Webshifters 2 - Changing Vision

by Julie E. Czerneda

  The not-so-ridiculous thing was that Paul was very close in his suspicions. There was someone who could conceivably use the medallion's contents to find him—me—an ability I'd desperately wanted each and every time he'd left Minas XII and my protection. Which was regularly. This being the last thing I wanted the proud Human to suspect, I changed the subject. "I see no point in worrying about some phantom technology. I'm concerned with the First Rule."

  "To be hidden is to be safe," Paul said, as if repeating a lesson by rote. "It isn't hard to remember, Es. I do agree."

  I let the lip do what it wanted. "Then how did you obtain those images if you didn't contact anyone from your—former life?"

  I thought his skin turned pale, as though I'd inadvertently struck him. "I'd have thought it obvious, Es," my friend said in too even a voice, "since you were the one to insist we have the capability to dig into any database in the Commonwealth without being caught."

  Oh, dear, I said to myself, belatedly realizing many things, including how readily the system in my office could be turned from its secret search for others of my kind to something more focused. Simply collecting images of individual Humans, who were prone to bureaucracy and redundant records, would have taken almost no effort at all.

  As Paul said, we'd had our share of misunderstandings. I looked down my shaved muzzle at him, remembering each and every instance in exquisite detail, knowing he hadn't really been fair to himself: many had been my fault. I tended to jump to conclusions, to assume I knew exactly what he or any being would do simply because I understood their physical natures so thoroughly. Just like this time, I confessed in the privacy of my own thoughts.

  Paul stifled a yawn suddenly, then held up his medallion on its chain once more, letting it swing lightly. "I really do appreciate the honor you've paid me with this, Es." A wave at the table, with its bowl of deserted leftovers and surely cold eggs. "We have time for another attempt before Chase will be ready. If you are hungry?"

  This was like my friend, not to insist on an apology I'd find difficult to frame, to move us along. My stomach growled, and he smiled. "I take it that's a yes?"

  "As long as I can dump the prawlies," I agreed, suddenly lighthearted and ready to accept what was given. As I had all those times before, I promised myself to think more carefully before judging his or any being's actions.

  A promise I unfortunately failed to keep.

  As shipcities went, the one on Minas XII was a patchwork quilt with a rotting hole at its center. There had been no plan or grandiose vision behind its beginning, middle, or future. The world had breathable air and potable water for most theta-class species, including Humans. That made it cheap. And Minas XII lay within a day translight of a growing number of valuable mining settlements, while remaining comfortably distant from existing systems—and their taxes. That made it very appealing to freighters and other entrepreneurs looking for a fresh start.

  Minas XII herself dictated the terms. Her storm-ridden climate and jagged, geologically-active surface severely limited the amount of flat, firm ground suited to those trying to land. There were deep irregular valleys, smooth-floored by virtue of not too recent lava flows. The largest of these, branched like some nightmare version of a fallen tree, became the site of Minas' capital and only shipcity, Fisher-town.

  Why Fishertown? According to locals, the first beings to land here had chosen the site because the main valley swooped down to the ocean, and the Humans on board, tired of being spacers, had had visions of setting up an industry based on fishing. Had they bothered to investigate before venturing out on Minas' huge waves that fine sunny day, they would have discovered the local aquatic fauna took great exception to any disturbance and were large enough to express that opinion. Later settlers wisely avoided such conflicts, taking the name of Fishertown as a reminder of exactly who was considered prey here. There was an illicit, though somewhat amusing, trade involving luring tourists to the ocean and collecting their insurance.

  The real economic boom was in supplying cheap freight service between the Fringe mines and their markets. Each new wave of arrivals had plunked their starships findown on the lava of Fishertown's valley and declared themselves a shipcity. As space to do this without tipping over was limited, captains defended their miniature territories fiercely. The infrastructure to dock and service starships had thus evolved in a "first come, first grab" procedure, in which the best land had been claimed by the earliest, and most desperate, arrivals while the margins were eventually settled by those who saw an opportunity to expand their holdings from secure outsystem power bases. The latter could afford quality equipment and tugs.

  From the air, without clouds to hide it, I could see the end result. The core of the broadest part of the valley contained a motley assortment of ships, some permanently (and thankfully) grounded by age and disrepair. A few straight avenues marked where space had been left for docking tugs to bring ships in and out. Over the years we'd been here, those avenues had gradually diminished, creating a prison for ships unable to launch by themselves. The entire area was aptly, if irreverently, referred to as the Dump.

  To the north of the Dump, winding up two branches of the main valley of Fishertown's shipcity until the mountainsides closed in and funneled the storm winds too violently for safe flight, lay the area controlled by companies such as the Tellas Conglomerate and Largas Freight. The land wasn't the best, but ships arriving in those landing areas were given first-class welcomes, from modern docking tugs to fully serviced parking and reasonably secure warehousing. At a price. This was still the Fringe, after all.

  Surrounding the valley, the land rose in abrupt, ragged-toothed cliffs, but closer to the ocean, there were foothills suitable for construction. Clinging to the lowest of these was a blight of buildings containing those who were able to flee the Dump, if not Fishertown; higher was the strip housing commerce and the minimal amount of industry here: most specializing in the repair and maintenance of ships, or brokers such as ourselves. Highest of all were those elaborate, inset structures housing those who had made fortunes here and expected to keep them. The truly wealthy didn't live on Minas XII at all, but there was no lack of an upper class who believed themselves such.

  You'd know it was mostly Human without even seeing one, I thought, as I usually did when we flew in from this direction and I could see the entire mess. Other species tended to cooperate rather well when in small numbers and failed to do so when crowded. Humans seemed to require a critical number massed together—and all the associated problems—before bestirring themselves to organize more than a tolerant anarchy.

  Minas XII wasn't populous enough yet, apparently. Air-cars were the only mode of transportation able to reach anywhere in Fishertown, although trying to land amid the wrecks in the Dump was considered somewhere between bold and suicidal. Flying over the shipcity itself, technically forbidden by the practices of worlds with kinder climates and more forgiving landscapes, required a keen eye for the arrival and departure of ships which rarely bothered to inform the Port Authority of Minas XII of their intentions.

  I also kept an eye, and several sensitive devices, turned to the Sweet Sisters. Despite their name and innocuous snowcaps, the seven nearby volcanoes ringing the shipcity were something I, for one, did not trust at all. Their combined past eruptions had produced Fishertown's conveniently level floor and, as the locals sometimes quipped, their next would be one way to clean up the Dump and start over. I did not find the concept amusing, despite Paul's attempts to explain why Humans did.

  "You're quiet." Paul observed as he toggled on the approach warning. Below, the roof over our landing pad retracted in welcome and I readied myself for my least-favorite maneuver, locking into the automated system to land. Suddenly, our aircar swung sickeningly to one side as the vehicle's warding system veered us to avoid colliding head-on with another craft rising up into our level of traffic. "Ah," said Paul. "The mail's in."

  The driving habits of the local courier service wer
e one more thing I hadn't grown accustomed to in fifty years. It would have been easier if their drivers didn't have such short life spans and correspondingly brief safety records. "Maybe Chase sent her report?" I ventured hopefully.

  Once the aircar was caught by the pad controls, floating down lightly and rapidly, my friend turned to look at me with a frown. "And maybe you two can get along while we deal with this?"

  I didn't answer, for a moment toying with the memory of other faces: father, brothers, uncles. There appeared to be a stubborn line to the jaw repeatedly cropping up in the Ragem genome. "Of course," I replied smugly. "It's Port Authority we need to deal with—and the Tly."

  Of course I'd behave, I repeated to myself, in a much better mood. I planned to be the perfect, dignified professional. Which left open several dignified ways to annoy Captain Chase, if she chose to annoy me.

  Elsewhere

  « ^ »

  "SO he's annoying. That will never change." Lefebvre leaned back in his chair, aware that talking to himself wasn't a benchmark of sanity, but in the ten-plus years he'd spent on this ship he'd become less worried about such things. The Russell III had had four captains before his arrival: three had requested transfer as soon as it wouldn't harm their careers, while one had left the service altogether. He'd spoken to that individual before taking the assignment, finding the Modoren in a bar rolling in herbal teas and quite thoroughly drunk. "And the more fool I," he mused, "concluding the being deserted because its predatory mind-set couldn't stand serving a glorified trivia library."

  That conclusion hadn't survived Lefebvre's first moments shipside. Kearn's most trusted officer was another Modoren, a scar-faced, tight-lipped male named Sas. Sas was apparently the only living being, besides Kearn himself, to see this Esen Monster in person. He left no doubt of his conviction they were on a worthy hunt, regardless of method.

  "As if that makes it all believable," Lefebvre grunted to himself, putting his hands behind his head. He'd spent too many years in law enforcement to fall for the testimony of a potentially lunatic Modoren and a definitely obsessed Human. Shapeshifters. He'd credit that part of the tale when he could see it with his own eyes, not watch some confusing vid or listen to Kearn's horrified whispers.

  Oh, something had happened fifty years ago. And some thing had undeniably attacked and killed without compunction or remorse, out there in vacuum as well as planetside. "But a being that can become any form it likes?" Lefebvre muttered, reaching out to scroll to a new entry. "Bah. Another devil in the dark—no more real than any other make-believe monster. Pick one and we'd have found just as many species using it to scare their offspring. I'll believe Kearn's a born hero before I'll swallow that one."

  He'd arranged his office-cum-cabin on the Russ' to suit himself, the renovations dating from the moment he'd realized the depth of Kearn's desperation to have a captain last more than one tour of duty. If he turned his head, he'd be able to see his imported and expensive Latasian jelly-bed in the far corner, with its multiple coverlets and pillows tossed, as usual, into a heap as restless-looking as his sleep. On either side were Dokecian tentacle-cast ceramic tables, not a match but together costing more than a year's pay. The rest of the long L-shaped room's furniture was equally out of reach for an ex-patroller from Botharis.

  And all unimportant, for in front of him, busy under his touch, was the one bribe Lefebvre had been after from the start. The rest was camouflage aimed at Kearn's ego. "What else do you have for me today, Timri?" he wondered out loud, tapping the control that sent a very special bit of communication technology tunneling through the Russell's comp-tech's confidential records and reports, sifting names and places with inhuman speed.

  "Confirming key words," Lefebvre told the machine. "Largas. Megar Slothe." He paused. "Paul Antoni Ragem."

  Ragem. Traitor to his species and to all civilized beings, an infamy kept quiet by government embarrassment and inaction, lost in sealed records if not from the tongues of those who had known him. The Human who had brought the monster on board his own ship, endangering his friends and crewmates; who had sided with the creature against his own kind only to lose his life. A figure long gone and to be forgotten.

  "Not by me," Lefebvre reminded himself, momentarily losing sight of the screen to stare through memory at a face he remembered very well indeed. "Not until I know why, Paul. Not until I know it all."

  Chapter 5: Restaurant Morning

  « ^ »

  BY Human standards, Captain Chase was an attractive individual. Short, but attractive. Arrogant and too sure of herself, grasping and overbearing, but attractive. I showed a polite tusk with an effort and took the seat she offered to me with as much grace as I could.

  Paul gave me another of his "behave" looks before inspecting his own chair and sitting down cautiously. The last time we'd been here, my friend had sat in the remains of some being's meal—post-digestive remains. It hadn't been a happy moment. I'd reminded Paul, on the way here, we'd received our meal for free. He'd countered he hadn't been able to eat it anyway. Point taken.

  The Circle Club's management might not be particularly fastidious, but I adored the place. There were few truly multispecies restaurants in Fishertown, despite its sizeable non-Human population. Most folded after poisoning or insulting some being or other. Somehow, by the simple tactic of offending everyone without prejudice, this place thrived.

  Our table squatted in a back corner, too near the varied fragrances of the kitchen for my delicate first and fifth stomachs, and too distant from the main dining area for my famed hearing to pick up anything truly interesting. Paul had standing reservations here for meetings with his couriers and captains, despite my quite justifiable concern that the setting gave Cameron & Ki Exports all the gloss of a smugglers' ring. I looked wistfully beyond the forced intimacy of the portlight hovering overhead—low enough to endanger all of our foreheads and far too dim to show my vision much detail beyond the pale features of my companions and the table's mottled surface—at the brighter, livelier, Chase-less tables beyond. Being so occupied, I completely missed the start of our conversation and snapped my attention back at the sound of my name. On her lips.

  "—Fem Ki predicted his reaction to threat, I'm sorry to say." Huh, I thought. "Myers almost lost it, but I got him under control before there was an incident But he was right, Paul. They had no grounds for boarding—"

  "Pardon me," I interrupted. "Captain Chase, would you mind going back to the very beginning? This is most exciting and I don't want to miss a thing."

  Captain Chase had undergone a vision enhancement procedure, one that allowed her to receive feed from her ship's internal and external systems when activated. It was not common out on the Fringe, and the unusually large, violet irises she turned on me were another mark of her origins in wealthier, more settled space. She blinked. "Of course, Fem Ki." My hearing easily detected the sound of her teeth grinding together. I showed her my other tusk, suddenly in fine spirits.

  My feet invaded so much of the space under the table Paul could tap a warning on my toes without appearing to stretch. I flipped an ear innocently at him as he said: "We don't have all morning, Esolesy Ki. We should go over the documents Janet brought and see if there's anything to help us predict Port Authority's stand on all this—before we have to bribe somone."

  "Fine, fine." I waved cheerfully at the passing Octarian, hoping it was our waiter and not—as happened occasionally—a bemused patron wandering around with a dirty towel still stuck to its chins. "I don't know about you," I announced to my companions, "but I find it very hard to read without a morning libation. And," this to the being who had obediently lumbered to my side and laid its auditory tendrils on the table, "do you have those really fresh green insects on a stick? You know the ones I mean?"

  Paul's "Es—" came at the same time as Chase's complexion turned an obligingly green tinge itself. Was I to help it that she had some sort of phobia to food that wriggled?

  Still, there was more to deal
with than any pleasure I gained manipulating this poor female, whose only crime was the look in her eyes whenever she glanced from Paul to me. I swiveled my large ears thoughtfully. If I hadn't overheard their argument a year ago—which included "interfering shaggy-scaled hunk" as her kindest (and most anatomically believable) reference to my handsome self—I might have taken that look to be one any uneasy employee might pass between a favored boss and his less-than-predictable partner.

  But I had heard and, regrettably for Chase, was physiologically incapable of forgetting a word. I smoothed the pleats of my issa-silk caftan over one broad thigh. However, I, at least, was civilized. Paul hadn't signed any contract with this female, although I'd been disappointed by his lack of offense at her insults. To confuse me further, when he found out I'd listened to their argument, he'd been angry with me for a planetary week. Humans could be incredibly difficult.

  So, I thought, gathering my dignity, it was up to me to deal with this one. I passed the sheaf of plas sheets Chase gave me to Paul, not bothering to squint at them in this light, then turned my attention from her past faults to a suspicion I'd had since hearing of the Lass's confrontation. "Was there any hint or sign that the Tly inspectors knew what you carried?" I asked her.

  Violet eyes narrowed in thought. "What do you mean?"

  We paused while the waiter gingerly placed a bowl of pyati in the middle of our table, a true feat to accomplish without sloshing the steaming liquid or its floating dollops of cream. Then the Octarian reached into a large pouch and rummaged noisily for a moment before bringing forth a cup for Paul, a long, troughlike spoon for Janet Chase, and a tall glass for me. With a satisfied-sounding mumble, the waiter left us.