Hidden in Sight

by Julie E. Czerneda

  Being without Ersh no longer seemed a holiday. I was faced with making a decision I shouldn’t have had to make—whether to trust one of my own or not. I panted, knowing my emotional turmoil risked my form integrity and trying to dump excess energy as heat before I really did explode. Not as they’d teased me, but the exothermic result of changing back to web-form without control would be more than sufficient to catch the attention of the Human, in his shuttle or out.

  I needed somewhere to think this through. Or explode. Either way, it couldn’t be here. I crouched as low as possible, cursing the bright Eclipse sunlight, then eased back, paw by paw, ears and nose straining for any sign of Skalet, until it was safe to risk going to all fours.

  Then I ran.

  What life there is on Picco’s Moon prefers to bask deep in the valleys girdling the equator. It’s hot down there, for one thing, and the lowermost walls glisten with the steamy outflow of mineral-saturated water so important to the crystalline biology of everything native. Farther up, the walls are etched with pathways, aeons old, marking the migration of species to and from the drier, cooler surface for reasons that varied from escaping predation to a need to find the best conditions for facet cleaning. The annual plunge of the tendren herds over the rim of the Assansi Valley was, Ersh had assured me, one of the most dramatic events she’d ever seen. And she’d seen most.

  I couldn’t venture an opinion. Long before I joined Ersh on her Moon, the rim of the Assansi Valley had collapsed due to erosion, doubtless hurried along by thousands of impatient, diamond-sharp toes. Life here wasn’t easy.

  It wasn’t easy for visitors either. Had I sought the depths of a valley, my Lanivarian-self wouldn’t have survived an hour. As for forms that might, including Tumbler? I couldn’t trust my ability to hold them.

  So I avoided the Tumbler track leading to the nearest valley, the Edianti, and padded morosely around Ersh’s mountain instead.

  Not that I planned to go far. I might have Ersh’s thorough knowledge of the place, but the Moon’s geology was nothing if not active. Today’s crevice was as likely tomorrow’s upthrust, making any map based on memory alone unreliable.

  I’d begun by scrambling up each rise, and slipping headlong down the inevitable slope, but calmed before doing myself any more harm than running out of breath. I’d grown up here and knew the hazards—evenly divided between those involving Ersh and those involving slicing my footpads open on fresh crystal. As for the utter unlikelihood of a Lanivarian running around on Picco’s Moon? The Tumblers who climbed Ersh’s mountain for conversation and trade had long ago accepted her proclivity for alien house-guests as a charming eccentricity and, given their inability to tell carbon-based species apart, let alone individuals, paid no attention to what kind they were. Well, as long as they were tidy and didn’t eat in public places—Tumblers being thoroughly offended by the concept of body cavities and ingestion providing too much evidence for comfort.

  The plants. I had to do something. Skalet and this Uriel were Human—at least one of them likely to remain so—and what did I know about the species which could help? The flood of information on the heels of the inadvertent thought brought me to a gasping standstill. I wasn’t very good at assimilating the larger chunks of information Ersh fed me.

  A lie. I was very good at assimilating, just better at resisting. New knowledge fascinated me—that wasn’t the problem. But each time I bit, chewed, and swallowed Ersh-mass, it seemed there was less of me, of Esen.

  The others didn’t understand. Their personalities were solid; they were old.

  So when, as now, I needed information I’d shoved aside in my mind, the assimilation happened suddenly, as if liquid poured into my mouth faster than I could swallow, filling my stomach, rising back up my throat until I couldn’t breathe. I endured the sensation, because I had to find a way to deal with this Uriel.

  Ah. The turmoil subsided. I understood the species as I hadn’t dared before. Interesting. Complex as individuals, predictable en masse, amiable yet unusually curious in their interactions with other species.

  And many cultures of Humans, including Kraal, valued gems.

  I’d snuck back to the landing pad, keeping downwind in case Skalet was looking for me. I doubted it, feeling it more likely she was content to know I’d run and was out of her way. Something in the thought raised the hair between my shoulders.

  Watching the two hadn’t cleared up any of the mystery. Uriel had finished piling packing crates on a grav-sled, lashing them together as though the cargo was fragile. I could smell wet dirt and bruised leaves, implying they’d been busy—and not particularly careful—putting duras plants into the shuttle. Mind you, Ersh was a little overprotective of the things. I knew from experience they survived being dropped quite nicely.

  From what I’d overheard, Skalet was reassuringly adamant that the Human not enter Ersh’s abode, insisting she’d move the cargo to a more secure location later. The Human, obviously not knowing Skalet as well as I, then argued he should accompany her. I’d waited for her to dismiss him, but she’d merely smiled and stroked his arm. They’d disappeared inside the shuttle for several minutes. Perhaps, I’d decided with some disgust, Skalet was following in Ansky’s footsteps and experimenting with physical liaison. Ersh would not be impressed.

  But Ersh must already know, I thought suddenly. Web-kin couldn’t hide memory from her. This could be why Skalet had been left in charge of me—to punish this behavior while making it more difficult to accomplish.

  As if that had worked, I said to myself, feeling wise beyond my years.

  Their delay had given me time to put my own plan into action. I patted the bag against my haunch, its hard bulges a combination of luck and the now-helpful sunlight. Judging from the abundance of ritual leavings sparkling around the lower slope of the mountain, Ersh had had more Tumblers visiting than I knew. I’d worried unnecessarily about having to scout closer to Edianti’s unstable rim.

  “Aren’t there any more, S’kal-ru?” Uriel’s voice sent me ducking behind my boulder again. “These will barely suffice to start twenty cultures. Mocktap won’t accept that as payment for what’s in these containers—”

  “These are enough. This strain of duras clones amazingly well, my friend, and grows even faster. We’ll have plants for a hundred ships within months, providing both oxygen and—”

  When her voice trailed away with suggestive triumph, I immediately filled in the gap. Mass. Ersh had modified these plants to produce the greatest possible amount of new mass in the shortest time. She’d picked duras over other species because they were hardy, thrived indoors, and, also importantly, were essentially inedible. No point sharing useful mass with other life. And, while the attraction was lost on me, Ersh confessed to finding their compact spirals of green leaves aesthetically pleasing. If Skalet was making sure her Kraal affiliates carried duras plants on their ships, it was for her own convenience as a web-being.

  I was lost in admiration.

  But what had convinced the Kraal? There were much easier botanicals to use as an oxygen supplement.

  “The sap is even deadlier than you promised,” the Human answered as if reading my thoughts. “And, thus far, completely undetectable.”

  Poison. I wrinkled my snout as if at a bad smell. The Web revered life, especially intelligent life, but Ersh hadn’t spared me the realities of that life either. Most ephemeral species engaged in self-destructive behavior, including assassination and murder. The Kraal, for instance, granted exceptional status to those who managed to remove their rivals with the utmost finesse and mystery. A game, played with lives. I could see Skalet enjoying the strategy of it, the detached observer watching generations of Kraal worry and pick at their alliances, giving the odd push to a group that caught her interest, then abandoning them in another roll of the dice.

  We had less in common than I’d thought.

  My plan was simple and should have worked. There hadn’t been any flaws I could see. Which had been t
he problem, really. Failing to see what was right in front of me all the time.

  The Human, Uriel, had taken my bait. He’d helped Skalet move the grav-sled a considerable distance around Ersh’s mountain, to the side that was more geologically stable, though still riddled with faults and caves. There, the two of them had off-loaded the sled, carrying each crate inside.

  While they’d been out of sight, I’d slipped up to the sled and quickly pried open the nearest box. Packing material blossomed out at me and I’d fought to get it all back inside before they returned. But I’d had time to see what was so important: Kraal artifacts. Art. Trinkets. My web-kin accumulated and shared memories of such things, not the real objects. What would be the point? There wasn’t enough room on Picco’s Moon to house a comparably comprehensive collection from any one species, let alone from thousands. Then there was the risk inherent in storing such hard-to-hide treasures.

  Treasure? Was that it? Had Skalet somehow become enamored of private wealth? Unlikely, since as a member of the Web she could access more than she could ever spend—Ersh having appreciated the value of economics well before Queebs could count.

  There was another possibility. Ersh-memory, Skalet-flavored, floated up. A Kraal dynasty required not only a lineage, with the requisite ruthless progenitor, but the physical trappings of a House—the older and more bloodstained, the better. How long did Skalet plan to use this as her preferred public form? Human life spans were long, but that long? She was capable of such a plan, I knew. And would relish every aspect of it, including the cost.

  If this bothered Ersh, something I couldn’t predict, she could deal with our errant web-kin. I wanted my plants back in the greenhouse where they belonged. For that, I required the shuttle unloading to take a little longer.

  Ears cocked for any sound they were returning, I began setting out my bait. Each crystal blazed in my paws, varied in color and hue, but all flawless, as if the facets had been cut with the skill of a lifetime. Biology was a wonderful thing.

  One here. So. Two more there. The sunlight reflected so vividly the crystals might have been lit from within. This Uriel couldn’t help but see them. Each was worth, conservatively, the price of his shuttle. There for the taking.

  I backed down the path leading away from the landing pad, looking over my shoulder frequently to be sure I didn’t step close to the sheer cliff which made this Ersh’s preferred spot for flying lessons. I really wasn’t fond of heights. There. I rounded an outcropping, intending to leave the last few less obviously in sight before running back to the shuttle, only to find myself surrounded.

  Not that the Tumblers were interested in me. I froze, lowering my paw to the ground and letting the crystals fall discreetly behind, hopefully out of sight.

  They were busy.

  It was Eclipse, I remembered, drymouthed, and, of course, they were busy.

  If I’d thought the crystals gorgeous, their makers were beyond description. Their towering bodies took the sunlight and fractured it into streams of color, flashing with their every movement against rock, ground, and one another until I squinted in order to make out what they were doing. They were picking up crystals with their trowellike hands and holding them up to the sunlight. I could hear a discordant chime, soft, repeated, as though they chanted to themselves.

  Then a loud Crack!

  I cried out as crystal shards peppered my snout and dodged behind the outcrop.

  The Tumblers noticed me now. “Guest of Ershia,” one chimed, the resonating crystals within its chest picking out a minor key of distress. “Are you harmed?”

  Licking blood off my nose, I stepped out again and bowed. “I’m fine,” I said, knowing there was no point explaining skin damage and blood loss to mineral beings. It would only upset them. “And you?”

  One tilted forward, slowly, and gracefully tumbled closer. “In rapture, Guest of Ershia. Do you see it?” The Tumbler held up a crystal identical to those all around me, then placed it somewhere in the midst of its body. I couldn’t make out exactly where in all the reflections. Then the Tumbler began to vibrate, its companions humming along, until my teeth felt loose in their sockets.

  There were two possibilities. This was a group of crazed individuals, tumbling around looking for “ritual leavings” as part of a bizarre ceremony, or this was exactly what I’d hoped to find at the start of Eclipse—parental Tumblers hunting their offspring.

  Which meant I’d been collecting children, not droppings. My tail slid between my legs.

  However, this didn’t explain the tiny fragments sticking out of my snout. Or why Ersh hadn’t wanted me to see it.

  Another Tumbler held up a crystal, identical, as far as my Lanivarian eyes could detect, to any of the others. The light bending through it must have meant something different to the Tumbler, however, for she gave a melancholy tone, deep and grief-stricken, then closed her hand.

  I buried my face in my arms quickly enough to save my eyes, if not my shoulders and forearms, from the spray of fragments.

  “Ah, you feel our sorrow, Ershia’s Guest,” this from another Tumbler, who graciously interpreted my yip of pain as sympathy.

  I stammered something, hopefully polite, and hurried away. The hardest thing was to resist the urge to fill my bag and arms with all the crystals I could carry, to save them from this deadly sorting by light. No wonder Ersh had tried to keep me away from Eclipse. I struggled with the urge to cycle, focusing on that danger to block the sounds of more shattering from behind. What if the Web had so judged me? What if I’d failed that day Ersh tossed me from her mountain?

  Different biologies. Different imperatives. Different truths. Different biologies—I ran the liturgy through my mind over and over as I fled home.

  “Just a few more minutes, S’kal-ru! I see another one!”

  The triumphant announcement brought me skidding to a halt and diving for cover again. Uriel! He was running down the path in my direction, pockets bulging, his face flushed with excitement.

  I hated it when a plan worked too well.

  I was out of options. The thought of going back to join the Tumblers horrified me, however natural their behavior. Cycling into that form was impossible—I needed mass, almost twice what I had, let alone what might happen if sunlight didn’t travel through my crystal self in a way that enraptured the adults. I fought to stay calm, to think. Ersh had warned me a truly desperate web-being could instinctively cycle to match her surroundings—the oldest instinct. It would be the death of Esen-alit-Quar. Rock couldn’t sustain thought.

  “There’s no time for this!” Skalet’s voice in this form might be mellifluous, but it had no difficulty expressing fury. I could smell her approaching, but didn’t dare look.

  “It’s the best so far,” I heard her companion protest. “C’mon, S’kal-ru. What’s a minute or two more? We’ll be rich!”

  “Only a minute?” my web-kin repeated, her voice calming deceptively even as it came closer. I shivered, knowing that tone. “Do you know how many moves can be made in a game of chess, in one minute?”

  The sun was setting, sending a final wash of clean, white light over the mountainside, signaling the end of Eclipse. And more. There was a strangled sound, followed by a sequence of gradually quieter thuds, soft, as though the source moved away.

  Or fell.

  The seedling’s tender white roots had been exposed. I took a handful of moist earth and sprinkled tiny flakes of it into the pot until satisfied. Most of the plants were unharmed. All were back where they belonged. It hadn’t been me. I’d stayed hidden, afraid of the Tumblers, afraid of the darkness, afraid of letting Skalet know I’d been there.

  I hadn’t made it back to the shuttle before Skalet, but Ersh had. Apparently, she hadn’t left—sending away Skalet’s shuttle in some game of her own. Had Ersh set a trap? It paid to remember who had taught Skalet tactics and treachery.

  What went on between the two of them, I didn’t know or want to know. It was enough that there were li
ghts in the windows and an open door when I’d finally dared return. The Kraal shuttle and Skalet were gone.

  The plants, needing my care, were not.

  Ersh, as usual, was in Tumbler form, magnificent and terrifying. I shivered when she rolled herself into the greenhouse. It was probably shock. I hadn’t cleaned my cuts or fed. Those things didn’t seem important.

  Secrets. They were important.

  “You went out in the Eclipse.”

  A transgression so mild-seeming now, I nodded and kept working.

  “And learned what it means to the Tumblers.”

  I hadn’t thought. To her Tumbler perceptions, I was covered in the glittering remains of children. My paws began to shake.

  “Look up, Esen-alit-Quar, and learn what it means to be Web.”

  I didn’t understand, but obeyed. Above me was the rock slab forming the ceiling, embedded with the lights that permitted the duras plants to grow. It needed frequent dusting, a job my Lanivarian-self found a struggle—then I saw.

  Between the standard lighting fixtures were others. I’d never paid attention to them before, but now I saw those lights weren’t lights at all. Well, they were, but only in the sense that, like a prism, their crystalline structure was being used to gather and funnel light from outside.

  They were crystals. Tumbler crystals. Children.

  “Like us, Tumblers are one from many,” Ersh chimed beside me. “To grow into an adult, a Tumbler must accumulate others, each to fulfill a different part of the whole. The very youngest need help to begin formation and are collected for that reason. But Tumblers are wise beings and have learned to use the sun’s light to find any young who are—incompatible. It is a fact of Tumbler life that some are born without a stable internal matrix. If they were left, they could be mistakenly accumulated into a new Tumbler only to eventually shatter—crippling or destroying that individual. It is a matter of survival, Youngest.”