by Paul Lucas
I whispered back, "But why doesn't anyone tell him that?"
She shrugged. "There's no TV this far out, so we have to do something for entertainment."
My husband snorted back a laugh.
Humans.
The argument ground to a halt when Jacqueline laid a coffee pot on the table and distributed cups. Louis settled into a dour silence and did his best to ignore Amethyst. The Orc woman seemed both pleased and disappointed with the way the argument had gone. Maybe she had wanted it to last longer. Jacqueline, however, brightened right up. No matter their true cause, the arguments between her crewmates had to wear on her sometimes.
"Dinner will be ready in a few minutes," the captain said. “We have a lot of KN food in stores, Lerner. Louis told me you'd really appreciate a Lara-style pizza."
My husband's eyebrows arced high. "You have that?"
"I just put it in the oven before you got here. A real oven, not a microwave, and I made everything from scratch, if you can count bottled sauce as scratch."
"Wow," Lerner said. My husband finally noticed the food scents. "That smells incredible," he said.
Jacqueline bowed marginally from her seat. "Thank you. If there's one thing I've learned in my years in the Outlands is that there's nothing more essential to crew morale than decent food. When you're half a million klicks away from home, feeling isolated and lonely, it matters a lot if you're eating cold canned beans or warm freshly-baked bread. People first thought I was crazy buying all that food-prep equipment for the helistat, but you'd be surprised how many vet explorers apply to my crew, despite the lower pay because I'm an independent, because of my reputation as a chef. The newbies always go for the large, glory-filled expeditions. The older ones who've been around the Shard a few times can appreciate the importance of simple comforts over slightly higher pay." She turned toward Amethyst and Louis. "Right guys?"
Louis quipped, "Higher pay would be nice, too."
"You could always walk home."
"Only if you bake some cookies for the trip."
I sighed and looked around. "I thought there were four of you on board," I said. "Where's the other one?"
All the humans looked at each other, their expressions unreadable.
"He's doing a maintenance check," Jacqueline said. "He'll join us after we eat."
Their response seemed odd but I didn't pursue the matter. "So tell me the story behind your ship's name. The Niven's Folly." I had learned that most helistats were named after some legend or another, and I was always fascinated to hear of them. The helistat that had made contact with us, and consequently brought my husband to me, was called the Sword of Thorena, named after the favored weapon of the first empress of the Borelean Empire. The Galen's Lover, one of the helistats that most frequently passed through, was named after the mysterious lover of Galen, the younger brother of the third Borelean Empress, Iyako the Lion. Who, what sex, or even what species Galen's lover was remains lost to history, but it is known that Galen risked his life in his sisters' succession duel in order to save his lover from execution.
"It's nothing special," Jacqueline told me. "It's kind of named after an author from old Earth. He wrote Ringworld. Ever hear of it?"
I shook my head.
"In the era it was written it was well-received as a piece of science fiction, but little else. But when my people found a copy of it in the Great Library, it was obvious it was one of the seminal works of the human literature. It was the first book we know of to ever take the subject of megastructure engineering seriously, even if it was meant primarily as a work of fiction. He got a lot wrong, but he also, surprisingly, was dead-on about other things. The book is very popular back in the KN. It's required reading in secondary school."
"It sounds interesting," I said. "I'll have to read it some time."
Louis grumped, "Its not that great."
Lerner chuckled. "Louis was named after the hero of that book. He’s never been too happy with it. It’s like being called Beowulf or Hamlet."
“Only dorkier,” Louis added.
"So anyway," Jacqueline continued, gesturing to the world around us. "This is kind of where Mr. Niven started us on the path to, so everything that's happened is kind of his fault. Niven's Folly. Get it?"
"Clever," I said.
"Thanks. It's about time someone noticed that." A ding from an adjoining room pulled her away, and within a minute she returned with a large circular pan with steaming, multi-colored contents. I had never been that big a fan of human cuisine, but I had to admit that it smelled wonderful.
It tasted equally so, even if the first bite burned my mouth. Lerner snickered as I desperately fanned my lolling tongue. He could have warned me! I shot him a you're-going-to-sleep-alone-tonight-if-you-don't-shut-up look, a weapon in every wife’s arsenal whose effectiveness transcended species.
The humans talked during the meal. I mostly listened. Cloud would have been surprised; not once did they mention or even hint at the fact that they were here to destroy the Myotan way of life.
Jacqueline talked at length of how she got the contract for coming here from the OEC by out-low-bidding everyone else. Her profits wouldn't be much because she put in such a low bid, but the six months she stayed here did guarantee six straight bank payments for the helistat taken directly from her pay. Other jobs did not necessarily guarantee that, and much of an explorer's income comes from survey and specimen-gathering work in an inherently unreliable market.
Most of their talk on finances went over my head. The concept of money still made my head hurt at times.
We were just finishing the meal when Jacqueline, cleaning up some of the dishes, remarked casually. "Ah, here's our fourth crewmember now. Gossamyr, meet Dumas."
I glanced at both doorways leading into the cargo hold, but saw no one enter. I was about to ask Jacqueline if there really was a fourth crewmember when I saw over a dozen hairy black spiders, each larger than my fist, descend from the ceiling on a glistening strands of silk.
Quite naturally, I screamed.
Do not get me wrong. I am not one of those females who jump up on a cot and chatter in panic whenever they see something with more than four legs. Hardly. But seeing this...mass...of hairy, scabrous arthropods scrabble over the table sent a panic signal shooting down my backbone to the tip of my short tail.
My first instinct was to run away. That lasted for about a second, and I fought it down. My second instinct was to squash them. I shot up and grabbed the chair behind me, intent on doing just that.
Lerner grabbed my arms a split second before I could deliver my blow. "Goss! Don't!" he yelled. "That's a Spider Swarm!"
"A what?"
"A Spider Swarm. You remember me telling you about them on Malachon Island, right? You wanted to meet one but we didn't have time."
Now I recalled. They were a kind of non-human species. They were a pack intelligence, with up to twenty different tarantula-sized spiders sharing the same interconnected mind through some kind of metal-rich radio-like organ in their thoraxes.
At the time I had originally read about them, I had thought it would be really intriguing to meet such an unusual sentient species. But now, confronted with what was essentially a heap of fourteen long-legged, hairy spiders, I was not so sure.
Still, some of my original revulsion and panic began to drain away. I became aware that Louis was snickering. Both Amethyst and Jacqueline gave him dirty looks.
I lowered the chair, never taking my eyes off the spiders. "Do they--does it talk?" I asked Lerner.
"Yes," the spiders answered, with a voice like a dozen people whispering at once. Like all species on the Shard, they had been bioengineered by human Builders, and the one thing our creators did was ensure that all of their daughter species had at least the basic capability of verbal speech. "Sorry I startled you, Mrs. Lerner. I could not resist making a dramatic entrance."
All the spiders joined in an odd hissing chorus. Sss. Sss. Sss.
Was that a
laugh?
I looked at the spiders more closely. They were larger than the tarantulas that occasionally popped up near the Tower, about ten centimeters long from fangs to the rear tip of their abdomens. Their heads and thoraxes seemed proportionally bigger, and I noted a shiny, metallic hexagon showing on each of their mid-sections. From what I recalled from that magazine article read so long ago that would be the antenna-like structure of their all-organic but metal-rich radio-organ that allowed the minds of the spiders to network like so many computer stations.
Some of the spiders wore small plastic and cloth harnesses, obviously designed to help them haul around tools and small burdens. And I wondered how they could manipulate tools without hands, until I realized that over a dozen spiders coordinating together with eight barbed legs each would probably be far more dexterous with tools than any human or Myotan.
"Er, sorry I tried to squash you," I said awkwardly.
"That's okay," the spiders whispered. "I'm used to it. I'm the engineer on board. You know, I fix the bugs in the machinery. Get it? Bugs?" Again the sss-sss-sss of arachnopod laughter.
"Are you male or female?"
Some of the spiders skittered off the table and scuttled across the floor. I squelched my instincts to shuffle away from them. "You mammals are too obsessed with gender," the remaining spiders said. "Never mind my element-bodies there. I'm just going to check on some things while I talk to you. As for your question, I'm both. My individual element bodies only last several years. I have to continually mate and breed them in order to perpetuate myself. Inbreeding will eventually get the better of me, as it does all Swarms, but hopefully that won't be for another couple of decades yet."
"I see," I said to be polite. "And what does your name mean? Doo-Moss?"
The tarantulas crawled over themselves for a moment. "I named myself after an author from old Earth. Alexandre Dumas. Wrote The Three Musketeers and The Count of Monte Christo. I love those books!"
Jacqueline smiled. "Dumas is a bit of a swashbuckling buff."
Dumas' individual bodies now leapt over each other excitedly, some grabbing forks and spoons and engaging in mock sword battles with them. It was the first time I noticed that the two forelegs on each spider were modified with closable hooks on their ends to allow them easier grasping of items. "You bet!" Dumas exulted. "One for all and all for one! What Spider Swarm wouldn't like a human who wrote things like that?"
All conversation came to an abrupt halt as a loud thump sounded far overhead. "What was that?" Jacqueline asked.
"Give me a minute," Dumas said. "I'll send one of my element-bodies up topside to check it out."
Apparently Dumas could engage in a number of different activities at once. His speech was surprisingly human-like, but it was obvious from watching him that he was anything but. Perhaps his friendly mannerisms and humor were but hard-won skills acquired after many years of living and working among humans. My husband had adopted himself well to Myotan culture after nearly four years among us. Would it be unreasonable to assume that Dumas hadn't done the same in the Known Nations?
After a minute of uncomfortable silence, Dumas' element bodies suddenly began leaping around the room in anxiety. The tarantulas could apparently clear nearly four meters in a single bound when they put themselves to it.
"Jackie!" Dumas said. "On the roof! It's the young Myotan named Brightwind, and he's bleeding! Badly!"
TWENTY-TWO
I hastily cast a healing spell on Brightwind, silently urging the nanites to do their work with haste. The last was a useless gesture, I know. The spell instructed the nanites in the Matrix to their task in the same way as always. I had no control with any subtleties.
Cloud’s little brother was twelve now. His light gray coating of fur had begun to sport generous blond streaks that looked like splashes of gold. His soulful green eyes and handsome sweep of wing meant that he was surely meant to blow the first winds of desire into the hearts of many young females. His body had just gone through its first growth spurt of adolescence, meaning he would have to work harder at flying than he used to. His father had made a gift to him of a small human-made steel knife on his landmark day. Brightwind had used it constantly since, discovering a talent for wood carving and whittling. His favorite subjects were always the human helistats, which he still swore he would pilot some day.
I had known Brightwind since he was born. I had seen him grow from a suckling infant to a bright, happy youth impatient to grow up.
Now my hands were soaked with his blood as I sat next to where he lay on Jacqueline's cot. His body had lengthy gashes in a dozen places, all soaking his bandages to overflowing.
He was dying. I did not know if my healing spells or human medicine was going to change that. The damage to his body was simply too extensive, his blood loss too catastrophic.
He was twelve years old.
The humans were arrayed behind me. Lerner had run back to the Tower for help. I could hear some of the element bodies of the Spider Swarm scrabble on the ceiling, staying out of the way. Besides our breathing, it was the only sound in the suddenly-quiet room.
We had found Brightwind on the apex of the helistat's gas envelop, his blood feeding small streams of crimson that dripped off the side of the vehicle meters away. One of his wings was half-shredded.
The human drugs ebbed away his pain and grogginess. He looked up at me with semi-lucid eyes. "G-Gossamyr..."
"Hush," I said. "You're hurt, little flier..."
"No!" He tried to sit up, but could barely lift his head. "Gossamyr, listen! Xique--they're in the Tower!"
"What?"
"I do not know what happened. I was sleeping when I heard a lot of yelling, then gunfire, and then my mother dragging me out of the apartment and up the ramps toward the higher levels. I heard the screech of Xique behind us, and rifles firing. Someone shouted at us that there were hundreds of Xique in the Tower..."
My gut knotted. "Hundreds?"
He nodded weakly. "Yes." Behind me someone shuffled out of the room. I paid the action little mind. "I knew what had to be done. I shouted at my mother, but she would not listen. I finally had to pull away from her, make my way to a ledge on one of the upper levels. I was by myself. Xique crèche-mates attacked me just as I reached an open entranceway on the third level. I--I fought them off as best I could, but one kept hanging on even as I launched myself onto the winds. It kept tearing and tearing at me, but I was finally able to smash it off against the side of the Tower."
"But why?" I asked, tears cutting deep rivulets in my thin facial fur. "Why did you come out here? Why didn't you stay with your mother, where you'd be safe?"
"I had to get the humans, Gossamyr. They will help us. They're our friends--" Brightwind said a few more words, but his voice had degenerated into a barely-audible whisper, then into a sibilant hiss as his blood-caked chest shallowly rose and fell, rose and fell.
Jacqueline's voice cracked behind me. "Is he--?"
Louis, who had been manning a portable medical scanner at the head of the cot, shook his head slowly. "Not yet. He's just unconscious. But there’s a good chance he'll never wake up again."
Twelve years old.
I gently stroked Brightwind's folded wing membrane and quietly prayed for him. If I do not see you again in this life, little flier, I will greet you when both our spirits fly above the Shards.
"Come on, let's go," Amethyst shouted from the doorway. I turned to see her just returning form the hallway. She carried several large rifles of a type I had never seen before. She tossed one to Louis just as Lerner entered the room behind her.
“Gossamyr,” he gasped. “The Xique...”
I nodded solemnly. “Brightwind told us.”
“They didn’t attack me,” my husband said. “But they wouldn't let me enter. They just hissed a warning at me. There were only a few of them by the entrance. But there were so many tracks going into the Tower. I could hear screams...”
We all looked at Lerner, t
hen at the weapons in Louis and Amethyst’s hands. The spider swarm whispered from above, "Amethyst, what do you intend to do?"
The towering Orc set her jaw in a hard, grim line, fingers tensing on her weapon. "Making sure that kid wasn’t just sucking oxygen when he said we were the Myotans’ friends. Come on!"
TWENTY-THREE
Newly-encountered peoples during a first contact situation will have three general responses: they’ll greet you, they’ll run away, or they’ll try to murder you.
New explorers are usually shocked by how often it’s option number three.
--from The Explorer Profession, an OEC Orientation Booklet, Sheltem Publishing Group, Teranesia, 543.
* * *
Bodies were strewn everywhere. I whispered a fervent thanks to the Sky Spirit that most of them were not Myotan.
Barely twenty minutes had passed since Brightwind had shuddered into unconsciousness. A storm of hot debate had quickly followed Amethyst's bold statement; not so much if we should help my people, but how. Jacqueline ceded her authority in this matter to Amethyst, as she was the only fighting expert among us. The Orc's plan had originally been to send only herself and Louis, the only other experienced combatant aboard, into the Tower.
I would hear none of that. These were my people. I could not sit in safety while they were being slaughtered. I calmly, coldly told Amethyst that I was going with her and Louis, and that she had better show me how to work one of her strange rifles.
Amethyst began to protest, but then she locked eyes with me and her words ground to a halt. She was three times my size and could have snapped me in two with a flexing of her arms. But she nodded and tossed me a rifle, showing me its basic operations.
