Very much play. Very little work. Especially in alien species who had been Scientific for a long long time.
Nimbus spoke of diverse alien races—Earthlings and Divians and Cashlings and several other species whose names did not stick in my mind—but they all had two qualities in common. First, they had been “uplifted” by the Shaddill: approached in their native star systems, given new homes elsewhere in the galaxy, and presented with sophisticated Science Gifts as a welcome to the League of Peoples. Second, ever since their uplift, these species had all grown more decadent, temperamental, and culturally sterile…particularly those uplifted for the longest period.
As a simple example, one could compare Cashlings with humans. Cashlings had been uplifted four thousand years ago; with humans, it was only four hundred. You therefore might expect the Cashlings to be more sophisticated in the ways of technology, having had so much longer to develop…but in fact, the Cashlings were not superior at all. Partly, this was because Cashling civilization had lost all interest in Scientific Research. In addition, whatever advanced knowledge they did once possess they had speedily bartered to Homo sapiens in exchange for VR adventures, situation comedy broadcasts, and glossy picture books.
The Cashlings had sold their technology to other alien races as well—which meant every species now possessed the know-how to build self-repairing cities that could satisfy the physical requirements of inhabitants without those inhabitants needing to work. (Much like our cities on Melaquin, I thought.) And gradually, such places were being constructed by other species, humans and Divians and all.
Most of these other species declaimed loudly they were not imitating the despised Cashlings but simply exploiting Cashling technology…yet little by little, these races declined into lifestyles indistinguishable from the Cashling mode. Idle entertainment. The pursuit of faddish excuses for profundity. A deadened inner emptiness, reinforced by a self-righteous conviction there was no more worthwhile way to live—not that they felt satisfied with their own way of life, but they held an unquestioned certainty that no one possessed anything better.
So the diverse races of the galaxy were drifting toward the feckless ways of the Cashlings. Was this not the case with the human navy? Filled with venal admirals like Alexander York and puffed-up captains like Prope, not to mention foolish but inept saboteurs like Zuni. As for Divians, what could one say about the villainous marriage brokers who threatened to kill Lajoolie’s family if she did not perfectly satisfy Uclod? Wicked, arrogant, and self-centered.
Of course, Lajoolie herself was not so bad. Neither was Uclod…nor Festina…nor perhaps Sergeant Aarhus and various other persons I had met…
When I voiced this objection, Nimbus said it merely demonstrated that Earthlings and Divians had not progressed so far into decadence as other species. Their races had only been uplifted for a few centuries; though decline was definitely creeping in, it had not yet infected everyone. Given a few more generations, however, Earthlings and Divians were headed for the same ghastly foolishness as Cashlings.
And apparently, Cashlings were very foolish indeed. Nimbus told me of numerous Cashling misdeeds he had observed over the years while riding in female Zaretts: Cashlings neglecting to pack sufficient hydrocarbons for long voyages…never bothering to calculate an optimal flight path, but simply aiming toward the apparent position of one’s destination…forgetting the difference between internal and external gravity, and consequently landing their spaceships upside-down…
I giggled at that, but Nimbus said it was Not Funny, Oar, It Was Tragic. At one time, the Cashlings had been a great people—intelligent, sensitive, and thoughtful. They had created some of the greatest visual art in the galaxy; they had cared passionately about color and form and meaning. But that was long ago and those artworks were gone: sold off to pay for foolish games and amusements from other species. Soon there would be nothing left…and no one could tell what the Cashlings would do with themselves when they could no longer squander their ancient heritage to pay for short-term diversions.
“Perhaps,” I suggested, “they will rouse themselves from fruitless indulgence and embark upon lives of industry.”
Nimbus’s mist swirled a moment. “No, Oar. They’re no longer capable.” He paused. “A lot of non-Cashling planets have Cashling communities: outreach crusades travel all over the galaxy, leaving bored drop-outs on every planet they pass. If someone doesn’t take care of those Cashlings, they simply languish and die; they’re too accustomed to having everything done by machines. That includes machines to rear their children—if a baby comes along, a Cash-ling mother has no idea how to raise an infant and no desire to learn. As a result, there’ve been lots of Cashling children raised by foster parents from different races…and those kids are just as useless as other Cashlings, no matter what their adoptive families do. Petulant. Disdainful. Negligible attention span. Unable to function, unwilling to be taught.” Nimbus made a sighing sound. “Even children brought up with no knowledge of Cashling ways still grow up to be Cashlings. Every last one of them. Nature completely defeating nurture.”
“But why is that odd?” I asked. “Rabbit babies grow up to be rabbits. Wolf babies grow up to be wolves. All creatures have instincts, and instincts cannot be erased.”
“But Cashling instincts have been erased,” Nimbus whispered intensely. “That’s the point, Oar, that’s the whole point. Cashlings haven’t always been useless. Before they were uplifted, they had a thriving ambitious culture. If nothing else, they certainly possessed the instinct to raise their own children. Now they don’t. None of them. Too flighty and easily bored. The only ones with the tiniest bit of initiative are the prophets, and you can see what they’re like.”
His misty hand wafted dismissively in the direction of Lord Rye and Lady Bell. “It’s not surprising that affluence leads some people to indolence, but there should be others who buck the trend. Cunning schemers who want everybody else under their thumb, or strong-willed crusaders who fight to change the world. Cashling history has had plenty of striking individuals, both good and bad…but not in the past few millennia. No conquerors, no heroes, no devils, no saints.” He paused. “The only way to explain such a universal absence is some crucial degeneration in the Cashling genome: a dominant mutation that’s made them all peevish and ineffectual.”
“In other words,” I said, “some dire calamity has afflicted them with Tired Brains.”
“Exactly. And the same thing is happening to other species. Fasskisters, for example—the greatest masters of nanotech in our sector, but these days they hardly work at all. Oh, they still take jobs if they find the assignment amusing (and if the price is right); but they haven’t initiated anything themselves for quite some time. They don’t dream up projects on their own. It’s as if they’re incapable of imagining what they might do: they need an outside commission to kick them into activity.”
When the cloud man used the word “kick,” I could not help picturing the way I needed to kick elderly persons on Melaquin in order to elicit any response. Hesitantly I asked, “What do young people think of this, Nimbus? The young Fasskisters and Cashlings. Do they ever look around and say, Why are things not better? What is wrong with us that we cannot accomplish great deeds? Why do we waste hours and days and years on activities we know achieve nothing? How can we stop being broken?”
The cloud man’s mist floated close to me, becoming fog all around my eyes. I had the feeling he had actually surrounded me, wrapped himself about my body, enfolding me until I too looked like a creature of mist. “Of course they ask such questions,” he whispered. “Once in a while. When they can force themselves to concentrate. Out in the depths of space, light-years away from anything, I’ve watched Cashlings weep over who they are…who they aren’t…what their race has become. That’s how prophets are born: a moment of clarity, the desire to transform themselves and the universe.
“But,” he continued, “it never lasts. They can’t make it last. They’re dama
ged, Oar—even if they experience a flash of profundity, they can’t sustain it, they can’t use it, they can’t preserve the desire to change. I’ve watched them; they can’t become anything else, not even with other species to learn from. They simply lack the capacity. The Cashlings are lost, and other races are following them into the darkness. On their best days, they long to be truly alive… but they’re physically incapable of pushing themselves past the emptiness.” He paused. “You can’t imagine their heartbreak when they realize they can’t make it work.”
“I believe I can imagine it,” I said. My eyes had gone misty… and the mist was not cloud.
11 Or so I have been told by human Explorers. Explorers are extremely prone to lecturing on the Diverse Facets Of Alien Life…and then telling most entertaining stories (“This did not happen to me but to a friend”) of instances when an Explorerdiddare to eat a peach.
20
WHEREIN I FEEL SORRY FOR FISH
Exclusive Rights
I still had my eyes shut, squeezing them tight to choke off tears, when the twittering Lady Bell clapped her hands with jubilation. “Then it’s settled!” she said in a gleeful voice. “Your lives for your story!”
My eyes snapped open. While I was conversing with Nimbus, Festina had apparently negotiated our freedom…which irked me no end since I had wished to be the one who persuaded the Cashlings to set us free. How else could I show the world I was not a worthless idle-head? I swiped the tears from my cheeks and stormed across the transport bay. “So,” I demanded, “what is this sinister deal you have worked out behind my back?”
Festina blinked in surprise. “Nothing sinister, Oar. Lady Bell has agreed to transport everyone on Hemlock to Jalmut and let us go free once we get there…in exchange for which, she gets exclusive rights to our story.”
“Exclusive rights!” Bell crooned. “The most wonderful phrase in your language!”
“Of course,” Lord Rye said, “tomorrow, the rights will be mine. Because then it’s my turn to be prophet.”
“Uh, yes, certainly,” Bell replied. “It will be your turn.” She whirled back to Festina. “No time to waste. We have to record your statement and broadcast it immediately. We have to record everybody’s statement.” She moved to my side with a single step of her long-legged gait and took me by the arm in a manner oozing with unearned familiarity. “Your statement particularly, dear. You were the one who suffered most; and you’ll come across fabulously on camera. The moth-eaten jacket…the woebegone expression…the childish speech patterns…you’ll tug like mad on everyone’s heartstrings. Especially the prime demographic of men who like watching grown women behave like eight-year-olds. Boy, do those guys have disposable income!”
Festina seized my other arm before I showed Lady Bell what “disposable” really means.
No Such Thing As An Immediate Departure
“So,” Uclod said to Bell, “you can do the broadcast right away?”
The lady whooshed gusts of air from several apertures in her skin. I believe this was a Disdainful Scoff. “We’re running a crusade,” she told the little orange man. “We have an instant-play contract with four major news-wires and enough broadcasting wattage to saturate every star system from here to the globular clusters. When we preach a sermon, we preach a sermon.”
“Then what are we waiting for?” Uclod asked. “Let’s go!”
Alas, it was not so easy as that—Arrangements had to be made. While the prophets’ ship (called Unfettered Destiny) could hold those of us scheduled to give testimony, the rest of Hemlock’s crew had to be offloaded in ones and twos to other vessels in the flotilla. This would require significant coordination of effort, and neither Lady Bell nor Lord Rye wished to supervise the work: such “petty details” were beneath the dignity of important prophets. Moreover, Lady Bell insisted her broadcast witnesses could not possibly spare the time to help clear the navy ship. We had to start recording without delay; otherwise, she might decide to make us slaves after all.
This was merely an empty threat—anyone could see she did not care about slaves half so much as she cared about the broadcast. Bell literally jiggled with joy at the prospect of disseminating our testimony; she clearly expected to reap substantial benefits. No doubt she would become famous as the person who brought my poignant tale to the universe. Moreover, I suspected the broadcast was not going to be delivered free of charge—the audience would have to pay a fee in order to see my beauty. This meant Lady Bell would surely become rich, for everyone enjoys watching a person as lovely as I, especially when the person has a Sobering Tale To Tell.
The promise of forthcoming largesse explained why Bell grew upset with Festina. My Faithful Sidekick wished to remain on Royal Hemlock long enough to ensure there were no slip-ups in the evacuation…whereas Lady Bell desired to leave right away, and stamped her foot impatiently at waiting even a little bit. “If you must hang around here,” she told Festina, “I’ll take the others and get started without you.”
But that did not please Festina: she had the air of a person who believes everyone else will make an Awful Cock-Up of giving testimony, emphasizing the wrong details, skipping important evidence, and generally creating a flawed impression with the viewing public. She did not trust us to do things correctly unless she was there to supervise.
In the end, Lady Bell agreed to wait just long enough for Festina to find Captain Kapoor and put him in charge of the evacuation. This, as it turned out, was merely a ruse on the lady’s part—as soon as Festina left the transport bay, Bell attempted to persuade us to depart immediately.
“Can’t do it,” Sergeant Aarhus said, “even if we wanted to. No spacesuits.”
“Why do you need spacesuits?” Bell snapped.
“Don’t like breathing vacuum,” Aarhus answered. “I hate the part where my eyes get freeze-dried. So while the admiral is gone, let’s just mosey on down to where the Explorers keep their suits—”
“No, no, no,” Bell interrupted, “you won’t need suits. Unfettered Destiny is docked directly outside. An airtight link.” She waved her hand toward the exit hatch. “You can go over right now.”
“So why are you and Rye wearing suits?” Uclod asked.
Lady Bell made another whooshing sound with multiple orifices. “We didn’t know how much air you’d have,” she said. “You were floating derelict, no FTL field, no electrical readings…for all we knew, you might not have oxygen either.”
“Exactly,” Lord Rye agreed. “We didn’t know you’d fried your own ship; we thought maybe all your power systems had been disabled by that thing on your hull.”
For a second, nobody spoke. Then we all howled in unison, “What thing on our hull?”
“I don’t know,” Lord Rye said. “It looked like a big stick.”
Questions Of Security
Lajoolie fairly threw herself against Uclod, as if the little man was the only creature in the universe who could protect her; she nearly bowled him over, but somehow he stayed on his feet. He put one arm around her hips and gave a comforting squeeze…but his eyes turned toward the exit airlock as if he desperately wished to run for it.
The rest of us were unencumbered by large timid women. We did run for the airlock—not because we were fleeing cowards, but because the foolish human ship had no means of looking at its own exterior. I wanted to see with my own eyes what this big stick looked like. Nimbus and Aarhus clearly felt the same.
“Where are you going?” Lady Bell asked as we passed her.
None of us answered. I reached the airlock first, with Nimbus gusting straight behind me, and Aarhus pounding through the hatchway a moment later. The sergeant grabbed the door as he passed; with a strong yank, he slammed it shut while the Cashlings still gaped at us from outside.
“Spin that wheel,” Aarhus yelled, pointing at a spoked metal ring that stuck out of the wall. I grabbed the wheel and heaved; it moved so grudgingly, I was not certain I was turning it in the correct direction, but one does not lik
e to embarrass oneself by sheepishly switching to go the other way, so I just pulled the wheel harder. Much harder.
The floor lurched beneath our feet.
“Hey,” Aarhus said, “take it easy!”
“I did not do anything,” I told him, “I just turned the wheel.”
“The wheel’s attached to gimbals,” he said. “They change our orientation to match the direction of gravity on the other ship—the last thing we want is to step out of the airlock and plummet straight up toward the floor.”
“Why are spaceships so complicated?” I grumbled. “If I were in charge of the galaxy, I would pass a law that all ships must fly flat and level instead of at odd angles.”
But I spun the wheel more slowly after that. I could feel the airlock chamber rotating and rolling in accordance with the wheel’s revolution…but the direction of down continued to be more or less beneath our feet, as if gravity was continually rearranging itself to match our gyrations. Quite possibly, if I had been patient enough to move the wheel at a snail’s pace, we could have turned completely upside-down while barely noticing the change.
“You know,” Aarhus said as he watched me work, “technically speaking, what we’re doing could be considered hijacking. Boarding someone’s ship without permission.”
“Do not be foolish,” I told him. “The Cashlings can follow us as soon as we have gone through.”
“I know that. But what will the Cashling security systems think? When strangers show up unaccompanied, the ship might consider us illegal intruders.”
Nimbus made a dubious noise. “In my experience with Cashlings, half the time they forget to activate security systems when they leave the ship.”
Ascending Page 25
