Ammonite Planets (Omnibus): Ammonite Galaxy #1-3

by Gillian Andrews

  “Three!” said the visitor.

  “—three doing all the work.”

  Diva and Six looked at each other. “No problem,” said Six. “We make a pret-ty good team, though I say it myself!” They touched knuckles and then hands in a high five. The visitor hovered over their heads.

  “Then Arcan and I will stay comfortably in orbit in the Independence, and wait to see what happens.”

  The visitor gave a rather dampened fizz of static. “What happens if Dessia terminates me first?” it asked.

  Grace bit her lip again. “We are leaving it a bit fine,” she agreed. “But I can’t think of anything else we can do.”

  Six shifted his weight and they all looked at him. “It’s just that … couldn’t Arcan visit Dessia?”

  “You mean join with the visitor in a link?” Grace frowned. “Do you think that might delay things, Visitor?”

  The tiny globe buzzed. “It might,” it hazarded, “though the Dessites are rather … intractable about things.”

  “Worth taking a chance? The link wasn’t successful last time, remember?”

  “No. But Arcan and I have been working on it since then. Ever since last year we have been able to achieve some communication – although not on a non-local level, unfortunately. Even a partial transference would be positive, I guess …”

  “Good thinking then, Six. Arcan, will you be able to contact the Dessites from Pictoria?”

  Arcan shimmered. “Location will not make any difference,” he said.

  “Then let’s do that!” Grace told them. “But if we are going to do it, we should go now. The visitor doesn’t seem to have much time!”

  Diva clapped her hands together. “Great!”

  “Great!” echoed Six, with markedly less enthusiasm.

  The sharp edges of the hospital room on Xiantha blurred, and they found themselves standing in front of the control panel on the Independence, with the bright colours of Pictoria clearly visible through the rexelene observation visor in front of them.

  Chapter 21

  SIX AND DIVA lost no time in taking a shuttle down to the planet. The orange-gold sun of Pictoria was just coming up over the horizon, so they had at least ten hours before the hurricane-force winds would start up. They would have to move fast if they wanted to find out more about the amorphs. Grace made one last try to make them take her too, but Six soon put a stop to that.

  “Suppose we have to climb our way back out again? How could you do that with your hands in the state they are now?” He shook his head. “Even if you were fully recuperated we couldn’t take you now, Grace, surely you can see that?”

  She was forced to admit that he was right.

  “But you will take the ropes with you this time, Six, won’t you? Just in case?”

  The Kwaidian nodded. “I promise.”

  Almost as soon as they had gone, Arcan and the visitor began to plan the link with the Dessites. Grace offered to join them, but Arcan was quite adamant.

  “It knocked you out cold last time, Grace, and that was when you were fighting fit! Look at you – you can only stand up for a few seconds at a time! No, you stay here and coordinate with Diva and Six. If I am in this link for a long time there may be decisions to take.”

  “It might be very dangerous, Arcan. These Dessites sound like quite aggressive individuals. Be very, very careful, please!”

  “I will be. The visitor has promised that he won’t let me come to any harm. If necessary he will protect me.”

  Grace had to be satisfied with that, but took the video camera aside for a moment as soon as she had the chance.

  “Please contact me if there is anything I can do,” she told it. “I am worried for both of you.”

  The visitor agreed. “The case on Dessia has already started,” it told her. “The accusations are that I have been applying censorship to my transmissions, that I risked the whole mission to save a 3b entity, and that my loyalties have changed from Dessia to the orthogel entity.” The machine whirred distractedly. “There is no defense, because recently I have hardly been transmitting anything at all, and I can’t deny their accusations. The only thing that might save me is that they need me to transmit anything at all.”

  “How long would it take them to get another ship to the binary system?” asked Grace.

  “Only a few decades. They have already asked ten ships like mine to deviate from their original courses.”

  “You didn’t tell us that before! You mean that we will be inundated with Dessian ships in another twenty years?”

  “Inundated, no. Remember, Dessia is over 12,000 light years away, and we can’t travel at the speed of light. It would take 140 centuries of your time for them to reach here from Dessia itself in anything like large numbers, although time would pass much more quickly on the ships, of course. No, the worst they can do is ask any ships in this quadrant to change their course, and head for the binary system.”

  “And how many might that be?”

  The little machine appeared to consider. “There might be fifty or sixty ships in the local area,” it said slowly, “though it would take some of those a few thousand years to reach here.”

  Grace was by now very worried. “I wish you had told Arcan before this.”

  “I was forbidden to mention it,” the machine told her. Then it buzzed again nervously. “Now the Dessites could add a charge of treason to the accusation. I just thought that you ought to know. In case … in case Arcan and the others don’t succeed.”

  “They won’t know that you told me.”

  “No. But I will know.”

  “Thank you for letting me know, Visitor. It must have been a difficult decision for you to make.”

  “I don’t feel Dessite anymore. I have felt … alone, for a long time.”

  “If we can turn you into an amorph maybe you won’t feel so strange?”

  “Do you think so? I would like that. I feel … wrong as I am at the moment. The Dessites spent a lot of money putting me into existence so they had a right to expect my loyalty. I am a traitor.” Grace got the impression that if it could, the visitor would be hanging its head in shame.

  “You are wrong,” she said, quite sure of what she was about to say. “They didn’t make you. You are a collection of cells which evolved – with the ability to think for itself. All they did was ensure that you wouldn’t wake up until you were near a system with life. They simply manipulated you so that you would be in a sort of stasis for years and years. But you are an individual, and you should have rights!”

  “They wouldn’t agree.”

  “I know. They think they have the right to terminate you when you no longer serve their purposes.”

  “Perhaps they have. After all, they have invested a lot of money in me.”

  “You are a slave; your wishes are never consulted. You have to do as they want, live the life they have decided you will live, and then feel guilty if you don’t fulfill every last one of their expectations.” Suddenly Grace stopped. This was beginning to sound familiar. She frowned. “Anyway, I don’t believe that they have the right to decide when your life should finish. However much money you have cost them.”

  The visitor gave a chirrup. “Thank you. You have made me feel better.”

  “Good. Now promise that you will let me know if you and Arcan get into trouble.”

  “I promise, though I can’t imagine what a 3b could do if two category 2 sentients can’t solve a problem.”

  Grace smiled. “Nor can I, but I would like to have the chance to try. Promise?”

  “You are imposing conditions on me. That is what the Dessites do.”

  Grace was much struck by this point of view. “I suppose I am,” she admitted. “I’m sorry.”

  The visitor gave a sort of static sigh. “That’s all right, Grace. I know you are only trying to help me.”

  “We’ll do it, Visitor. Don’t worry.”

  “I never expected to get out of my nutrient tank, but now w
e have spoken about the possibility I find I would be very happy if I could,” the small machine said wistfully.

  Grace felt her throat block. She could only imagine what it would feel like to be stuck in a nutrient tank all your life. She knew that they had to liberate this small alien from its prison. It deserved to be free.

  SIX AND DIVA arrived without incident on the surface of Pictoria. It was just as exotic as before: the row upon row of parallel ridges running from north to south broken up by the mottled areas of peppered potholes and the imposing buttes.

  Diva looked around. They had tried to land in the same place as the previous visit, so that they would know exactly where to go. She spotted the butte they had scaled, and tugged on Six’s clothes.

  “There! Come on!”

  “Do you have to pull my clothes half off?” he asked.

  “Was not!”

  “Look! You have left the mark of your fingers all over the front!”

  “Stop complaining, no-name, and let’s go find the amorphs!” She thought for a moment, “So how do you propose we find the amorphs? Are we going to let ourselves down into that awful cavern again?”

  “I don’t think we have any choice. We’ll just have to climb down.”

  She stared. “You have lost your mind!”

  “I’m beginning to wonder. I don’t think I would be traipsing all over the galaxy in your wake if I had.”

  “As if I ever influenced you about anything! What a nerve!”

  “Like I wanted to get married to you!”

  Diva tossed back her mane of hair, which was now its normal colour, and had grown longer again, and her eyes flashed. “You were keen enough last year!”

  “I was keen on a relationship, Diva. Getting married in your culture is just a contract!”

  Diva looked puzzled. “A contract is a relationship. You might have relations with anybody, but you would only have a contractual relationship with your consort. That is the way we do it on Coriolis.”

  “And what if the consort would like … err … relations?”

  Diva’s eyes flashed. “He would find them elsewhere, of course … discreetly.”

  “So what is the point of being married?”

  “I don’t understand you. If a Coriolan woman doesn’t get married she is quite worthless. You know that. You know that I was repudiated for being unable to produce children to prolong the dynasty.”

  Six frowned. Something had just occurred to him. “Yes, but Diva, you do have children! On Xiantha!”

  She looked at him as if he were a Pictorian spider crawling across her arm. “They don’t count!”

  “Why not?”

  “Because, no-brain, they were not consented. Isn’t it obvious?”

  “Is this some Coriolan thing? You do seem to have some strange laws.”

  Diva sighed. “If you had studied any Coriolan history you would know all this. When the original law was passed – about seven hundred years ago – that the grandchildren of all ruling Elders would inherit, and that their parents would automatically become consorts, there was a great deal of trouble.”

  “I can imagine. Especially if they were all like you!”

  “Don’t interrupt, Six! Some of the more ambitious men realized that the letter of the law meant that even if the girls were unwilling, whoever engendered the grandchild in question would become a consort of Coriolis.”

  Six nodded his understanding. “And the most forward of those decided not to wait for anybody’s consent? Least of all the girl’s?”

  Diva nodded. “So the law was amended. Only consented progeny may inherit. I was violated by the operation to remove my oocytes …”

  “And now you have given your consent? But – they are the same oocytes, aren’t they?”

  “It is completely different! I have made a conscious decision to save them, and I have consented their use. That constitutes full consent – a legal marriage on Coriolis.”

  Six gave a sigh. “On Kwaide a marriage is rather more than that.”

  “More? There is no more. I don’t know what you mean. You have me! We have a contractual relationship!”

  “And isn’t that fun!” muttered Six in a dry tone. “The worst of it is, I think you really believe that.”

  “Of course I do. You know how grateful I am to you for helping me out with the children thing. I shall never forget what you did.”

  Six thought back to the big needle, and gave an involuntary shudder. “No sacrifice too great,” he said. “Glad to have been of help.”

  Diva flashed him one of her heart-slaying smiles. “I really appreciate it, nomus. You aren’t exactly the father I would have chosen for my children, being an unmentionable from Kwaide, but – you know – needs must!”

  “Your flattery is overwhelming!”

  She looked pleased. “I knew you would see it my way!”

  Six subdued yet another impulse to knock her teeth through her very fine skull. It was pointless to go on, he thought. If anything was ever going to change inside that magnificent head of hers it would do so in its own good time. Then he grinned to himself. That didn’t mean he couldn’t give it a gentle nudge every now and then.

  “Consorts get their own palace, you said?”

  She nodded.

  “I bet that makes them attractive to the local ladies!”

  Diva went still, and then she turned to stare at him, and her eyes flashed. “If that is the sort of thing you want!” she snapped.

  “Just speaking hypothetically,” he said.

  “Well, don’t!” She flung herself forwards in the direction of the butte.

  Six was well-pleased. He could see that a little judicious needling from time to time might work wonders. He couldn’t think why it hadn’t occurred to him before. He followed her automatically, mentally planning a long campaign.

  “Mmm. Marriage is going to be quite a challenge,” he muttered.

  “Don’t worry, Kwaidian. I’ll teach you which knife to eat with!”

  Six grinned. “And I might just teach you a thing or two. Who knows?”

  Diva looked doubtful.

  BACK IN ORBIT around Pictoria, Arcan transported into the small spaceship which housed the visitor, and they began to prepare for the attempt to meld into the visitor’s small mind, in order to experience the Dessites in person. Although they had attempted an individual mindmerge several times since that first, rather disastrous trial on board the Variance, they had not really progressed to extending that link to Dessia. Arcan had been more aware of the Dessites as sentients, but he had never managed to achieve any direct contact with them. He felt that this whole exercise was pointless, but couldn’t see any better options.

  They began the mindmerge, slowly at first, and then with more concentration. Firstly Arcan became aware of the sharp tendrils of thought which pressed against his own. They nudged at his subconscious, insistently trying to tell him something. The sense he got of the small alien visitor was that of deference and respect. It was almost as if the visitor were asking him tentatively to accept a contact, as if the tiny being were overawed by the immensity of Arcan.

  Arcan darkened as the depth of the contact increased. Now he was at last able to feel what the visitor represented. He could see the colours surrounding it, and the shapes of its brain patterns and personality. It was like falling, falling directly into the well of someone else’s psyche, and very uncomfortable, because there was a strong feeling of letting go of his own personality, of abandoning some physical part of himself. Arcan found himself fighting the conviction that he may never find it again. It took quite a large effort on his part not to withdraw from the connection between the two minds.

  But he didn’t. He knew that this was part of the visitor’s last chance at life, and this time he forced himself to continue past the strong sensation of self-immolation, to press forward on the barrier he was sensing behind the visitor. It was a thick, seething wall of consciousness which pressed down on the tiny creature
he was joined with, almost crushing it with the weight. Arcan felt how puny the tiny being was against the massive inertia of the Dessites. The wall he was faced with was heaving, teeming with different beings, that much he knew. But he found it impossible to separate one from the other, like trying to devise the individual atoms which made up Grace, he found. He knew that they were there, but he was completely unable to make any intelligible contact with them – even through the visitor.

  The seconds lengthened to minutes, and the minutes to hours. This time, Arcan was absolutely determined not to break the tenuous connection, determined not to give up on this small, but brave creature who had risked its own existence to help one of his friends. His mind continued to gently probe at the tumultuous wall he could sense, trying desperately to find some sort of way to contact them, insistently resolved to establish some way of communication with the species, of persuading them not to judge the visitor too harshly.

  GRACE WATCHED THE planet shining underneath the Independence and sighed. The morning had already disappeared, and there was no news from either the planet’s surface or from the Visitor’s spaceship. She felt strangely oppressed.

  She looked down at her hands, at last free of the bandages, and gave another sigh. It was hard to see the huge wounds where fingers had been before. Now she was on her own, she decided to take a look at her face. There hadn’t been time before to see exactly what that was looking like. Mirrors were not much in evidence on space traders, but she remembered that there was a full-length one in the detox chamber, so she made her way over there. Her toes were healing, but it still hurt to walk, and she moved with a gait which she felt more resembled a vaniven with overgrown hooves than a two-legged member of the Sellite race.

  At last she reached the chamber, clinging a moment to the doorway to get her breath. It was nothing like the one on the Kwaide Orbital Platform, where she had been taken by Ledin after the battle on Kwaide. She thought back to that day. It seemed as if it were yesterday. Every detail was fixed in her memory in extraordinarily fine-grained detail. She could see the translucent pipes leading from the depot to the ships, could smell the fighting men, hear the sounds of the battle. Over and over again she had relived her suggestion to use the pipelines to get to the shuttles, wondering what would have happened if she hadn’t made that suggestion. And every day her imagination played back the moment when Solian was struck down. She hadn’t been able to see what had happened, had been concentrating on succeeding in her own mission, so the scenes she imagined were each time more and more grisly. What she could remember in faithful detail was his last battle cry. That had become a part of her, that ‘NEW KWAIIIIDE!”, which had percolated into her very bones, exhorting her but chilling her at the same time.