… Fear. Resignation.
This was Lesy. I relaxed my guard, assimilating memory as quickly as possible, excising the metal from my form at the same moment.
… Under the emotion, a last sequence of clear thought. It knows my name. Mixs and not Mixs. It hungers for more. Ansky and Skalet. Esen. Ersh, save us…
The names were wails of despair, the plea a hopeless one. Lesy. I opened my senses to the pulse of the Nebula, concentrating on the wild flavor of its energy, feeling suitably the smallest and least in a universe conspiring against all that was mine.
I made my way wearily back through the lock, ingesting the flesh I'd left behind automatically. The outer door whooshed closed and locked, its safety mechanism fooled by the apparent loss of vacuum as I expanded to fill the interior. The inner door irised open as I moved toward it, air from the ship's corridor rushing in, tasting of living things and warmth.
The lights were still night-dim in the hall. I cycled into Ket as I poured myself through the Quebit's' portal.
"Here," said Ragem, holding out my hoobit and skirt.
* * *
Out There
OVERLAPPING memories warred with those distinct to each. Death fought to keep its self-awareness under the deluge of ideas and information. Languages, form-memories, customs, histories—these things meant nothing to its purpose. Personality was a threat it burned away first.
Death hurtled through space, spending energy with abandon, assimilating furiously. More. There must be more.
Ah.
Death slowed, recognized star patterns from Lesy-knowledge, knew where it was in relation to those it sought.
Not the Oldest. Not yet.
Death would save the best until last.
* * *
31: Nebula Morning
« ^ »
RAGEM almost died in that instant. My grief and fear overwhelmed me. I wanted to cycle into something capable of violence, to shred flesh and spray blood until I could find nothing left to destroy. The need was so great, so impossible to ignore, I smacked my newly healed hands against the wall until the agony roaring up my arms drove away the rage.
Ragem, perhaps belatedly aware of his risk, had stayed absolutely still during my tantrum. When I stopped, finally, settling into stillness myself, he reached out as if to touch my hand. I flinched, feeling my sanity and sense returning from wherever they'd fled, grateful to have won the battle. And so tired.
"You don't give up, do you, Ragem?" I said, drained of all anger, aware on some level of relief. Whether it was because I hadn't killed him or because I could stop pretending, I wasn't sure.
A shrug lifted his shoulders. "It hadn't occurred to me." I noticed he was dressed only in a robe. He smiled and held out the hoobit. "Welcome back."
Welcome back? "You are crazy," I concluded, letting him help me tie on the skirt. From the feel of my hands, I'd rebroken at least one finger and possibly cracked a bone in the palm. At least there was no blood on the wall. Neither of us had come equipped to clean it.
"I'm crazy?" Ragem echoed mildly enough. "I suggest we debate relative mental states after you've been back in the med unit for those hands."
He was right. I could feel this body shaking, both from what I'd done to it and with it. In fact, unless I cycled, I wasn't certain I could walk that far. "Agreed. Ragem?"
At his nod, I continued: "I think I'll need your help to get there."
Ragem wrapped one arm around my waist and I gratefully, if somewhat awkwardly, leaned over him until I could put my arm over his shoulder and let him share some of my battle with gravity. As Ket, I wasn't heavy, but I certainly wasn't strong either; I could do little more to help Ragem support me. I could tell he had to strain to hold me, and my hand throbbed intolerably where it dangled against his chest, but this was a distinct improvement over collapsing on the deck. Until I realized how we might appear to anyone we met, my Ketself draped languidly over the compact Human like some drought-stricken tree, and my fingers twitched involuntarily.
"What's so funny?" Ragem wheezed between slow steps forward.
"I hope you've got a story to satisfy anyone we encounter on the way, because I certainly don't." A typical Human fantasy wouldn't do, I thought to myself with even more amusement. It was common knowledge that Ket away from their homeworld were completely uninterested in sex with their own kind or any other—a biological quirk that occasionally disconcerted those new to the sensuous pleasures of a Ket massage.
"I'll think of something," he said, then made a warm, oddly contented sound like a sigh. "But at least I don't have to worry I'm losing my mind any longer. You came close to convincing me, Madame Ket."
Better if I had, I thought, grateful for the transportation if not the responsibility.
Ragem's inventiveness did not need to be tested; we met only Quebits on the way back to his and Tomas' cabin. Once there, he helped me on the med unit and activated the box before sitting on the other bed and rubbing his shoulders. His voice carried easily through the clear walls. "You're a pretty substantial ghost, Es," he complained good-naturedly.
I sighed, but otherwise remained motionless to allow the unit's sensors to diagnose the latest damage I'd dealt this perfectly healthy body of mine. I could almost hear the machine's disapproval. I disagreed. Far better a sore hand than having to wash off Ragem's blood. "Please don't surprise me again, Ragem," I said firmly. "I'm not always—safe."
Ragem tilted his head, his gray eyes shadowed in the night lighting of the room. "Noted."
"How did you find me?" Ah. The unit did something to relax my nerves and stop the jangling pain from shooting from finger to shoulder.
"I saw your face when we were watching the crew outside. I knew you wanted to go to the colony—to look for yourself. So I followed you."
So much for my skills at espionage, I thought wryly, more amused than dismayed by how little all my precautions had mattered.
"I won't ask how you managed it," he went on. "But did you find any sign of Martha?"
Martha? I remembered the name I'd given instead of revealing Lesy's. Ignoring the objection of my hands, I pushed up the box lid to better see him. "Come here, Paul," I said, suddenly desperate. "Please."
Ragem stood and then knelt beside the bed so I could look directly into his face. It held the expression I remembered best: calm, accepting, the face of my first ephemeral friend, lit by concern and never-ending curiosity. "Be sure of me, Esen," he said gently, before I could speak. "I know why you ran from me on Rigel II. I've cursed myself every day since. I thought I was too well-trained, too experienced to react on a purely instinctive level. I was wrong. And I understand how I hurt you."
I touched his face with one of my better fingers. "Well, to be fair, I'm supposedly too well-trained to have put you in that situation." Not necessarily too experienced, I added to myself. I traced a cheekbone, too near the surface of his skin. "You paid for my mistake, Paul." I encountered a hint of beard and my Ket senses were pleased by the texture. But it was the not-Ket part of me that said: "Remind me never to drink spurl again, Christmas or no Christmas."
I surprised a chuckle from him. "Done," the Human said emphatically. "It's off my list, too." He tilted his head, his smile fading, eyes intent on mine, "Do you trust me now, Esen-alit-Quar?"
"That depends on how much of my trust you wish, Ragem," I came back as bluntly, folding my aching hands over the hoobit. "I warn you. There's more at stake than your keeping the secret of what I am outside this room."
He nodded slowly, not surprised. I hadn't expected him to be. "You spoke of limits, once. Respect mine. That's all I ask. I won't endanger my crewmates or any innocent lives. I don't believe you would," he added quickly, as though sensing my protest before I uttered it. "Beyond that," he continued, "you can trust me as far as you need to. We're friends, Es." This last on a lighter note, as though some joy came with the commitment.
I thought grimly of the Enemy, of the innocent already dead, including Mixs a
nd Lesy. "That's all you ask? Take care, Ragem. I came very close to killing you tonight. I can't promise it won't happen again."
"You didn't. And you've warned me."
He made it all seem uncomplicated. We were friends. To this Human, it seemed a binding as soul-deep as any I had with those of my Web. On another day, I might not have perceived the exact moment in which Ragem gained that stature in my life, but today I'd tasted the last thoughts of my web-kin. It left an agonizing emptiness Ragem's offered friendship somehow helped to fill.
Ersh? She could have a problem with my adopting Ragem into the Web. I decided it was simplest not to tell her about it.
"Get comfortable, my friend," I suggested. "I've a lot to tell you, starting with poor Martha Smith."
There wasn't enough time before the day period began on the Rigus, with its growing activity—including Tomas sure to arrive shortly afterward to seek his turn in bed—to share everything I wanted to share with Ragem; as it was, I could tell by his somewhat glazed eyes that he'd enough to think about for a while.
But the quick-witted Human did grasp our current dilemma. "So we have no way of knowing which of your kin this Enemy will go after next."
"None," I admitted. "But Lesy's last thoughts were of Skalet and Ansky." And me. And Ersh.
"And you've no idea what it looks like."
Not at the moment, I comforted myself as I lied: "No. Our Eldest passed on stories about a predator—a solitary, deadly being—that might one day come to hunt us through space. The thing was supposedly mindless, yet implacable and dangerous. I'd believed it was only a legend, the kind of thing you Humans tell your children to make them behave."
"Legends have their roots in the truth," Ragem noted.
"So it seems."
"Can you find it?"
I was tired, too, but the med unit was helping, and it was important to chase down every idea. Ragem's thought processes were subtly different; his assumptions about my abilities, as now, made me question my own. "If I can see or touch another of my kind, I know them for what they are," I thought out loud. "This Enemy found Mixs, but I don't know how. Yet. But when I was out there," simply thinking of the experience brought an involuntary longing to my voice, "I didn't sense anything that could be followed."
Something else to ask Ersh, I decided. I hadn't told Ragem about Ersh, for his own protection. Ersh had made the Rules. I sincerely doubted she'd bother to obey them if Ragem became a threat to her privacy.
Ragem stretched, glancing at the chrono on one wall. "Day shift's about to start," he observed as he rose to his feet. "Back in a minute."
While he was in the 'fresher stall, substituting being deluged with water for a night's sleep, I kept trying to think of some action to take, something we could do. Running home to Ersh's protection was beginning to assume an unexpected charm. At the same time, I knew I couldn't risk drawing the Enemy to her.
I was as helpless as the Ket form I inhabited.
Fortunately, Ragem's thought processes were more productive. I'd noticed this about Humans in showers. He jumped out, looking remarkably refreshed for a being who'd had a night like ours, grabbing clothing as he spoke rapidly. "Kearn will be sending reports out this shipday, Es. I think I can slip a couple of other messages translight within the same courier signal."
I couldn't help saying bitterly: "As I tried to send to Lesy."
Ragem paused midway through pulling on a pant leg. "I know. I'm sorry, Es. But perhaps these will be in time."
I wanted nothing more than to pull down the lid of the med unit and let it put me to sleep. But Ragem was right. I couldn't ignore any possibility. "I'll dictate."
I stayed in the med unit the next day. Ragem and I had concocted some story about my overexerting myself and needing the relief of some lower gravity therapy. The untruth came back to haunt me; many of the crew left messages of condolence and remorse for having caused me to harm myself.
Tomas snored. He'd offered to sleep elsewhere while I used the med unit, but I demurred, content to rest. Ket hearing wasn't as keen as Lanivarian; I'd tolerated his snoring in that form without trouble, now finding it only a peaceful, background kind of sound.
Anything peaceful was welcome, short of the med unit deciding to administer more tranks to put me under. I'd been able to keep my Ket body calm enough to forestall that waste of my time. Where was the Enemy going next? Every minute we waited here was a minute closer to the loss of someone else. But who?
It helped that Ragem was doing something when I couldn't. I'd given him the latest code words and locations to reach both Skalet and Ansky, as well as a warning message blunt enough to get a response from a stone: Mixs and Lesy murdered. You may be next.
Skalet might have already left for Kraos to finish my task. No chance to reach her there, but Kraos was, I thought, safely distant. What I knew of its craving suggested my Enemy would seek the nearest source of web-flesh. I shuddered. It was the ultimate perversion, to take flesh without offering yours in return. If I allowed myself to dwell on that fate, both my hearts hammered until the med unit threatened to put me out.
I'd almost identified the Enemy in the message to Ansky and Skalet, but stopped myself in time. Putting such dangerous information in a concrete form risked some ephemeral less open-minded than my friend Ragem starting to ask the wrong questions. Ersh would not be amused. At all.
I'd felt a twinge of guilt at not telling Ragem the truth, that our Enemy was web-being. But it was, I found, an easy guilt to bear, much easier than imagining his likely response. Bad enough Kearn believed I was such a monster than seeing the same realization on Ragem's face.
Where would my Enemy go? What was it capable of? Tomas stopped snoring for a moment, then resumed with a startling moan. I could have echoed it. Lesy-memory surfaced, "Mixs, not Mixs…" What did it mean?
Had she been fooled, just for a moment, by some imposture by the Enemy? It couldn't have been in person. We couldn't disguise ourselves as any other individual. How else? I caught my breath. Was it possible the Enemy had assimilated enough from Mixs to know the contact codes, to be able to send its own messages, messages that could trick one of us into a trap?
And would it try the same trick on Ansky or Skalet? I could only hope Ragem's carefully hidden signals would reach them first.
But how could it send a message at all? If Ersh could contact us without using technology, surely she would do so. For a semi-immortal being, she was incredibly impatient with communication delays.
I felt as though I should be hiding in the med unit, not healing. Was this alien web-being capable of more than Ersh?
This last thought was too much for my Ket physiology. The room and my problems became less distinct as the med unit quite firmly took control of my distress and chose to end it. For now.
* * *
Out There
JOEL Largas dimmed the lights in the children's cabin, automatically counting each of the five tousled heads as he would bags of freight. He was brusque with them when they were awake—not used to encountering toddlers and toys in translight and at any given moment certain the whole scheme would spiral to disaster at the curious push of a tiny finger on some panel never remotely made childproof.
He closed the door, flattening one space-dark palm against it. There'd been no problems; he devotedly hoped that between himself and the rest of them, Char and the older sibs, they'd keep the ship and its contents safe till planetfall. You couldn't keep young ones cooped up—not when they'd grown up used to a sky overhead instead of strip lighting.
For a moment, grief welled up, grief for the amber-hued sky none of them would see again. The Largas' family was luckier than most, he knew. Unlike some other ships in the convoy, his boasted experienced crew and well-maintained equipment. When the attack came, anything space-capable had been filled with life and tossed upward. His cousin Lyra's ship hadn't lasted through the atmosphere, tanks bursting along hastily repaired seams, those crammed inside her hull sharing the fat
e of the rest of their world.
He expected at any moment to hear that they'd lost another ship in the convoy, its engines failing even as they fled to safety at the fastest pace the slowest could manage. Another delay and another risky passage between ships, transferring those who'd never imagined being in space before. It was enough to scar the soul. Thank goodness for the laughter of children and their toys underfoot.
Alone in the corridor, Largas allowed himself to press his forehead against the bulkhead protecting those he'd saved, and wept for those he couldn't.
Never knowing how Death slowed, hungry, considering the tiny chain of ships.
Choosing its next prey.
* * *
32: Starship Afternoon
« ^ »
"I DON'T care much for our options, Nimal-Ket." Ragem and I were alone, but we'd agreed it was wiser for him to treat me and, even better, think of me as Ket.
For this reason, the Human lay facedown as I stood over him, digging the fingers of my better hand into the by now loose muscles of his shoulder. "They are as they are, Paul-Human," I said with a remarkable amount of contentment, considering the subject of our conversation. "We can't change where my kin have chosen to live. Skalet studies strategy within the Kraal Confederacy. It is her specialty."
"Strategy? Kraal V's currently pounding the life out of Kraal VII, with the timely assistance of armaments supplied by Kraal Prime and some Denebian smugglers the Commonwealth would love to catch. Oh, a lovely system to drop in and visit."
I fluttered my fingers against his skin, a Ket grin. "Ansky's home is much more—peaceful, Paul-Human."
Ragem shuddered. "Artos? It's been recommended for the banned list for good reason, my friend. The Articans are xenophobic fanatics who'd rather sacrifice an innocent visitor to their God of Bones than feed their own offspring. Have you ever seen the list of taboos they send to any approaching ship? They change them faster than you can print out a copy."
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