“I have my orders, sir,” Lefebvre said, careful to add a tinge of resignation to his voice.
“Then you’ll need permission to break the quarantine on Artos, along with a shovel and a lifetime, Captain, if you expect to find what’s left of Paul Ragem—assuming the bone hunters haven’t found him first and cemented him to an altar. I can’t help you there. Perhaps divine intervention?” Sandner paused. “Tell me. What possible interest can finding Ragem’s corpse be to Kearn? Wasn’t the poor man slandered enough? Think of his family, if nothing else.
Careful, Lefebvre told himself, definitely wary of underestimating this being. “I’m sure it is not Project Leader Kearn’s intention to reopen old wounds, Councillor. Perhaps he has some doubts about the veracity of that—slander—sir.”
Sandner looked startled. Lefebvre held his breath, but instead of replying, Sandner said: “Yes, Tomas?” to another Human who’d opened the door and stood waiting to be noticed, a chauffeur by the look of him.
“You asked to be reminded of your meeting, Councillor,” Tomas replied. He had a bright, friendly face, the sort that didn’t so much suggest intellect as a certain practical knowledge about the world. His red hair looked to have never seen a brush. Still, Lefebvre committed the face and voice to memory, a bit of his patrol training he’d found useful many times.
“Yes, yes. Thanks, Tomas. Pleasure meeting you, Captain Lefebvre,” he said with a firm handshake. Rather than letting go immediately, Sandner’s grip tightened momentarily as if to underscore what he said next. “You can transfer off that madman’s ship, you know. Officers of your ability have—options. Don’t waste your talents chasing fairy tales and ghosts.”
“Yes, sir. Thank you.”
Lefebvre sat back down, watching the door close to leave him alone again in D’Dsel’s Port Authority waiting room.
A high level hint to stop looking for Ragem?
Time he looked even harder.
10: School Afternoon
THE lift doors opened. After checking to make sure my best formal silks weren’t bunched at the waist again, I took a bold step forward into a promisingly ornate lobby area, ready to make first contact with a new species.
Had anyone else been there, it would have been a perfect entrance.
I looked around almost frantically, all the nerve and calm I’d managed to develop on the ride up here spoiled by the anticlimax.
The lobby spread into four broad, tiled corridors from where I stood, each illuminated in differing intensity as if representing dawn, midmorning, noon, and dusk. It was an interesting conceit and one I didn’t remember in a Panacian design before. Still, I thought, it had been fifty years since I’d truly refreshed my knowledge of this culture. Images and reports were nothing compared to being here, as Paul frequently reminded me.
Wherever here was.
There were only two lift doors set into the wall behind me, implying—as I’d guessed—some limitations on who could reach this floor. There was a mirrored surface between them, allowing me to admire the fall of harvest-gold silk around my thick legs, generous slits in the fabric showing a decidedly handsome patterning of scales. I wore a bag, unwilling to be without my light, but it was finely beaded with gold thread to coordinate. Just the touch to complete the look of Esen, diplomat-at-large.
Had there been any beings to diplomat with, I grumbled to myself.
It had taken all of my daring to get this far. It wasn’t fair. At this rate, Paul would step out of the next lift, complete with a swarm of politely offended D’Dsellans, and all I’d have to show for my efforts would be a long, dreary round of apologies.
I flicked my ears toward the nearest corridor. Perhaps, I thought, the Feneden were down there, a little bored, wishing for company. Esen-type company.
I’d remember that thought later.
I chose the farthest, and brightest, corridor to explore first, careful not to flap my feet on the tiles, talking to myself as I went about the odds of being caught, the odds of being embarrassed, and the odds of causing the poor beings’ hearts—or whatever—to fail at the sight of my current form. I ignored myself, driven by a need to learn greater than any curiosity I’d known before.
Of course, they weren’t in the nice, safely bright corridor. All I found were locked doors and a series of stands displaying holos of various buildings—likely those standing on this site in the days before the present structure’s novel permanence. I retraced my steps and considered my remaining choices.
Gritting my tusks, I picked the dusk-lit corridor for my next exploration, on a whim that said anything I wanted was likely to make itself difficult to obtain. It wasn’t easy to convince my Lishcyn-self that keeping my fingers comfortingly on the bag containing my lamp was any substitute for hauling the thing out and sending its broad beam into every dark corner. Which would, I scolded myself, be a touch conspicuous.
I shivered as I walked, judging this a psychological weakness of this form as it responded with nervous tension to the meager lighting, then realizing it was because the corridor was definitely growing colder with each step I took. I thought wistfully of the hagra-hair cloak in my luggage back at the shipcity and shivered even more.
Six locked doors. More stands with holos. I made myself try one more handle, poised to hurry back to the beckoning glow of light and warmth that marked the lobby and lifts.
The door opened.
So did the door to one of the lifts.
Estimating it would take a fit and motivated Human at least five seconds to run this far—considerably more if he picked the wrong corridor—I stepped casually inside my door.
Thankfully, the light was brighter here, allowing me to see quite clearly. My breath condensed in bursts as it left my nostrils, falling to either side of my snout. I was standing within a large room, its walls and ceiling stroked with ocean colors, its floor carpeted in a slimy, almost moist green substance that gave beneath my webbed toes, releasing a mintlike scent when I took an involuntary step forward. There was furniture, but it hung from varicolored straps attached to the ceiling, suspended at differing levels as though floating in midair.
I stared at the Feneden. Three of them reclined in swing-like chairs, rocking gently as they gazed back at me. Two others stood on either side of a hanging table, as though I’d interrupted a game they’d been playing with small figures spaced over its surface.
The image Paul had found hadn’t done them justice. They were uniformly tall and slender, though well within the range of Human sizes. Like Humans, they possessed five-fingered hands, with opposable thumbs. One took a step toward me, a bare, five-toed foot showing briefly beneath the flowing robes. The robes hadn’t been well-represented either. Although unornanented and simple, seen this close they had a subtle shimmer, like moonlight on water, and ranged in color from midnight blue to a deep russet.
By many standards, including mine, the Feneden needed no ornamentation, being beautiful beyond description. Even motionless, they exuded grace and elegance. I felt clumsy, this solid form a weight I’d never noticed before.
The nearest one spoke, a torrent of predictably liquid and lovely sounds that meant absolutely nothing to me. I had to hold my jaw in place, stunned by the realization I didn’t know their language. I didn’t know anything about them.
They were—new.
“Psst.”
Four seconds. I bent one ear back at Paul, the rest of my attention on the Feneden standing before me. That being cooperatively fell silent, watching me out of her wide-set, slanted eyes. The sex was a supposition on my part, but the upper portion of her robe curved out as if flowing over generous mammary organs, while two of the other Feneden were flatter chested and somewhat larger.
Her eyes were fascinating, a central black pupil surrounded by a warm gold-and-black iris. A sudden red flash across her eyes startled me, then I realized with wonder it had been a nictitating membrane, a third and brightly-colored eyelid blinking from the inside corner of each eye to the o
utside. My first impression was that the other facial features were indistinguishable from Human standard, then I noticed the nostrils flaring slightly outward at their bases with each inhalation, the lower skin not attached to the cheek.
What I’d taken for hair was a sort of cilia, a thick, soft growth covering the scalp and neck, forming a living collar. Delicate waves passed through the cilia this way and that, producing a rhythmic effect as though a breeze played with grasses in a field. The cilia themselves were a deep red-brown, striking against the paleness of the skin. The skin itself was almost translucent, the blue-white of old ice, with a faintly pebbled texture as though scaled beneath the surface.
Still, close enough in appearance to the being breathing down my neck to be conceivably mistaken as one of his kind. “I found the Feneden,” I told him breathlessly.
My somewhat unnecessary announcement brought forth another round of speech from the Feneden who had seemingly appointed herself as hostess. Or defender. I wasn’t about to jump to conclusions. The other four had remained exactly where they were and as they were, silent spectators.
The stream of words, rich with upward inflections, began to sound tantalizingly familiar, which wasn’t surprising given that I held hundreds of thousands of languages in web-memory. Not a tongue I knew, but similar to several. I concentrated, striving to pull together a relevant syntax, some commonality. After a few more sentences, the Feneden quieted and stood looking at me. I looked helplessly back.
“Paul Cameron.” Having named himself, with a palm on his chest, the Human put one hand on my shoulder. “Esolesy Ki.” He then moved his hand very slightly in the direction of the Feneden.
Great, I thought in frustration.
This could take a while.
It didn’t take as long as I’d feared, primarily because the Panacians hadn’t been far behind Paul. C’Tlas and N’Klet arrived sometime after our labored introductions, and before we’d really settled the potential confusion of whether Paul and I were different species or members of the same one.
“Fem Anisco,” N’Klet said, bowing deeply at the one Feneden who’d continued her efforts to communicate with us. “Fem Ki, Hom Cameron” this with equally deep bows. So we were supposed to find our way here, I concluded, looking at Paul whose tiny nod confirmed he’d seen it. It was nice not to be in the wrong, especially when I was reasonably certain I had been.
Named, the Feneden before me seemed much more of an individual. Anisco, I repeated to myself, glancing from her to the other four. Despite the impression of uniformity due to the cilia, which was identical on all of them as far as I could tell, there were significant differences in their facial features—again, a trait closer to Human than many other humanoid species. I would have to compare notes with Paul later to see what his species-specific reactions had been.
With the arrival and greeting of N’Klet, another, presumably male, Feneden slipped down from his swing chair and went to what looked like a storage case, also hanging free. I poked my toes surreptitiously into the floor covering, wondering if there was a prohibition against touching the stuff with anything but feet, or if it was simply a matter of protecting the furniture from the dampness.
The case held an unfamiliar device the Feneden gave to Anisco, who took it and slung it by a strap from one shoulder. She then detached a small, boxlike piece to offer me, keeping another, identical piece, poised near her lips. She waited.
I’d stopped shivering, having needed to dump energy as body heat. This close to the Feneden, I had to resist the instinct to change to web-form and nip off a portion of cilia—or anything else in reach, for that matter. The urge to acquire their genetic makeup was incredibly strong. Why? I wondered suddenly, even as I accepted my share of the device.
“Hold it to your ear, Fem Ki,” N’Klet advised, two limbs upraised as though eager to insure I followed her directions immediately. “They have assembled a mechanical correlation between their language and comspeak. It isn’t ideal, but the Commonwealth linguists have been most impressed.” She gave a most uncharacteristic sigh, her faceted eyes glinting as she looked back at the Feneden. “The Feneden are having some—difficulty—learning comspeak.” She left unsaid, but understood, that the Commonwealth linguists were feverishly working to decipher the Feneden tongue.
Paul discreetly adjusted the recorder he carried in one hand, something he took everywhere he traveled in order to bring me the details I craved about distant places and beings. Since I was here, I assumed this recording was either for his own curiosity or so he could argue with me about some aspect of my conduct later.
I raised the Feneden’s gadget, keeping it safely distant from my sensitive ear, then nodded to Anisco in hopes the gesture would be understood.
Her lips uttered her language, while out of the machine, separated by only the slightest of pauses, came: “What are you?” in a flat, mechanical voice. She transferred the device to her ear and nodded to me.
An improvement over “me Es, you Anisco,” I decided, still frustrated by the slowness of this interface. Questions boiled up in me, questions I had no idea if I could or should ask.
Then, the truth hit me. I was reacting like an ephemeral, I realized with a sinking feeling, forgetting all that I was, how I was supposed to be. This wasn’t how a web-being met a new species. When I’d come here, it should have been to watch unobserved, to secretly collect all the information I could about them, to have the protection of knowledge before any direct interaction. Now I was the focus of their attention—they were learning about me as quickly as I about them. I identified the feeling beginning to twist my insides.
Vulnerability.
Which was nonsense, I scolded myself, flipping one ear to catch the reassuring sounds of Paul’s steady breathing to one side, accelerated slightly with excitement. To prove it, I brought the translator to my lips and said slowly: “I am called a Lishcyn, Fem Anisco. My species is from a system very distant from yours and this one.”
Eyelids flashed red, twice. “Why are you here, Lishcyn?”
I put my hand on Paul’s shoulder. “We are interested in trade with your world.”
She didn’t understand, I concluded from the way she reached for the main part of her machine and ran her fingers over some controls. Then she brought the device to her lips again.
“Are you a shifter?”
It was only the unexpectedness of the question that kept me from reacting. Paul had stiffened under my hand. The Panacians folded their limbs in a posture that indicated resignation and patience.
“I don’t understand the question,” I said reasonably, hoping I didn’t.
The other Feneden chose this moment to approach us, forming a semicircle behind Anisco. There was no expression to be understood on their faces, unless the increasing rate at which their eyes blinked that disconcerting red meant agitation.
“Are you a shifter?” she asked again.
C’Tlas made an apologetic gesture with one limb. “There’s an unidentified problem with the translation machine, Fem Ki,” she offered. “We can’t seem to clarify this point. Just say no and she’ll move on.”
I looked at the Feneden, held the device to my lips, and numbly answered: “No. I am not a shifter.”
The Feneden took the device from me and began to pass it to Paul. I closed my fingers around the memory of it, knowing the purity of my genetic disguise, trying to assure myself this was, as C’Tlas said, probably a glitch in translation. Perhaps to them, “shifter” meant someone dishonest or not to be trusted.
On the other hand, “shifter” could refer to web-talents and the device about to be given to Paul could be some kind of detector—
I turned, planning to snatch it from Paul, thinking of the bit of me lying beneath his shirt, but the device, for better or worse, was already in his hand and raised to his ear. I could easily hear what she said.
“What are you?”
Paul’s answer came out twice, overlapping in comspeak and the machin
e’s interpretation. Anisco nodded, asking: “We have met Human. Why are you here, Human?”
Paul repeated what I’d said, keeping it simple. I knew he was as disturbed as I, but his voice was calm, his body language that of friendly respect: modulations of intent lost on the Feneden, but valuable indicators for the Panacians. N’Klet, I was sure, was an expert at reading Humans. No one else would have been assigned to Paul.
“Are you a shifter?”
Over his denial, I felt my temperature soaring. She must have asked this of the other Humans she’d met. So it was something they asked individuals, not just other species as a whole.
The Feneden appeared to relax, the other four returning to their former positions in the room as if we were no longer of interest, or, perhaps more likely, we were now Anisco’s responsibility. Anisco bowed to both of us, a courtesy she might have absorbed from the Panacians, who automatically bowed back. As she dipped her head, I watched with fascination as a series of waves passed through her cilia, forming an intricate pattern wherever the waves met and rebounded.
Paul held out his hand. After a moment’s hesitation, Anisco touched his palm with two fingers. I reached out in turn, even if a Lishcyn’s idea of a handshake involved a genteel clicking of tusks and some mutual salivating.
She touched my palm, as she had Paul’s, then apparently couldn’t resist running her cool fingertips over the rosettes of scales forming my skin. I kept perfectly still, even though it tickled unbearably.
In that moment, I thought I finally understood why my Human friend had chosen a career searching for new species, why he so enjoyed everything about other cultures I showed him. This tentative contact, this mutual strangeness overcome, was incredibly exhilarating. It was also completely terrifying to my web-self. For once, I couldn’t imagine what Ersh would have said.
As if the mere thought of her had been a key, Ersh-memory, immeasurably older than my own, surged up and I was tossed from the here and now…
…to a planet rich with life. Feeling the cunning of a hunter. Prey was everywhere, screaming, running, enticing with its pain and fruitless struggle, the taste overwhelming all other sensations. It was impossible to consume enough, to rip through flesh fast enough to feed that insatiable appetite…
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