If there was a cosmic figure playing with the lives and fates of sentient beings, it must have chosen to intervene—or else had finished toying with my life and gone on to torment someone else. I found myself floating in a tank of creteng: nice, mature, full-grown creteng. Meal-size creteng. It was the work of an instant to snatch the few dozen finny things I needed to rebuild my essential mass.
Then I let myself sink to the bottom and spread to fill the available area, hoping the crew would assume the water displaced on the deck was due to rough handling by the tug, and the reason the remaining creteng were hysterically clustered at the surface was simply their usual mindless dithering.
I was left alone, as I'd expected, granted much-needed time and solitude to heal myself by the simple practicalities of prepping a ship for lift. Duties multiplied when a ship left port, and the Christmas celebration would undoubtedly impair the efficiency of the crew. This assumed the crew was efficient. Their cavalier treatment of the living beings in their hold certainly left that open to debate. The cretengs decided that the chance of my converting more of them to web-mass was preferable to being sloshed out on to the deck and several grew quite daring in their approach to the bottom of the tank. I tried not to eat too many; they had saved me, after all.
Remembered pain coursed through my entire being, jolting me at unexpected moments, pain mixed with loss no new mass could mend. I felt whole, yet there had been no chance to sort my mass during the split seconds of the accident, no way to ensure the totality of my memories—of me—was saved. It was the nature of my kind that I would never be able to tell. Memory lost was lost. If there had been time before lift, and I was brave enough, perhaps I could have climbed back up the vent and retrieved what was imprisoned between the door edge and its seals.
I quivered, sending a coordinated flash through the school of creteng who once again decided the surface was safer. What was, was. Another of Ersh's favorite sayings. One which now meant something.
I hadn't experienced lift from a planet in web-form before. The freighter's internal gravity field alerted me to the moment, kicking in to thrill through my body like a descant soprano aria over the deep pulsing resonance of Rigel II's own heart. The destruction and reformation of atoms within the ship's engines were exquisite in their release and capture of energy. If I had known how to sing along, I would have tried.
The rapture faded as the ship passed effortlessly through the final lines of attraction. Rigel II gave us to space with a reluctance part of me shared. I was leaving something irreplaceable behind.
I shunted all thoughts of Ragem to the deepest core of my memory. There would surely be someone back to check on the tanks and other cargo soon. I'd done enough to the laws of the Web; time to behave.
First I had to choose a form that could hide successfully until the next planetfall, not having the slightest desire to further interact with any Humans for a while. The Lanivarian, comforting as my birth form, was out of the question. I'd had enough of its reaction to spaceflight—let alone the chance of being recognized as Kearn's lost guest.
I pulled myself together and flowed out of the tank. If there was a collective sigh of relief from the creteng, I ignored it. The hold was dark, decidedly damp, and starting to smell of moldy fruit again, in spite of the recent air exchange. I investigated that odor, determined to match it to something I remembered.
Wait! I focused on a trace of something complex, atoms clenched in a protein's erratic curls, barely detectable under the fruit's reek, but instantly identifiable. Without a second thought, I reached back into the tank, converted more creteng mass to mine, and cycled.
As a Ganthor, the darkness was even worse, yet at the same time less relevant. My fine sense of smell located what I needed to know. I wasn't alone. With a subdued squeal of delight, I rushed past the crates of ripe cotylmelons—a Ganthorian delicacy—and pressed my snout against the force-field barrier marking the back third of the hold. To a Human, and likely to their sensors, this barrier looked like a wall. To my more sensible nose, it was a fake and my kind were clustered behind it.
They weren't prisoners. The body odors spoke to me of health and contentment, if tinged with a scent of boredom. Why were they here? I wondered. And why hidden?
I backed up and ducked behind a crate, hoping they hadn't scented me in return, trying not to reveal my presence. It was so tempting to stay close. Ganthor had an incredibly strong herd instinct, which explained the many other-species' jokes relying on the predicament of Ganthor separated in a crowd of aliens. In this form, I knew its power, felt the need to go to the others of my kind like a hunger. Not my kind, I insisted to myself, aware I was responding to the craving for the group with a need that had as much to do with my personal anguish as any instinct, however perfectly appropriate to the Ganthor themselves.
My care was wise. Lights came up in the hold, making me blink my tiny eyes at the sudden glare; the small door inset in the bulkhead opposite to the creteng tank began to open. I peered carefully around the edge of the crate, able to see through the gap between it and the one next to it. They hadn't packed this hold particularly well, which was fine by me.
A head topped with a mass of curly brown hair only partially contained by a net poked through the doorway, the body staying outside as if the person doubted the wisdom of stepping within. It was a female Human, her expression one of complete disgust as she took in the state of the hold, from the water puddled at her feet to the twisted wreckage of the fans overhead.
"Frat!" Her head disappeared but her voice carried quite well through the still-open door. "Lars! Smithers! You idiots get down here now and clean this up!"
I'd expected as much. Even the most slovenly of spacers took proper care of loose objects before going translight. The tendency of unattached objects to keep their momentum and direction if anything went wrong with the ship's drive was not to be trifled with, not if you wanted to maintain the integrity of the hull and continue to breathe. Judging from the conditions in this freighter, her captain didn't worry overmuch about tidiness until hitting space. On the other hoof, the odds on a drive failure in this scow were probably pretty good.
Ganthor weren't foolhardy beings, but they weren't easily worried about the future either: an approach to life I found soothing at the moment. Instincts, drives, and all manner of hardwired behavior were biological constraints I'd been taught to identify and deal with as carefully as I had to consider the pros and cons of a leg joint with only one direction of movement. Other beings had the luxury of disregarding their inner nature, or at least taking it for granted. I did not. The courage I was feeling as I began looking for a secure hiding place was as alien to my true self as the panic of the Acepan had been.
Hiding had been my plan all along, and I'd had a lot of practice under Ansky's tutelage. I moved cautiously among the crates, searching for the ideal spot. My feet and hands were hoofed, allowing travel on all fours as I'd employed for my disguise on Kraos. However, the hooves of my hands were capable of spreading into two very useful digits, opposed by a third, longer one extending from the back of the wrist. The inner surface of each digit was spongelike and sensitive, in contrast to the bony shell that formed the outer shape of the hoof. A charming and remarkably strong hand. Excellent for percussion instruments, I recalled, tapping experimentally on a nearby crate before I stopped myself.
What was I thinking! I shook myself, literally, feeling my heavy hide and its rolls of fat ripple from shoulder to hip. I turned my attention back to weighing the comfort of secreting myself in the crate of delicious cotylmelons against the risk of discovery should that food be needed shortly. The cotylmelons were only the most noticeable of the Ganthor-specific foods I could see all around me.
The Ganthor themselves were a serious distraction. If I kept this sturdy, comforting form, it would mean a constant effort to resist the urge to hide as close to the others as possible, to seek the security of the herd. My present distance of a few meters from the false
wall was far enough from the other Ganthor in the hold to trouble me when I let it.
I could join them, and hide in plain sight. Most Humans couldn't distinguish one Ganthor from another. I suspected Ragem might be able to do so, but then he seemed an unusually perceptive being. There was, of course, the opinion of the Ganthor to consider. Depending on the stability of the hierarchy among these Ganthor, I might be accepted without question. Or I might be trampled to death. One was never sure. Theirs was an intelligent, technologically advanced society, but those who dealt with Ganthor in a herd knew to exercise care, including other Ganthor.
No, I decided. Hiding by myself was the right choice. During this internal debate, I'd continued searching the vast hold for a place to avoid the coming cleanup crew. Still no sign of them; maybe the woman had had to wake them up from some post-spurl recovery. Couldn't be long before the ship went translight, not if they intended to get anywhere soon.
The walls of the hold were ringed with two layers of deep shelving, the lowermost set at about twice the height of a Human from the deck. Under most circumstances, cargo would be stowed on these shelves by a servo lift. I didn't see one. It could have been in another hold, but I had a feeling this ship was more likely to rely on chains and pulleys. Another advantage to the disorganization in here: a convenient pile of plas bags had been casually dumped in a corner beneath the shelves, forming an easy way up to the first level.
I collected an armful of cotylmelons, shoving an especially ripe one in my mouth, and climbed the pile. Every couple of steps, one or the other of my feet sank in a bit deeper, making a cracking sound as it did. I hoped whatever was in the bags wouldn't rot too quickly.
This crew apparently preferred to fill up the hold deck space before using the shelves; they were far from fully loaded. I checked to see that there were nets attached to the wall that could—and should—be pulled over the containers. They would help hold me in place, too, should there be any problems.
Juice dribbled over my chin, collected on my fine sprout of bristles, then trickled down my round belly to collect in the first of several creases. I'd do a bit of grooming later. Right now I cheerfully made my way behind a series of crates, the gap between them and the wall a far better hiding place than I'd hoped.
"Told you we needed a lid, but no, Mr. Fish Expert, you knew better." The voice, Human male and with an underlying whine to it, carried perfectly. There was a clatter and bang I assumed meant the crewmen had come armed for the struggle with the vast puddle on the deck.
A second voice, another Human male, deeper-pitched. "Help me put them back, Lars," this being urged impatiently. "They're worth a credit apiece to that fish breeder…"
Since by now the sounds of frantic flippers and flopping bodies had stopped, the doomed creteng reduced by this point to futile gasping at best, I doubted he was going to succeed in saving even one credit's worth. Still, the sounds of the two men cursing and splashing about made me wish I had a way to safely peek out at them.
The spongy toes of my Ganthor feet allowed for quite silent movement, as if I needed this ability when the two below were continually shouting at one another. I squeezed behind a crate larger than the rest, no room to curl up back here, and quickly walked past a gap in the cargo to duck behind the next group of crates.
All at once I staggered, as if the corrugated surface of the shelf behind my hooves had suddenly heaved. We couldn't be going translight, I thought in desperate confusion, half convinced the decrepit ship was going to be my doom after all. Momentum took me forward two quick steps, until I was able to grasp a handful of greasy net and stop myself.
The smell told me what I had done—that and the sudden surge of happiness in my Ganthor heart. I'd burst through the force field. I was standing right above the hidden Ganthor.
And from the tang of changing scents filling the air, they knew it, too.
* * *
Out There
THE Tly blockade around Inhaven's agricultural colonies, denounced by both Inhaven and Garson's World as provoking the current state of war with their former ally, caused little more than speculation in the commodities' market and inconvenience to shipping. The Tly may have felt the colonies an unconscionable encroachment on their territory, but patriotism hadn't deterred Tly traders from purchasing fresh produce, especially fine Inhaven hops, at prices the colonists considered quite reasonable. In all, the blockade was civilized; a means to occupy those captains with a military bent without expensive consequences.
Which is why the inexplicable silencing of the five ships guarding the approach to Ag-colony 162, known to its inhabitants as Vineland, sent shock waves through the blockade keepers. Frantic messages went translight: demands for instructions, reinforcements, orders.
The order came to shoot first, and check identities second. A warning went to all inbound freighters and trade ships, com-techs sounding as incredulous as those receiving the news. The colonies prepared for a true blockade and began hiding their treasures. The crews sat and waited.
Death approached its next target with less care than ever before, no longer bothering to use the cover of asteroids or planets in its approach. The gunner on the Tly warship picked up the anomaly on her scans and fired without hesitation. Pain!
Death veered away, in its flight expending energy with an abandon that suggested an unknown power source to the astonished gunner…
But was really the surety of finding another, less wary, supply.
* * *
16: Freighter Afternoon and Night
« ^ »
GANTHOR, though incapable of vocal communication without surgical implants—a process endured stoically by their translators, diplomats, and the occasional crime lord—were quite adept at expressing themselves in other ways.
The preferred method between Ganthor encountering one another for the first time involved physical contact. Usually quite firm contact. Contact which tended to leave bruises. Since I had no intention of jumping down from the shelf, and they had no means of climbing up, that level of establishing mutual identity and status was on hold.
The second method was involuntary chemical signaling. Without going into physiological details, I could smell the Ganthor below working their way from an emotional state of alarm, to threat, to puzzlement, and, most recently, concern. My signals were probably stuck on alarm, with an underlying scent of herd-need, making my head swim with the contrary nature of it.
The method closest to what a Human would consider communicating ideas and abstracts was clickspeak. The flexibility and hard outer surface of Ganthor fingers made them perfect instruments for this percussive language. Many other species had adopted clickspeak for use as a convenient nonvocal signal, but few could master its intricacies.
Not that we were into the finer points of grammar at the moment, I thought. Stamping one's hooves was used to add an element of shouting and outrage. So far we'd avoided that. Barely.
*Not herd* the lead Ganthor below clicked again, an underscent of threat still present and, from its potency, probably hers. *Spy*!!* That was definitely a stamp.
*Not herd*!! *Not herd* echoed the rest.
*Need herd* I clicked back, distressed by their rejection and surely revealing it by my aroma. *Pursued*
*Danger to the herd*!!*!!*
Poor choice of words, I decided, wincing at the racket from below. Alarm scent threatened to make me panic. Certainly the Humans on the other side of the barrier could hear all this. That they could, and weren't reacting, meant they knew the Ganthor were here and they expected the Ganthor to deal with their own problems. Interesting.
I came out of hiding, moving to the edge of the shelf to look down at the herd. No wonder I'd set them off, I said to myself. Mercenaries tended to overreact at the best of times.
Sixteen adult Ganthor looked back up at me, snouts twitching, most with left hand on a weapon of some sort. Each right hand was curled upward just before their chests, frozen in midclick, the customary position
for speech when a quick, more physical response might be needed. I was happy to be out of reach. I was less happy about their armament. Ganthor weren't known for their thorough thinking; one blast from even the lightest of the arms they carried would put a significant hole in this ship. I hoped they kept that in mind as a particularly unpleasant side effect of any attempt to end whatever threat they felt I posed.
The largest being below, the Matriarch and so commander of this herd, put down her blaster rifle and beckoned me to come down. *Join us* she clicked. *Identify danger to the herd* Her snout, once handsome and now marred by numerous scars, flared and dripped mucus as she sought clues from my scent. *Now**!!* she clicked and stamped.
*Danger to me* I clicked back, not believing any quick change of heart from a group obviously used to protecting itself. *Not to the herd*
*Come*Safety in the herd*
The offer couldn't be a lie, not with the scent shift to a more benign cluster of emotions: curiosity, vigilance, welcome. If it hadn't been for the height of the shelf and the Ganthor's definite lack of flight capability, I might have jumped down to be among them, to belong.
Instead, I concentrated on caution, hoping that would work its way through the whirl of fading scents to those madly twitching snouts. *Protect the herd* I clicked suggestively. *Hide me up here*
The concept of leaving one apart raised tension levels. A couple of lower-status males nudged each other emphatically enough to send a third careening away. The Matriarch ignored them. *Wise beyond your years* she clicked, the words intoned with approval. *Protect the herd*!!*
With that, the Ganthor lost interest in the debate, moving off to whatever business had occupied them before my intrusion, revealing the stress I'd caused in the way they deliberately sought to shove past certain key individuals, reaffirming the status within the herd I'd threatened to alter with my arrival. The unlucky trio who looked to be lowest in stature received the brunt of this behavior, but acquiesced without apparent concern. There was comfort in belonging, even to those beneath.
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