The Only Thing to Fear

by Julie E. Czerneda

  “You know I can’t get the time off. I’ve told them already. I’m juniormost—”

  “Family matters, Evan. If I’ve taught you anything, it’s that.” Her face softened. “Promise me you’ll try, dear. I’d like to see you, too.”

  He couldn’t help but smile. “I promise. Now I really have to go. Love to everyone.” Evan pressed his thumb over the control, tucked away the holocube, then looked up.

  To find someone coming toward him, in a hurry. Larger, Human, dressed in spacer garb, so unlikely to be a tourist, though the festival was well underway in the outskirts of Kateen and already spilling into these streets.

  Courteously, Evan stepped to the side to avoid a collision.

  The other stepped to cause it.

  * * *

  The tiny cabin on the Largas Pride strained to hold two unfolded cots, luggage underneath, with space for Human-sized feet between if they were placed with care. That plus scheduled access to a shared accommodation were luxury quarters in Kateen’s shipcity. Another excellent reason not to delay, I decided. “Ready?”

  “When you are.” Paul gestured at my current self. “You can’t go out like that.”

  “You think my back end’s too flat?” I rhymed, sending a wave along my overt arm. Such a wonderful form. I twisted myself around to regard my shiny posterior. “Oh, so it is. Will you look at that!?” The lack of skeleton and my location on a floor meant I was right.

  “Esen.”

  His tone meant I was wrong. I untwisted and gazed wistfully up at my Human friend. “But—” I held in the rest with difficulty.

  “I’m not trying to spoil your fun.” Despite preparing to do just that. Paul rubbed a hand over his face, then folded his arms across his knees in order to lower his head, the better to regard me with too-familiar patience. “I know how much you want to experience the festival in this form, Esen, but I don’t see how.”

  It being unusual for an Urgian of my morph to be out in public without a surrounding, protective cohort of relatives. I’d one Human—two, counting Rudy. I had, however, a plan.

  I whirled my trivert arms as though juggling something unseen. “My family are famous snake dancers who’ve hired you to be my nanume for the festival!” In Human terms, a wet-nurse, and while admittedly you didn’t see that cross-species often, I’d a plan. I reached into the carryall and pulled out an Urgian nanu bladder—with convenient shoulder strap. “You’ll have to fill it.” Hopefully sooner than later; the sight of the nanu made my Urgianself hungry.

  “I’m not—not going to think about where you got that,” Paul informed me when his mouth finally produced sound instead of gulping for air. He waved to the sack of fresh green tubers near the door, a gift from Rudy. “We’re on holiday, Old Blob,” with perhaps reasonable exasperation. “Be something that won’t get me arrested. Please?”

  I sidled close, slipping my overt arm over his hand even if Human did taste noxious. “Something me, all full of glee?” with my best flutter.

  His eyes narrowed. “What are you thinking?”

  “Close your eyes for a surprise!” Skalet doubted I’d ever learn strategy. Fair enough, I didn’t intend—ever—to wage war. I had, however, learned a little about tipping the odds in my favor, these past fifty plus years.

  There was always relief, that instant I released the molecular energy accumulated by holding another form. The flicker into my true, teardrop shape then out again was lightning quick, imperceptible to Human vision—not that Paul hadn’t seen what I was—

  Much to Skalet’s dismay.

  —to cycle into what I chose, form-memory exact. I tossed hair from eyes sensitive to a warmer portion of the spectrum, then retrieved the item I’d snuck into our bag, pulling the tunic, printed in large blue flowers, each with yellow eyes and dewdrops, over my head.

  Instead of speaking, Paul familiar with this voice, I touched the back of his hand.

  His eyes opened, their expression softening at once. “Bess.”

  Avoiding the wee puddle of water, my Urgianself only slightly larger, I stepped back and twirled in the narrow space. “Will this me do?”

  The question wasn’t entirely fair. It was a measure of our friendship—of Paul’s acceptance of what I was—that he didn’t prefer my Humanself. Around other Humans, he firmly discouraged this shape, knowing the inconvenient instincts it could arouse. For, while having lived over five centuries, as Bess, I appeared ten standard years of age. A rather small and deceptively fragile-seeming ten at that.

  It wasn’t, I thought with the usual impatience, as if I did it on purpose. When we cycled, we became what we were in that form. This child, inconvenient or not, was me for the next few centuries. After that? Having shared experiences with my web-kin, I fully intended to avoid being Human until after puberty.

  There were some advantages to this stage, however. Treats. Adorable clothing. Being encouraged to participate in what I predicted would prove the most entertaining parts of the festival. “You and ‘Uncle’ Rudy can take me to the festival.” I twirled again. “What do you think?” To give him time to properly consider his answer, I kept spinning until I lost the ability to stand and staggered onto the facing cot, flushed and happy. “Well?”

  Paul gave a slow nod. “It’s your holiday, too, Fangface. But first—” he wagged a finger at me, “—let me remind you we’re meeting Diales today. Are you sure Bess is what you want to be for that?” I watched comprehension light his eyes. “What am I thinking—it’s perfect.”

  I couldn’t agree more.

  * * *

  He’d been robbed.

  As he rose from the cobblestones, assisted by excited spectators convinced the collision and ensuing futile struggle were an early taste of the festival, Evan Gooseberry did his earnest best not to be relieved the letter for the Popeakan Ambassador had been stolen.

  Along with his satchel.

  The latter would take some explaining on his next trip home. The former—

  “What a performance! Such drama!”

  “Thank you.” Evan’s brain suddenly took note of the delicate overt arm wrapped around his own arm, then filed the information away for a later session of gibbering horror. Instead, he focused on the need to extract himself from the sismale-difemale Urgian without causing offense or, worse, scandal. “We’ve been rehearsing.”

  “Oh, it shows.”

  “Now, if you’ll excuse me—” He tugged, gently. “I must continue—”

  “Of course!” The Urgian released him, waves of encouragement coursing along trivert arms.

  Evan brushed imaginary wrinkles from his shirt, gave what he hoped would be taken as a theatrical bow, then walked briskly in the very direction he assuredly did not want to go.

  Toward the Popeakan Embassy.

  The direction the thief had gone; that much he’d glimpsed, if woefully little else. Evan knew his duty. He represented the Commonwealth on alien soil. Recovering the envelope and delivering it was his responsibility and his alone.

  Or be fired. On the bright side, he’d make the wedding.

  If he tried to go to the Urgian version of authority, he’d first have to explain what an envelope was, possibly the satchel, and most likely what a junior political assistant did, with overtones of why wasn’t he just enjoying the festival like everyone else—all without divulging details of his presumably secret mission.

  Chase the thief it was.

  Suddenly, a bright pink raincoat appeared on horrid, black jointed legs, tap-dancing frantically this way and that across the cobbles as if unsure where to be in the gathering crowd. Evan dodged behind the nearest large object and cowered, trembling.

  The object turned to glare down at him, drool dripping from her snout.

  A Ganthor Matriarch.

  * * *

  Throughout our lives together, Ersh, Eldest and First, w
ould consume and assimilate the memories of my other four web-kin, sort out what she didn’t want me to know—yet—then share the rest with me. Whether I wanted to or not. The result, that woefully younger me believed, was the removal of any juicy fun parts, ideally embarrassing to my Elders, leaving behind lessons for my enlightenment, much as Ersh despaired I’d pay attention and learn from them.

  I paid attention now, being the Senior Assimilator for my Web of two. No surprise, younger me had been wrong. Sorting the memories to share with Skalet was my responsibility and instinct, and likely something Ersh. What I kept to myself? The actions of others when they fell in the broad category Skalet interpreted as potential threat. The amount of fudge my Lishcynself ate. My feelings for specific ephemerals, sure to provoke a lecture or, worse, undermine her confidence in our Web.

  One thing I didn’t have to consciously keep from Skalet resided in the pendant I’d given Paul on our fiftieth year as friends and partners. A speck of web-mass, carefully preserved, as carefully protected from scans through some added tech of his own. Part was a message: essentially, “this being is my friend.” The rest?

  Ersh’s secret, now Paul’s. How to move through space as we’d evolved to do, a process that consumed so much living mass Ersh had decimated civilizations before concluding it was a Bad Idea. She’d excised it from her flesh, along with other bits of herself, preserving her past.

  For me. Ersh had known from my beginning that we shared a trait none of the others possessed. Both of us could keep a memory from being shared. It was why I, not my Elder, Skalet, was Senior Assimilator. Why our Web was the Web of Esen.

  Poor Skalet. She was convinced this was some bizarre punishment inflicted on her by Ersh.

  Being left in charge of my resentful Elder? The punishment was mine.

  One lesson Ersh had shared with me concerned Mixs’ experiences while a Hurn. At the time, Hurns were newcomers to the seething pot of species already in space, much like Humans. In fact, too much liking of Humans was what drew them from their previous isolation on and around the fourteen habitable worlds within the Klugen System, planets with typically Hurn names such as: Klugen The Only Good One, Klugen Why Me, Klugen So What, Klugen Who Cares, and so forth. They’re a pragmatic lot.

  Mixs herself was present when the two species first met. As you’d expect, the Humans arrived in a Commonwealth First Contact ship, going where no one else had bothered. Also, as you’d expect, there was the initial interspecies’ confusion to work out, this time accompanied by a great deal of lip smacking by entranced Hurns and running by concerned Humans.

  Humans who, having encountered the Ycl, felt they’d good reason to run. While I enjoy the form and its useful traits, it remains the first species confined to its homeworld for the highly sensible reason that Ycl are obligate predators incapable of resisting the urge to engulf, digest, and ingest whomever isn’t Ycl. The Commonwealth prudently schooled its First Contact teams to be aware first didn’t guarantee only.

  In the case of the Hurn, however, they were mistaken. There was no Hurn desire, innate or not, to chew on Human meat and bone. Their lip-smacking pursuit was in response to an irresistible allure. Human sweat, it turned out, was everything a Hurn could hope to taste in his or her lifetime.

  Unfortunately, for some Hurns, the taste was addictive.

  That being the lesson of the day, as Ersh would have it. Mixs, on Klugen Why Me to study the Hurn’s latest building techniques—being the only one of us driven to spasms of delight by innovative architecture—wound up with a single drop of sweat on her lips and an insatiable need for more.

  Possibly explaining why she’d spent the rest of her life on D’Dsel, as a species who tasted with their feet, but that wasn’t the point, according to Ersh. The point was, the Hurns finally had a reason to seek out other species. Humans being the cooperative sort, when not running, freely offered sweat, the fresher the better, soon became the basis of a complex commodity market, and the Hurn, part of a larger universe.

  Our expert, Diales, was an addict. Whether he’d been one before coming to live in the predominantly Human, and sweaty, confines of Dump on Minas XII, or developed the taste having lived there, hardly mattered. His manners were atrocious, he’d a deplorable fixation on Paul’s forehead, and his choice of meeting place in Kateen?

  The three of us stood outside the entrance of the nondescript brick-walled block of a building, considering what it could be. Though the structure was more suited to a warehouse in Kateen’s shipcity, I could see the clash of alien roof designs and color choices of Embassy Row from here. The city’s heart, the theater hub centered around the giant octagon non-Urgians called the Government Capital and locals, the Performance Parliament, was a mere couple of blocks to the west.

  A steady flow of pedestrians split around us, all heading inside through three wide arches. The majority were Urgians in a hurry, overt arms looped around little bundles, the expanse of glistening scaled backs making it appear as though we stood within a fast-flowing stream. On which floated little bundles.

  It was all quite puzzling. None of us wanted to take the first step inside.

  “The last time I met with Diales,” Rudy said thoughtfully, “he tricked me into a steam bath.”

  I grimaced in sympathy. Paul offered reassurance. “Unlikely. Urgian plumbing.”

  The three of us nodded in unison. The Urgians, their thin outer integument offering little protection from extremes in temperature, kept the public water supply safely tepid. Hotels for those who sought hot or cold from their dispensers were situated in the shipcity, or in orbit.

  It was remarkably pleasant, being Human with them. I didn’t need Ersh-memory to warn me this warm and cozy “I know you and you know me” feeling was so much biology. Some was, I freely admitted. But not all. These two beings were what Ersh never had. Friends.

  Who were much taller; as a Human, I could walk under their outstretched arms. Their height was the only outward resemblance between the cousins. Rudy Lefebvre was medium height and weight, brown hair presently cut to a ship-suited bristle with a fringe along his upper lip, too, presumably left on purpose. His face was pleasant, and he’d a good smile that sparkled in his brown eyes. When the situation called for it, those eyes were like ice, he’d a thoroughly intimidating scowl, and even I felt the urge to jump at the deep, no-nonsense bite to his voice.

  Rudy could also be silly, which I enjoyed, and the life of any party after a few too many beverages, not that he remembered.

  Paul? Could be silly, yes, though always intensely aware of what was around him. Slimmer, not quite as tall, with finer features and a high forehead typically half-hidden under unruly dark hair. I’d Skalet-memory to tell me she considered him exceptionally intelligent and determined; not compliments—an accurate assessment of the risk he posed. Fiercely protective of me, posing an ongoing conundrum for my web-kin that colored her thoughts of the Human with frustrated anger and an envy so deeply buried I doubted she knew.

  Poor Skalet. I’d be sympathetic, but she wouldn’t appreciate that any more than she grasped my friendship with a Human.

  Her assessment was correct. Paul Ragem was brilliant, passionate, courageous, deeply private, and regularly a puzzle to me as well.

  Less so, when I looked through similar eyes. Rudy, always easier to read, pretended nonchalance but was tense. I supposed his thoughts were on our upcoming meeting and the result he wanted: a target. He defended Paul as ferociously as his cousin did me, which meant he took the breach in our system personally.

  Paul? Could compartmentalize. Whatever his concerns, right now he let himself be captivated by Kateen and its residents, absorbing details every bit as eagerly as I—and with, for a Human, unusually adept recall. Not the perfection of my own, but still, he’d excelled as an alien language and culture specialist on a First Contact team for good reason.

  The Library had been his dream,
long before we’d met, one I gladly shared now.

  “I can’t read the sign.” Paul pointed to the banner hanging overhead. “Bess?”

  In any form, a name to reflect my own, to keep me Esen. To others, it would seem of no consequence, but Ersh had started the tradition, and it gave us comfort to hold something of ourselves, when we weren’t.

  Bess wasn’t the name Diales might know for this me; in my one infamous appearance in the Dump I’d been introduced as Rudy’s niece “Gloria.” Not a problem. The Hurn would dismiss me by any name, being another in a tediously long list of species prone to underestimating the immature.

  I grinned up at Paul. “No promises.” The script on the banner, outlined in glitter, was doubtless poetical. Unfortunately, the lettering was too modern for it to be in my memory either—another reason to get the Library up and running. “The middle part could be ‘concourse of assembly,’” I decided after a moment’s study.

  Rudy grinned. “I bet it’s free food and drink for visitors. Makes sense. Let’s go.”

  “Maybe.” Paul’s voice had that but I don’t think so note. Sure enough, “They can’t be in this much of a hurry to be fed. I think this place has something to do with the festival.”

  “Which is coming our way,” I pointed out.

  Literally. From orbit, we’d have been able to see the masses moving toward the inner city, emptying neighboring Urgian tongis, each with a village flag clutched in their overts, as well as the shipcity’s array of alien tourists, waving whatever they chose. All drawn after the various players of this festival’s story: In Pursuit of the Most Pure, We Must First Ourselves Be Found.

  The title lacked the cheery zing of the previous Juggle Us All To Paradise, With Only Your Overt. Rudy believed the Urgians must have noticed the growing preponderance of the calcified in the crowd.

  I wasn’t so sure; nor, I could tell, was Paul. To tourists and most living Urgians, the Festival of Funchess the Unrestrained and Gloriously Joyful celebrated street theater.