“Perhaps not,” Preeajitala said. “But the Alliance Council recommends this course of action be pursued.”
In other words, Tarkos thought, you don’t like it any more than I do.
The Special Advisor turned back to Bria. “Your mission is different. An unusual mission, dangerous and its virtue in doubt.”
Tarkos was surprised to see that Bria still stared at the empty space where the image of the Ulltrian had been. The fur on her back stood high. With what appeared to be titanic effort, she slowly turned her head to look at the Neelee.
“Many Harmonizers agree,” Preeajitala said, “that additional information could be beneficial. One unlikely additional source has been identified. I judge it worth pursuit. I ask you to travel to the Well of Furies. There you will contact a human named….” The Neelee Special Advisor hesitated. Finally she waved a hand and Latin alphabet spelling appeared over her head.
“Pala Eydis,” Tarkos said.
The Neelee continued without comment. “This human Pala Eydis is a secondary citizen, and thus one of only seven Galactic citizens on the Well of Furies.” The Special Advisor hesitated again. Tarkos presumed she didn’t know the sex of Pala Eydis, and so settled for ‘it.’ “It is studying terrible truths: the development of Ulltrian technology. It has reported that the Ulltrians left an ancient account of a wandering planet pair that passed their homeworld long ago. If these wandering planets are the same as those observed by the probe, the human’s data may help us better track the trajectory of the dark worlds.”
Bria growled. “Dangerous. To depend upon a single human. No other source?”
Preeajitala flicked her ears. “The Council agrees with you. They consider a single human unreliable.”
“Hello,” Tarkos mumbled in English. “Human in the room.”
“But no other additional data source is known,” Preeajitala continued.
“We will go,” Bria said, blinking her assent.
The Neelee Special Advisor took one step toward the Kirt. “Ki’Ki’Tilish will accompany you, as will the probe that returned the information. Both will be valuable for their expertise regarding wandering planets. Also, an Alliance agreement with the OnUnAns, anciently respected, requires that one official of the OnUnAn race participate in each and any inquiry regarding Ulltrians. You will bring one OnUnAn representative with you. This representative is waiting outside the Savannah Runner. You will retrieve this diplomat from its ship immediately and accommodate it on your mission. Its counsel is to be respected but the mission must be completed with haste.”
Preeajitala turned and stepped back toward Bria. She spoke very softly, fixing first Tarkos, and then Bria, with her green and brown eyes. “Some on the Council decry this mission as ill advised. The OnAnUn members of the Council objected most strenuously.”
Tarkos had never peered so closely at the eyes of a Neelee before. The iris did not seem to have a surface. The soft folds of tissue instead reached deep into the eye. It was like looking down from orbit at a rainforest, and knowing whole worlds lived under the canopy. Once he noticed this, he found it hard not to get lost in the sight. He struggled to concentrate on what the Neelee said.
Preeajitala locked her gaze with Bria and leaned forward slightly. “You are not the best prepared team for this mission. You are not the most experienced team for this mission. You are not the team most likely to be effective on this mission.”
Tarkos frowned and drew his brows together. He looked to Bria but the Sussurat only blinked again in agreement.
Preeajitala leaned back, and spoke more loudly. “You will be provided with a starsleeve for your cruiser. The dockmaster will assist your preparations.”
The door hissed open. The Special Advisor darted past Bria and out of the room. Tarkos sighed: Neelee had a disconcerting habit of ending conversations without warning. They had no tradition for goodbyes. In Preeajitala’s absence, the walls of the room slowly grew transparent. The door softly closed.
“You prepare starsleeve,” Bria said to Tarkos. “I retrieve OnUnAn representative.”
“Yes, Commander,” Tarkos said, surprised by her tone. She was talking to him the way she did when they were in combat: in harsh, loud growls. Tarkos started for the door, but then stopped. “Commander… what is the Well of Furies?” He could look it up, of course, but he had a hunch that it would be best to hear Bria’s answer to this query.
“Abomination,” the Sussurat hissed at him. And then, when Tarkos thought she would not say anything more, Bria added, “Origin world of Ulltrians.”
Ki’Ki’Tilish had the last word. She waved two red arms at the air, like a crab warding off some approaching danger. “This one regrets having agreed to come on this mission, and now would have preferred to die on her home planet, after having lived a little while longer.”
CHAPTER 2
The OnUnAn ship stopped accelerating as Bria approached in the cruiser. The ship resembled a disordered heap of black and gray machinery, with probability flanges pointing in random directions, like hooks on a crushed bur. Long, narrow lights that hugged the hull shed a barely visible glow, revealing uneven expanses of pitted hull metal that had the color and texture of lichen and mud. White clouds of ejecta spurted from leaning vents, feeding a cloud of dirty gasses that drifted around the ship.
Bria cut her own acceleration, and it seemed both ships fell away from the Savannah Runner as the great starship continued to accelerate for the outer system. Bria nudged the cruiser forward and signaled for a docking vector.
The OnUnAn ship began to tumble as it drifted. Bria huffed once in consternation, leaning forward with her claws pressed against the glassy surface of the controls. The OnUnAn ship looked like something you would find on a forest floor, a clump of fungus growing on the remains of a fallen tree. Fitting for the OnUnAn, a race of detritivores. The ship could not have made a sharper contrast with the Neelee craft that still filled the background: like mud floating near a crystal of purest ice. And, unfortunately, it was rotating now at a fast rate.
Bria nosed the cruiser close enough for a visual inspection, and when she received no communication from the ship, she sent a radio request, computer to computer, asking the OnUnAn ship to stop its roll and prepare for docking. No reply followed, but after a few minutes the ship shuddered to a standstill relative to the background, and one boxy protrusion from the hull extruded a standard cylindrical docking port.
Bria guided the cruiser in till the ships tapped together with a clang. She unstrapped and floated over to the floor hatch. Pressure on the OnUnAn ship had been matched to Neelee normal, and so Bria did not run an airlock cycle. OnUnAn atmosphere had a high CO2 content, and not enough oxygen, but Bria knew that as long as she stayed near the airlock, and breathed the mix of atmospheres, she would not weaken soon. She irised the door open, and tasted the air cautiously as green light poured through the hatch.
A musty smell rose from the interior, the stench of sulfur dioxide, but beneath that a scent like wet soil mixed with spit. Involuntarily, Bria squeezed her nostrils shut. But, not wanting to be insulting, she forced them open before she pulled herself through the door.
She floated into a room with irregular, angular walls, all of them slick with moisture. The room did not seem to have a primary floor. Perhaps the OnUnAn intended to use this room only in microgravity. Or perhaps the OnUnAn were more capable climbers than she had imagined. The light from dozens of small diodes set in the corners and seams of the wall panels shone brightly, but with a color of dark blue-green that Bria found did little to aid her vision. She listened, and heard creaks and pings throughout the ship, but no voices.
After several long minutes, a panel slid open in a far wall. Two eyes on gray stalks reached up over the edge of the opening. Bria watched and waited. After a minute, two more eyes, and then another pair, followed. Soon, a dozen eyes waved in the opening, inspecting Bria.
“I am Briaathursiasaliantiormethessess,” she said. “Commander of Harmon
izer Corp.”
One of the OnUnAn members slipped up into view, over the edge of the panel, a long gray sluglike form, not much bigger than Bria’s leg. Below its eye stalks, two appendages topped with delicate tentacles bordered its vertical mouth. After a moment, five other slugs slipped into the room. These were all slightly smaller, and their glistening skin had varying darker shades of gray.
“I am Gowgoroup,” the largest slug said, as it climbed one protruding panel so that it might face Bria, where she floated near the airlock entrance. The slug spoke Galactic in a way that made each consonant a wet slap. The other slugs slithered over and pressed themselves against the speaker.
The smallest slug, one of a pair with very dark, glistening skin, shouted in a thin, gurgling voice, “A Sussurat! Violent species. Terrible. It will kill us!”
Bria blinked in surprise. The OnUnAn was a colony being, and this colony was of the standard size of six entities. The large slug that talked would be the leader. The two slugs with spotted, leathery skin were warrior caste. The single long, pale slug, its flesh appearing almost gelatinous, would be the functionary, mute and nearly blind but essential to organizing the group. But the two small black slugs should be the travelers, the diplomats of this colony. And the travelers should be politic. It was odd that one now insulted her.
But as she thought this, the other black slug slithered away from the group, inched itself into a bend, and pushed off the panel, aiming for Bria. Bria held still as the slug twisted through the air, moving slowly but inexorably forward, and finally landed on her arm. It wrapped around her bicep. The mucus of its pseudopod sank into her fur, warm and gluey. The slug extended its long eye stalks till they nearly touched Bria’s face.
“I like it,” this slug gurgled.
Bria closed her top eyes, and stared with her large eyes fixed on the vibrating stalks of the leader slug, trying to stare her exasperation at this heap of an organism. She struggled with her anger, which had risen steadily as she contemplated the mission they were about to begin. It was bad enough having a partner of the wretched human race, a partner that pranced around like a cub. Now she would be required to negotiate with mentally disordered beings like the OnUnAns. She never earned a moment’s peace.
But after a long moment, Bria sighed. It was a difficult galaxy, she reminded herself. One had to make some accommodations for most other species—and many accommodations for colony beings, who tended to speak every passing thought aloud. Besides, it wasn’t Tarkos’s fault that he was human. Tarkos was a cub, but a very good cub. Just so, this Gowgoroup was a howling mess of a mind, but perhaps a good mess. She opened all her eyes and forced herself to be more calm.
“I lead mission to Well of Furies,” Bria said. “Please, come now. Bring suit or encounter vehicle suitable for a dangerous mission in unreliable atmosphere or hard vaccuum. No weapons.”
She had already begun to turn toward the airlock, expecting the invitation to be nothing more than a formality, when the leader slug gurgled out loudly, “Negation.” The pair of warrior slugs echoed the sentiment: “Negation. Negation.” Their leathery skin creased as they shouted, bunching up around their faces. But the small slug on Bria’s arm only pulsed and waved its eye stalks.
“Negation?” Bria said.
The leader slug said, “I negate the mission as planned. I have transmitted to Savannah Runner a request that more colony beings join the crew. This is our formal complaint, filed with Captain Nereenital: a Sussurat, a human, a Kirt, do not understand a colony mind. You are each singletons. You have only one thought when awake.”
The other traveler added, in a shout: “And thoughtless, like the dead, when you sleep!”
The lead slug continued, “You do not think in sufficiently flexible and fecund ways to enable this mission. The possible return of Ulltrians threatens all civilizations. Another colony being is required.”
Bria showed her long array of white fangs and hissed. The eye stalks of the slug on her arm retracted slightly, flinching in the hot breath. “Decided,” Bria said. “Come now.”
The warrior slugs retracted their eye stalks in anger. “I do not obey you, Sussurat,” the big slug gurgled. “The mission is negated. There must be a new mission, with other colony beings.”
Then the other traveler slug shouted, “Sussurat, eater of living flesh. Blood breath. Singleton.”
Bria closed her top eyes. She ground her fangs together. Of the four colony beings in the Galactic Alliance, the Zitherit and seQua were methane breathers, and the Graptolink and !Cla were ocean organisms. Practicalities of space travel required that a mission like this be crewed by land-walking organisms either all of the oxygen order or all of the methane order, but not both. Of course the OnUnAn knew that. It had to know its demands would stall this mission indefinitely.
“Decided,” Bria repeated. She fought to keep her claws retracted.
“So like a singleton!” the lead slug slurped and gurgled. “A single voice speaks for everyone, and you slide then in the same direction without ever raising your eye stalks. I say differently. What is decided by a singleton is not decided well. I have filed a formal complaint, with the captain of Savannah Runner , that specifies that a Sussurat cannot lead. A Sussurat cannot understand us. It cannot understand a colony being.”
“Can’t, cannot, can’t,” the other slugs agreed.
Bria extended a single claw and slipped it under the fur of her arm, beneath the slug that clung there. She lifted her hand and pried the slug away. It came free with a slurping sound. The fur beneath clung in a gooey clump to her skin, leaving a matted mucus print. Bria closed her nostrils involuntarily in disgust.
“Lack sufficient influence,” Bria said, as she let the black slug next to her writhe in the air, helpless in the microgravity. It waved its small tentacles and eyestalks, trying to throw itself in some direction, toward any of the walls.
“Treaty!” the many slugs chorused, a sound like wet clapping. The leader said, “I am the OnUnAn chosen to attend. If I do not attend, then there can be no mission.” The slug slid forward to the very edge of the panel it clung to. It spread its eyes far apart, as if to triangulate on Bria. “Harmonizer,” it said, “you know we bend all eyes toward great danger. We must be prepared or we will die.”
Bria stared a long time at the seething heap. The lack of oxygen was building a headache behind her eyes, a pressure growing in her skull. She had never refused or cancelled a mission. She would not now fail in this mission, the most important of her life. She would not fail Preeajitala, she would not fail the Harmonizer Corp, she would not fail her home planet and the Galactic Alliance. And she would not fail the oath she’d made, many years before, on the worst day of her life, to avenge herself on the Ulltrians.
She squinted, thinking. She could leave without the OnUnAn, but Preeajitala might then be forced to cancel the mission. And the Special Advisor would not have given requests she wanted ignored. Besides, Bria’s access to resources, including the starsleeve, might depend upon obeying the treaties. So the OnUnAn would have to go.
But all of it? she wondered.
Bria reached out and seized the black slug that twisted in the air beside her. The traveler wrapped itself tightly around her hand, its eye stalks retreating.
“Then I will bring OnUnAn.” Bria pushed off the wall and floated backward toward the airlock.
“No, no no, no!” the many slugs protested.
“That is not an OnUnAn!” the leader slug shouted, eyestalks straining at their limit in outrage. “Do you send your arm, or your eye, or your tongue alone on a mission?”
“No,” Bria said, as she turned toward the airlock, the slug writhing in her fist. “But have left behind arm, eyes, and once tongue on mission. And once all my claws. And another mission, half my skin. And another—”
“Wait,” the leader slug cried out. “That is only part of me. You know that. You know that is not a whole OnUnAn.”
Bria showed all her teeth, as she
looked back over her shoulder at the heaped majority of the colony behind her. “Formal complaint,” Bria said. “Filed with captain Nereenital of Savannah Runner . On record. Says: Sussurat do not, cannot, understand colony being.”
The heap of slugs writhed and made gurgling sounds Bria assumed were curses in some native language. She waited. Finally, the blind functionary slug at the center reached out its pale stalks and touched the leader and the remaining traveler. In the silence, Bria wondered what she would do if the rest of Gowgoroup refused to come. Could this sole slug in her claw survive alone on the ship? She hoped so. It would end her career if she killed a part of a diplomat.
“We come,” the leader said in a quiet gurgle.
“Bring suit or encounter vehicle suitable for a dangerous mission in unreliable atmosphere or hard vacuum, but no weapons,” Bria repeated. She climbed through the airlock, still holding the black slug, and did not look back. She had long been accustomed to expecting that her requests would be obeyed.
CHAPTER 3
Walking the halls of the Savannah Runner , Tarkos followed instructions from the vast starship’s deeply impersonal computer. Neelee AIs, he had reliably found, were always very prim about talking with his implants, and usually gave only the minimal information in reply, quite the opposite of the AIs on Kirt or Bright ships. That worked out fine for Tarkos: he neither liked nor trusted AIs. The less they talked to him the better. He requested a map to take him from the meeting room to the starsleeve, and instead the Savannah Runner’s mind gave him just a few bare lines that sprang up in his vision. These minimal directions served him well enough, and without them he would have been helplessly lost in the ship’s fractal, forking hallways.
Well of Furies Page 3
