Ascending

by James Alan Gardner

  A Great Fright

  After Festina worked her trick with the lock, she could easily pull the door open. To my surprise, the cabin appeared empty; baby Starbiter nestled securely on a padded chair, but there was no sign of Nimbus. “Where has he gone?” I cried.

  “Check if the floor’s sticky,” Uclod said bitterly. “Maybe whatever zapped the defense nanites took out Nimbus too.”

  “Is that possible?” I asked in Great Consternation.

  Festina shook her head. “I don’t think so. Zaretts are made of biological components; nano is mechanical.”

  “On a microscopic scale,” Uclod said, “how much difference does it make? Both Nimbus and the nanites are just fancy organic molecules.”

  “So are we,” Festina replied. “And we’re still alive.”

  “We’re natural creatures,” Uclod told her. “Nimbus wasn’t.”

  “You’re not natural,” Festina said. “The whole Freep species was bioengineered.”

  “We’re a minor variation on natural Divian stock—just a few tweaks away from the original. But the Shaddill created Nimbus from scratch. God knows, his components may have been closer to nanites than real living cells. We should check for smears on the rug.”

  “Husband,” said Lajoolie. “Hush.” She turned to the rest of us apologetically. “He’s still distressed about his grandmother. Pay no attention.”

  She gave a reassuring smile…but it had no effect on the butterflies fluttering in my stomach. Until now, I had never quite grasped that Nimbus was an artificial being: built by the Shaddill as a gift to the Divian people, just as my own race had been built as a gift to ancient Earthlings. Surely Nimbus and I possessed similar design features, with many DNAs and other Chemicals in common—were we not both transparent, clear and colorless? So in a way, we were brother and sister by virtue of our Shaddillish origins.

  And now my brother might be dead? As lifeless as the black nano-things coating the floor like soot? What was wrong with this universe, that so many people kept dying?

  Feeling scared and angry, I strode across the black residue encrusting the carpet, straight into the cloud man’s cabin. “Nimbus!” I cried. “Come out right away! Do not make us think you died from some foolish Science not even intended for you. Where have you gone, you poop-head cloud?”

  For a moment, I sensed no response. Then, with a great whoosh, mist poured through a ventilator grid high up on one wall. The fog circled me once, a thick stream impossible to feel through my jacket; then it swept toward baby Star-biter and coalesced into the shape of a ghostly man seated on the infant’s chair.

  “I’m back,” said Nimbus. “What’s the problem?”

  “You went away!” I was most furious with him for the fright he had given us. “You foolishly left; you abandoned your child! Whom you are supposed to take care of, so others do not have to. We are not such ones as know which hydrocarbons are best for a Zarett of tender years.”

  “Sorry to upset you,” Nimbus said without sounding sorry at all, “but I went to see what was happening. The power died, and I heard a sort of crackle in the ventilator; when I investigated, I found my nanite guards were all settling out of the air, dead as dandruff. I decided I’d try to find someone to ask what was happening, but…” A ripple went through his body. “I got lost in the air ducts.”

  “You got lost?” I asked. “That is most irresponsible, you foolish cloud, when certain persons might choose to worry about you. Persons such as Uclod and Lajoolie. And little Starbiter. But not me, not even a little bit.”

  “It was pitch black everywhere,” Nimbus said. “I couldn’t tell where I was till I heard you hollering.”

  “I was not hollering!” I cried. “I never ever—”

  Festina stopped me by laying her fingers lightly on my arm. “Hush. He’s fine. I was worried too.”

  The Howls Of Infants

  “Now, Nimbus,” Festina said, turning to the cloud man, “we’ve been sabotaged. Disabled. And we don’t have the right equipment for sending a Mayday. We were wondering if the little girl…” She took a moment to smile fondly at the baby snuggled inside Nimbus’s body; then her smile faltered. “I was going to ask if Starbiter could send out a Mayday for us. But now that I look at her, she’s so small…is she old enough to broadcast FTL messages?”

  Nimbus did not answer immediately. The mist of his body rolled like steam from a fiercely boiling pot. Finally he said, “The ability to broadcast is present from birth; but she’s far too young to control it. The situation is similar to newborn children of your own species—they have well-developed vocal cords, but they certainly can’t talk intelligibly.”

  “Starbiter does not need to talk intelligibly,” I said. “All she must do is cry. If we cause her to weep in a plaintive manner, will it not catch the attention of ships traveling nearby? And do not pretend she cannot wail, for it is the nature of babies to make such noises.”

  Behind me, someone made precisely the type of noise I had just described. The sound did not come from little Star-biter; it came from Lajoolie, who was looking most alarmed. “You don’t mean…” she said. “But you don’t want to hurt her…you wouldn’t…”

  “I do not know so much about babies,” I told her, “for I have only learned about them from the teaching machines in my village. However, it should not be necessary to cause the child pain—just to frighten her to the point where she cries out.”

  “Oar,” Festina said, “can we think about this a minute?”

  “Of course,” I replied. “We must think very hard how to produce an appropriate amount of terror. My own suggestion would be to create a large fire and drop the child into the middle…for it turns out Zaretts fear blazing infernos but are not at all harmed by the heat. If we are lucky, the flames will actually bestow Starbiter with excellent invigorating energies, so her cries will carry farther. Is that not a clever scheme?”

  I looked around proudly, believing I would receive heart-felt congratulations from those assembled…but I did not see the expected expressions of approval. Indeed, the Vac-head crew members appeared horrorstruck. Meanwhile, Lajoolie had covered her face with her hands and Uclod wore a scowl so fierce, one might think he wished to punch somebody.

  “What is it?” I asked. “What?”

  Festina took me by the arm and led me from the room.

  I Am Ignominiously Berated

  It seems humans have a foolish taboo against setting infants on fire. Festina took me down the hall and explained this to me in low but intense tones. It does not even matter whether the flames actually hurt the child; this is simply a thing which must not be done.

  I tried to tell her the situation was different on Melaquin. Immersing oneself in fire is actually a pleasant experience: it causes no harm or pain, and surrounds one with tasty toasty light. Moreover, it burns off the dirt and stains one inevitably acquires from daily activities. One can have too much of a good thing—flames tend to dry out the skin—but to anyone of my species, a session of self-immolation combines the virtues of a hot bath with a good meal.

  Was it not the same for Starbiter? Who was also a Shad-dill creation, and who was also nourished by flame? Though she might initially fear to be immersed in fire, was that not just the fussiness of a baby who did not like to try new foods?

  Festina said this might all be true, but there were Lines One Does Not Cross. Therefore I must not suggest my plan again, for fear that persons who did not know me would think me a horrible monster.

  I almost said, I do not care what others think. But that would not be true. I did not want Festina to consider me a bad person, nor did I wish to be despised by Uclod or Lajoolie. I especially did not want Nimbus believing I intended to harm his child…for if he and I were siblings in Shaddillhood, I did not wish to alienate his affections.

  In my youth, I had often contemplated how much I would like to have a brother—even when I did not always like having a sister. A brother would be different and interesting: a
comrade rife with maleness, but with no lustful urges to complicate the friendship and ultimately make one sad. I would, of course, have to persuade the cloud man to view me as a sister…but were we not partway there already? Back in Starbiter he had tried to boss me around, and I had responded with instant resentment; therefore we were practically family, and all that remained was for him to acknowledge it.

  Besides, if Nimbus was my brother, that would make me young Starbiter’s Auntie. The thought of that pleased me most greatly.

  Auntie Oar. It had an excellent ring.

  My Induction

  “I shall do as you wish, Festina,” I said. “In future, I shall not suggest putting babies into fire—not even a little fire that would make the child stronger and healthier than before. However, we still need Starbiter to cry, do we not? So we must find another method of inducement. What would be more palatable to Earthling tastes? Shaking her fiercely? Jabbing her with pins? Piling weighty objects on top of her?”

  Festina glared at me a moment, then broke into a grudging laugh. “All right, Oar, I see your point. I’ve been letting my human prejudices get in the way of figuring out how to treat an alien. And I should know better—I run around pretending to be a hard-headed Explorer, but you’re the one who’s unflinchingly practical.”

  “I am excellent at unflinching practicality,” I told her. “I would also be excellent as an Explorer.”

  As evidence for this statement, I held up the coattails of my jacket. Perhaps there is more to being an Explorer than wearing black clothes, but I have never noticed anything else. And the jacket fit very well.

  “You’re right,” Festina said, “you would make a good Explorer. If nothing else, you’re bulletproof.” She took a deep breath. “By the power vested in me as a duly appointed admiral of the Outward Fleet, I hereby grant you the rank of cadet in the Technocracy Explorer Corps. That is, if you accept the position.”

  “Of course I accept the position. I have been oppressed and exploited by so many Explorers, it is high time I was empowered to do the same to others. When do I receive my stun-pistol?”

  “Uh, later,” Festina replied. “Much later. It’s time we got back to the others.”

  So that is what we did.

  The Compactification Of A Cloud

  When we returned to Nimbus’s cabin, the cloud man had shrunk to a shadow of his former self…which is to say, he had compressed his little flying bits into a much tighter ball around the baby Starbiter. Father and child combined were now just the size of my fists pressed together; the outer Nimbus-y shell looked as hard and dense as quartz.

  “Why is he like that?” I demanded. “What did you do?”

  “Nothing,” Captain Kapoor replied. “He just suddenly clumped down around the kid as solid as a rock. Maybe to protect his daughter from getting thrown in a bonfire.” The frowzy captain gave me an accusatory glare.

  “No one is getting thrown into a bonfire,” Festina said. “If that’s what you’re worried about, Nimbus, you can let the little girl go.”

  We all stared at the rock, waiting for some response. Humans must have slower metabolisms than I, for they were still waiting patiently when I cried, “He is just doing this to vex me! He is acting obnoxiously as a blatant plea for attention!”

  “Well, he’s got my attention,” Festina said. “He looks like an egg.”

  She smiled to show she was joking, then knelt beside the chair that held both Nimbus and Starbiter. “Hey,” she said to the condensed cloud man, “we won’t hurt your daughter, I promise. But we’d like her to send a distress call, if that’s physically possible. The call doesn’t have to be loud—the Cashlings on Jalmut have some of the best communications technology in our sector, so they’ll hear the tiniest peep.”

  Festina paused; there was no sign that Nimbus was listening. “You know our situation,” she said, still using a soft persuasive voice. “At this second, the Shaddill are out of commission, and unfriendly elements of the navy are far away…so we’ve got a window of opportunity to call for help from someone else. If we leave it too long, though, the Shaddill might get themselves repaired; and you can be damned sure the Admiralty has already dispatched one of their dirty-trick ships to track us down. Then there’s the added complication that we’ll soon use up all of our oxygen. Baby Starbiter may not care, since she’s designed to survive in space, but the rest of us are air-breathing. Including you, Nimbus. Sooner or later, you’re going to get woozy…which means you’ll pass out when your daughter needs you most, unless we call for help now.”

  To me, this was excellent logic; but Nimbus remained stony in the face of Festina’s arguments. I wanted to poke him (quite gently, with a finger), but did not know how others would view such an action. Anyway, I doubted if prodding would have much effect—the cloud man appeared to be as unresponsive as granite. At last, Festina grimaced and stepped away from him.

  “All right,” she said, “we aren’t accomplishing much here. Captain, any ideas to propose?”

  The captain man, Mr. Kapoor, ran a hand through his almost nonexistent hair. “Just to go through the motions,” he said, “we should check ship’s stores, in case some spare parts didn’t get zapped. There’s a minuscule chance we can throw together a makeshift communicator—at least something good enough to send a public SOS.”

  “Very well,” Festina told him, “let’s hope we’re lucky. And while you’re doing that, I’ll make a quick run around the ship and gather the rest of the crew. Where’s the best place for them to assemble? Down near the storerooms?”

  Kapoor nodded. “That’s as good as any.”

  “Fine, Captain, carry on. Oh, and please send two people to Dr. Havel in the main computer room. He’s got a casualty who’ll need to be transported someplace safe.”

  “Aye-aye, Admiral.”

  The captain moved his hand in a manner reminiscent of a salute (provided one had a high capacity for reminiscing). As he and his collection of crew members moved off down the hallway, Festina turned to Uclod, Lajoolie, and me. “One of us should stay with Nimbus,” she said. “To talk to him if he decides to come out of his shell.”

  “I shall do that,” I said. As his somewhat-sister, it was my obligation to attend to the cloud man’s needs; and of course, to berate him for his churlish behavior as soon as nonfamily persons had departed the room.

  “I’ll stay too,” Lajoolie piped up hastily, speaking with uncharacteristic urgency. She must have believed I might do the cloud man an injury if left alone with him…which just goes to show what unjust suspicions arise when one conducts oneself in a Forthright Manner.

  Festina turned to Uclod. “What about you? Do you want to stay here or come with me for a once-around-the-ship?”

  The little man threw a glance at Lajoolie, then turned back to Festina. “I’ll go with you. Uncle Oh-God would rip off my ears if I let you go wandering with no one to watch your back.”

  He reached out quickly, grabbed Lajoolie’s hand, and gave it a quick squeeze. Then he and Festina vanished out the door, leaving the rest of us on our own.

  17

  WHEREIN I AM SWALLOWED BY DARKNESS

  Alone In The Dark

  If you have been paying attention—and for your sake, I hope you have, so when persons of High Social Standing accost you in the street, saying, “Have you read Oar’s book?” you will be able to answer, “Yes, especially the part where she and Lajoolie were left alone with Nimbus”—if you have been paying attention, you will realize our party had only possessed two glow-wands. One belonged to the captain, the other to my friend Festina; therefore, when the captain departed in one direction and Festina went the other, Lajoolie and I were left with a conspicuous absence of light.

  Also a conspicuous absence of food. I still had not eaten a bite in the past four years, and being in the dark always makes me famished. Quite literally. Especially an enclosed darkness without even the tiny sustenance of starshine. If I did not get food or light soon, I would lapse
into the torpid state that befalls my species when deprived of the necessities of life. It had only happened to me once, when I drowned in a great river and remained stuporous under dark water until the current washed me ashore…but I did not enjoy the experience, and was keen not to repeat it.

  Therefore, to conserve energy I settled myself onto the floor and attempted to relax every muscle. Lajoolie must have heard me moving, for she asked, “What are you doing?”

  “Saving my strength,” I said.

  “For what?”

  “To avoid enforced hibernation. I do not suppose you have any foodstuffs with you? It could even be opaque if that was all you had.”

  “Sorry,” Lajoolie said. “When the captain or admiral gets back, you can ask them for something. The ship’s food synthesizers won’t be working, but I understand there’s a hydroponics facility; that’s a place that grows fresh produce.”

  “I know what a hydroponics is,” I told her untruthfully. “I was taught such things in school. Also the elevenses table.”

  “You went to school?” Lajoolie asked. “I always thought your planet was…well…”

  “Filled with ignorant savages who knew absolutely nothing?”

  “Sorry,” Lajoolie said.

  It was the second time she had said, “Sorry,” in the past minute…and she had a most abject manner of saying it. I could not see her in the dark, but the way she spoke, I imagined her dropping her head in a posture of crushed self-esteem. Of course, Lajoolie might actually be making rude gestures at me in the blackness; but I did not think so.

  I am not such a one as beats around the bush when a person’s behavior puzzles me. “Is there something wrong with you, Lajoolie?” I asked. “Are you psychologically damaged in some way, or do you simply act submissive to put others off their guard? I think it most strange that a muscular woman should constantly quail before the eyes of others, or feign an aura of fragility when she is clearly not fragile at all. Was your spirit broken somehow or is this simply a sham, wherein you pretend to be dainty for some foolish alien reason?”