“My god, you’re right. My killing Dorfman caused me to neglect Klein. Deep within I knew it, but I tried to blame it on Klein, on the Forlani and their strange ways, but all the time I was hiding my guilt. I was afraid to be responsible for more killing, afraid others would know, but more so that I would know. I didn’t want to sully myself with what Klein had to do because I was afraid of what it would make me. But what I wound up doing was worse. Klein acted only out of instinct and necessity, as well as out of passion and the need to protect Entara, but my way was the coward’s way, unable to stand up to the terrible truth and making my friend the culprit in my place. Even though the revelation of it all seems so horrible, I feel strangely more peaceful now that I understand. I suppose the dread of responsibility is always greater than the actual weight of it.”
“You hit the spike and drive it home. Don’t you see how futile your words would have been without this breakthrough?”
“I do. Now I am ready to hear what the Circle has determined.”
“We find that your actions were faulty in several ways. Indeed, your handling of the traveling arrangements was awkward, even given the mitigating circumstances. You were lax in not maintaining closer contact with a man whom you judged more on your hopes than on rational expectations. Klein always presented himself as a being with a double edge. We can’t understand why you didn’t try to find out more about this Tays’she and his actions, or to make sure Klein had more alternatives in dealing with him other than a fairly obvious physical brawl. However, other than the lack of precautions, we cannot find you responsible for Klein’s bloodshed. You would certainly have been slaughtered yourself if you had tried to interfere. As for the injector, nothing more has been heard of it in the reports, so we can assume Klein properly disposed of it himself. Now what do you propose? Keep in mind that we will not accept any violence to yourself or any permanent separation from your loved ones, who are blameless in this event.”
Peebo took a deep breath and said, “I propose shunning and lifelong isolation at my farm.”
A huddle followed on the other side of the circle, and this time it was Park who answered, “Rejected. Your contacts with the Brotherhood and Hyperion may prove of great value to us in the future, as they did in averting Entara’s death. The money you brought back has already helped us transport over twenty people to join us on this world, and we hope to bring more. This is too precious a benefit to forego. Propose again.”
“I propose an end to the research activities I have conducted for the Circle and exclusion from all councils planning decisions for the future.”
This was a shorter huddle and Patak spoke for the group. “We are aware of the pride you have taken in your research work, which makes the proposal worthy of consideration on your side. However, in the greater interest, your discoveries have already saved and improved many lives, both among humans and others, and your mind offers many opportunities for the future. On the other hand, your role in furnishing a weapon for Klein is at most incidental, since we are sure he would have done as much or more to Tays‘she with his bare hands, if necessary. Therefore, it would be ridiculous to approve this proposal.”
“Then I propose a retreat of two years in a remote location, without the privilege of communication.”
This huddle was longer again, as many people seemed to be discussing particular points, though without any discernible disagreement. It was Cousin Al who came to the forefront this time.
“You know as well as we do that a retreat is always in order for anyone who feels the need. But two consecutive years is too darn long. You also know as well as we do that Felicia is showing the first signs of being pregnant. It is enough of an imposition on that woman to leave her for a while, without forcing her to be alone at such a crucial moment as birth. We will approve a retreat of no more than seven months at the Ecological Research Station on the southern continent, but only if you maintain communication with your family once each week. When you finish this period and providing that the assembly feels you have ensured that all possible responsibilities on the farm and to the Circle have been accomplished, we will approve resumption of the retreat for no more than three months at a time. Do you accept this?”
Peebo did, and thanked them for their understanding. He walked home with a lighter heart, knowing that now his only qualms concerned the fate of Klein, wherever he may be.
Klein’s hands were at the controls of a powerful piece of construction machinery, but he could not help thinking he was still just the same as a member of an old-time chain gang. The chains on his legs were distance and isolation. Carrier 12 had been a cesspool, almost literally. The Song Pai are amphibious cephalopods, so the ship was divided into wet and dry compartments, with Klein and the indentures confined, naturally, to the latter. The Song Pai preferred the water most of the time and confined their dry activities to certain types of storage and to latrine time. Coarsely put, they didn’t want to shit in the water because there was only so much water on board and the excrement fouled up the life support systems. Moreover, they had carried defecation to the level of a competitive sport or even an obscene art. They delighted in outdoing each other with the longest, loudest, hardest, softest, thinnest, and widest of shitting. The worst was target shitting, when they chose an indenture who was considered lazy or disrespectful and covered him with feces in marathons that would include as much of the off-duty crew as possible. Having quickly learned the jailhouse rules from his former experience, Klein had avoided this humiliation, and it was the worst of the addicts among the indentures who were usually bulls-eyed. The Song Pai made it a point of never cleaning up after themselves -- after all, that’s what servants were for, and heroic interceptor pilots were entitled to their fun. Every day it was a continual slopping out and Klein wished that he were Hercules and could release some torrent through this octopod stable that would once and for all wash everything away. But it was always there in its fetid abundance and the only relief he got was to haul around heavy containers in a cargo hold. The food was atrocious and seemed to be permanently infected with God knows what amphibious germs, the bunks were rock-hard shelves, the entertainment was non-existent, and the atmosphere stifling. To make things worse, the homebound voyage actually put the crew in a dangerous mood, since relaxed discipline encouraged the Song Pai to give vent to their naturally aggressive nature. Fights among them broke out over the most trifling matters and scores were often lethally settled, for two of their tentacles were armed with razor-sharp claws that were nearly a foot long. It was commonplace to see limbs lopped off or organs torn out without spectators being able to understand how or why. The only compensation was that indentures were protected from these sprees because of their contracts, which were inexplicably sacred to the squids. So violence to humans, though frequent, was low-grade, limited to shoving, tripping, and insults. This was an acceptable outlet among them because of the strict military discipline, since even a minor infraction of the Song Pai command structure became the occasion for public torture of the perpetrator, which often involved setting fire to a large part of his body. In the midst of this chaos, Klein searched as best he could for an individual to match the badge he concealed on the lanyard around his neck, but he could not find the one who had violated him in the Processing Center at the Plambo’ space port.
During the drudgery of the long voyage to Song Pa, only one day stood out in Klein’s memory, for it opened a new mystery that nagged at his analytical powers. It started at the midday feeding – you couldn’t call it a meal. The crowded mess hall on Carrier 12 was filled with foul stenches that assaulted Klein’s nose. There was a strong stink of ammonia coming from the walls, and the brownish glop that that the server robots were giving out to the line of humans smelled like some kind of rotten meat, even though the robot claimed that the substance was “edible and nutritious” on its text screen. Klein doubted that any food that could be most highly praised as being “edible” would taste very good, and was proven right
the moment he took a small bite of the grotesque mash. Klein plugged his nose and shoveled the vile stuff down his throat as fast as he possibly could to get the experience over with quickly. “That bad, eh?” a skinny man sitting next to Klein asked.
The rusty door to the mess hall slammed open, and a large Song Pai guard squeezed through it. He stood near the entryway and held up his text screen so that all could see. “ATTENTION,” he texted in caps. “ALL INDENTURES STAY TO ASSIGNED JOBS. THOSE WHO VIOLATE WILL BE PUNISHED. TOO MUCH INSUBORDINATION LATELY. OBEY OR ELSE.” The Song Pai then left as abruptly as he had entered, slamming the door behind him.
“What did the Song Pai mean by insubordination?” Klein asked the skinny man. “Everything looks pretty much the same as it always does to me.”
“Ask Gordon over there. He got roughed up by one of the Song Pai guards pretty bad over something. Hasn’t said much since,” the skinny man told Klein.
Klein put his plate in the cleaner bin and moved over to Gordon’s table. Gordon was a sullen giant, his face depressed and fearful, his once-confident demeanor shattered by the cruelty of the Song Pai. He was eating what remained of his food at a glacial pace. “Why was that Song Pai talking about insubordination?” Klein asked Gordon.
Gordon sat still, slowly chewing his food. After two minutes that seemed interminable to Klein, he finally began to talk slowly. “I was cleaning off the walls in Sector 3 again—some Song Pai must have decided to play a game of who could spray the most elaborate patterns on the walls again—and I heard this weird, scuttling sound. I thought it might be some weird kind of vermin, like a really big rat, or some kind of nasty alien. So I got my mop out, and I was moving in the direction of the sounds to go bash the brains out of whatever it was. The sounds were getting louder and louder, but just as I was closing in, one of the Song Pai guards grabbed me! He gave me these,” rolling up his shirt to reveal a collection of ugly scars from a whip. “Then he used one of those computers to tell me ‘DO NOT SEEK THE LOWLY ONE.’ Don’t ever look like you’re not working when you should be, that’s all I got out of it,” Gordon shrugged and went back to sitting in silence.
“At least the squid didn’t shit all over you,” Klein said in a feeble attempt at humor. Gordon remained silent and had no reaction. A siren began to blare, the signal to the humans to end their meal and get back to work.
Near the end of his shift, Klein realized that Gordon’s story about the “lowly one” had been distracting him all day. If the “lowly one” was just a simple vermin, why would the Song Pai be so insistent that Gordon not find and kill it? The Song Pai themselves were horrendously filthy and paid little heed to vermin, forcing the indentures to kill the rats and other creatures in the bunks themselves. Why would they care so much about a specific creature in the hallways, even coming up with a euphemism to name it? Even the punishment didn’t fit the usual behavioral patterns of the Song Pai—they usually placed such a value on the contracts of the indentures that they would not dare inflict serious violence on them. Why did this one specific thing cause them to behave in such a radically different matter? Klein found himself drawn to the inexplicable mystery of the “lowly one” like a moth to a flame. He heard the sound of a creature scuffing across the floor, and picked up his mop to protect himself with. Maybe Gordon’s vermin was something else altogether, he thought as he crept in the direction of the noises.
From his time on Domremy, Klein had become very experienced in concealing the sounds of his movement. He moved slowly and stealthily in the direction of the noises, his heart pumping faster and faster as they grew louder. At the end of the hallway, he smelled a strange, pungent scent he didn’t recognize. He raised his mop in case it did turn out to be a rat, and made a final quick turn around the corner.
The creature was surprisingly large. It bore a resemblance to a Song Pai, but lacked the two bladed arms of all the Song Pai Klein had seen so far had. It was only about two thirds the size of the typical warrior. The creature’s behavior was far more shocking than its appearance; instead of rearing up and brandishing its limbs as most Song Pai would upon seeing an intruder, this one seemed to be terrified; it flattened itself against the floor and tried to change its skin tone to the mottled grey of the ship. It quickly realized that Klein knew exactly where it was and made a hissing sound to try to ward off Klein as it backed away. Klein held up his data screen and told the creature, “Do not run -- I will not hurt you.” But his attempt at reassurance did nothing to change the creature’s behavior, and it let out a sodden yelp.
Klein suddenly felt a muscular cephalopod arm wrap around his chest. One of the Song Pai guards had seized him from behind! The smaller creature fled as Klein thrashed, frantically trying free himself from the Song Pai’s hold. He could see the guard raising its arm to slash his head off, but suddenly the arm fell and the Song Pai’s grip went slack. Klein pulled a limp Song Pai limb off his chest and turned around to see another Song Pai standing near the fallen body of his attempted assassin.
The new Song Pai held up a data screen. “Why are you here?” it asked Klein.
Too shocked to come up with a convincing lie, Klein decided to answer truthfully. “Another indenture told me he was punished because he heard a strange creature and got distracted from his work. It is not normal for Song Pai to whip their indentures.”
The Song Pai flushed red at the sight of Klein’s text. “The Lowly Ones are not accepted in our society. The Lowly Ones should all be exterminated, as should anyone who encourages them. Baku Ra, this one who tried to slay you, desired to keep this one’s presence secret. He is dead and you have served me by aiding in his death.”
“What are these things?” Klein texted the Song Pai. “Why would Baku Ra try to hide this thing and violate the Song Pai’s behavioral code to protect it?”
The Song Pai flushed purple. “On Song Pa, you may find one who will tell you, but I will not speak of this shame. Go back to your quarters, and accept your punishment for disobeying a Song Pai.”
“What punishment? You just said I served you against Baku Ra!” Klein angrily texted.
“You still disobeyed a Song Pai—Baku Ra told you not to seek the Lowly One. Obey the Song Pai,” the creature texted as it sprayed its filth all over Klein.
Klein shuddered as the Song Pai’s foul ordure slid over his bodysuit. He rushed back to the indentures’ bunks, amazed at the cephalopods’ seemingly infinite ability to find new ways to disgust and baffle him through their contradictory culture and behavioral codes. As he hosed himself off in the shower, he swore he would somehow find out exactly what the Lowly Ones were and their link to the Song Pai.
Once Klein disembarked on Song Pa, conditions improved a bit, but only because he was no longer in such a claustrophobic confinement. Along with the other indentured servants who had not succumbed to illness or OD’ed on Carrier 12, he was transferred to a construction crew. The planet had originally been about one third dry land, but over the eons the Song Pai were transforming that into a vast network of flats traced by canals. The majority of this work had long been delegated to cheap labor from off-planet. The dry lands contained ruins and vestiges from a non-aquatic species that had arisen long before the cephalopods , but which had managed to achieve its own extinction through mismanagement of genetic engineering – a not uncommon occurrence in universal history.
The intelligent Song Pai, previously a prey species of the Foregoers, had crawled out and discovered a whole advanced technology at their tentacle tips, including rudimentary space travel, which had boosted their advancement far beyond the normal evolutionary pace. Yet even though they were henceforth masters of both the wet and dry domains and found it convenient to establish some types of manufacturing facilities and mines on land, they tended to leave the water on a needs-only basis and assign the greater share of restructuring to the lesser species. On dry Song Pa, Klein joined a motley underclass of various biological origins marshalled by native supervisors, but left free during thei
r rare hours off the clock to shift for themselves. Their camps resembled what Klein had read about slave quarters in the ancient South of the old USA: tacky houses where the workers huddled together, occasionally copulating and even marrying one another, devising their own music and games to conserve their morale, even cultivating a few vegetables to supplement the monotonous rations grudgingly doled out by their overlords. At the end of each project, the settlements emptied as workers were dispersed according to new priorities, with bowed heads and brief goodbyes. Almost no mementos, since the workers’ heavy tools were nearly all they could manage to carry. Klein’s lanyard, often replaced but still around his neck, still held a card with a little purple light whose illumination had given out long ago, another with an orange dot, a piece of wood hollowed out to contain a Song Pai identity badge, a fragment from an image of Entara that Ayan’we had passed to him as they parted in the Forlan spaceport, and the tooth of a fellow exile who had helped him during a difficult injury on an earlier project. He’d wished he had something from the Dissenters, but what? A vegetable that would have long since rotted away? A bit of ash that would have blown away in the wind? How could the people of the Circle cling to a God that left them so little to remember him by? Klein could not find a shred of faith in his dreary existence, only remnants of ridiculous hopes and dark urges.
Klein was on a job doing shoreline restoration job where a maritime storm had damaged the vicinity of a hatchery, working in tandem with a crew of Talinians that were handling the underwater part. Talinians were alien amphibians like big, strong newts who handled a lot of subsurface work for the Song Pai. They had vocalization and a sophisticated language, but it all sounded like “slurrbb, slurrbb” to most land-dwellers, so Klein resorted to the ever-present texters to say what was needed. As he was using his loader to nudge a big rock into place, he got a text.
Life Sentence (Forlani Saga Book 1) Page 25
