the dregs.

  "So how many of you are left?" Festina asked the beetles. "Hundreds? Thousands? Millions? Or could it be you two are the only ones who didn’t have the guts to change?"

  Immu didn’t answer — just turned her head away and lowered her gaze to the floor. Her mandibles fell still, as if she were paralyzed with shame. Finally, it was Esticus who spoke, his fog-cloud dim and drooping.

  "There were others once," he said. "Many others. It isn’t an easy thing to contemplate changing to the Soft Form even when you’ve been assured it will… expand your horizons."

  He closed his eyes: great brown eyelids rolled down from his forehead. "Once upon a time, this vessel was full of Tahpo. We spoke as if we were on a grand adventure — the last of our race, a single brave ship against a hostile galaxy. A grand, most noble adventure… and we formed a plan we all agreed was necessary for our survival. We would undermine lesser races before they could become our equals. There weren’t enough of us to compete any other way; our only defense was sabotage. So we all agreed. We all…"

  Esticus’s mandibles suddenly clenched tight against each other. They squeezed for a long shuddering moment; then they fell limp and motionless. "We all agreed. But over the years — the long, long years — the others left, one by one. They found the courage to change… or perhaps it wasn’t courage but despair. Despair at what our lives had become."

  Esticus sighed. "In a way, we’d become as lifeless and tired as the alien species we subverted. We all knew it. As the centuries passed, our comrades listened to the voices of… of those who had changed in the fountains." He paused. "The Soft Ones speak to us now and then. Or at least they used to. I haven’t heard them in years; perhaps they’ve given up on Immu and me. But when there were more of us, the Soft Ones whispered how profound their lives had become since the transformation… and slowly the other Tahpo surrendered. We’d discover that one of our number had vanished; we’d come to this room, and the fountain would be bubbling smugly."

  He opened his eyes and looked over at his mate. "Immu always turned off the Blood Honey and let the fountain drain… but eventually, the basin would be full again and another of us would be gone. Until…"

  Esticus’s voice trailed off.

  "You are the only two left," Festina said. "Aren’t you?"

  "Yes," Esticus whispered. "We are the greatest cowards of our race."

  He closed his eyes again. The two Shaddill stood there, huddled against each other in silence.

  The Effects Of Blood Honey

  They did not hold the pose long. Immu suddenly lifted her head and glared at us, her mandibles once more working furiously. "So!" she said. "Now you know how pathetic my mate and I are. No doubt you’ll have a good laugh about it… once you’re locked in our jail."

  "I would not enjoy imprisonment," I told her. "That would be unfair treatment… and I am fed up with cruelty at your hands. You gave me a Tired Brain! You made all my people that way! And since you first appeared above Melaquin, you have hounded me unmercifully for no good reason."

  "There was a reason," Esticus said. "I don’t know whether you’d consider it good…"

  He turned toward Immu with what I suspect was
a pleading expression. Immu made an unpleasant grunting noise, as if she really did not wish to explain; but gazing on Esticus’s face, she relented. "When we picked up the Rhee and Macleod robots from New Earth," Immu said, "they told us a woman had died on Melaquin four years ago." The fog cloud above Immu’s head reshaped into an arrow pointing in my direction. "Few among your people ever die… and we thought we could use your corpse."

  "What for?" I demanded.

  "For an experiment. To see…" Immu glanced at the fountain, its basin now nearly full. "It’s been centuries since that was last turned on. Not since our final companion changed to the Soft Form. We don’t know if the Blood Honey is still potent."

  "Of course it is potent," I chided. "You could discover that with a simple test." I waved toward the basin. "I placed a mini-chili in the bowl… and behold, it has turned to jelly."

  "Jelly is only the first part of the transformation," Immu replied. "The easy part — breaking down a cell’s exterior to expose the DNA inside. After that, there’s a second process to convert the DNA into… something else. Something that can hold a vastly expanded consciousness."

  "The process is complicated," Esticus put in. "It has to maintain existing neural connections in the brain to preserve the original psyche, while adjusting selected portions of the genome in a particular sequence…" His voice cloud began to reshape itself into some sort of twisty ladder, then collapsed back into a ball. Esticus must have decided this particular visual effect was too much bother. He said with weak sheepishness, "It’s very complex."