“No hints?” I asked in the next, hopefully longer lull, performing the traditional Human ritual of poking at the package before attempting to open it and satisfy my curiosity. Curiosity might not have been the right word. Paul was not beyond humor at my expense during these annual gift exchanges. Since this had involved everything from minor explosions to time-release fluorescent dyes which had turned my fur into a spectrum for weeks, my approach to opening any of his gifts included a fair amount of prudent inspection.
I glanced over to where the Human sat on the edge of his chair—a large overstuffed thing with gruesome carved paws for feet—and didn’t see the grin of anticipation I half-expected. Instead, his eyes were serious and fixed on me, as though the opening of this particular gift held special meaning.
He’d aged well, I thought fondly, taking a moment to gaze at my friend, memory slipping effortlessly into the present. The lean, mobile features of his face had subtly altered with time and experience, lineless still but matured into a nobility and compassionate strength the Human would doubtless deny hotly. The curiosity and intelligence hadn’t changed—sculpted across his brow and dancing in his bright eyes. If anything, the Paul Cameron incarnation of my friend was even more adventurous and eager to learn than Paul Ragem had been, having grown accustomed to a life unrestricted by the demands of officers and the opinions of peers.
No, the time had been good to my friend. I was pleased. So if his gift to me was a celebration of this, I would open it in that spirit.
And if it contained anything that exploded, shrieked, flew apart, or stained my beautiful new tunic, I would plan a suitable revenge.
The box, while fairly light, covered my lap—what there was of it. When Paul and I were at home, in private like this, I indulged myself with my birth-form: that of the canidlike Lanivarian. The others of my kin had had no such preferences, choosing their form based on their needs of the moment. The amorphous web-form made it awkward to do much more with technology than ooze cautiously around it without leaving sticky bits.
But I was the only web-being to have been the product of a union between my kind and another’s, the result of my birth-mother Ansky’s endless loves and lusts—hopefully unique, as there was no room on any planet for a species which was prolific as well as semi-immortal. There were no Lanivarian components to my structure, as Ersh had exhaustively and painfully tested before accepting Ansky’s surprise addition to her Web, but I’d always found an odd comfort in assuming the shape.
I knew myself to be sentimental, too. This was the body I had worn when I first met and was befriended by Paul. Although I’d never asked him, I suspected this was what he really believed I was, regardless of the thousands of other forms he’d seen me assume over the years.
His gift was thin and rigid, devoid of any potentially revealing lumps or ridges. The wrapping was plain, brown, shipping plas, the sort of material we used in the warehouse for the least and most expensive shipments. I poked at it again. “Clothes?” I guessed, raising my snout in his direction and dropping my jaw in a toothy grin. The Lishcyn had a fondness for silks and, as Esolesy Ki, I enjoyed a shamelessly extensive wardrobe.
“You could open it,” Paul retorted, the corner of his lips turning up. For some reason, his hands had clenched his knees. He noticed my attention and relaxed a little too deliberately. I hadn’t misjudged his interest in this gift.
I chose one end and started pulling apart the plas. As if cued, the com buzzed, its interruption barely perceptible over the renewed howling of the wind. Paul lunged up and hurried to the panel beside the fireplace, holding up one hand to stop me. “I’ll get rid of whoever it is,” he promised.
I tapped the top of my present with my toes, but waited. More or less patiently. I eyed the bag on the table by the door. I hadn’t taken out his gift yet. What were the odds . . ?
“What?”
I shifted my ears to Paul, caught by the total outrage contained in the one word. He was holding the remote receiver to his own ear, attempting to hear over the sudden rattle of gale and stone. No, I decided, we’d achieved hail.
“Cancel it.” This with a quick frown in my direction, as though the mysterious call had something to do with me. Oh, oh, I thought, carefully composing my features in their most innocent configuration. I hadn’t done anything Paul would disapprove of lately, unless one counted the order for organic fertilizer I’d inadvertently shipped with some Rillian sheep. Who knew the sheep were allergic to the slightest trace of methane and would shed their precious fleece in transit? Livestock and such were not our usual trade anyway. I’d only been doing a favor for an acquaintance of Joel Largas; hardly my fault—
“Did you keep it off Port Authority’s records?”
That bit of the one-sided conversation put a totally new face on matters, and I felt a new expression wrinkle my snout: worry. The caller had to be one of Paul’s offworld contacts, a ship’s captain, an officer, or crew. Such had brought us trouble already this week. “It better not be another Ganthor,” I advised him, fighting a tendency to snarl.
Paul waved impatiently, obviously having difficulty catching something being said. I took it as reassurance and made myself settle back, running my slender toes very lightly across the top of my neglected gift. I had an intense dislike of interruptions, particularly ones that arrived when I had every right to expect some peace and privacy. I’d have to speak to Paul about whom he gave permission to reach us here.
“We’ll meet you in the morning.” This with an abrupt drop in volume as Paul no longer had to compete with Nature. “Bring whatever you have with you.” A pause and another look toward me, this time a considering one. “Yes, she’ll be there, too.”
“She,” I repeated as he ended the link and came back to his seat. “Meaning me.”
“You know Chase.”
I couldn’t help snarling under my breath. I knew Captain Janet Chase: a Human female who thought Paul’s devotion to a shaggy-scaled hunk of Lishcyn a serious drawback to a closer relationship. Chase had been more determined than most of Paul’s acquaintances, a trait which I would have appreciated had I not been the hunk of Lishcyn in question.
Had there been others I didn’t know about? I asked myself suddenly, examining Paul’s now-composed face as if there’d be some clue written in flesh and bone. He’d seemed happy. He had contact with his kind, his own apartment near the shipcity when that contact required privacy. Was it enough? “Does she still want a temp-contract?” I worked at a casual tone. “Or has she found some other interest?”
It didn’t fool him. It never did. “I’m perfectly capable of managing my own affairs, Esen,” Paul answered with predictable impatience, deliberately using the form of my name he saved for our moments alone. “Besides, Chase’s call had nothing to do with me. The Vegas Lass was boarded and searched insystem by Tly inspectors. They confiscated our shipment for Inhaven Prime.”
He didn’t bother describing the shipment, aware I’d know. One of the curses of perfect recall was the perpetual clutter of memory with bureaucracy, including every numerical record that passed over my desk. To avoid undue attention, I made a point of asking staff for information I didn’t need. Paul, on the other hand, had taken years to lose the habit of checking minute details with me rather than carrying around lists, though he’d politely stopped short of using me as a walking calendar.
So I knew the tonnage and type of cargo filling the holds of Captain Chase’s ship this trip as well as any of the comps back at Cameron & Ki: marfle tea, a number of Human-specific antibiotics, some indifferent but pretty porcelains I thought had promise as seasonal goods, the cargo’s bulk a purified chemical catalyst called reduxan 630. All were innocuous, mid-to-low-end sellers in most markets, though we’d been taking advantage of a local rarity of the catalyst, a key industrial import on Inhaven Prime since the Tly had blasted its former source, Garson’s World, out of existence as a source of that or anything else.
It didn’t hurt our busines
s relations with Largas Freight that the founding ship-families had been from Garson’s World. Even fifty years later, the company’s captains took distressing pleasure in any deal that boded loss to Tly.
I fought melancholy, the mere thought of the tragedy enough to call up web-memories of the Human culture of Garson’s, a young, frontier world well on its way to being distinct before its end under the Tly bombardment. I’d had to stop myself from correcting Paul’s children as they learned already corrupted versions of folk songs from their grandfather’s lost home; it would have been impossible to explain how my memory could be better than the original refugees’.
In turn, Tly had suffered to its core in the aftermath of that ghastly mistake. Evidence later proved the attacks against Tly forces, furiously attributed to Garson’s World and the justification for their revenge, had in fact been made by some mysterious creature. It was, of course, mysterious only to those who hadn’t encountered my predatory counterpart. Convicted of destroying an innocent population, Tly’s government had fallen, its military fleet discredited and stripped of its former role, its reputation damaged beyond repair for generations to come. The Guilds and other organizations had surged into the gap until, today, Tly was ruled by a more-or-less stable assortment of merchants, crafters, and crooks of varying abilities and disposition.
Few of which had kind words for survivors and witnesses of the tragedy, such as Largas Freight or, by association, Cameron & Ki. But nothing overt until now. Profits were profits, after all. I’d noticed Humans could be quite pragmatic about their grudges when necessary. Except I doubted the Tly or Garson’s refugees would be so forgiving if they encountered one of my kind again.
Which won’t happen, I promised myself and all Humans, as I had done every day since.
“What excuse did they use?” I said, putting my gift carefully on the side table before rising to pace. This form didn’t stay put well when disturbed, being more inclined to action than thought. “Chase wouldn’t give them cause—she’s by the book.” Considering the type of freighter captains who voluntarily chose the Fringe to work, this was an exceptional quality indeed. Largas Freight had been delighted to find her. Rumor had it, they’d dug up something or other from her past in order to keep her, but such sour tales were cheap out here where every being had something they preferred to leave behind.
“She didn’t want to say much over the com.” He turned one hand over expressively.
I nodded. The in-house system couldn’t be as well-shielded as we’d have liked—such protection could itself arouse the suspicion of the local authorities, or, worse, the interest of those who assumed ideal security went with something ideally worth liberating from its owners.
“So what about the record?”
Paul grimaced. “No luck there. The Tly insisted on filing a smuggling complaint against the ship and against us. Minas Port Authority got it translight before Chase came insystem.”
I didn’t feel the outrage I expected. Lies, undeserved fines, tarnished reputations: these were all quite likely. There was too much furniture in this room, I thought distractedly as I paced around it, and too many connections between us and this life to make any scrutiny, deserved or fabricated, safe.
“We can’t do anything about it tonight, Es,” Paul gently reminded me. “Why don’t you open your present?”
Present? I shook myself free of darker thoughts until my fur fluffed itself with static, and picked up my bag. “You first,” I said, trying to lighten my voice. “For making me wait.”
The Human smiled and put out his hand. I held the bag slightly out of reach, then bent so my nose met the warm, delightfully Paul-scented skin of his palm. I took a quick sniff, feeling him twitch as the breath tickled, then backed away. It was a formal gesture, one of identification and trust. “Here.” I passed him my gift.
Paul’s smile faded into a more thoughtful expression, as though he recognized something special in my gift, as I had in the giving of his. He worked the bag open carefully, pulling out the box. Although the wind chose that moment to attempt to peel a few more layers off the exterior of our house, I could hear his chuckle at the wrapping I’d used.
He unwrapped and opened the box. I sat down on my haunches and rested my chin on his knee, blinking slowly. Would he understand its significance? Could any being not of the Web?
The medallion looked woefully small and unimpressive between his fingers. When the Human didn’t move, I straightened up, searching his face. His expression was oddly unfamiliar: his gray eyes were hooded, his lips worked as though incapable of forming words at first.
“Es—” my name came suddenly as a soft, drawn-out breath. “Is this what I think it is?”
“What do you think it is, Paul-friend?” I asked reasonably, if unsteadily.
If my voice was prone to fluttering at the edges, I had all the response I could ask for in the suddenly husky tones of his: “You. You’ve shared…this is your mass in here…for me, isn’t it? As if I were…as if I were truly your web-kin.”
“Don’t eat it,” I cautioned him hastily. “You know web-mass is corrosive to your tissue.”
Paul smiled, but there was moisture leaking from his eyes. As he seemed to ignore the phenomenon, I didn’t mention it. “Is it alive?” he asked in wonder, supporting the medallion in the palm of one hand. The faint blue glow within the silver showed more clearly against his skin.
I considered the question, feeling the bond between that speck of mass and myself as the faintest of drawings; it would be vastly stronger if I were in web-form. “In a sense,” I said finally. “It could not survive for long outside the cryounit unless I assimilated it. Within the unit, it should last.”
“How long?”
“As long as you wish.” It was part of my gift as well, this power over some of me.
Paul quickly slipped the slim chain over his head. The medallion disappeared beneath his shirt. It should, I thought with pleasure, nestle over his heart, Human anatomy being what it was. “What do I do in return?” he asked, only now noticing the moisture from his eyes and wiping it away with one hand.
I hadn’t thought of that. A true sharing included a precise exchange of each individual’s mass. He’d been the only alien to witness sharing between my web-kin and me, although it hadn’t exactly been such, since Skalet had chewed away most of me before running off to fight her battle. Thinking about that moment, I grinned toothily. “I won’t ask you to donate the tip of a finger for tradition’s sake. I’ll settle for your gift.”
“Done,” Paul said. To his credit, there wasn’t a shred of relief in his voice. “You’ll have to sit—over there.”
Intrigued, I did as he commanded.
The large, flat package was replaced on my lap. This time I didn’t delay, ripping open the wrap. If this was his portion of our sharing, I would give it the respect and attention Paul had granted mine.
Which would have been easier had I known what to make of the plain piece of wood the plas had disguised. I ransacked my memories, and those of my kin, searching for any hint about such a gift and its ceremonial meaning. Nothing. It was a well-polished piece, with rounded corners and a smooth finish. The wood itself was a pale yellow, a native species of hardwood, nothing extraordinary except for its ability to grow almost Human-waist high in the valleys of the southern hemisphere. I flared my nostrils. It smelled like—wood. At last, I gave up trying to guess its meaning and looked up in defeat.
“Place your hands on the outer edges, here and there,” Paul instructed, a smile hovering around his lips but not quite there, as though he were too anxious about my reaction to let it out. “Press firmly, then let it go.”
“Let it go?” I eyed the wood askance, wondering what to expect. But, because Paul had understood my gift, I trusted him with his, and pressed my blunt-clawed toes into what I could now feel were slight indentations in the sides. They felt like ident pads, the sort one used on a personal vault. Keyed to my Lanivarian hands? How had he—
I had no further time nor inclination to wonder about the how, for the wood was now glowing, lifting from my lap and free of my now-limp hands until the slab floated directly before my eyes. Slowly, it tilted in midair until the flat, broad surface faced me. As I took a breath of astonishment, the surface became a flickering screen.
A screen inhabited by a flashing sequence of thirteen thousand and forty-four images, some silent, many with sound. All were faces and forms of Humans, one hundred and ten individuals, differing in most of the ways that species could, yet many cohesive in the line of chin and cheek, mouth and eye, in the creation of smiles or laughter, even in the occasional tear. The voices made a mosaic of languages and tones, greetings, children’s serenades, speeches.
The parade slowed, ending with images of one face: toothless, toothed, gawky, graceful, uniformed, and a last vision that merged with the present as the floating screen consumed itself, its particles falling as a golden dust on my knees and feet, letting me see Paul’s smile.
It had taken less than a minute.
I looked in awe at the quiet, slender being, this ephemeral who understood what I was so utterly, he had known the greatest gift he could give me.
I cycled into web-form, luxuriating in the freedom to do so in his presence, and lovingly sorted Paul’s living history into the most private memories of my flesh.
We had truly shared.
The Web of Esen held two.
Elsewhere
“WE have to dump more of the records to inactive storage, Project Leader Kearn. There’s no room left in the system.” The officer stood carefully at attention but his gaze slid to the crewwoman at his side as if gathering support. “We’ve been telling you for weeks.”
Kearn ran his hand over his damp scalp, torn between glowering at the captain of the Russell III and groveling. “You’ve both also told me you can’t run the pattern analysis on stored data, Captain Lefebvre,” he said, settling for what he hoped was a masterful-sounding rebuttal. He felt at a disadvantage at the best of times: Lefebvre’s appearance—medium height and weight, though strongly built, medium brown hair, unremarkable features, in short, medium everything—had belied his abilities, which started with a brilliant tactical mind and, as Kearn woefully discovered over the years, seemed to include being on good terms with some being in almost every corner of the Commonwealth.
Changing Vision Page 4