The Only Thing to Fear

by Julie E. Czerneda

  The Finest in DAW Science Fiction and Fantasy by JULIE E. CZERNEDA:

  THE CLAN CHRONICLES:

  Stratification:

  REAP THE WILD WIND (#1)

  RIDERS OF THE STORM (#2)

  RIFT IN THE SKY (#3)

  The Trade Pact:

  A THOUSAND WORDS FOR STRANGER (#1)

  TIES OF POWER (#2)

  TO TRADE THE STARS (#3)

  Reunification:

  THIS GULF OF TIME AND STARS (#1)

  THE GATE TO FUTURES PAST (#2)

  TO GUARD AGAINST THE DARK (#3)

  TALES FROM PLEXIS

  *

  NIGHT’S EDGE:

  A TURN OF LIGHT (#1)

  A PLAY OF SHADOW (#2)

  *

  SPECIES IMPERATIVE:

  Omnibus Edition

  SURVIVAL | MIGRATION | REGENERATION

  *

  WEB SHIFTERS:

  BEHOLDER’S EYE (#1)

  CHANGING VISION (#2)

  HIDDEN IN SIGHT (#3)

  Web Shifter’s Library:

  SEARCH IMAGE (#1)

  *

  IN THE COMPANY OF OTHERS

  THE GOSSAMER MAGE*

  *Coming soon from DAW Books

  Julie E. Czerneda

  The Only Thing to Fear

  A Web Shifters Story

  DAW BOOKS, INC.

  WWW.DAWBOOKS.COM

  Copyright © 2018 by Julie E. Czerneda

  All Rights Reserved.

  Cover art by Matt Stawicki.

  Cover design by G-Force Design.

  Interior ornament courtesy of ShutterStock.

  Published by DAW Books, Inc.

  375 Hudson Street, New York, NY 10014.

  All characters and events in this book are fictitious.

  Any resemblance to persons living or dead is strictly coincidental.

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  Ebook ISBN: 9780756413965

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  Version_1

  CONTENTS

  Also by Julie E. Czerneda

  Title Page

  Copyright

  Acknowledgments

  The Only Thing to Fear

  About the Author

  ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

  Esen the Dear Little Blob has been with me for my entire writing career and before. Evan Gooseberry, however, is a recent arrival. He came about, not for this story, but for one I was writing for Lucas Law and Susan Forest, to submit to their first anthology. It was entitled Strangers Among Us, and they wanted stories about mental disabilities and illnesses that were positive, using SF/F to show how a mind working differently, a mind challenged, could resolve a situation or crisis in unforeseeable ways. I loved this topic. The challenges of depression and anxiety, for example, are in every family, ours included. But could I do it justice?

  Nope.

  Oh, I started well. I created Evan, who struggles with his phobias in order to do his work, and loved him, but I’d nothing for Evan to do. I told Lucas and Susan I couldn’t do a story for them, and they graciously let me write an introduction instead. To what is, in my opinion, one of the strongest anthologies of SF/F I’ve ever read.

  When it was time to bring Esen back, I realized at once she and Evan (writers waste not) would have a very—let’s say interesting—relationship. At the same time, it was Canada’s 150th birthday and there were Revels. Everywhere. Including La Machine, a remarkable work of street theatre that consumed our nation’s capital for three days. Look it up if you’re unfamiliar; it’s amazing! (But please wait until after you read this story.) I will say, the fudge shop scene? Straight from our Offspring’s experience, while there.

  Esen’s stories are science fiction, but there’s always reality at their core. About us, what’s around us, and life in all its glorious Weird.

  I wouldn’t write her any other way.

  The Only Thing to Fear

  I lifted my right paw, uncurling its useful toes with their thick callused knuckles and passably manicured clawtips, then depressed the button to start the encrypted recording.

  “Hello. This is— Whatever you know me as, my real name is Esen-alit-Quar, Esen for short, Es in a hurry or between friends.

  “You’ve received this recording because friends is what I hope we’ll stay. The sort who trust one another, who share the truth. Paul, my first friend, taught me that.

  “What I have to tell you might change your mind about being friends. It’s all right. I’ll understand. Just—please don’t be afraid.

  “The truth is, I’m not what you see.

  “Well, yes, I am, because whatever form I wear is me, which can be a bother sometimes, let me tell you, but . . . what I am? Is a little more complicated. I can’t show you. I’m supposed to hide my true form from aliens, even friends. It’s not prejudice. We’re private.

  “‘We’ being Web-beings. I’m one of two left—in our bit of universe, anyway. We’re shapeshifters. Not the scary kind in the mythos of too many cultures, especially of humanoids which has always made me wonder—and doesn’t matter at this moment. Suffice to say that’s not us. We were originally creatures of space, consuming and using energy, manipulating our mass for survival. Now we live on worlds, like you, and expend our energy to transform our mass into the remembered structure of a sentient life-form. Yes, only sentient ones. Why? The first of our Web, Ersh, assimilated a form able to think and found herself obliged to continue to do so, a trait she gave the rest of us. It’s worked out for the best, in my opinion.

  “Mind you, Ersh is now part of a moon, and I doubt she does any thinking there. She sacrificed herself for us in an attempt to defeat our Enemy, a mindless Web-being of terrible appetite—that’s why there’s only two of us now.

  “After all, the sweetest flesh is our own.

  “I understand that can sound alarming, but it’s normal for us. It’s how Web-beings exchange information. We consume one another’s flesh. Assimilate one another’s memories. It’s what we are.

  “I assure you we don’t consume anyone else. Yes, our Enemy did, but we don’t. The Web of Esen exists to protect others. That’s my Rule. Besides, plants provide excellent replacement web-mass and are easy to—

  “—the point being, our purpose is to keep you and all sentient species safe. Our Enemy is dead, but others might follow. We remain vigilant. My friends help, too. You don’t have to, but you could, if you want.

  “Of course, that’s not all we do. My Web continues the task Ersh entrusted to us: to be living repositories of the accomplishments of more ephemeral species. We don’t forget.

  “And we live—longer. Let’s leave it at that.

  “So you see, there’s nothing to fear. I, Esen, hope we can be friends. I—”

  Ersh, I was a fool. I erased the recording with a stab of my clawtip and resisted the impulse to tuck my tail between my legs. What was I thinking? Hope wasn’t enough. The truth about me wasn’t something this particular being could handle. Yet.

/>   If ever.

  I tossed the device into the nearest recycler, waiting for the flash of green that meant my recorder was now so many disassembled molecules. I knew too many clever beings to think “erase” alone sufficient, especially after recent events.

  It all started with the Library.

  * * *

  Some worlds—most—made life struggle to survive. Not this one. Certainly not here, where Botharis’ middle latitudes granted all a gardener could ask: reliable warmth, reliable moisture, with enough winter nip to dissuade pests and hasten harvests. I drew a satisfied breath.

  Then huffed it out, doing my best to glare at my companion. “We could open tomorrow.”

  Paul Antoni Ragem, my first and best friend, shrugged and stretched on the blanket we shared. Taking our lunch here was a novelty to me, but this little hill, with its view of a gently rolling valley below, had been in his family for generations. “We could,” he agreed equably, biting into a crisp apple.

  Meaning we wouldn’t. I nibbled my piece of the fruit without tasting it and gazed outward in frustration. The main structure was in place, sprawling white and smooth where it rose above ground, like arms hugging the landscape. Admittedly interior work continued—the din of tools and shouted comments audible even from here—but the walkways providing safe transition between habitat zones were done, and a sufficient number of those zones were ready. I’d tested each, secretly and in the appropriate shape—giving credit to Paul, that being safer, though his soaring reputation as an expert in multispecies’ design and architecture had led to some offworld job offers as well as a few odd looks at the local pub.

  There was—prudently distant over the next, larger set of hills—a landing field capable of handling an array of starships and a transit system capable of moving an array of life-forms, even non-oxy breathers—to those walkways.

  Completing this picture of all-inclusive welcome and ease, my “garden”—a walled expanse gradually filled with a riot of color, most alien to this planet, but there were ample shields in place and the local government, recipient of those enormous import duties we paid without quibble, would by this time have allowed me to import parasitic Engullan Bloodworms with a cheer—had this very month been outfitted with seating suited to a wide variety of rumps.

  Comfort being important.

  The All Species’ Library of Linguistics and Culture, the Library for short, and That Nonsense when things didn’t go to plan, was ready. I’d even had a real cellulose-based pamphlet made, based on the eye-catching sample left on our door by the Hamlet of Hillsview Mortuary. Paul had examined my prototype with such excruciating care I’d whined—until he burst out laughing and declared it’d do nicely.

  Not that he specified what it would do nicely, but I refused to delve more deeply into the matter, having already ordered several thousand from a print shop in the capital, complete with fancy embossing.

  Yes, the Library was ready—except for its final and most vital piece: access to the collection, that unique and growing store of information verified by the only fully credible source on the topic in the known universe.

  Me.

  Well, Ersh and my other web-kin helped, but what they’d learned was literally part of me, so, yes.

  Me.

  Not a fact in the pamphlet, especially as gathering new-to-me data was a significant aspect of the Library, nor would I waste time on redundancies in the incoming stream—it being massive and relentless. I’d simply check any requested material before its release against the memories contained in my flesh.

  Material presently confined to Paul’s comp system, rendering mute the consoles we’d installed, one hundred and seventy-two suited to the widest probable variety of users, with adaptive devices as required.

  If I looked behind us—not that I’d make the attempt, my Lishcynself having a thick neck and limited mobility at best so I’d have to roll on a hip, likely crushing our picnic basket—I’d see the Ragem family home, five storage crates, and, yes, the faded white former barn presently housing the heart of that system. In a box.

  A box Paul refused to open, figuratively speaking, there being, in his words, “an issue.”

  Absently, I stuck a shred of apple peel between two of my chest scales, then plucked blades of grass to continue the process, the Lishcyn version of moping.

  “Don’t fret, Old Blob,” my friend said, lying back with his hands behind his head. A lock of still-black hair slipped from his high forehead, and only the tiniest of lines brushed the corners of his gray eyes; at eighty-six standard years, Paul was barely in his prime. For a Human.

  Maturity was subjective. I’d been eighty-six once, four hundred and twenty-four years ago, and had yet to earn better than “youngling” from my only kin. “I don’t fret. This is moping.” All at once, I noticed the upward curve of his generous mouth and shook the grass impatiently from my hand. “You’ve fixed it, haven’t you?”

  His head rolled from side to side. “Can’t fix what wasn’t broken. Turns out the slowdown I detected was a miner at work.”

  Meaning someone illegally rerouting bits of data from our network of mostly legal hired information collectors and highly secret, not so legit, offworld comp systems. Given Paul—and his Group—were almost as paranoid as my web-kin, Skalet, could wish and our network replete with traps, redundancies, and whatever else might distract and dissuade eavesdroppers?

  I grasped the seriousness of the breach, though why anyone would go to such lengths to steal tidbits of current slang and quaint variations in biology was hard to imagine.

  “If we open the Library,” I said brightly, flashing an optimistic tusk, “they could just come here.” Where such information and more would be available to any—for a token fee: something new for the Library’s collection. Or fudge, but that was my Lishcynself’s little fantasy, not Paul’s, who was prone to commenting on my level of fitness in this form.

  “We can’t open the Library,” Paul countered with a yawn, “until we’re secured against any future thefts.”

  So incoming clients, fudge-bearing or not, weren’t on the horizon. I let out a gusty breath and my scales rustled in answer, there being more than a few handfuls of grass and leaves inserted by now.

  Then I replayed what he’d said. Future thefts? “You’ve stopped this one!” I hesitated. “That’s good, isn’t it?”

  “Unfortunately, it wasn’t anything we did—the miner finished and left. All we have are gaps in the feed to prove data was removed. We don’t know what.” Eyes now closed, he added, “Which is why we’re off to meet Diales.”

  Implying a welcome trip, but—I regarded him cautiously. The reclusive Diales had provided comp security for our export business, Cameron & Ki, and we’d enlisted his considerable expertise again to build safeguards for the Library’s far larger system.

  The only problem with Diales? The rest of the Hurn’s clients were, to be wildly generous, unsavory. Admittedly, this gave Diales an unusual appreciation for security measures and a vested interest in keeping secrets, but Paul and I looked forward to when our business dealings were done. Though I supposed we couldn’t ask for anyone better to catch a thief than someone who was a very adept one when the situation required.

  Diales wasn’t, however, local. “We’re going back to Minas XII?” I’d a favorite restaurant. And friends, I thought cheerfully.

  Paul shook his head. “Diales’ offered to meet us in the Urgia Sys—”

  “We’re going shopping?!” I interrupted. Better and better.

  Sitting up, he gave me that look, the one meant to instill a sense of propriety and place in my consciousness, or at least some common sense. Ersh herself could hardly have done better.

  Before it took effect, I squealed with all the relative immaturity of my five hundred plus years. “SHOPPING!! SHOPPING!!” A Lishcyn, while large and somewhat placid in demeanor, coul
d squeal in a most satisfactory manner.

  The Human winced, presumably at the volume, but the corners of his mouth twitched up. “Been bored, have you?”

  “Of course not. Our work is important, and I take great pleasure in it,” I replied truthfully, then flashed a deprecatory tusk at him. “But I’m running out of clothes.” Admittedly, personal vanity wasn’t the most admirable characteristic of this form, though better than my Lishcynself’s night sight or rather utter lack thereof, but the fact was, the silks I loved best had a regrettable tendency to snag on my scales. Especially once I’d worn an outfit several times. Or twice. “I need some new things. So do you,” I suggested coyly before Paul pressed for details. Botharis was many wonderful things, including our new home, but the inhabitants were, by my estimation, three societal shifts distant from a fashion sense encompassing more than durable comfort with a flair for camouflage in outerwear.

  Not to mention we were days translight from a decent shop of which Urgia Prime’s station had an abundance—several with fudge—in addition to its convenience as a privacy-guaranteed meeting place. “If you don’t need me to stay for the entire meeting with Diales—” once they dropped into the esoterics of comp security I would be bored, not that I fully trusted our expert, but we’d be on a station where Paul had resources, “—I could shop.”

  Paul’s eyebrow lifted.

  As a negotiating tactic, it was disturbingly effective.

  I ran tonguetips over the inlay on my right tusk. “Or shopping can wait—” it being key to offer alternatives, “—until we’ve met with Diales and dealt with our comp issue. After some—” extensive, I inserted silently, “—shopping for essentials, we’ll hurry home to open the Library.”

  “Shopping can wait, Fangface,” he agreed as expected, then tapped my scaled thigh. “Along with the Library.”