by John Grant
"At the end of that period," Polyaggle continued, "I will speak further with you."
She put her hands together—no, they weren't hands but bird-like claws—in what was presumably a formal gesture, and turned away.
And spread her wings.
They unfurled swiftly in a riot of brilliant color. They were ragged, like a butterfly's wings, but brighter than any butterfly Strauss-Giolitto could remember. Around the edges there were broad, irregular patches of crimson and turquoise and black. Closer to the torso, lines of eye-shaped iridescent markings followed the contours of her body.
Polyaggle flapped her wings once, twice, and then allowed herself to drift slowly and erratically off the ground. When she was about twenty meters above them she began to move her wings with more purpose, and soon was fluttering away through the breeze towards the distant buildings.
Strauss-Giolitto couldn't recall having seen anything quite so beautiful. No wonder the Images had translated this world's name as Spindrift, for that was exactly what Polyaggle was doing now: spinning and drifting through the air. It now wasn't so surprising that Polyaggle's body was so light. This was God's image. The minor sexual pang Strauss-Giolitto had experienced on first seeing the Spindrifter's face in the screen was nothing to what she was feeling at the moment. She was going to have a difficult time on this planet.
YOUR TURN NOW, Ten Per Cent Extra Free reminded her gently, waking her from her thoughts.
Pinocchio was already aboard the cabble, reaching out a hand to help her. She took it gratefully. Ordinarily she would have had no difficulty stepping into the vehicle—she was fifty per cent taller than the Spindrifter—but suited up like this she felt cumbersome and squat.
Holding the T-shaped pole in the vehicle's center for balance, they stood and watched as they were conveyed swiftly across the landing-area.
There was so little to see, and yet in a way so much.
#
She kept trying to forget what it had been like going through the Spindrifter version of decontamination, but it was extremely difficult. At the end of the cycle she had been given a loose white robe to wear, but she still had never felt more naked in her life. Part of the time she had been anaesthetized, which should have made things better; in fact, it had been if anything worse, because she still didn't fully understand everything the Spindrifters' eager little bots had done to her.
She had anticipated losing her suit and her clothing, but the bots had been very much more thorough than that. They had depilated her entire body—it felt bizarre and uncomfortable having a naked crotch for the first time since childhood—and they had probed and scoured every orifice with ruthless efficiency, no great gentleness and strange-smelling chemicals; her ears still gurgled if she moved her head too quickly. But far worse than that had been what they had done to her under anaesthetic.
They had stripped her of her integrated hardware. Neural implants, stim sockets, thighputer, cortical amplification units—everything was gone, right down to her commline. Without her augmentations, everything around her seemed utterly strange: she was experiencing the world as she hadn't experienced it since puberty. It was confusing: she kept bumping into things if she didn't keep a look out where she was going: there was no secondary retinal screen to warn her automatically of obstructions. She kept listening for the tiny background hiss of her commline on standby—a commline that was no longer there. Having just flesh on her left thigh seemed somehow . . . perverse. She was perceiving everything differently, hearing things differently.
She was having to rediscover her natural senses.
And it was all doubly confusing: she really was experiencing a strange new world. On Mars, and indeed on the Santa Maria, when you were inside relaxing you always had the reassurance that you were in a totally enclosed environment. When you were outside you were almost certainly always on the move, because there was little reason to be stationary and almost none to be sedentary.
Here, though, she was sitting on a stool the size of those she expected her schoolkids to sit on and there was nothing overhead but the sky. She could vaguely recall this from her childhood, but only as an experience someone else had had. Ahead of them stretched the weed-infested waste of the Gate to the Sky. On the long, low table in front of her was a tall metal beaker of what Polyaggle had told her was distilled water. Strauss-Giolitto had tried it nervously at first, but the taste proved . . . interesting.
She took another gulp of it.
Strauss-Giolitto and Pinocchio, who was likewise dressed now in a white robe, were together at one end of the table and Polyaggle at the other. The human woman couldn't work out if this was a deliberate ploy to establish some kind of hierarchical demarcation or if it was totally unconscious on the Spindrifter's part: she still seemed cautious about approaching them too closely, as if not thoroughly trusting even the full rigors of decontamination to preserve her from infection.
And what about me? thought Strauss-Giolitto for the hundredth time. Dammit, I'm probably picking up every disease in the Universe by just sitting here breathing.
At the next lull in the conversation between Polyaggle and Pinocchio, Ten Per Cent Extra Free—currently resident somewhere in Pinocchio's circuitry—spoke swiftly to her. THE DECONTAMINATORS WERE WISE ENOUGH NOT TO INTERFERE WITH YOUR NANOBOTS. I AM, NATURALLY, MONITORING THE LATTER CLOSELY. YOU ARE INDEED INGESTING ALIEN MICRO-ORGANISMS, BUT NONE HAS OFFERED YOUR BODY ANY DANGER AS YET, AND ALL HAVE BEEN SWIFTLY IDENTIFIED AND DESTROYED BY THE NANOBOTS. WE WOULD NOT HAVE PERMITTED A HUMAN TO DESCEND TO THIS PLANET UNLESS WE WERE SURE IT WAS SAFE.
Strauss-Giolitto tuned in briefly to the conversation the other two were having. It was very difficult to concentrate. The decontamination process had exhausted and demoralized her and the day was hot and bright—and without her hardware there was nothing she could do to reduce the effects of the hotness and brightness. What she really wanted to do was find somewhere she could curl up and sleep for a few hours. When she awoke, maybe the remembered humiliation of being scoured by the decontamination bots would be easier to bear. About the only thing keeping her awake was the discomfort of sitting on a stool this low.
"I would like to speak directly with the Image you have with you," Polyaggle was saying. Strauss-Giolitto drowsily thought the Spindrifter still looked thoroughly alluring, even with her wings folded away. There was grace in Polyaggle's every movement.
"Certainly," said Pinocchio courteously. "His name is Ten Per Cent Extra Free, and I am sure that he would take pleasure in communicating with you."
"In private," said the Spindrifter. Strauss-Giolitto wondered what that strangely constructed mouth would look like when Polyaggle smiled—assuming the Spindrifters smiled with their mouths, of course.
Pinocchio nodded. "Are you willing for this?" he asked out aloud, clearly addressing the Image.
YES.
The silence stretched out for several minutes. Something like an insect hummed close to them and inquisitively circled Strauss-Giolitto a couple of times. Horrified, she recoiled from it. It might have a sting that could kill her in seconds. Pinocchio waved it away with a nonchalant hand.
Although the people aboard the Santa Maria generally spoke aloud, or at least subvocalized, when communicating with the Images, it was clear that Polyaggle felt no such need, although she had closed her eyes as if to assist concentration. I wish I could just close my eyes right now, thought Strauss-Giolitto wearily. Her heart was still beating quickly after her encounter with the little flying thing. But I'd better not risk it. Falling asleep at someone's party is reckoned rude enough back on Mars—unless you're stoned senseless, of course—but here it might carry the death penalty.
After an appreciable fraction of forever Polyaggle opened her eyes again.
"I have interrogated your Image friend at length," she said, "and he agrees that everything you have told me is substantively true, although on occasion limited by your own ignorance of the true situation in The Wondervale." Yes, Spindri
fters did smile with their mouths. Perhaps this was one of the few traits that convergent evolution directed itself towards when producing human-like creatures. "The Images may mislead on occasion, but they never lie. I speak for all in the Affiliated Villages when I say that we will offer you such help as we can without jeopardizing our neutrality."
"That is very kind," said Pinocchio.
"Further than that we will not go."
"That is understood."
Polyaggle smiled again. The effect was disconcerting.
"Our species was among the most rapidly evolving and thus one of the most ancient in The Wondervale, and we were perhaps the first to explore this galaxy—and even Heaven's Ancestor." She gave what Ten Per Cent Extra Free interpreted as a sigh. "That was over a billion years ago." The Image had clearly worked out the Spindrifters' time units at last. "Four or five million years ago, we saw the nature of the new technological civilizations that were arising in The Wondervale, and we decided to abandon space and retreat to our mother world. Other species who were our friends chose to do the same: many of the neutral planets throughout The Wondervale today are the homes of ancient species who made the same decision that we did."
The Spindrifter raised her own, much smaller beaker of water towards her mouth. A tube-like tongue dipped briefly into the liquid.
"I'm explaining all this for a reason," Polyaggle resumed, turning her gaze towards Strauss-Giolitto, as if sensing that the woman's concentration had been drifting again. "We do not wage war—we never have. We have some defenses which we, well, stole from younger species; the task of our military is to maintain these. But our few primitive weapons would be useless should the Autarch or some lesser tyrant decide to occupy this world or destroy it. There are fewer than ten million of us left alive: we have no desire to increase our population, as yet, but we believe that the remnant of our once prolific species is very precious. Hence, please understand, our insistence on retaining not just our absolute neutrality but also the outward appearance of it."
Once more that disturbing smile. "We want Spindrift to remain a backwater, useless, boring little world. Several hundred years ago the Autarchy built the Gate to the Sky here, intent on colonizing this world. We persuaded the tyranny to depart again by ensuring that there was nothing here to be exploited—we don't even make good slaves: we're too frail to be of any use. Occasionally, still, an Autarchy ship will call by and look us over and decide we have nothing to offer that wouldn't be more easily found elsewhere.
"It is necessary for the survival of the last of our species that this situation be preserved."
"But not for ever," said Strauss-Giolitto, suddenly cottoning on. One of the subjects she taught was history. "You said you didn't want to increase your population as yet. You're just biding your time, aren't you?" Everything goes in cycles. What is omnipotent today will be dust tomorrow. It may take half the lifetime of the Universe, but the day will come.
"Yes."
The Spindrifters and the other ancient species will do their best to survive until all the warriors have destroyed themselves, and then they will reclaim their galaxy. No wonder they regard the scraps of their people as so precious.
"We understand your view," said Pinocchio, splaying his hands on the table in front of him and looking earnestly at the backs of his fingers. "Of course you're right. You're the seeds of the civilization that'll grow up once the Autarchy and all its successors have gone. But . . . humanity is a young species, not an old one, and—"
"Our way is not your way," said Polyaggle.
"That is what I was trying to say."
"No, you were trying to say that your way is not our way. There's a difference."
Pinocchio looked baffled. Despite the sophistication of his software, on occasion he could be defeated by the minor nuances of language.
"Let's be away from here," said Polyaggle abruptly. "I want to take you to our military." She stood and gave a weird trill that Ten Per Cent Extra Free didn't even try to interpret. "There is much that they could learn from you humans, and there are perhaps one or two things they might be able to tell you in return. I have just summoned a slidecraft, and it will be here very shortly. You"—she turned again towards Strauss-Giolitto—"will be able to sleep during the trip."
Strauss-Giolitto yawned. Sleep was becoming a matter of urgency.
#
"Lost them?" bellowed Nalla. "How in the name of the Autarchy can you have lost them?"
Even from a safe several hundred parsecs away, Kaantalech flinched at the sight of the Autarch's holographic wrath. When speaking with Nalla, it amused her to keep the image down as small as was consistent with being able to see what was going on. But, even when he was less than a meter tall, the Autarch's rage was spectacular.
She thought it might be a good move to put on a further show of cowering: the Autarch liked his lieutenants to be visibly terrified of him.
"They've just . . . disappeared," she said limply.
"By the blessed eyes of my father . . .!" the Autarch began, then obviously remembered what had been done to those eyes during a particularly messy succession. He started again. "By the might of my reign and the love of my people, they can't just have disappeared! What has happened is that you've let them go! You're either a traitor or an incompetent or both! Execute yourself at once!"
"I think that would be counterproductive, Stars' Elect," said Kaantalech. She knew that he liked the honorific. Since they were of different species, it was difficult for her to manipulate his moods as she did those of her own kind, but over the decades she had become more adept at it than most. "Whoever took over this region of The Wondervale would undoubtedly be less effective than myself at wooing the alliance of these Humans. I have studied the tapes of Maglittel's efforts extensively. Would any of your other lieutenants have labored so industriously?"
She could almost hear the Autarch thinking. It was painful for her to watch. She gave all her loyalty, life and soul, to her ultimate ruler . . . but one day, with luck, he would turn his back.
"I grant you a stay of execution," he said at last, "but it is only a stay. You must find these Humans and coax them into our service within one hundred Qitanefermeartha days or your life will be forfeit. And the lives of all your kindred."
Kaantalech wasn't particularly worried about the last part of the threat, but the first part did concern her. Summary executions were the Autarch's style. The bald stating of a time period within which a certain task must be accomplished, upon pain of death, was less usual. In the event that the Autarch remembered having issued the threat—or remembered to have a courtier record it for him—any resulting execution was inevitably protracted and brutal.
"I shall use my best endeavors," she said, giving a show of dignity. "But I must start right away."
"You may go," said the Autarch.
She flicked the holo off. Under her fur she was perspiring far more than she would have liked. The populace of some planet, somewhere, was going to have to pay for this.
#
By the time Strauss-Giolitto awoke, the slidecraft was well out over the deserted expanses of the northern polar icecap. She was surprised in a way that, despite her weariness, she'd been able to sleep. The Spindrifters, presumably because if anything went wrong with their craft they could always fly away, didn't go in for the kind of precautions humans did. The top of the slidecraft, as with the cabble back at the spaceport, was open; not too much effort had been put into providing the vessel with stabilization, so that it rocked from side to side and, even more alarmingly, from front to back; the ledge around its rim was no more than half a meter high.
Strauss-Giolitto, who had slept in a tangle on the vessel's floor, pulled herself to her knees with a groan, and peered over the ledge. They were at least several hundred meters above the ice. She decided not to have a second peer.
Rubbing the sleep from her eyes—it seemed so odd to be rubbing her left eye, where the secondary retinal screen had been mounted�
�she looked back towards the center of the craft. Polyaggle had, like herself, fallen asleep on the floor after programming the navigational unit with their destination. This had seemed an alarmingly simple business: Strauss-Giolitto was accustomed to the controls of even something as lowly as a Martian cabble having countless flashing lights and a bewildering graphic display of information which was beyond the power of most people to understand but was nevertheless reassuring by its very presence. The Spindrifter standard seemed to be about half a dozen buttons and a couple of switches. She assumed that the onboard computers must be infinitely more sophisticated than anything humanity had yet produced.
She hoped so.
The slidecraft was like a flying raft. There was the low ledge around its perimeter and, in place of a mast, the T-shaped pole to which you clung if you wanted to stand upright. Strauss-Giolitto, before sleep had ensnared her, had seen Polyaggle doing this; every now and then the wind of their progress had pulled the delicate Spindrifter right off her feet, so that she had been blown horizontal. The more general method of staying aboard a slidecraft was, Strauss-Giolitto gathered, to squat. She felt idiotic doing it herself; Polyaggle, needless to say, managed the posture with grace and elegance. Pinocchio had just crouched glumly at the front of the craft, beside the simple control panel, and watched the landscape flow by beneath them.
He was still there now.
"Pinocchio," she said.
He turned. "I heard you wake, but I didn't want to look round in case . . . in case I embarrassed you."
She remembered puking so explosively in the shuttle. "That's all right," she said. "If you'd been anoth—" She cut the sentence short.
It was bloody cold up here. Obviously Polyaggle didn't feel it because she was still naked; Strauss-Giolitto should have begged for some extra clothing—would certainly have, had she known where they were going. As it was, the thin white robe offered her body very little protection from the freezing air.