Beholder's Eye

by Julie E. Czerneda

  "This being you know in the colony, Nimal-Ket. Martha Smith. She's more than a client, isn't she?"

  I drummed my finger on the hoobit, a welcome distraction. "This Ket does not specify her relationships to others."

  "No?" For the first time, I saw a glint of something truly hostile in Ragem's eyes. "Yet you expect us to take this ship and crew in the direction of your choice, into a danger you may understand and we do not. Is that correct, Madame Ket?"

  I hadn't put it to myself quite that way, but I couldn't argue the point. "You asked me for my help, Paul-Human," I countered. "Perhaps I should have asked under what terms you were accepting it."

  "What did you say?" he whispered, hostility forgotten, leaning forward and staring at me, eyes wide.

  What did I say? I wondered as urgently, knowing I'd somehow given everything away to him. Then I remembered, and watched the echoing recollection slide across his face at the same time. As Esen-alit-Quar, I'd asked Ragem almost that exact question when confronted with Kearn's plans for me.

  It was always the little things, I thought with complete disgust. Ersh.

  "What did you say?" Ragem asked again, louder, rising to his feet as though pulled by strings on his shoulders. I rose too, towering over him, bewildered to still feel dwarfed. "Who are you?"

  The room was too small. My options certainly were. "Don't—" I clenched the hoobit, letting my body temperature soar. "Please don't ask these questions, Paul-Human."

  His expression softened, softened but remained committed. His left hand brushed the curve of the hoobit and over my fingers, then reached up to touch the side of my face lightly. His fingertips were ice cold on my skin. "You're burning up. But it's not a fever, is it?" he asked, amazed. "Is this how you maintain control?" I had little doubt he was thinking back to the time I'd lost control so dramatically in Kearn's office. Damn his curiosity.

  I closed my eyes. "You are crazy even for a Human. Go away," I said faintly. "I have no wish to continue this conversation, Paul-Human."

  "Es—"

  The shrill peeping of an incoming message was so well-timed I thought Ragem would explode himself with questions and emotions. I dodged around him to touch the com-panel. "This Ket answers," I said, somewhat breathlessly.

  "Madame Ket, this is Tomas. We've received a translight signal from Portula Colony. Captain Kearn thought you should be notified."

  I must have said something affirmative, for Tomas continued: "It was their automated distress beacon. I'm sorry. There's been nothing else."

  I shut off the com. Lesy.

  "Es?"

  Another piece of me stolen.

  "Esen? Is this you?"

  Without looking at him, I waved one hand at the door, sharply enough to rouse a hot little spurt of pain from my recently-healed fingers. "Go."

  The door closed before I could act on the impulse to reach for the comfort of my friend and finally betray what I was.

  * * *

  30: Nebula Afternoon; Colony Night

  « ^ »

  ERSH-MEMORY had given me something new about my kind—something Ersh had neglected to share with the others or include in my normal education.

  Web-flesh did quite well out there.

  While I hadn't yet proved that to my own satisfaction nor, until now, contemplated doing so, the web-flesh I could see streaked along the outside of Sas' helmet looked unaffected, its lush blue gleaming and perfect despite its passage within the exposed shards and twisted wreckage of what had been Portula's beautiful spheres. My fingers ran restlessly around the port's rim as I fought the urge to somehow rush to the tiny bit of mass and learn whose it was, confirm who had been lost.

  Other things had certainly died. There was sufficient gore adrift outside the Rigus to have silenced all conversation within the ship's galley. I was dimly surprised no one had suggested closing off the view.

  A helpless place, peopled by introspective beings who paid handsomely for their peace and this setting. I couldn't take my eyes from the blue-tainted helmet, now making its inevitable way toward the ship, but on some level I was aware of the vast Nebula as it pulsed and blossomed beyond what was left of the colony.

  "They'll check everywhere," Ragem said in a low voice. He hadn't been one of the handful of the crew qualified to take part in the search, hazardous in the extreme as they clambered over and sometimes cut their way through twisted, broken plas and metal; like those gathered here, he'd been a mute observer. "There are storage pods linked to the colony along its spinward axis," he continued. "Maybe—"

  "No, Paul-Human," I explored his face, tracing out the creases of his despair. "Please warn your searchers that those pods contain finished art by the colonists. I believe the pods contain preservative gases and some works may be sensitive to a loss of pressure. This Ket suggests you take care; the pods' contents are the legacy of those who have been lost."

  Ragem moved away to pass along my warning to someone, then came back to keep vigil with me. There had been no further questions or innuendoes. Whether he now believed he knew the truth or was merely sensitive to my grief, I couldn't tell. Nor did I, at the moment, care. I had other priorities, starting with that web-stained helmet.

  "This Ket may be able to give some comfort to your crewmates, Paul-Human. Surely this task of hunting among the dead is distressing."

  Ragem touched my hoobit graciously. "You are kind, Nimal-Ket, to think of them."

  "They are my clients," I said, as if he were foolish to remark on it. Ket, while not truly compassionate, were capable of a deep sensitivity to other species' emotional states. It was good business as well as their nature. "So this Ket can be ready, please tell me what procedures will be followed to bring your crewmates safely within this ship, Paul-Human. Will there be any delays?"

  What Ragem described was worse than I thought. No remnant of Lesy—or the Enemy—would remain on the helmet if Sas followed the full decontamination protocols. Knowing the Modoren's fastidiousness, I had little doubt it would.

  I rubbed one finger in a tiny circle on the plas, over and over, as if to somehow taste the black emptiness so close. Web-form could survive out there.

  Maybe.

  The Rigus observed Commonwealth standard time, a diurnal pattern based on the spin of a planet orbiting a sun so far back in Human history it was now legend. I thought idly I should spend more time recalling Ersh-memories of what Terra had been like, gain more understanding of Ragem's kind, since I seemed to be spending most of my time surrounded by Humans. In the meantime, I appreciated the convenience of a lengthy span of dimmed lighting and skeleton crew. The Rigus watched for the Enemy with her automatics and a few sleepless beings at their posts. I knew the enemy was gone, having found and taken what it sought.

  But where?

  There was only one way I could find out. I moved as quietly as possible down the crew corridor, something my Ket preference for barefoot travel made easier, slipping past the solitary bar of brighter light marking where those still seeing the nightmare of the shattered colony behind their eyelids had gathered for comfort in the galley. It was highly unlikely anyone, including Ragem, would approve of my intentions. Better they never even know, I'd decided.

  The Rigus had two main locks, one for personnel and the other capable of swallowing immense crates of supplies. Both had ample warning systems against unauthorized exit or entry.

  But the Quebits, dear little doorknobs that they were, had their own set of air locks, several on each level. The tiny beings needed access to all areas of the ship, inside and out, in order to carry out their assigned tasks of maintenance and repair. I'd overheard Lawrenk Jen complaining that off-duty Quebits liked suiting up, plastering themselves to the outside of the ship, and admiring the display caused by venting pressurized plasma. Since her staff were responsible for the plasma stores, she was understandably less than impressed by this evidence that Quebits weren't quite as dull as everyone believed.

  Having been a Quebit on one less-than
-memorable occasion, I could reassure Lawrenk that they really were the most boring of species. One day in that form and I'd felt as though my brain was solidifying. Ersh hadn't thought much of my reaction. She'd wanted the Quebit form to teach me patience and devotion to duty.

  There I spotted a pair of Quebits in a branching corridor and started following them. They softly whistled and popped in conversation, oblivious to my presence. Typical. Well, I didn't need their form, I needed their door.

  The two I'd followed met a third, this one already half-stuffed into an evac-suit. The suit made the little creature even more closely resemble an animated sausage topped with a bouquet of budding flowers. The suited Quebit exchanged some whistles with its crewmates before expressing a second pair of foot appendages, the suit material stretching easily, and trotting away.

  Our mutual destination wasn't far. The portal was ergonomically designed, for Quebits, consisting of a circular entrance about the diameter of my hoobit, located slightly above the floor. The crew being hesitated just as it was to enter, then gave an exasperated whistle and continued down the corridor. "Wrong door?" I said, but to myself. Perfect I checked the corridor in both directions again. No one.

  Beside the portal was a stow-it, one of the small cupboards set at intervals into the bulkheads of most ships in order to allow crew to quickly secure loose objects in case of gravity failure. This one was empty.

  I checked one final time to make sure I was alone and unobserved. The corridor was too short to warrant a scanner box. One would have recorded my passing this way from the larger corridor, but I should be unseen here.

  I pulled off the hoobit and skirt, shoving them into the stow-it, letting go of the circlet with the reluctance of my Ketself. I'd been in this form too long. Then I cycled.

  I flowed into the Quebit portal as quickly as I could, anxious at the exposure of my true self. I'd never stayed in web-form so near aliens. The tubelike entrance was barely long enough to hold all of my mass, yet I didn't dare shed any, not if I was going to become Nimal-Ket again.

  I paused, comforted beyond words by my own shape, in spite of being packed into a tube. Gravity hummed its symphony within the structure of the Rigus; I could sense the interplay of tension and stress restraining the ship against the invitation of vacuum.

  Vacuum. I tasted the mechanisms responsible for the doors to seal this cylinder from the interior of the ship, then open it to space. The inner door operated automatically, opening and closing to allow passage as long as there was air on both sides. The outer door was the problem. It wouldn't release unless the air within had been evacuated—a most annoying and typically Human safety feature. Without appendages, I couldn't manipulate the evacuation controls, but I thought I could fool the device.

  I absorbed every molecule of gas from within the cylinder. The tricky bit was keeping my own mass tightly compressed so that the space around me would register as airless. The process generated an uncomfortable amount of heat. Hurry up, I urged the sensors. How much vacuum do you need?

  A faint vibration signaled the release of the outer lock. Success. Pushing I could do, so it was a simple matter to open the door to space.

  The instant I did so was the same instant I realized I had no proof this wouldn't kill me. Fine time to think of that, I chided myself. After a few ominous seconds, I didn't feel any discomfort. So far, so good.

  I'd planned how to prevent the lock from sealing behind me; it required a temporary sacrifice, not cleverness. I used the door itself to help me cut off a portion of my body, after shunting all memory from the piece to be abandoned. The piece, looking inexpressibly dear and forlorn for a bit of blue jelly, would force open the outer door until I returned and rejoined it.

  Thus I became the only member of my Web besides Ersh to see the universe without the blur of atmosphere.

  I clung to the ship's hull like a Quebit waiting to vent plasma, spellbound by the limitless spectacle in front of me. To my web senses, space wasn't a black void, it spread before me like a surging ocean, tossed by solar wind, lit by radiations, and rich with spinning hydrogen. A perfect place. I couldn't understand why Ersh had hidden this from us.

  I longed to soar through that golden darkness, to taste it against my outer surface, to feel its harmonies in my soul. It was a longing I resisted only because I had no idea of the kind of wings to use. Something to definitely ask Ersh, I decided firmly. This was an advantage all to my enemy's benefit; it was a lack in me I felt as physical pain. Then my attention fixed on the colony.

  The Rigus was tethered to the grapelike cluster of broken spheres by several cables, including a set of three the crew used to travel back and forth. Those cables were my route to the colony as well, given I could avoid the attention of the sensors and whoever was currently monitoring them.

  Web-flesh wasn't quite as amorphous as that of the Ycl, but I had no trouble thinning at one end until I was partially a cable myself. It took innumerable attempts, but at last I was able to hook one end of myself around a real cable. Grabbing it for an anchor, I spun myself out and away from the ship. Anyone looking out could see one of the cables growing oddly thicker than the others for a moment, but I doubted they'd notice. I hardly believed what I was doing—how could one of the crew imagine it?

  Then I was on the colony's shattered structure, feeling lost away from the ship in spite of my growing confidence in my abilities. I had a completely new perspective on the courage it took for true air-breathers to don a suit and step out here.

  Maybe it was easier when your destination wasn't an open grave, loosely held together by the tatters of what had been the ultimate in modern technology. The crew did its best on every shift to collect the former inhabitants of Portula Colony, catching and bagging anything that appeared organic for later identification. In web-form I could taste what they'd missed. There wasn't true vacuum within the colony. Its gravity generator, tucked into the core sphere, no longer functioned, but there was sufficient mass here to lure homeward the scattered molecules of sculptors, painters, and musicians.

  I oozed my way among the debris, so angry I felt my outer surface throbbing. All of this had been incidental. The Enemy had destroyed the colony and its life in its search for Lesy. I had no proof of this; I had no doubt either.

  But had it found her? I had several advantages over the Rigus in examining the wreckage for clues. I knew the former structure of the place. And I knew where Lesy would run.

  Think of it as a puzzle to solve, a game, I calmed myself, at all times aware of the direction of the hum of gravity and life that was the ship. It was hide and seek with the Rigus' sensors, just as it must have been hide and seek for Lesy during the colony's destruction. I could play both.

  It didn't take long to find Lesy's quarters, or what remained of them. The pillows she draped herself over when the colony upped the gravity for visitors were gone, perhaps lingering in orbit around the wreckage, but the patterned carpeting with its whimsical motif of feather and scales looked brand new. Here. I detected the first traces of web-flesh. Again I thinned myself to a cord's width to ease across the opening, preferring to be paranoid than be detected by the Rigus.

  There. A lump of life, stuck half within a door panel. I rushed to it, forming a mouth and consuming the flesh before even thinking the intention I should have.

  It wasn't Lesy.

  Seething appetite. How dare you lock me out! I am what matters. Give me your flesh.

  I flung myself out of memory, finding myself huddled against the comforting mass of splintered bulkhead. I hastily excised every molecule of my Enemy from me, but the memories of its flesh were impossible to vomit. I was only grateful they weren't worse.

  Pouring my way past what remained of the door, I navigated through the apartment suites and studios of this portion of the main sphere, keeping my mass as tightly to myself as possible. At least I was out of sight of the Rigus' sensors now and could move freely. Move freely? I was alive and comfortable in an environment th
at welcomed nothing else to my knowledge. Why had Ersh named space "out there" and "no life" to us? Why had she kept us from this?

  I ducked under the swollen torso of a Dokecian, its lovely arms stretched to their maximum length as if to beg some meaning from the cold, ever-changing Nebula overhead, my thoughts traveling down so many paths at once I hardly noticed the poor creature. Ersh hadn't shared our abilities in a vacuum, a selfishness that suddenly seemed a great deal more reasonable to me than most of Ersh's Rules. It kept us to ships, to travel no faster and no more conveniently than ephemerals. It kept us under control.

  I sighed mentally. Now, it left us at the mercy of the Enemy, a web-being completely at home in space and capable of translight.

  I humped my way down an exposed conduit pipe. Not much time left before I'd have to be back on the Rigus, not having my Enemy's independence.

  There. Another sparkle of blue, this time a broad smear along a wall with an unhealthy tinge to the edges. There were streaks missing from the middle section. I could imagine Sas banging his helmet against it. I settled myself near enough to touch the smear with a pseudopod if I chose, and tried to decide what to do. It could be more of the Enemy. Or it could be, I shuddered, all I had of Lesy.

  The surrounding wreckage showed no signs of scorching. Whatever strategy Mixs had used to defend herself, Lesy hadn't had the time to try. Or maybe not the will, since such an explosion could have shattered any remaining integrity of the sphere. Had Lesy hesitated, knowing the kind of damage and death the Enemy had inflicted on the colony in its rampant searching, aware that her defense might take the last hope from any survivors? I'd never know.

  Unless I tasted for myself.

  I had no tongue or its equivalent. To ingest the web-flesh from the bulkhead, I had to enlarge my mouth and consume the nonliving metal as well. I took an instant to worry if the teeth marks on the wall would be detected by the next shift of searchers. Then…