Dushau tdt-1

by Jacqueline Lichtenberg

Arlai chuckled dryly. “I wish I could stay to watch their faces when they discover it!”

  Horror prickled Krinata’s skin. “Do you really think they’d—” It was dawning on her that she was into something way, way over her head. Interplanetary intrigue was to read about, not to live. But she had nobody to blame but herself. She hadn’t thought this through. But what else could I have done? All her reasons still stood. To have abandoned Jindigar would have been to abandon her self-respect.

  “Krinata, I’m sorry I got you into this. I never should have asked you to help me.” Jindigar would have continued his apology, but Arlai interrupted with a contact warning.

  “You’re onboard,” he announced moments later. “Lander bay pressurizing. But Jindigar, ordnance slaves are focusing moon-based projectors at us.”

  “Prepare for departure option five, then,” said Jindigar grimly. He thrust the instrument arms aside. “Come on, Krinata. We’ll have a better view from Truth’s bridge.”

  He scooped up Imp, led her into the muted hum of the ancient ship. Corridors were clean-smelling, hatches swooshed open smoothly, gravity was even, and the lift cage moved inertialessly. Every modern improvement had been incorporated without violating the delicate carvings and touches of antique color that decorated every useful device. This wasn’t a spaceship. It was a home.

  This feeling pervaded even the control bridge where a circular workbench banked with every imaginable type of data terminal surrounded a central well at the center of which was a projected data display.

  As they entered, spotlights illuminated keyboards for human eyes while the main lighting was in the ultraviolet more comfortable for Dushau. Arlai asked, “Can you see, Krinata?”

  “Yes, thank you,” she answered as Jindigar handed her the piol and settled in the main control chair.

  “Secure yourself in this chair,” said Arlai putting a beam of green light on a recliner built for a Cassrian. “But don’t worry. The bridge won’t feel a thing.”

  “Don’t bet on it,” said Jindigar. “Arlai, do you see?”

  There was a long silence. Frantically, Krinata tried to figure out her display board. It seemed Arlai was tracking three tiny images rising fast from the planet’s surface. In orbit around them, satellites were rotating, unfolding themselves. As she watched, two emitted small blips that had to be missiles, but they weren’t streaking toward Truth. They hung in space. Threatening.

  “I see it,” answered Arlai at last. “He’s going to fire on us if we maneuver. Incoming signal, general broadcast.” Heralded by the imperial seal. Rantan came on their screen.

  “Ephemeral Truth is impounded by my order. If it breaks orbit, it will be destroyed.”

  “He’s calling our bluff,” said Jindigar. “Can you move faster than their Sentients?”

  “Much of the ordnance system is busy with self-testing, searching for the planet list. That could give us an edge. Ninety percent chance option five will get us away. Sixty percent chance we’d take a hit. Twenty percent it would be a fatal hit. Those are rough estimates.”

  Jindigar sighed. There was no hint of tension in that sigh, no tremor in his long, nailless fingers as they caressed the controls. “We need a diversion.”

  “I’m getting a message from Rantan. Shall I put him on screen?”

  “No.” Jindigar licked his dark indigo lips. “He’s stalling for time. Arlai, I disarm your Allegiancy law patch. You are to operate under League Status Ten until further notice. I am not episodic. Verify.”

  “Verifying. Verified. Allegiancy legals dismantled. League Status Ten engaged.” The simulacrum emitted a heart-deep sigh. “Oh, that feels good. What now?”

  “Put me on the open channel Rantan just used.”

  “Open.”

  Facing the pickup so his obvious Dushau countenance went to every officer manning the planetary defenses, he announced, “I have placed a list of habitable planets among your ordnance programs. Fire on this ship, and the Empire will lose that list, by order of your Emperor.” He signaled Arlai to cut the transmission.

  After hearing the Emperor’s accusations against the Oliat Dushau, surely everyone would assume that list was of the habitable planets Dushau had conspired to withhold from the Empire. If Rantan fired, he would be publicly guilty of sabotage of his own Empire.

  “Arm my command module, and I will signal manually for departure. Put Rantan on my screen, and keep that wide circuit open so everyone can hear what I say to him, but don’t let them see Krinata.”

  The Emperor’s image assembled before Jindigar. “You will not…” started the Lehiroh.

  Jindigar interrupted without ceremony. “Dushaun has broken diplomatic relations with the Allegiancy, but we will be happy to renegotiate at any time. I take my departure now offering no censure to your government for the treatment I received at your hands. Let there be peace and good win.”

  On the last word, Krinata felt a lurch and then a gut-wrenching twist of hypertiming drive. But they were deep in :he gravity well of a star. It was illegal to detime so close to an inhabited planet; an onboard Sentient wasn’t supposed to be able to do such things. When her vision and the instruments cleared, they showed the austere blackness of deep space. A position plot indicated they were way beyond Onerir’s system, andfar off the usual traffic lanes.

  “Did they track us?” asked Jindigar.

  “Through hypertime? They don’t have the math,” scoffed Arlai. “I didn’t even leave a wake of timeripples. I’m proud of myself. I didn’t know I could still do that.”

  “I’m glad you didn’t share your doubts with me before hand,” said Jindigar. “I do recall adding a patch to your League Status Ten program forbidding you to endanger incarnate lives.”

  “You did, and it’s still there.” His simulacrum reassured Jindigar intimately, “I was ninety-nine percent confident. Next time, though, it will be one hundred percent confidence. To us, that’s the supreme experience of life.”

  Jindigar passed a hand over his eyes. “Of course, Arlai, I understand. Systems check.”

  •‘No damage. All systems optimal.”

  “You’re doing better than I am. Set random course and stay clear of any Allegiancy astrogation probes. We need time to decide what to do next.”

  As he spoke, he wilted alarmingly. Krinata yanked free of the webbing and went to him. “Arlai, is he all right?”

  “Paying the inevitable penalty,” he said grimly. “I’m sending a scurry to take him to my sickbay. Watch the piol!”

  The pup was happily chewing on a cable he had pried out of a crack between two panels. She scooped him up, set him on her shoulder, and helped Arlai’s multiarmed servitor move the now limp Jindigar onto the flattop of a scurry while he muttered laboriously, “I’m all right. Just tired.”

  At the sickbay hatch, Arlai projected his image before Krinata as the scurry swept Jindigar out of sight. “I’ve a surprise for you. Come.”

  He started off, but she held back, protesting, “But…”

  “There’s nothing you could do for Jindigar now. I’ve tended many Dushau in my time, Krinata. Trust me?”

  “Of course, but…”

  “Come,” Arlai urged once more, starting away along a side corridor.

  She had no choice but to follow. Arlai lectured, “Truth is fitted to house thirty to forty incarnates, so we’ll rattle about a bit on this trip. Feel free to spread your things as far as you like, I’ve programmed my scurries to aid you by voice Command. When Jindigar is better, he’ll probably give you other authority keys to command me with.”

  Her nerves were still tingling from the afterwash of fear, the tensions in her still unresolved. She took deep breaths, determined not to faint. “But Arlai, I’ve no things to spread,” she said, feeling stupid. She didn’t even remember if she’d brought the lightcase onto the lander.

  “Just a few more steps, Krinata. Come on, I want to get a telemband on you. You don’t look too well.”

  “Oh, I don’t
need help.”

  But Arlai presented her before an open door that led into her very own apartment. Dizzy with nightmarish disorientation, she drifted forward. She ran her hand over the upholstery of the lounge she’d slept in when Jindigar had been there. No, the worn spot was gone. And there was no stain. Suddenly, perspective snapped into place, and she realized this was an elaborate copy of her apartment’s sitting room.

  “Fiella gave me the specs. Like it?” Arlai was like an eager child presenting a school project.

  “Oh, Arlai, it’s so perfect, for a moment I felt as if all this hadn’t really happened, and I’d wakened at home!”

  “You do like it.” He showed beautiful blue Dushau teeth in a human grin. “Fiella gave me your favorite recipes, too.”

  A delightful aroma of breakfast wafted past her nose, and her stomach responded with a grumble. She suddenly felt very tired. But when Arlai turned to leave, she stopped him. “You’re sure Jindigar will be all right? You’re sure we’re safe here?”

  “Probabilities approaching unity.” Then his optimism faded. “Except…”

  “Except what?” Her appetite vanished.

  “Jindigar will live, Krinata. He’s not mortally injured. But his personality might change.”

  “Renewal?” She’d never seen a Dushau in that state. No non-Dushau had.

  “No. It would take a lot more than this. But when his grieving is finished, there will be much he doesn’t remember. I am not sufficient to nurse him all the way through this. He should have Dushau companionship.”

  She swallowed in a dry throat. “Can you accept my order to take us to Dushaun?”

  He blinked slowly. “No. He doesn’t want to commit us to that course yet.”

  “Do you have any idea where he will want to go?”

  “No. I don’t know who he will be. We’re just going to have to wait. It’s not fair to ask more of him now.”

  “That’s true. And if we’re safe, there’s no reason to hurry, is there?”

  “We are safe, Krinata. Safer than on any planet.”

  She felt her knees shaking again. It had been more than seventy-two hours since she’d really slept. “All right. We’ll wait.”

  Again Arlai turned to go, rather than simply blinking out. She called, “And Arlai? Thank you. You’re a truly splendid Sentient.”

  Dushau couldn’t blush, but he cast his eyes down barely smothering an ecstatic grin. “I am complimented.”

  The food was as perfect as the apartment. She couldn’t imagine how long Arlai had been working on the project. It had only been a half day since he’d gotten her out of bed. Of course, she owned nothing original or difficult to synthesize, not on a programmer’s salary. But if she hadn’t known it before, she would have had to conclude that Arlai was in some terrific class of Sentients beyond her ken.

  She slept the clock around, and then some. And when she’d roused enough to inquire about Jindigar, Arlai’s version of Fiella told her he was still sleeping. After breakfast, she realized the piol was missing and went in search of him.

  “Would you like a map, Krinata?”

  She started. Arlai’s simulacrum stood in the corridor before her, large as life. “Have you seen Imp?”

  “Daren’t take my eyes off the miniature monster! Here.” He gestured graciously toward a portal. Within, she found a large unfurnished room with a tank of water in one corner in which Imp splashed, merrily chasing a fish. She watched through the transparent side of the tank while the piol secured his fish and emerged to eat it, holding it in his long claws which Arlai had not trimmed.

  “You are a consummate host, Arlai—but don’t you think piol food would do just as well?”

  “Nutritionally, yes. But I’ve been training Imp. We can’t have wild animals loose aboard ship, you know. Here, let’s see if he’s learned yet. Imp, come!”

  To Krinata’s total surprise, the piol carefully set his half-gutted fish aside and scampered to the simulacrum’s imaged feet. He spotted Krinata then, and instead of swarming up her clothing, sat up and chittered questioningly.

  “He wants you to pick him up,” said Arlai. “Do please reward him for the good behavior.”

  Krinata obliged, holding the wet animal away from her but making affectionate sounds at him. Then she deposited him beside his fish. “Arlai, you’re amazing. That creature was probably born wild.”

  “Definitely was. His brainwaves show it. But he learned to endear himself to people to beg scraps. He’s young and intelligent enough to learn good manners. But he’ll always be more headstrong and independent than your average pet piol. That’s probably what Jindigar likes about him.”

  “Jindigar,” repeated Krinata, unable to be diverted by the piol anymore. “When can I see him?”

  “Can’t we give him more time?”

  “You said he needs Dushau companionship. Maybe I can talk him into ordering you to take him home.”

  Heavily, Arlai said, “I doubt that.”

  “Why?” she demanded. “Has a shooting war broken out at Dushaun?”

  “No. I doubt if it will, either.”

  “Then why not go there?”

  Arlai didn’t answer, his eyes flickering aside as he apologized in that same compulsive way Jindigar had. She realized he’d been told not to discuss this with her, and she said, “Ask Jindigar if I can come talk to him.”

  “I will, as soon as he’s awake. Dushau can sleep longer than humans, and stay awake longer, too. He’s had a rough time. He needs a full sleep cycle.”

  And with such excuses, he put her off for the rest of that day, and most of the following day. She spent the time alternately pacing, fretting, hounding Arlai, and sitting herself down to survey her options rationally and plan her future like an adult.

  But where could she go? She assumed Jindigar would drop her at some port between here and Dushaun, because that was where he had to go. She sat on the bridge at Arlai’s astrogation console and pulled up a list of all the convenient planets where she might live. But if she so much as set foot on any of them, the Emperor’s hand would close on her. She’d forged his seal and stolen his prisoner. That was certainly treason. She’d disgraced her family name. The magnitude of it all crashed in on her, paralyzing her mind.

  Hours later, when she forced herself to confront it again, she visualized trying to beg herself a place on Dushaun—the only Dushau world, for they hadn’t colonized. But the Dushau had never been hospitable to offworlders. There couldn’t be more than a few hundred offworld diplomats in residence on Dushaun, and they’d be gone by the time she got there. She had no desire to live apart from her own species.

  Again she paced and fretted, and addressed the problem anew. What about the frontier worlds that had always attracted her? None were on the route to Dushaun from here, but she might ask to be taken somewhere. She had, after all, saved Jindigar’s life. Perhaps, after he visited Dushaun to complete his grieving, he’d take her to a settlement where her record wouldn’t follow her. She stared at a list of open colonies greedily until she remembered Dushaun was now under siege by the Allegiancy. It was problematic whether Truth could get in, and patently impossible to get her out again. If she went home with Jindigar, she’d be trapped until the Allegiancy came to its senses. Yet if she read Arlai right, Jindigar urgently needed Dushau company. It was a need he couldn’t neglect without peril to his life, and she wasn’t going to ask that of him after all she’d sacrificed to save him. What are we going to do?!

  She shoved away from the bridge console and paced again, her stomach churning. She couldn’t face going back to the mockup of her apartment. Pangs of homesickness such as she’d never known lurked beneath her tight control. I’ve cried enough. More won’t help. I’m not sorry / did it. I’m not.

  Gradually, she adjusted to the loss of her old life, realizing if she could have anything she wanted, she’d opt to work with an implanting Oliat on a raw, new world being colonized by at least some humans. Since the Oliat teams ha
d been withdrawn, she’d accept almost any hospitable new world. After all, without an Oliat, they’d need trained ecologists.

  But what would she have to settle for? How could Jindigar help her when he, himself, needed help? The idea of asking for his help in return for saving his life made her want to curl up in a ball and never show her face again. But she didn’t want to be trapped on Dushaun. Could I stand it, if I have to? She didn’t know.

  Midafternoon of the second day, when the tension in her had mounted to where she was fighting tears again, Arlai finally announced, “Jindigar’s awake. Come.”

  She followed the moving shaft of light through the dim hallways. She was wearing a long, sleeveless blue tunic over baggy black pants. Arlai had provided an ultraviolet screening lotion for her exposed skin, but even so she could already see herself tanning in the ship’s light.

  As they moved through the ship, she was acutely aware that oils was a purely Dushau environment: Dushau art, light, scents, thick atmosphere. Arlai kept a reduced gravity under her wherever she went, but Dushaun itself pulled almost a third more than she was accustomed to.

  The sickbay room she was led to was furnished in the Dushau manner: low profile furniture, buoyantly padded, no sharp corners or hard surfaces. She couldn’t judge the color scheme, but she thought there was a variety of vivid hues. Personal items littered flattopped scurries, giving the room a lived-in comfortable feeling.

  Amid the shadows of an alcove formed of thick draperies, on a low padded platform, wearing a pale yellow robe, Jindigar sat coaxing soft music from a polished urwood whule that must have been as old as he was. His head was bent over the long fretboard, eyes closed, as he produced ululating tremolos with a complicated bow. An aching frown played between his eyes, and the set of his mouth bespoke a pain no living creature could surmount.

  Krinata couldn’t imagine how Arlai had led her to intrude on such a moment of nakedness. She didn’t dare breathe.

  Determined to wait until she was noticed, she crossed her ankles and silently sank to the floor.

  Plucking an occasional string with a pick or a soft fingertip, Jindigar’s elegant hands produced wails of agony, howls of anguish, gut-twisting groans, and plaintive melodies that progressed across scales of loneliness and around harmonies she seemed to hear with her whole body. Every ghostly note pled for mercy, surrendered to pain or yielded only in the broken extremity beyond the end of strength.