“So we’re more like scientific specimens than prisoners,” Kithri said.
“It doesn’t matter!” Brianna exclaimed. “None of this matters except they’re real and I’m here. And every moment I learn something new.”
Kithri kept on pacing. There was no place to run. Let her study the slugs all she likes, and I wish her joy of them. “So what are the rest of us supposed to do while you find out all this stuff?” she said under her breath, not expecting an answer.
And Eril — what would Eril be doing now if he were awake? Playing wonder boy diplomat, scheming to pioneer gastropoid-human relations? Mankind’s first ambassador to the slugs?
Kithri smiled humorlessly at the thought of Eril in a tux-suit, sipping cocktails and making small talk with a giant snail. Unlike him, she had not dreamt of discovering alien races or exploring strange new worlds. She had only dreamt of escaping Stayman’s everlasting dust. What she would find to replace it had never been more than a nebulous memory of flowery fields and cloud-dotted skies.
She stood still. Lennart, how right you were about us both being outsiders. Exiles is more like it.
Eril’s words came back to her, “Out of all that glory up there, what do you really want?” And again she had no answer.
“What about the door?” she asked, turning her thoughts in a more practical direction.
Brianna shook her head. “We spent a long time trying to find it, but we can’t determine its position. The seam melts right back into the wall.” She shrugged. “It’s beyond any technology the Dominion has.”
“Where was it, about here?” Kithri asked, running her hands over a section of uniformly smooth wall. She rapped on it, listening for the hollowness that might mark the slot for a sliding door. Her knuckles jarred against the unyielding surface.
“What exactly do you think you’re doing?” Brianna asked, scowling.
“I don’t like the idea of being anyone’s prisoner,” Kithri said. “I’ve had enough of that, thank you.”
“But we aren’t — ” said Brianna.
“Let Kithri try if she wants to,” Lennart said in his gentle, easy voice. “Who knows what she might find? She’s got the best survival instincts of any of us.”
Survival? Kithri wanted to laugh in his face. Jaydium running could be hazardous, but being beaten up by space pirates or marooned on a world of talking slugs wasn’t her idea of an improvement. Her bloody luck had saved her skin, but that was about all. She might need a good deal more than luck for whatever came next.
o0o
The door slid open suddenly, almost in front of Kithri’s nose. She jumped back as a giant gastropoid slithered into the room. In its lower tentacles, it carried packages wrapped in the same silky fabric as their garments. At the sight of it, a rush of adrenalin surged through her, setting her heart pounding and her muscles aching to run.
“Greetings to you, our guest-humans,” the gastropoid intoned.
Lennart walked over to the silvery alien, close enough to reach out and put an arm around it. “Hello, yourself. Pardon my asking, but which one are you?”
“Personal name being Duvach, assistant to clan-superior Raerquel. You are being reassured as to the well-being of your companions?”
“All except the last one,” Lennart said. “How’s he doing?”
The gastropoid said, “Now let you be partaking of food. Since the sustaining effects of the rejuvenation matrix are time-limited, nourishment is required to continue your healing process.”
“What about Eril?” said Kithri, surprised to hear how strong her voice sounded. “Why didn’t you answer us?”
“You are already in possession of most recent information regarding the status of your fourth companion,” the silvery alien said. Its voice sounded flat and bland, almost mechanical. “There is nothing I can be telling you which you do not already know.”
Kithri exchanged an astonished glance with Lennart, but neither of them said anything. The hard things in life, she reflected, weren’t tangling with pirates or duoing through a coriolis storm — they were things like waiting. Waiting and guessing.
The gastropoid Duvach laid down its packages and, using its sturdy lower appendages, stroked the material of the floor in front of the low bench. The translucent glass grew up and outward under the alien’s touch, at first resembling an amorphous lump, then expanding to a huge fat mushroom, and, finally, a low but serviceable table.
Kithri watched the procedure, her uneasiness melting temporarily into fascination. Where did the material for the table come from? There was no trace of a depression in the floor, nor could she detect any mechanism by which more mass could have been carried to the surface. Superficially it looked like the slug was stretching the floor up and outward, the way Albionese children pulled stretchy-candy. Kithri glimpsed a flash of light, like a reflection on a liquid surface, where the tentacles touched the metamorphosing table — an illusion, a coupling agent, or — or was the slug secreting the stuff out of its own body?
The alien proceeded to create a second bench adjacent to the first. It placed the packages in the center of the table and settled itself in the opposite corner.
“Appropriate environment for human partaking of nourishment, as described to us, this is correct?”
After a pause and another exchange of glances, the three humans took their places at the table and began opening the packages. The first two intricately folded fabric packages contained thick-stalked leaves.
Kithri took a tentative nibble of purple-hued stuff. She didn’t recognize it, but she’d eaten stranger-looking things in the brush. It was salty and slightly rubbery, with a surprisingly pleasant tang. As she swallowed, she realized how long it had been since she’d eaten anything solid. Her stomach growled appreciatively, and she took another mouthful.
Brianna licked her fingers delicately. “This is seaweed, isn’t it?”
“Is this not adequate mammalian human food?” Duvach asked. “Our biochemical studies verified digestibility and suitableness of nutrients — ”
“It’s not what we usually call lunch,” Lennart said good-naturedly. “But I guess it’s the best you could do. I don’t suppose you could come up with something like a steak?”
“We’re fine as vegetarians,” Brianna interjected. She added as she scooped up fingerful of pale green strands, “Many molluscan genera are strict herbivores. We don’t know what cultural taboos we might violate by even asking for animal flesh.”
“That’s all right by me,” Lennart said. “I’m happy eating just about anything that doesn’t bite back. I just hope there’s a pile more of this seaweed stuff around, or we’re all going to end up a lot hungrier.”
Kithri opened the next package, which proved to contain cubes of something pale and lemon-scented, and offered them around. She bit into one, surprised at the smooth texture and pleasantly tart taste. Whatever it was, was a more concentrated food source than the greens. With food in her stomach, she found herself thinking more clearly. The slugs — gastropoids, she reminded herself — had shown them nothing but good will so far. They’d escaped Brianna’s pirates. Eril would be all right. And wherever this place was — whenever this place was, it sure wasn’t Stayman. Her spirits began to recover.
Brianna meanwhile had finished the last of her
pale-green strands. “Is this the sort of food your people eat, too?” she asked the gastropoid.
Duvach sat motionless for a moment before answering, “Your pardoning, friend-human, but I have been instructed by clan-superior Raerquel not to be answering any questions. The intention is not to be impolite, but to avoid the appearance of cultural contamination.”
Kithri didn’t know exactly what the gastropoid was referring to, but she had a feeling that it wasn’t good.
“We, contaminating your culture?” Brianna asked. “I don’t understand.” She did not, in Kithri’s opinion, look in the least puzzled. Avid would be a better word.
“You’ve given us
the freedom of this laboratory — it is a laboratory, isn’t it?” Brianna turned and gestured toward the shelves. “Surely you meant for us to study these artifacts?”
But Duvach was already undulating rapidly towards the door. It paid her no discernible notice as it sealed the opening behind itself.
“I have the feeling we’ve gone and done it,” Lennart said somberly, “but what it is anyone’s guess.”
Kithri found she had to agree with him.
Chapter 18
In another part of the laboratory complex, Eril wrestled with an entirely different set of problems. Opposite him, just beyond arm’s reach, sat the gastropoid Bhevon, Raerquel’s assistant and clan-inferior, patiently going over its questions one more time. As he formed his answers, Eril tried to analyze each one critically and to keep his own curiosity under control.
Yet his eyes sometimes strayed to the glass instruments lining the walls and he couldn’t shake the feeling of relaxed well-being, as if there had been some euphoric drug in the healing gel. All traces of the pirates’ handling, even the pain from his fractured ribs, had vanished completely.
To make matters worse, his chair, which had been sculpted to his individual dimensions, was so comfortable, it presented a constant temptation to relax. That was a luxury he could scarcely afford, now of all times. How he handled these questions was crucial, even if the gastropoids seemed friendly enough to begin with. It wasn’t just his own impression that was at stake, but that of the whole human race.
What was his species? Terran human, technically Homo sapiens. He hoped the translator panel would make something coherent of the archaic terminology.
His individual name? Eril Jermaine Trionan. Colonel, Fifth Federation Space Service.
His phylogenic ancestry? Primates, and before that, mammals, and before that, some kind of reptile, he supposed, and before that... Well, certainly, they were all vertebrates, clear back to whenever animals developed internal skeletons.
By what means had he appeared in World-of-Home? That was a hard one. Some sort of time-space disequilibrium must have transported them. No, not across space, they were still on the same planet, except it was different. Either they’d gone back in time, or history had taken a different direction, or both. If the gastropoid thought this a preposterous explanation, it gave no indication.
How did his species differ from other animals? Why did they consider themselves human? At least, that was the word Brianna’s translator came up with.
What were they doing here? Who sent them?
Eril ran one finger along the edge of the translator panel on his chest, feeling the slick, slightly warm surface. He couldn’t judge his answers, since he had no idea what Bhevon really wanted, or what its values were. He might be a hot-shot pilot, but he was definitely not a diplomat with a gift for saying nothing in the smoothest way possible. He felt overwhelmed with his own ignorance, a child, alone as he’d been for so many years with only himself to rely on.
“You will be rejoining your comrades soon,” the gastropoid said, its neck slits vibrating with each syllable, “waiting only for the resuscitation of the one most severely injured, yet there is a caution to be given.”
Injured? Kithri... A vision rose unbidden in Eril’s memory — Kithri glaring at him across the shattered crystal garden — Kithri screaming defiance at the baldie leader, spinning a web of lies and courage — Kithri outraged that he’d risk her third-class, down-at-the-fins scrubjet for her very life.
“All four human specimens are given positive prognoses,” Bhevon said. “Caution is with regard to your status as persons, not your physical well-being.”
The memory of the pirates had wiped away much of Eril’s euphoria and reminded him that he was in the midst of an alien culture, cut off from his friends. The gastropoids could probably do anything they pleased with him. He certainly had nothing he could use in self-defense except his fists — for all the good they’d do against a creature that size, with no obvious vulnerable points — and his still-addled wits.
“Clan-superior Raerquel is asserting that, despite manifest differences, you posses other characteristics that qualify you for consideration as persons. It believes, in defiance of all tradition, that personness is not limited to those of proven — ” the translator hesitated, “identicalness.”
Personness? Identicalness? Had Brianna’s translator had gotten the words right?
“Raerquel wishes you to understand that its enlightened opinion is not endorsed by other clans.”
Eril hazarded a guess. “You mean Raerquel’s willing to talk to us, but others might not be?” That might make an awkward beginning, but didn’t seem to be insurmountable. With time and communication, humans and gastropoids would learn how to relate to each other, respecting each other’s abilities and diversity.
“Talking to is but a minor example of considering personness,” Bhevon answered. “Many beasts are capable of primitive, sound-mediated signalling. The mere production of noise patterns is not causally related to self-awareness or social conscience.”
The gastropoid’s booming voice was as devoid of emotional nuances as ever, and Eril found himself wishing for some hint of its own personal opinions. For all he could tell, it was only cooperating with Raerquel’s orders because of clan loyalty. There was no warmth, no excitement, not even curiosity coming from its impassive silver bulk.
“Have you not in your own ecological system living entities that possess some degree of intelligence but do not qualify as social or moral equals?” Bhevon asked.
“Are you warning me that we’re apt to get treated as some sort of animals?”
“Yes, undesirable lower creatures. Vermin.”
Eril closed his mouth.
The alien stirred, a faint ripple flowing from its blunted head section down the tapering neck. “You must understand that clan-superior Raerquel thinks far beyond tradition-honored wisdom. Identicalness has always been considered the most fundamental prerequisite for personness, since we share conscious identity only through our unity in Flesh-Before-Naming. It is inconceivable to consider personness co-existing with differences.”
Eril found his voice again. “But surely you can recognize that we’re intelligent. We may come from different phyla, but we can use language to communicate with one another. We can think, reason, solve complex problems. And our technology — you saw the ‘jet we came in. It didn’t build itself. The definition of intelligence is the ability to make and use tools, isn’t it?”
“Using tools is not the same as making tools,” Bhevon replied. “Any moronically-minded, uncivilized offspring-of-degenerate-monotreme can use the tools it does not understand.”
“We make the tools we use!” Eril protested. “From toothbrushes to starcruisers. In fact, on our planets, we’re the only species capable of it.”
For a long moment, the gastropoid sat motionless. The clear light of the room glinted off its head discs. “A convincing argument this would be, if you can create the means to modify your environment. We had assumed that your mammalian origin would preclude this ability. Please to be demonstrating it.”
Eril glanced around the room, seeing only the banks of unfamiliar instruments lining the walls. There was no furniture other than the seat he occupied, and that had been sculpted for him by Bhevon. He dredged his memory for the survival tools he’d been taught in the Academy. They didn’t assume much, just wood, cleavable stone like flint and plant fibers. In theory he could kill and cook his own dinner or sabotage an Alliance installation, using only materials found on any habitable planet.
Now he spread out his hands and asked, “With what?”
“What could you possibly be needing to make tools? Are external substrates necessary for generating the mammalian equivalent of therine?”
Eril very nearly snapped, “What the hell is therine?” Instead he said slowly and calmly, “I can’t make tools out of empty air. I have to have raw materials and something to work them with.”
/> Another ripple went down Bhevon’s body. Eril had the feeling that, given its wish, it would have gone humping away from him in disgust. After a long pause, it said, in a monotone that he found infuriatingly pedantic, “Raerquel’s scientific explorations are advancing the theory that personness should be re-defined as the capacity for both altruism and individual initiative, which require intelligence as well as self-awareness. It believes you humans fulfill these theoretical requirements. However, many scientific colleagues will be challenging this premise and rejecting our evidences. Why, they will surely ask, should they extend serious consideration to specimens that fail to share the most basic skills with us?”
Eril squashed his immediate impulse to get up and do something drastic. Adrenalin crept along his nerves, but no familiar thrill. His belly twisted as if he’d swallowed a bucketful of ice. What would we do with an unknown animal? Probably put it in a zoo, if we didn’t slaughter and dissect it first... Is that what’s in store for us?
o0o
Bhevon took Eril down the ramp to the big underground laboratory. When he stepped through the doorway, Brianna greeted him enthusiastically, followed by Lennart, who hugged him and slapped his shoulders as if they were long-lost cousins.
Only Kithri hung back. After their sense of connectedness during their ordeal with the pirates, Eril was surprised how opaque she was to him. Her eyes jumped around, never still, although otherwise she looked fit enough. Her skin was clear and unbruised. As she walked toward him, the silky gray tunic outlined the muscles of her shoulders and thighs. By contrast, Brianna’s opulent curves seemed flabby.
Kithri reached out and touched him hesitantly, as if needing to reassure herself that he was solid flesh. She wouldn’t meet his eyes, and yet in that brief contact, he felt an unexpected intimacy with her. His skin tingled where her fingertips brushed against his arm. Feelings rushed over him, things he wanted to say to her, things he had no words for.
Then the moment was gone and the four of them gathered around the table, comparing experiences. They argued a bit as to whether they had any privacy. Eril thought they did, because the gastropoids seemed to require direct visual contact with the light translator panels. There had been several instances during his questioning when he’d turned away and Bhevon hadn’t been able to see the panel. It had to ask him to repeat what he’d said.
Jaydium Page 14