Acts of Conscience

by William Barton

My memory is composed of snapshots like that. Snapshots I would’ve preferred to lose, most of them. All that wasted space that could’ve been filled up with useful knowledge, or expansions of the happy memories I did have. I started thinking about those happy memories, and finally fell asleep remembering a girl I’d known on Mars in the time between Jayanne and when I left for Stardock.

  God, what the hell was her name? Something with a lot of szs and double accent marks I never did learn how to pronounce right. A tall, fat blond girl whose sole interests in life seemed to be ice cream and sex. It proved to be an... invigorating combination, and I was sorry to tell her goodbye, though she didn’t seem sorry to see me go.

  Travel the next day proved to be surprisingly dull. I spent part of the morning floating along above rolling, hilly plains that gradually grew more heavily wooded, bobbing like a captive balloon under an empty blue-green sky, trying to fly my camper at the speed of a walking horse.

  Finally, when the spacesuit told me it could indeed track the Kapellmeister through the satellite link it’d established with his translator box, I took off to look for something interesting the library AI told me it’d turned up on the Orikhalkan InfoNet service.

  A couple of hundred kilometers to the west of where I was, where the foothills of the Thisbÿs Bergketen begin ramping up into the main mountain range, there’s an old volcanic throat, atop which sit what appear to be ruins. Research references going all the way back to the original explorer teams that first visited Tau Ceti confirm that these are indeed artifacts, worked stone of unknown age and origin.

  There are a few fallen pillars, some pedestals with what look like angular script on them, but could just as easily be weathering marks. A stretch of what looks a lot like abstract stone tilework. The library AI said, No one has successfully theorized about these buildings, because they are unique on Green Heaven, nor do they resemble the old ruins on Groombridge 1618 6iv, commonly known as Snow.

  Weathering patterns appear to indicate they are older than the oldest civilizations of Earth and Arous, though much younger, of course, than the extremely ancient artifacts on Snow.

  And the Kapellmeisters?

  The technological phase of Salieran civilization is of unknown antiquity. They appear to have had space travel for many thousands of years, though it is stated their interstellar flight capabilities have gone unused.

  And the Saucer People?

  Since the Salieran government categorically states it was not responsible for those “visits,” which have never, in any case, been verified as actually being of extraterrestrial origin, such theorizing comes under the heading of mere fantasy.

  Which, until just recently, left no one else. As I settled down to have lunch, sitting on the edge of a cliff, looking westward toward the silvery heights of the improbably tall Thisbÿ Mountains, I wondered if anything more had been heard about the starfish-warship business. Interesting that both the Board of Trade Regents and the Solar System media had let it slide by like that. We...

  The spacesuit whispered, The Kapellmeister asks that you visit now.

  o0o

  It took about an hour to fly back, landing my camper in a swirl of dust and leaves on a rough dirt track that led through a grove of trees almost big enough to be called a forest. The Kapellmeister’s horse was standing there, quietly grazing in a patch of yellow stuff that must have been pretty much the same as grass, looking up briefly as I came down.

  When I got out, the Kapellmeister’s machine-voice called through the trees, “In here, Gaetan. Please bring your hunting rifle.” I took down the zipgun and walked into the shadows.

  “Christ.”

  The womfrog was lying on its left side, ribcage visibly moving in and out, labored breathing, its lower trunk stretched out flat, the other one ripped open, hanging by a shred of thick hide and a hank of bleeding muscle, the ground under it well soaked with blood, the air full of sweet smells, honey and whipped cream, with just a hint of cinnamon.

  “Where’s its left hind leg?”

  From its perch atop the thing’s skull, the Kapellmeister said, “Taken away. Probably eaten by now.”

  So. I tried to visualize a band of wolfen bringing this thing down and tearing it apart, just the way they would have me, but... No. The stump of its left jumping leg was cleanly cut. Knives, not teeth. I started walking around toward its head, stopped short when I saw the eyes were still open. Still open and so evidently watching me. The supple fingers of its surviving hand curled into a fist, held it briefly, relaxed open again.

  I remembered the hunt, remembered a desperate womfrog jumping up, trying to grab me from the edge of the cliff, remembered Gretel Blondinkruis’ laughter.

  The Kapellmeister said, “If you’ll come around here and shoot it in the back of the neck, you can have the other leg for supper.”

  Sharp pang in my chest. I looked up into the thing’s big, empty eyes and stood stock still, listening to the harsh whisper of its breathing.

  “Please, Gaetan. The womfrog begs you to hurry.”

  I looked up at the Kapellmeister on its perch, saw that it had extended its middle hand, the one that looked just a little bit like an octopus or squid, that the wet black tentacles were splayed out across the top of the womfrog’s skull. I took a deep breath. “All right.” Started walking around toward its back, conscious of the eyes following me until I went out of sight.

  Now what?

  I aimed the zip gun at where I imagined the womfrog’s foramen magnum would be and thumbed the charge button, listening to the condenser whine, knowing the... animal would be hearing it too. Well. I shut my eyes when I pulled the trigger, but the blood got on me anyway, which seemed to make the butchery a little easier afterward.

  After I’d taken what I wanted from the dead womfrog, we moved on, finally making camp as the sun went down, sky a blaze of orange and vermilion, in an open area, flat ground to one side of what could only be called a babbling brook. There was a wide sand bar that looked a little bit like a beach, enough stones clustered in the middle of the stream to make something like a small waterfall and, farther along, a deeper area marked by calm-flowing water, where I suppose I could have taken a bath if I wanted, though there was a perfectly good shower in the pop-up.

  I set up one of the camp chairs and built another fire, taking nice, big round stones from the stream, over which to cook my womfrog steaks and bake a potato I’d found in the vegetable crisper, so thoughtfully stocked by the rental agent. As the smells started, I began to wonder if I’d like the combination of candy-meat flavor and traditional tuber-with-butter. Hell. Anything’s worth trying once.

  While I was doing all this, the Kapellmeister prepared a bag of oats for its horse, whose name, it turned out, was Graysplotch, after a typical horsemarking between its eyes. It was kind of a remarkable sight, watching the horse stand so still as the Kapellmeister walked up its mane and stood between its ears to mount the feedbag.

  After that, it’d simply walked away into the growing shadows of dusk, tossing a clipped “I’ll be back” over its... shoulder? Hell. Over its butt, I guess, since the talking box was mounted in the middle of its back. I have no idea where a Kapellmeister’s shit comes out, or if it even makes anything like shit. Anyway, it went, leaving me alone.

  Just before the food was done, there was a rustling among the trees. I jumped, grabbing the zipgun from where I’d left it, leaning against the side of the camper, not far from my chair, finger thrust through the trigger guard, heart thumping harder than I wanted it to, ears straining.

  “Please don’t shoot me, Gaetan.”

  “Sorry.”

  “You shouldn’t be afraid of the wolfen, Gaetan. Gunbreaker has passed the word around that you’re under my... protection.”

  It walked into the firelight and I saw with a start that it was carrying something. Something that moved. I kneeled as it approached, trying to get a good look at the little animal. Some native Greenie life form, covered with bristly dark
green fur, six limbs, arrayed like a bipedal mammal with an extra set of arms and complex shoulders whose articulations were hidden by the fur.

  “What’s that?” The thing’s mottled, pupilless eyes were bugged out and rolling, not surprising since the Kapellmeister had it around the neck, squeezing tightly with one chela, the other one holding its legs. The four arms, if that’s what they were, were limp.

  “The Groenteboeren refer to it as a haaskin.”

  The translator AI said, This is a children’s slang term for a common sort of playroom toy, a rabbit spieltier. “Bunny.”

  “Yes, I believe so.”

  I noticed the Kapellmeister had its third arm draped over the thing’s head. The library AI said, It appears, of course, that Salieran autologous nerve induction works with Cetian as well as Solar life forms. I suddenly remembered the horses on Earth, and their riders. As I filled a plate with steak and potato, pouring garum on the womfrog meat in hopes of giving it a more steaky sort of flavor, opening the potato and adding a fair amount of butter and cold sour cream, I said, “What’re you going to...”

  The Kapellmeister’s left chela snipped suddenly and the haaskin’s head plopped to the ground. It tucked the carcass up under its body, pushed it in among the juncture of its legs, and something made a neat little sucking sound. The talking box said, “Ah. These things are very sweet.”

  I turned away and started in on the spud, thinking maybe I could have my candy-steak for desert. Silence, punctuated by soft sucking, and then the Kapellmeister said, “Do you think the potato plant wouldn’t mind, if she knew you were eating her babies?”

  For... “Asshole!”

  Somehow, we got through the rest of the meal, fire dying down as the sky grew dark and the stars came out overhead. The steak wasn’t bad after all and the garum really did make it seem more like terragenic meat, fish and candy flavor blending into something else entirely. I stopped seeing the injured womfrog’s eyes after the first couple of bites, little voice, somewhere deep inside, telling me not to be any more of an idiot than was absolutely necessary.

  After the Kapellmeister finished sucking the haaskin dry, it cut the body up with its claws and ate the pieces, shoving sticky-looking, sweet-smelling bits up under its body, where they went crunch, crunch, crunch, and gradually disappeared.

  Finally, it picked up the head, extending a couple of eyestalks, seeming to look into the dead animal’s open, staring eyes. “It’s interesting how Cetian neural activity doesn’t cease all at once, following decapitation.”

  How... nice for you. I remembered the way it’d left its third arm draped over the haaskin’s skull while it’d snipped through the neck. The library AI whispered, Human scientific knowledge of Salieran neural induction biology is really quiet limited. We know it exists, and that it’s widespread among creatures of the Kapellmeisters’ taxonomic classification, but little else. It seems to be the product of some natural evolutionary process, rather than technology.

  The Kapellmeister flicked its wrist, tossing the dead head away into the undergrowth.

  I remember watching educational netvid shows on the subject. Scientist type pissing and moaning because the Salieran government wouldn’t let us wander around on their homeworld unescorted, though we let them wander around ours. I said, “Do they lose consciousness?”

  Silence, then: “Well, yes, in the sense that you most likely mean the word. It’s interesting though, observing those last, dying bits of neural activity.”

  I thought about it. “Did you hold onto the womfrog after I shot it?”

  Silence, then: “Yes.”

  More silence. I said, “Well?”

  The Kapellmeister said, “The subconscious imagery of sentient creatures is culturally determined for the most part. Quite complex and difficult to interpret.”

  An image of my own. Image of the dying womfrog falling down a long tunnel of light, falling into a mist of light in which womfrog-shaped shadows moved, the waiting spirits of those who’d gone on before. The library AI whispered, Like all Cetian land-living forms, the womfrogs are oviparous. In consequence, it seems psychologically unlikely that a womfrog’s death-dream would take that form.

  So. The walls of the life-shell burst open and the light of heaven floods in, welcoming the womfrog to rebirth? I shot him in the brain, for Christ’s sake!

  I tugged on the arms of my camp chair until the fasteners let go, backrest sliding into its semi-reclined position, letting me look up at the sky. Lots of stars out tonight, better than before because I’d had the foresight to put out the camper’s cabin lighting. With the fire gone down to orange embers, I imagined I was seeing as many stars as you could see from the surface of a planet with the unaided human eye.

  I glanced over at the Kapellmeister. It was sitting on a big rock nearby, legs collapsed and pulled underneath, arms tucked in, which made it look all the more like an enormous black bean. But all seven eyestalks were extended. Extended toward the sky.

  I said, “You have to wonder what’s really out there.” Out there, beyond humanity’s little pale. Out there, where the starfish-warship people must be waiting for us, even now.

  The Kapellmeister said, “Wondering must be commonplace among star-faring folk.”

  Supposedly, the Kapellmeisters of Salieri, though they’d gone to space, out into their own star system in search of needed resources to support their industrial civilization, had otherwise stayed home. “Do you never wonder?”

  Silence. Then it said, “Personally? Perhaps. But I was never a tabula-rasa-minded infant, as you were.”

  The library AI whispered, It has been speculated by some terrestrial zoopsychologists that the Kapellmeisters are imbued with knowledge and sentience at birth, via autologous nerve induction from their parents, at a special hatching ceremony.

  I started to think about that, but the Kapellmeister said, “Gaetan, there is a great deal of electrical activity going on in my translator pod just now. Are your artificial personalities attempting to query the on-board language databases?”

  Are you?

  The translator AI whispered, Yes. Linguistic unspooling could allow us to surmise a great deal about Salieran culture.

  “I’m afraid so.”

  “Please ask them to stop.”

  I said, “All right. Sorry, Kapellmeister.”

  Silence. Then it said, “Please don’t call me that, Gaetan. The notion of possessing a name is... offensive to me.”

  “Sure. Sorry.”

  Silence.

  Finally, I sat back in the chair and resumed looking at the sky, trying to pick out the stars of inhabited worlds. A good many of them were below the horizon, but many weren’t. This one here, that one there... Snow? Groombridge 1618’s too dim to see from here, isn’t it?

  The spacesuit whispered, According to the navigation subsystem, it is well below the local horizon in any case.

  Great. After a while, I said, “I’d like to know what’s out there anyway.”

  The Kapellmeister said, “With the coming of faster-than-light travel and the possession of a private starship, it seems likely you’ll find out.”

  A felt a warm flush of pleasure. Will I? Why the hell else am I here? I said, “I’ve been thinking about that. Thinking about maybe going on to Snow when I get the chance, and take a look at all those famous ruins. I wish the hell we knew where they came from.”

  Silence.

  Then the Kapellmeister said, “When news of the existence of these ruins was reported on Salieri, some authorities had difficulty accepting the authenticity of the find, given their apparent age of four hundred million years.”

  “I hadn’t heard that anyone had successfully dated the ruins on Snow. I mean, that place is a real deep-freeze...” It was a large ice-moon, close to Titan-class, orbiting a remote gas giant of a small, cool star.

  “Perhaps the news isn’t widely discussed on human worlds. Or perhaps no one’s bothered to tell human authorities. History is long, and you�
��ve only been here a short while.”

  I opened my mouth to speak, but stopped. Hadn’t bothered to tell us? I sat back, looking up at the sky. Look here. You’re talking to this thing as if it were a person, which it’s not. There’s a personality, but... how much of that’s just an artifact of the translation algorithm?

  The library AI whispered, There appears to be an artificial intelligence of nonhuman manufacture in the backpack. Without knowledge of the Salieran language system, we have no way of interpolating data.

  Sure. But stay out of its business. I meant to ask a few more questions, but, after a while, I apparently fell asleep.

  o0o

  When I awoke the next morning, stiff and a little cold from sleeping in the chair, Tau Ceti just starting to flood the sky with orange and gold, I was alone, the Kapellmeister missing from his rock, though Graysplotch was still standing where I’d seen him last, motionless but for a faint swaying, eyes shut, apparently still asleep.

  Maybe not. I could call up an image of the Kapellmeister on the horse’s back last night, after it’d crawled down from taking off the feedbag, taking just a moment to touch Graysplotch between the shoulderblades with its third hand. After that, the horse hadn’t moved again. If I were a horse, that’d piss me off.

  I decided to go for a nice morning walk, climb up this tall hill over here and watch the rest of sunrise. Interesting how I’ve gotten used to these short nights and long, long days. I wonder what it’d be like on Green Heaven in the winter, when things would be just the reverse?

  There was a cool breeze at the summit, wind coming out of the south almost cold, not quite enough to raise goosebumps on my arms. We’ve been headed southward, headed up into the foothills of the Koudloft, visible as always, low, white, misty mountains on the horizon. I...

  Movement down below, in the open, grassy defile beyond my hill. I suddenly crouched, flinching at the unexpected appearance of... people? Crouched behind some low yellow brush, staring. Little white people, people dressed up in white fur, covered head to toe...

  I stood again, got up on a boulder and shaded my eyes with one palm, trying to see. OK. Not people at all. Dollies, walking along single file, apparently unaware of my presence. I...