Ascending

by James Alan Gardner

  “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. Eri-noun 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?”

  “Opinions differ,” Festina said. “Now, if you’d like us to introduce ourselves—”

  “No,” Lady Bell interrupted. “You’re slaves. You have no names. You may think you do, but we’ll soon wipe that out of you.”

  “Before you do anything irreversible,” said Festina, “we’d like to talk to your prophet about ransom.”

  “Would you really?” Lord Rye asked. “Then go ahead. I’m the prophet.”

  Vexatious Bickering

  Lady Bell whirled on him. “No,” she snapped. Many of her mouths made sharp under-hisses. “Today I’m the prophet.”

  “You’re mistaken, darling.” The word “darling” was stressed most oddly; as with the Cashlings’ attempt at laughter, I got the impression Lord Rye was endeavoring to imitate something he did not understand. “You were the prophet yesterday. At that rally on Jalmut.”

  “That was two days ago, darling. Therefore you were prophet yesterday, and it’s my turn again.”

  “But I didn’t do anything prophetic yesterday—we spent the whole day just getting free of Jalmut airspace. Darling.”

  “That’s not my fault, darling darling. You had plenty of time to do holy work. You could have whipped up a sacred revelation.”

  “One doesn’t whip up revelations,” Lord Rye said with many supplementary hisses. “They’re supposed to come naturally. And they haven’t of late.” He made a whining noise. “I think I have prophet’s block.”

  “Then I definitely should be prophet today.” The lady turned to us all, sweeping her hands outward in a gracious gesture. “My friends—by which I mean, my worthless alien chattel—I am the Exalted Prophet Bell. Just a moment.”

  She reached to the neck of her spacesuit, slipped some sort of latch, and removed h
er helmet. Underneath she looked exactly like her suit…which is to say, frost green dappled with violet bits. The bits were not clean-edged pictures like the ones on her clothes, but they were similar in size and color. Either the woman had tattooed herself to match her suit, or the suit had been decorated with little images that were chosen to be close matches for the natural spottles on the lady’s skin.

  She had no discernible eyes, nose, or mouth…or rather, she had numerous pocks and indentations all over her head which probably served as the usual facial organs, but when a creature has dozens of small eyes instead of two normalsized ones, it is just not the same at all. How, for example, can one tell where the person is looking? And how can one read emotional expressions when the alien’s face cannot smile, pout or frown? Perhaps that is why the Cashlings always moved with extravagant gestures, waving their hands and bobbing their bodies—with no facial features to convey emotion, they were forced to act everything out.

  “That’s better,” Bell said as mouths all over her face sucked at the Hemlock’s air. “Now you wished to discuss ransom? I’m amenable. Your Outward Fleet has notoriously deep pockets.”

  “We don’t need to bring the Admiralty into this,” Festina replied. “I can pay all our ransoms with property I have ready to hand.”

  “Property?” Bell repeated. “You have no property, slave. The ship is ours. Its equipment is ours. Even your clothes are ours…although Miss See-Through Savage can keep her flea-bitten jacket. Disgusting.”

  “I was thinking of a different sort of property,” Festina told her. “Intellectual property.”

  “Oh merde,” said Lord Rye, with many mouths sighing. “You aren’t going to offer us military secrets, are you?” By now, he too had removed his helmet; unsurprisingly, his head was striped red-and-white like his suit. “Some crusade thirty years ago accepted military secrets as a ransom, then couldn’t sell them to anyone. Nobody cared.”

  “Don’t be ridiculous, darling,” Lady Bell told him, “that’s a complete myth. A legend. Probably started by the Outward Fleet itself to discourage espionage.” She turned back to Festina. “What kind of military secrets are we talking about? Access codes? Crypto algorithms? Names of spies in Cash-ling space?”

  “I didn’t say I was offering military secrets,” Festina replied.

  “Then what are you offering?”

  “Military secrets. But not the kind you think. These secrets are fat, wet, and juicy. The kind a news agency would pay millions for. And it’s all yours if you’ll let us go.”

  Festina began the story of Alexander York and his exposé. Since I had heard this tale before, I did not pay attention; instead, I looked for something in the transport bay I might find amusing. There was very little there—I could not spot the Pollisand hiding in tree paintings, and the rest of the room was bare…except for the people, of course: Festina, the Cashlings, Aarhus, Uclod, Lajoolie…and Nimbus.

  The cloud man was floating some distance away from the rest of our party. He had clearly been offended by Rye dismissing Zaretts as a vassal race; therefore, Nimbus had withdrawn, hovering like a storm cloud against the rear wall of the chamber. As his sibling-in-Shaddillhood, I did not like to see him upset…and anyway, it was tedious listening to Festina speak of things I already knew, so I sidled away from the group and went to offer Nimbus some sisterly consolation.

  Umushu

  “Hello,” I said softly. “How are you feeling?”

  Since he did not have eyes, Nimbus could not glare in bitter remonstrance; but the shudder that went through his mist conveyed a similar response. “Why should you care about the feelings of a vassal race?”

  “Do not blame me for an alien’s words.” Lowering my voice, I added, “In my opinion, these prophets are arrogant and hurtful. Are all Cashlings like that?”

  “They’re all fools,” Nimbus answered in a fierce whisper. “Dangerous ones.”

  I looked back at the Cashlings’ spindly bodies; they had shown they could move most quickly, but they did not look strong enough to punch with any great effect. “How are they dangerous?” I asked.

  A tendril of his mist swirled toward me, brushing my cheek like tingly dust. “They’re umushu,” the tendril whispered softly into my ear.

  “What is that?” I whispered back.

  “A fictional monster from Divian folklore. A corpse whose spirit has departed but who doesn’t fall down. Going through the motions of life, but no longer truly conscious.”

  “Lord Rye and Lady Bell are zombies?” I asked with delectable horror.

  “Not real ones…but they might as well be.” The dusty tendril of his being still hovered close to my ear, brushing lightly against my skin. “There’s something missing in Cashlings: some important spark has burnt out. Admiral Ramos told you they waste most of their lives in idle entertainment, bought from other species; and they spend the rest of their time on crusades, which are just another form of hollow amusement. Crusades don’t really mean anything to them—it’s just that their ancestors organized crusades, so the current generation does too. Do you think those prophets genuinely have anything to say about life?”

  “No…but how does that make them dangerous?”

  Nimbus did not answer right away. Finally he said, “Think about people on your planet, Oar—the ones with Tired Brains. Suppose that instead of lying dormant in towers, they actually moved around. Suppose they had parties, they traveled to other cities, they pretended to practice spiritual devotions…but their brains were still Tired. It was all just sleepwalking. They never built or manufactured anything, they never did anything new, they never dreamed of change; they simply lived in automated habitats filled with machines that did the bothersome work of keeping everyone alive. Wouldn’t that be a form of hell?”

  I did not answer immediately. The conditions Nimbus described were perilously close to the reality of my world—not just the state of my ancestors, but my own state through much of my life: creating nothing, and living by the grace of machines. “It would be most suffocating to the soul,” I said at last. “But I do not see how it could be dangerous to other persons.”

  “It’s dangerous,” Nimbus whispered, “it’s terrifyingly dangerous. Because after seeing the Cashlings, everyone else wants to be that way too.”

  The Resentment Of Vassals

  “Everyone would wish to be Cashlings?” I whispered. “How can that be? They are awful.”

  “Other species agree with you,” Nimbus replied, his whisper most gloomy. “They despise the Cashlings…then try to live exactly like them.”

  “That is nonsense!”

  “Yes, it is. But nevertheless, it’s happening. Believe me, I know—belonging to a vassal race teaches you a lot about your masters.”

  “But you work for Uclod, not Cashlings.”

  His mist fluttered. “Do you know how old I am?”

  “No.”

  “Over two hundred Terran years. I’ve worked for all the local races.”

  I stared at him. “You are two hundred years old? That is quite most astonishing.”

  “Why?” the cloud man asked. “You and I are Shaddill technology; you’re virtually immortal, so why shouldn’t I be? In fact, I should be more immortal than you—the Shad-dill created your race 4,500 years ago, while my race is less than a thousand. If the Shaddill continued to make scientific advances all that time, my design is 3,500 years more sophisticated than yours.”

  “Oh foo!” I exclaimed in outrage. Then I remembered we were supposed to be whispering and glanced around guiltily to see if anyone else had heard me. The other people in the transport bay showed no signs of noticing—the room was large, and we were quite some distance removed. Besides, everyone was still listening intently to Festina speak of AlexanderYork…though mostly they were listening to the Cashlings ask irrelevant questions about the whole business. Festina could only utter a few words at a time before Bell and Rye interrupted with more pointless quibbles.

  I turned back
to Nimbus and whispered sharply, “You are not more advanced than I!”

  “Maybe not,” he agreed. “I’m only a vassal race.”

  “Do not pretend to be pitiable. I do not see anyone persecuting you.”

  “Apart from the fact that I’m owned? That I’m a slave? That I’m sent to impregnate females I’ve never met before, I stay long enough to deliver the baby and get a bit attached to it, then off I go to some new master fifty light-years away, never to see my mates or children again? You don’t call that persecution?”

  I stared at him…or perhaps I was staring at the infant Starbiter clutched tight in his belly. Perhaps it was not coincidence that he carried the child as a pregnant woman does—not in his hands but in the center of his being, at his body’s core. “Very well,” I whispered, “it is persecution. Your species is callously mistreated…though I shall not call you a vassal race, for I do not think of you that way.”

  “Everyone else does,” he said, “and that’s how I know about Cashlings. Not to mention it’s how I know that all other sentient races are hell-bent on becoming Cashlings.”

  “Explain,” I said.

  And he did.

  Coveting Folly

  Though the majority of Zarett ships were owned by Divians, a number had been sold to alien races as well. More precisely, Divian breeders sold female Zaretts to non-Divians; they then leased male Zaretts (at high cost) to the aliens whenever paternalish services were required.

  Therefore, as Nimbus said, he had spent his life drifting from one stud position to another, only staying long enough to mate with a Zarett female, help with the birth, and attend the first months of motherhood. Such a forced impermanence saddened him deeply; but it had also given him a unique chance to observe alien species at their most unguarded. Most of the time, the aliens did not know they were being watched—male Zaretts were microscopic eyes and ears hiding in a starship’s walls, watching their “masters” at work and play.