Ascending

by James Alan Gardner

  The little orange criminal had taken many photos to establish that human Explorers were once marooned here. When we reached the central square, I could see for myself the evidence those Explorers left—bits of navy equipment scattered all over, little tools and machine parts and backpacks. During their stay, the humans had worked to build a spaceship as a means of escape…and when they finally left, they departed so hurriedly they had not picked up after themselves.

  If you want the truth, the square was a Scandalous Mess. Moreover, the litter was opaque—metal and canvas and colored plastic. The clutter had sat where it was since the humans left four years ago…and because it lay directly under the opening in the roof, it got snowed on in winter and rained on in summer, till it was very quite disgusting indeed: covered with molds of vivid fuzzy colors. When I picked up a discarded wad of clothing, I even saw speck-sized holes that must have been chewed by insects.

  “That’s an Explorer jacket,” Uclod said, pointing to the garment I held.

  I nodded. Most of the humans exiled on Melaquin had belonged to the navy’s Explorer Corps. I did not like Explorers so much—the worst of them could make you feel awkward and stupid, because you did not Know Science or how to Act Like A God-Damned Adult, For Christ’s Sake. At night they pleaded with you to play bed games, yet when morning came, they were Too Busy, Go Away and would not look you in the eye. Explorers could make you feel lonesome and bad…but my friend Festina was also an Explorer and she was always most kind, so Explorers were not all horrible.

  I hugged the jacket to my chest. It was made of thick black cloth; snowflakes speckled the cloth like stars in the night sky.

  “Did that belong to someone you knew?” Uclod asked.

  “I do not think so. But Festina spoke most fondly of the Explorer’s black uniform. It was a Valuable Important Thing; she felt quite sad she had not thought to pack a spare outfit when she came to this planet.”

  “I guess she had other concerns to worry about,” Uclod said. “Considering how she thought Melaquin would be a suicide mission.”

  “But many other Explorers thought to pack uniforms. They were warned they might be marooned here, so they brought important equipment and valuable personal treasures.” I looked at the trash strewn about the square. “It seems those treasures were not so valuable after all. When the Explorers were ready to go, they did not care what they left behind. They just tossed everything away to rot in the street…to get cold and wet and snowed on, because they did not really care about anything except themselves.”

  I stared up into the cold wet snow, suddenly feeling sad. “Even Festina went away,” I whispered.

  Uclod patted my hand. “Hey,” he said in a soft voice, “I read your friend’s statement about what happened here. Ramos didn’t leave your planet willingly; and anyway, she thought you were dead.”

  “But I told her I could not die! I told her my people go on and on—”

  “Oar,” Uclod interrupted, “you looked dead. Ramos couldn’t find a heartbeat, not even with topnotch Explorer sensing equipment. She decided to leave you among your own people, because that’s what she thought you’d want.”

  “But I was not dead! Not even a little bit!”

  “Yeah, okay,” the wee orange man said, “Ramos got it wrong. But even so, she didn’t just desert you—she took you back to that tower and laid you out all pretty. Hands folded, eyes closed, ax across your chest.” He gave a little smile. “That’s what I thought I’d find when I came looking for you: a nice glass corpse I could photograph. I was even debating whether to lug your remains back to New Earth, so’s the lawyers could use you as Exhibit One. But when I got to where Ramos said you’d be, lo and behold, you were breathing. That’s why I asked if you were really Oar.”

  “Which I am!” I told him, suddenly feeling bright again. “You may rejoice, for I am not deceased after all.”

  The little man shrugged. “I’m thrilled for you, toots, I really am; but I gotta say, you were worth more to me as dead meat. A good-lookin’ gal, all battered and broken—that would have played big-time with the viewing public. But if you’re still alive and kicking, what can I sell to the network news?” He kicked at a rusty hunk of debris lying in the street. “You think they want pictures of this boring old junk? They’ll flash it on the screen for five seconds, tops; then they’ll move on to some interesting story, like a dachshund who juggles goldfish.”

  “But it is better me being alive,” I said. “I will play with the viewing public very big-time indeed, for I shall describe all the awful things that were done to me. I am excellent at Sensationalized Descriptions Of Emotional Trauma.”

  “Uh huh.” He looked me over from head to toe. “I have to admit, toots, you’d wow ’em on the news. And the nets will be much happier putting your face in the headlines than Festina Ramos.”

  I nodded sympathetically. Festina is a very nice person, but she does not have a Dazzling Regal Beauty.

  “The more I think about it,” Uclod said, still gazing at me, “this could work. It really could. I’ve got the footage I need from this world—pictures of the city, the Explorer equipment, the missile crater in the roof. That’ll be fine for the courts. But for the media, you’d add that extra level of authenticity to make this story zing.”

  “I am most zingfully authentic,” I assured him. “I am an extremely credible witness.”

  “Yeah, I can imagine Mr. and Mrs. Slack-jawed Viewer saying, Look at the credibility on that babe!”

  He paused and his face grew more somber. “Now, toots, I gotta warn you: this could get pretty ugly. Those buggers on the High Council are vicious bags of shit—that’s damned obvious from reading York’s files—and if they decide murdering you will solve more problems than it creates, they’ll hire some dirt-wad to shatter your glass caboose.”

  “Hah! I am not the type of glass that shatters into cabooses. If any dirt-wads try, I shall make them very sorry.”

  Uclod scowled. “You gotta take this serious, missy. Bad people will want you dead. And no matter how unbreakable you think you are, those navy shits can dream up something to put you in a coffin. Blow you up, crush you under a dozen steam-hammers, then dump whatever’s left in an acid bath. If you treat this like a game, you’ll die…and maybe take other folks with you. Me and my family, for instance.” He peered sharply into my eyes. “If I let you come to New Earth, are you going to be smart? Because if you aren’t, to hell with you. I’m taking enough risks already, and I don’t need someone who’s just a liability. For all I care, you can go straight back to that tower and let your brain rot to tapioca.”

  I attempted to return his gaze with righteous indignation—I truly did my best. But I will tell you a thing: there are times I am not so strong as I want to be. When humans or other aliens tell me, “Oar, you must behave the way we say,” I am not always wholly defiant. I am, after all, perfectly able to conform with Conventional Rules Of Propriety; under the tutelage of human Explorers, I learned Earthling modes of conduct as quickly as I learned the Earthling language.

  But I am not an Earthling. I do not wish to be one. I do not wish to be mistaken for one. As the last of my kind, I refuse to betray my species by submitting to alien dictates. When I am strong, I therefore comport myself in a defiant fashion of my own choosing.

  At that moment, however, I was not strong. If Uclod went away, perhaps no one would ever come to my planet again—except navy persons endeavoring to eradicate evidence of humans on my world, and I knew better than to approach them. I would end up forever alone…and in time, I might go back to the Tower of Ancestors, and I might lie down, and I might not get up.

  “I know this is not a game,” I mumbled to the little man. “I know there is much at stake. Much. I will not act crazed and irresponsible.”

  Uclod stared into my eyes a moment longer, then nodded. “This way,” he said. “The spaceship is down here.”

  The Jacket

  He started along one of the streets lea
ding off the square. I threw away the Explorer jacket I had been holding and followed him a few steps…then went back and picked up the jacket again. It was damp and smelly and pierced with insect nibbles; but I knew certain people in the Technocracy thought you were stupid and disgusting if you Walked Around All Day With Your Bare Ass Hanging Out.

  I am not such a one as cares about surly people’s opinions; but as I have said, at that particular moment I was not possessed with great strength of spirit. And perhaps, I thought, there were important Science reasons why one had to wear clothes on other planets. Perhaps there were dangerous cosmic rays or poisonous atmospheric substances, so one had to don jackets to protect oneself from peril.

  Wearing clothes might not be a cowardly concession to the small-minded prejudice of hateful persons. It might be a sensible precaution.

  Yes.

  Clutching the jacket, I took a deep breath. Then I hurried along behind Uclod, following his tracks through the light sheen of melting snow.

  3

  WHEREIN I AM SWALLOWED BY A LARGE CREATURE

  The Diversity Of Spaceships

  The spaceship was three blocks away, still well within the snow zone. Uclod had set it down in a wide intersection where two streets met; there was not so much landing room as if he had chosen the central square, but I suppose he had not wished to disturb the Explorer evidence back there.

  Uclod’s vessel was nothing like the spaceship the Explorers had been working on when I arrived in the city. The Explorers’ ship had been shaped like a large glass fish…except Festina told me it was not a fish at all but a mammal called an orca, or killer whale. The whale shape was not the Explorers’ choice—many of them thought it barbaric for a starship to look like an animal instead of an abstract geometric object—but the Explorers were using the hull of an old space vessel built by ancient inhabitants of Oarville, and beggars cannot be choosers.

  As for me, I thought a fish was an excellent form for a spaceship; one could picture it diving into the great blackness and plunging past whirlpool galaxies. Also it would be very good at orbiting, for fish are constantly swimming in mindless circles. Uclod’s ship, on the other hand, was not so easy to imagine speeding through The Void—it was nothing more than a huge gray ball, five stories high and powdered with snow. One could picture such a thing avalanching down a mountain, but it certainly did not fit the image of a Graceful Nomad Of The Space Lanes.

  “Isn’t she a beauty?” Uclod said as we walked toward the ship. “Isn’t she the loveliest little girl you’ve ever seen?”

  “It is quite spherical,” I answered with tact. “You do not think the snow on top will cause problems, do you? Sometimes when machines get damp, the electric bits go fizz.”

  “Lucky for us,” Uclod said, “she doesn’t have electric bits. Bioneural all the way.”

  I had not made the acquaintance of the word “bioneural,” but I assumed it was a boring Science concept that would only vex me if Uclod tried to explain. Besides, I had greater concerns on my mind. The closer we got to the ship, the more I saw it was not just a plain gray sphere; it was, in fact, a whitish sphere, covered with snarled-up threads of gray string. As for the white undersurface, it looked all wet and gooey, glistening as damply as the snow falling around it. To get the exact picture, imagine the egg of some slimy creature that breeds in stagnant water, then wrap gray spiderwebs all over the egg’s jelly so the strands sink into the goo.

  In short, the ship was very most icky…so when I got close enough, I touched it to see if it felt icky too. It felt quite appalling indeed—like bird poop just after it falls from the sky.

  “What are you doing?” Uclod asked.

  “I wished to see if your craft feels as vile as it looks. Which it does.”

  “Hey!” he said sharply, “don’t insult Starbiter!”

  “If you have named your ship Starbiter,” I said, “there is little more I can do in the way of insults.”

  The Nature Of A Creature Which Bites At Stars

  I began to circle the ship’s exterior, wondering why alien races always make their machinery unattractive. Surely the universe does not require space vehicles to be large gooey balls wrapped in string; a sensible universe would not even approve of such a design. If you constructed your starship out of nice sleek glass, I believe the universe would let you fly much faster, just because you had made an effort to look presentable. But one cannot suggest such things to Science people—they will laugh at you in a very mean fashion, and make you feel foolish even when you know you have an Astute Perspective On Life.

  “Why is it like this?” I asked Uclod, who was following at my heels. “Why is it all stringy and damp? The spaceships of the human navy are not so awful—I have heard they are big long batons, covered with pleasantly dry ceramics. They are also white…which is not as good as being clear, but much better than a sodden gray.”

  “Well, missy,” he said, “when humans joined the League of Peoples, they were given a different FTL technology than my ancestors. Humans got baton-ships; we Divians got Zaretts.”

  “This is a Zarett?”

  “It is indeed.” He reached up to pat the ball’s gluppy exterior. “A sweet little filly, only thirty years old…but smart as a whip and twice as frisky.”

  I stepped back a pace. “It is alive?”

  “Absolutely. The daughter of Precious Solar Wind and Whispering Nebula III…which would impress the nads off you if you knew anything about thoroughbred Zaretts. This baby is worth more than a minor star system; I’d be the squealing envy of rich men and gorgeous women, if only I could tell the world what I’ve got. Which I can’t: Starbiter wasn’t exactly born with the blessing of the Bloodline Registry Office. A slight irregularity in the breeding procedure.”

  “In other words, you did something criminal to procure her.”

  “Not me personally,” he replied. “Someone else pulled the actual heist: a load of fertilized ova went missing under unconventional circumstances. My family simply acted as go-betweens, finding buyers who’d provide good homes for the misplaced little tykes…and we took several ova off the top as our consulting fee.” He patted the ship again. “You can’t imagine how long I had to suck up to Grandma Yulai before she let me have this one.”

  I continued to stare at the Starbiter creature. Uclod called it smart and frisky, but I could see neither quality in evidence. It did not frisk at all; and one does not display much intelligence by sitting in the middle of an intersection. “If this is an animal,” I said, “what does it eat?”

  “Oh, this and that. We feed her a mix of simple hydrocarbons, calcium nitrate, small quantities of heavier elements. She doesn’t have much of a digestive system for breaking down complex nutrients, so you need to keep the diet pretty basic.”

  “I am not so much interested in what she can digest as what she might swallow.”

  “Well, as to that…”

  Uclod walked farther around the base of the Zarett, then reached up to touch a bleached-out spot on the creature’s skin. He planted his palm firmly and began to rub with strong circular motions, the way one scours hard at one’s body when one has slipped and got grass stains. The goop beneath Uclod’s fingers made soft slurpy sounds as his hand moved; slowly, the sounds grew louder, until he pulled back and the slurping continued without him. The skin bulged in and out, like a person’s jaw as she chews. Moments later, an enormous patch of the Zarett’s gooey exterior opened wide to reveal a dark throat leading into a darker gullet.

  A giant mouth loomed before me, big enough to gobble me up!

  Facing A Hellish Maw

  The Zarett’s breath smelled exactly like the breath of an animal that eats simple hydrocarbons, calcium nitrate, and small quantities of heavier elements. It was particularly hydrocarbony…and I suspect many of those hydrocarbons had not been sufficiently fresh. Starbiter’s breath was, in short, quite the Fetid Reek. My stomach lurched at the odor, and the only thing that prevented a regurgitory incident was
that I had not eaten solid food in the past four years.

  Uclod gestured to the creature’s mouth. “After you, toots.”

  “You wish me to go inside?”

  “There’s plenty of room. A big girl like you should scrunch down going past the epiglottis; but it’ll be clear sailing after that.”

  As far as I could see, he was telling the truth: the Zarett’s mouth was big enough for me to enter, provided I ducked under the lips. The throat was very large too—pink and gummy-looking, but with ample room to let me pass. On the other hand, I was not such a one as would calmly proceed into a large creature’s stomach on the invitation of a man who admitted to being a criminal.

  “You first,” I said.

  Uclod shrugged. “If you want.” He moved to the creature’s lower lip, which was level with his own waist. Planting his hands on the edge, he hopped up and half-twisted, so that he ended sitting on Starbiter’s bottom palate with his legs dangling out of the mouth. The little man swung his feet around and stood up; his backside was damp with saliva. He held out his hand to me. “Coming?”

  “To be consumed by this creature?” I asked. “I am not such a fool as you think.”

  “Look, missy,” he said, squatting on the Zarett’s lip so his eyes were on my level, “there’s no way my sweet baby can hurt you. She’s engineered to the last little enzyme, perfectly safe and harmless. Here on Melaquin, I guess you’re used to gadgets being electronic or mechanical; but we Divians have a long history of going the organic route. Back where I live, my home is a macro vegetable pod, kind of like a big Terran cucumber; its lighting comes from fireflies and its air-conditioning comes from a friendly old worm the size of a tree trunk, whose innards are designed to exhale cool air into the house and fart out hot through a hole in the wall.