Roxanne shook her head. “I don't much like the idea of going after another human, especially when I'll have to turn him over to the Sith. That is, if we find him.”
Seeker let loose a trill from his fuzzy depths. “No one likes the Sith. They are not pleasant creatures, even by my broadly catholic standards and especially since this latest dispute began.” He paused, shook his scales and then continued. “But I do not understand why you are concerned. This Shammon person is a criminal. It did steal something of value.”
“I know, I know,” Roxanne said sadly. “Just the same, I don't like the Sith concept of justice.” She shivered. “Turning somebody into flank steak is not my idea of the proper punishment for theft, even if it is something of religious significance.”
“It is him or you,” Seeker replied. “Sith hold the entire race responsible for the actions of one. It is why they have such power. They are extremists and you, being the only other human they have seen...” He did not need to complete the sentence. If Roxanne failed in her mission then she, not the perpetrator, would suffer their justice.
And she had no intention of becoming Sith sashimi.
“Well, I'd better get down to the surface and find this guy. He should stand out like an elephant in a phone booth among the natives.”
“What is an elephant?” Seeker asked as they moved toward the drop bay. “And why would it be strange to find one in a phone booth?”
* * * *
Sam Boone was worried. When Ahbbbb, his Perquodista agent, had sent him on this assignment to help settle the situation on Safehold she'd failed to mention the vicious and predatory nature of these damned Sith, who just happened to be his clients. Nor had she mentioned that the Sith were going to be religious fanatics in the worse sense of the word. All she did mention was that he was to protect their interests.
Safehold was the Sith's current target, the sixth in a series of relatively unopposed conversions of the natives’ beliefs to those of the Alliance of Egg-Laying Beings. The Arasoes were the first to suggest they had no interest in converting due to irreconcilable differences.
“You nurture your eggs ex utero, while the Arasoes carry theirs about in pouches,” Sam had pointed out gently during one of his conversations with Ripgut, the chief of the Sith delegation.
“Haurgh. It matters little,” Ripgut had replied. “Eggs are eggs and all viviparous beings are the yolk-sucking enemy of everything right and good in the universe. Safehold's inhabitants must join the Galaxy's only true and just faith.” To emphasize his point Ripgut drew his claws slowly and deliberately across the rough surface of the stone table.
It had taken nearly an hour for Sam's skin to feel normal again.
Matters had not improved of late. Due to the Arasoes’ intransigence the Sith had threatened forced conversion upon them. Had the little furry beings been more technologically advanced, numerous, or spread over a few systems, Sam knew the dispute might draw the attention of the Galactic Hegemony's Court, which, owing to the tendency of the court's officers to quell disputes with draconian force, could be fatal to both races. Instead this little dustup appeared to be a minor infraction of the Galactic peace and not to be concerned about.
Although he was supposed to be helping the Sith, Sam instead had taken a liking to the Arasoes. They appeared to be nothing more than gentle beings with little apparent interest in anything outside of their little world.
Just having an Araso delegation discuss matters with the Sith had taken every bit of Sam's diplomatic skills. Those same skills were severely tested in getting them to pay serious attention to the Sith's proposal. They were far more interested in Sam himself—a terribly exotic being, by their measure, and one who had actually been to Disneyworld, which the Arasoes considered one of Earth's prime attractions.
Sam had tried everything he could think of to craft a solution, but to no avail. Every discussion started with the Sith's unshakable belief that, since the universe had sprung from an egg, only the egg-producing races were the Great Egg's rightful inheritors. That meant, they insisted, that all oviparous and ovoviviparous beings were honor-bound to gather under the Hatch of the Great Egg's banner. The Arasoes, therefore, had no choice but to join the cause. To do otherwise was to deny their inherent destiny.
Sam had tried to argue the premise, but quickly realized that tampering with holy writ was exceeding dangerous for a frail human whose fingernails were an inadequate match for the large, sharp, and colorful claws of his clients. As a result he found himself, excuse the expression, walking on eggs whenever he sat down to negotiate.
Ripgut, the chief Sith negotiator, hissed at Sam as he entered the chill meeting room. The translator on the table emitted only a series of high-pitched groans.
“Click-click-clickeddy-click. Wait a damn minute until I get this gadget adjusted,” the little Rix engineer chattered through his personal translator as he probed the translator's innards. “Cheap-assed Pequodista crap never works when you need it. Why the stationmaster went with the lowest bidder ... Aha! There we go!” A fountain of blue sparks flew out of the upper horn of the translator as the Rix jerked spasmodically. “Click-cli ... zzzzz!"
“Say something,” the Rix instructed Ripgut as he shook his smoking appendages to put out the fire.
“I said, may you dine on the rotting entrails of your enemies.” Ripgut's voice announced from the lower horn—a warm welcome from a Sith, Sam thought.
For some reason the chief negotiator had today chosen to paint his eyebrows a deep purple and tinge the edges with rose. His lips, Sam noted, were still smeared with the same bilious green coating he'd worn at every meeting while his claws remained their usual fuchsia, a color that seemed sedate and conservative in comparison to the rest of the color scheme.
“May your claws rip the unborn from the bowels of the unbelievers,” Sam replied formally, shivering slightly when he realized that said unbelievers could only be the non-egg-laying majority of the galaxy, which included his own abdominally soft race. A series of leaky radiator hisses emerged from the middle horn on the opposite side of the table. This horrendous statement produced a flash of serrated teeth from Ripgut. Sam hoped it was a smile.
As they were exchanging pleasantries, the rest of the Sith's negotiating team had staggered in. Sam was continually surprised by the mixture of colors the Sith used to enhance their stark, scaly unloveliness. In fact, he wondered if they were completely color-blind, so clashing were their choices of makeup. He would never, not ever, choose to paint eyebrow ridges a putrid brown and garnish cheeks with bright orange splotches like two of Ripgut's side-saurians. While they all emulated their leader's bilious green lipstick, their claws were shades of blue, red, or green, which further strengthened his low estimation of their fashion sense.
Three of the Arasoes, led by Hoppergoinglightly, the leader of the Araso team, followed the Sith and hopped to their places at the table. Each Araso was conservatively clothed in sedate checkerboard-patterned jackets with matching skirts. Hopper's lieutenant, Sam noticed with a start, was showing a decided bulge in the abdominal region. In fact, said bulge was straining the buttons of that individual's jacket.
“You are with egg, Leaperforthewind?” Sam ventured quietly as the Araso settled into place. The translator produced a melodious sound not unlike a clarinet quartet.
“Too-too-tootle. Yes,” Leaper beamed in melodious tones. “My mate delivered our egg only this morning.”
Sam hesitated. “Delivered” could mean another Araso had laid an egg, or had, for all he knew, sent the damn thing up to the station on the morning shuttle. “Was it a difficult delivery?” he ventured, hoping to gather further illumination.
“Not at all. Only two transfers were necessary,” Leaper replied, which clarified nothing.
Ripgut's voice hissed angrily from the translator. “Cease this irrelevant chatter. We must settle matters once and for all,”
“We are quite pleased with the progress of this game,” Hopper announc
ed pleasantly and sat back, tail twitching in happy syncopation to his tootling.
The translator hissed and tooted as it tried to keep up with the buzz on conversation. To Sam it sounded like a cage arrangement for clarinet and steam radiator.
“I admire your fortitude, but it wastes time,” Bowelsplitter, Ripgut's chief enforcer, hissed as he clicked his claws together, making a sound like ginzu knife castanets. It was a calculated insult.
“And I your delicate aroma,” Hopper replied calmly and sniffed. “Interesting. Is that smell your latest waste or did you find someone else's to bathe in?”
Bowelsplitter tensed as he prepared to spring across the table, but Sam intervened. “We agreed that I should negotiate the talks between Hoppergoinglightly and Ripgut, did we not?”
“So we did,” Ripgut replied and slapped Bowelsplitter on the side of the snout. The sharp edge of his elbow claw just narrowly avoided the aide's nose; otherwise, Sam thought wryly, Bowelsplitter wouldn't smell at all. “So, speak!”
“It seems that the two of you are held apart only on matters of theology,” Sam began as diplomatically as he could. “The Arasoes wish their people to remain ignorant of the Great Egg and the blessings it may bestow upon their race.”
“They are infidels who need to be brought to the light,” Ripgut interrupted sharply. “They must allow our missionaries to bring the truth to their people.”
“But surely you understand,” Sam continued smoothly, “that you cannot impose faith on those who don't chose to believe. The Arasoes are quite happy to worship in their own manner.”
Ripgut sliced to the core of the matter. “The Hatch of the Great Egg shall bring truth to the ignorant masses and eviscerate all who fail to see the light!”
“That's the Universal Hatch of the Great Egg, isn't it?” Bowelsplitter interrupted as it touched its green clawpaint.
“Whatever,” replied Ripgut with a casual wave of dismissal that nearly sliced Bowelsplitter's ear off.
“We do not want missionaries,” Hopper replied. “We want to play. Your religion is of no interest to us.”
“You only wish your oppressed masses to continue to suffer injustice under the heels of other egg-sucking aliens.” Ripgut said calmly. “We cannot allow you to remain backward and unenlightened. A fleet of armed missionaries will arrive to help you see the light, but don't worry. I am sure you will find conversion brief,” Ripgut showed his teeth. “And quite efficient.”
Sam gulped. Ripgut hadn't mentioned missionaries before and the added note about armaments did nothing to improve the situation. A quick glance through his handy galactic encyclopedia (another costly item his agent had sold him) later told him that the Sith were not above using anything up to and including nuclear weapons to bring the true faith to the unwilling. Unless he was successful, there was going to be a bloodbath, with him caught in the middle.
Hopper didn't seem to appreciate the seriousness of the situation. As Sam recited the arms the Sith missionaries sported, Hopper thumped his tail happily and tooted. “This is wonderful. They are quite serious about this, aren't they?”
“Don't you understand that they're going to attack you?” Sam replied. “Guns, troops, tanks, missiles, and who knows what else.” Hopper appeared unmoved. Perhaps, Sam wondered, the Arasoes had no words, no concepts for war and weapons. If so, then even the Great Egg couldn't help these defenseless creatures before the might of the Sith.
Despite his contract with the Sith, Sam felt that he had to help the Arasoes. Clearly the Sith weren't the ones who needed his advocacy—they appeared quite capable of taking care of themselves, quite unlike the gentle Arasoes. Somehow he had to stop this conversion before it inflicted who knew how much suffering on its innocent inhabitants.
He just wished he had a clue as to how to bring this about.
* * * *
The drop site was nothing more than a grassy, overgrown field. Roxanne had to wait in the shuttle's hatch until a few languorous natives pushed a portable ramp into place. A single stone terminal stood at the far edge of the field. Far beyond she could see a cluster of low and rambling structures that followed the rolling countryside's contours.
Inside the terminal was a low partition separating a drowsy official from the line of de-shuttling visitors. “Toot-toot-tootle?” the official sang as Roxanne approached.
It had been a long walk from the shuttle and her kit was growing very heavy. “Cripes, don't you even have a translator here?” she said angrily. “Do you speak Glax?” she said in the galactic lingua franca.
The official looked blankly at her. “Toot-toot?" it sang, a query in B flat.
“Tootato-too-too," a purple thing with five appendages standing behind her translated quickly and then, in an aside to Roxanne, “I told him you.” Not that he needed to—all she had were the clothes on her back.
“Toot,” the official said and swung the gate open to allow her to pass before singing to the purple pentapod. The official pointed at the large bag the purple thing was carrying. Roxanne missed most of what the octopod replied, but didn't miss its delicate orange flush of embarrassment. Maybe it had a few undeclared egg coddlers in its baggage, she thought.
Roxanne looked around as she exited the terminal. Aside from the distant town there appeared to be nothing around but endless plain, no different from the place where the shuttle had landed.
Here and there she spotted Arasoes racing along, bodies held nearly horizontally to the ground as they took tremendous, distance-consuming leaps with rapid kicks of their powerful legs.
Two Arasoes suddenly appeared, as if from nowhere. “Too...” one of them began and then, as if sensing Roxanne's inability to understand, switched to a melodious Glax dialect. “Is time you here arrived. We have waited patiently for a custodian to rid us of this obligation.”
Roxanne looked blankly at the aliens. “I have no idea of what you are talking about.”
“The corpus, the evidence, the obligation to respect the departed. You must your customs explain so we can make arrangements.”
“Just who the devil are you and why do you think we've come for somebody's body?” Roxanne asked.
“Burrowingintoheaven,” the creature replied. Slowly, using her understanding of the Araso's limited Glax, an explanation emerged. Apparently someone matching her body configuration had died a few weeks earlier. Burrowing, as custodian of the remains, had requested the station to locate someone from that being's race to collect the remains.
“It was a human?” Could this be the guy she was after? It sounded awfully coincidental. How many humans could there be in this godforsaken part of the galaxy? Still, much like her poker hands, the laws of probability seemed to bend in her favor. Still, why wouldn't Flenser have known of Hambone's death?
That was a very interesting question and one she had to pursue. She turned to the Burrowing. “Where is this body?”
Burrowing pointed to a cluster of shacks on the horizon. “There,” it tootled. “That's where we put the murdered remains.”
“Murder?” Roxanne replied. This situation was rapidly spinning out of control. What had she gotten herself into? She sighed. “Let's take a look.”
* * * *
Sam was so beside himself with worry that he couldn't sleep. There had to be some way to avert the disaster that was coming. He was absolutely certain that the gentle Arasoes would be unable to resist the conversion by the Sith missionaries. The only question was what they would be converted to.
Thinking a little exercise would help, Sam left his cubicle and began walking the corridors that ringed the station. There was the normal number of aliens swarming about at this unholy hour of the night. It was “night” only by Sam's internal clock—who knew what strange schedules paced the others?
A drool of Rix appeared and established a phalanx across the corridor a few hundred meters ahead of Sam. Half a dozen deployed to either side while the rest began erecting a barricade. In a matter of seconds they completely se
aled the corridor ahead of him.
Sam turned and discovered that a second drool of Rix had done the same behind him. “Hey,” he yelled. “How am I going to get out of here?”
One of the Rix looked up and scratched its insectile head. “What the hell are you doing here? This area has been condemned. We're going to vacuum-clean it.” The Rix pointed to where a trio of Rix were cutting a huge hole in the ceiling.
Sam gulped. “I can't breathe vacuum,” he shouted. “Get me out of here!”
The Rix scratched its head again as it consulted a small book of tables. “It says that there's no one in this corridor at this hour.” It checked another book. “No, I'm afraid the work order doesn't include rescuing aliens. Sorry.”
Sam was desperate. The trio of engineers had already completed three quarters of the circle that would certainly open the corridor to the emptiness of space. “Listen, I represent a very important client who would be quite upset if I were to die.”
“Die?” the Rix asked. “Would your death be very messy? My team doesn't have the resources to do a lot of extra cleaning.”
The trio had nearly completed the circle. Sam could hear the whistling sound of escaping air. He looked around for some way out. There! It was a small doorway with a huge handle on its side—obviously a pressure door. With speed and agility he didn't realize he possessed he leaped, threw the handle, swung the door wide, and plunged inside.
No sooner than was he inside than he felt the air rushing past. The door slammed shut, blocking any further loss of pressure. Obviously the Rix had begun “vacuuming.” For a moment he wondered what had happened to all the little engineers—he hadn't noticed any protective gear, but maybe that hadn't been in the work order either.
Sam looked around. The corridor was dimly lit by a long glowing tube that ran down the ceiling. Judging from the number of pipes, wires, and boxes mounted on all sides this had to be a maintenance tunnel. Sam began following the light to see if it would lead him to another exit.
Analog SFF, June 2008 Page 20