Changing Vision

by Julie E. Czerneda

  Or by hysteria, I admitted to myself, given that I’d been frozen in place as the drones dragged Paul away.

  The Panacians, taking my lack of reaction for shock—which it was—and innocence—which it wasn’t—had fussed over me, assuring me I was in no further danger from the Human. They’d carefully escorted me back to my rooms. And locked the door.

  To give the beings credit, they expected me to stop a war and save them from having to join it. Any guilt associated with the Ki half of Cameron & Ki could be put into perspective, or at least aside until later.

  Guilt. I was awash in it, floating on waves of anguish that made the merely physical complaints of my stomachs beneath contempt. I’d done exactly what Paul would have wanted me to do and had repeatedly told me to do—play the innocent, let them prove I was anything beyond what they saw. It didn’t help. The drones had been polite, but their claws were servo-strong. If I closed my eyes, I could see Paul’s involuntary flinch as they’d gripped his arms.

  What were they doing to him? My common sense, and understanding of the very civil nature of Panacians, assured me Paul was simply sitting in his own room, door locked, awaiting a visit from whatever official the Queen decided should know about her catch. She might wait for a genetic I.D. No, I thought. P’Lka knew who she had in her claws.

  Would she have cared, I asked myself bitterly, if it hadn’t been for Kearn? Paul’s former captain had spent the last few decades here and elsewhere making a fool of himself chasing my shadow. In the process, he’d ruined his own career, probably to the lasting benefit of the Commonwealth and anyone who might have had to serve under him, but unfortunately he’d succeeded in one thing. Kearn had managed to place the blame for almost everything Death accomplished in its killing spree on Paul and me. As Ersh had taught me, with ephemerals it didn’t matter what was true, but what was heard most often.

  I’d found Kearn’s collection of fantasy and rumor about shapeshifters mildly amusing at first, until I realized it attracted enough funding to keep Kearn hobbling through the galaxy as my personal curse.

  Thank Ersh, I thought, Kearn wasn’t here. Our latest report on the madman had him trolling for his monster and boring university professors near Picco—there was no reason for him to divert to Panacia.

  Should I have seen the danger to Paul here? I was usually willing to take what blame I deserved, having had practice, but this time I didn’t see what I could have done differently. Few, if any, Panacians troubled themselves to remember the faces or names of aliens. P’Lka must have believed every lie Kearn had told her about Paul Ragem, including the one that Paul had brought Death in the form of my harmless Ket-self to her world, implicating us both in the death of Sec-ag Mixs C’Cklet, my web-kin.

  It was the latter which doubtless had burned Paul Ragem’s name and face into P’Lka’s memory: a murder she could have believed partly her fault.

  Still, the odds of a Queen meeting a Human face-to-face were…Well, I sighed to myself, maybe they were a bit better when I was involved.

  Choices. I stood up, surveying the room. As Lishcyn, I was stuck here. As a Panacian, I was not. On the thought, I cycled, releasing my hold on this form, hurrying through my web-self into something quite different.

  My caftan drifted to the floor and I kicked it aside, taking a few seconds to reacquaint myself with this form. I held out my four upper limbs, twisting them so their deep, metallic blue caught the light. Lovely, logical, graceful—it had been, I thought with guilty delight, too long.

  The door had been locked against thick-fingered Esolesy Ki. With usual Panacian ingenuity, it wasn’t locked at all against a tapered claw, finely serrated at its tip. Insert and twist, and I was free.

  Paul’s quarters were on the same floor. I headed toward them, being careful to walk with the expected poise of an Ambassador. I kept to the G’Rir, the imaginary line right of center; so any Panacian would choose, in order to walk in the steps of those before.

  Haste. There was the burn of anxiety through the sensitive organs on my soles. Identity: C’Tlas. The comforting spice of a previous, more leisurely journey down the hall underlay that message. The floors were scoured in nightly ritual, but not before a Rememberer wandered slowly down every corridor, imprinting the passages taken in memory. Such information helped assess the health of the Hive, its activity, and its future.

  It also made urban planning a great deal more responsive to those living in it, I recalled from Mixs-memory.

  The trail I was leaving behind would taste of apprehension, and worst of all, be that of a stranger. Clear threat to the Hive instincts. It wouldn’t help that it began in a room where a guest of the house disappeared.

  Time to worry about the finer points of my rescue after finding Paul.

  The agitation of the Queen must have surged throughout the building, drawing all to her side; I met no one, not even the staff who appeared to live in the kitchen area. Her pheromones of alarmed fury would easily overwhelm all other drives, and I’d braced myself for their impact as well, but the air scrubbers had already been at work—automated compensation for her emotional storm.

  Congratulating myself on avoiding detection, I passed the lifts, heading for Paul’s rooms, when the nearest door whooshed open beside me. Timing, I scolded myself, was everything, preparing for flight.

  “Pardon me, Fem,” came a voice wheezing with excitement. “Can you tell us the way to the rooms of Fem Esolesy Ki? The Feneden tell me she’s remarkably good at understanding them even through their translator. We’re trying to work on some specific meanings here and—”

  This form had exceptional peripheral vision. Without turning my head, I could look full into the sweating, eager face of my very own nightmare—Lionel Kearn. All five Feneden stood behind him in the lift. Three carried objects I was quite sure the panacians would strenuously object to having in their building, as blasters did a nasty amount of collateral damage if fired indoors.

  I raised a lower limb, gesturing helpfully back down the corridor. Then, before he could ask me anything further, I hurried on my way.

  Paul didn’t utter a word when I opened his door. Instead, he grabbed a bag he’d already packed and motioned me to lead. I swallowed what I’d planned to say, drawing in a deep breath through my spiracles and feeling it reduce the heat building in my limbs. “This way,” I told him. “Quickly.”

  He knew me, part of me exulted, regardless of form. Even among web-kin, unless the form-self was in memory, identification required one to be in web-form, or physical contact.

  Who else would disobey the Queen and let him out? the more sensible part of me argued.

  I hurried Paul to the lift, not bothering to tell him why. He’d learn for himself if we failed to move faster than Kearn and his new friends. The Feneden and Kearn? A wonderful combination for bedtime stories, I thought savagely. How had those two come together—and why now?

  We careened into the lift I wanted, and I hit the control to send it rocketing downward. Suddenly, I bent over, doubling up in pain. I felt Paul’s arms go around my shoulders. I tried to stand with his help, then gasped as another torrent of agony swept me to my first knees.

  Somehow Paul got me out of the lift when we reached our destination. Dimly, I saw him choose a few more settings to send the lift on its way, before stepping out. I was too preoccupied to care. He half-carried me along a night-darkened corridor, thankfully confident of where we were going.

  “Stop. I have to stop,” I gasped after a few steps, ready to scream at the startling pain each movement caused. Paul let me slip down against a wall. We were out of sight from the lifts, at least, but in no place of safety. “I don’t know what’s happening—”

  My next breath roared in, out of control, expanding every part of me until I felt like a balloon about to explode. My hold on this form started slipping and I clamped down. Some instinct told me I had to endure this, but I wasn’t sure I could.

  Paul dug his fingers into my upper shoulder blade
and put his foot against my side. I wrenched my head around to stare up at him in horror. Before I could so much as whimper, he pulled as hard as he could and ripped off my upper arm.

  “Better?” he gasped, laying down what was in reality only the dulling shell of my limb, complete with joints and glistening inner ligaments.

  I did whimper, then, finally comprehending what was underway at the most inconvenient time possible.

  I was molting.

  Which wasn’t possible! I fussed, while suffering exactly how possible it was. By my relative age in this form, I shouldn’t go through my first molt for another sixty standard years—or maybe more. I was too young for this!

  Paul, not privy to my inner arguments as to why this couldn’t be happening, was busy preparing to help me out of yet another painfully constricted part of my outer skin. Rip. Off came another limb. The fresh shell beneath was flexible for only the next breath, expanding with the inhalation, then setting itself into my new proportions. Rip. While Paul tugged on one of my legs as though it were an overly tight boot, I found myself flexing back and forth at my waists. The splitting of a seam up both thorax and abdomen relieved so much pain, I felt my upper arms jump into a laugh.

  By the end, after what felt like an hour but doubtless took only minutes, Paul and I sat side-by-side, backs against the wall, our feet resting on discarded Esen bits, panting companionably. He was drenched with sweat, and both hands bore light gashes from the sharp edges of my old carapace. I was delirious with the feel of my brand-new self, and not interested in moving any time soon.

  Which, of course, we had to do.

  Paul knew it, too, asking: “All right now?” in that tone that made it a preliminary to “get up.”

  We helped each other rise to our feet, taking turns and being equally careful of new or damaged body parts. “How did you know?” I asked him, looking down with fascination at what resembled me after being sucked empty by a vampire orchid, complete with a head bearing transparent domes where my faceted eyes should gleam.

  “How’d I know what to do?” Paul gave a brief laugh, a slightly wild note to the sound. “During training, I had a Carasian roommate: Reeto. Believe me, this was nothing compared to his molt. Took a case of beer to bribe three other guys to help; at that, we needed to liberate some power tools before we cracked the main claws. ’Course, the next day, Reeto had the gall to tell us he could have done it on his own—he’d let us peel him as a joke.”

  Humor, I wasn’t fooled. Paul commonly used this method to recover his composure. Of course, I thought, my news wouldn’t help.

  I drew my Human close, wrapping all four arms around his soft warmth as though my hardening shell could protect us both. “What’s this for?” Paul asked, patting what he could reach with a free hand. “You could have managed without me, too. And just because the Queen thinks she recognized—”

  “Kearn’s here. With the Feneden,” I confessed into his ear, as though a whisper was easier.

  Had I thought the Human’s body soft against my hardness? Under my claws, Paul seemed to solidify, to become metal rather than flesh. Gently, he pushed me away and reached for his bag, his voice deliberate and cool: “Then there is only one way out of here, Esen old bug.” This with a wave down the hall.

  “The Iftsen,” I said, looking toward what was more air lock than door.

  “The Iftsen.”

  Elsewhere

  “THERE. How does that feel?”

  Lefebvre rolled his head from side to side, gradually becoming aware of more than the voice. He was lying down, he realized. He’d been walking. Once the implications of that hit him, Lefebvre surged upward in dismay, only to collapse back onto pillows as his head exploded.

  “Wahk…” his mouth felt full of grit. He ran a tongue over his teeth—they were all in place—and forced his eyelids to open. A tube ran across his focus, confusing him until he realized it was aimed at his lips. He bit down on it and sucked enough moisture to clear his throat. “What happened?”

  “Quite the vacation,” came an unsympathetic voice—Timri’s, Lefebvre identified, trying to see her through the haze in front of his eyes. “I’d say a blister stick, right across your face. Watch it—” This as Lefebvre attempted to move his hands, sending flashes of white-hot agony racing up the outer nerves of his arms. “Looks like you took a few shots on the hands, too—or were stupid enough to grab for it. I take it you don’t remember.”

  His proof! Fighting the pain—the nerve trauma left by a blister stick was meant to be temporarily incapacitating to most life-forms, not cause permanent damage, although right now, Lefebvre couldn’t have told the difference—he clawed his way up to his elbow, peering over the side of what he barely could make out as a med room cot. “My things—” he ground out.

  “They were pretty thorough.” She sounded almost cheerful. “I put a remote searching for your credit chip. Should protect some of your savings, unless they nip through it all before the cancel locks in.”

  “My clothes?” Lefebvre’s vision improved enough to see Timri shake her head sadly. His heart sank.

  “They must have had good taste.” She pointed to a stool with a pile of clothing. “You can thank Graham later for getting the filthy things off—I wasn’t going to touch them.”

  He let out a shuddering breath and eased himself back down. From the feel of it, he’d been hit across the back of his thighs as well, a blow that probably dropped him to his knees instantly. The last thing he remembered was walking from the bar. The street had been busy enough—not that even quiet D’Dsel’s shipcity ever closed down tight. There were too many ships arriving at all hours with planet-starved crews. Had the Ervickian set him up for the robbery? It was possible—even likely.

  Lefebvre had only himself to blame and did so with a fury. He wasn’t usually an easy mark; today’s unexpected triumph had probably made him act like some newbie begging to be rolled. Probably lucky to be this intact, he told himself, but it wasn’t any comfort.

  “Rest while you can,” Timri said, turning down the lights. “Kearn’s reported in—babbling something about these Feneden and how they’re going to help. I couldn’t get him to make any sense. He’ll be boarding any time now, and he won’t be happy to find his Captain dragged in from some alleyway by Port Authority. And—” this with the spite of someone who’d had to stay behind and work, “—you stink of beer.”

  Lefebvre grunted something Timri could interpret however she liked. He closed his eyes as if taking that advice, anxious for her to leave. The moment he heard the door whoosh shut, he fought his way to his feet and staggered over to his discarded clothing. His eyes watered from the searing pain as he desperately ran his hands over the mud-crusted fabric, digging into the various pockets.

  The Ervickian’s cubes were gone. Lefebvre knelt by the stool, supporting himself on his elbows as his entire body shook uncontrollably, every nerve protesting. Maybe, he told himself dully, I can find Able Joe again, buy another copy.

  Leave the Russ’? Not likely, with what Timri said about Kearn.

  Fearing the worst, Lefebvre forced his fingers deep inside that one pocket, despite the sensation of poking his hand into fire. They hadn’t found it. His key. Somehow, he worked it free. Having nowhere safer to hide it, he made himself find some medplas and affixed the tiny scrap with its priceless information to his ribs.

  Only then, did Lefebvre gave himself permission to collapse back on the cot and start cursing.

  14: School Night; Starship Midnight

  THE Iftsen had been favorites of Lesy, for more reasons than their broad-minded gallery policies.

  For one thing, they didn’t bother with social niceties. Any of them. Paul and I had been able walk right into what probably constituted the official Iftsen Embassy on D’Dsel—having donned the e-rigs hanging in the air lock—and become two more in the crowd without causing any stir whatsoever.

  Not that the current crowd was in much shape to notice our arrival, I decided
, doing my best to assess the situation through the curling smog of sulfur dioxide and just about anything else noxious an oxy-breather could imagine, all components of what the Iftsen considered fresh air. Technically, they did breathe in oxygen and breathe out carbon dioxide, so by definition were theta-class beings; the Iftsen had merely evolved within a more challenging mix than most. There were very good reasons why certain industries preferred Iftsen workers over any other. When they could get the Iftsen to pay attention, that is.

  Which was one of the other things Lesy had loved. To the Iftsen, life appeared to be one long drawn-out party. Paul and I stepped over bodies rolling on the floor, dodged what might have been a fight but was more likely an argumentative dance, and finally wedged ourselves as far from the air lock as possible.

  Paul touched his helmet to mine, gray eyes reflecting silver from its interior light. “This ought to slow them down anyway.” Them, I assumed, including just about everyone else in the School. His voice was muffled, but clear enough. We’d agreed to avoid the com systems in the e-rigs, just in case.

  I nodded, trying to spot the First Citizen. There was always one Iftsen stuck with the job of remaining sensible and in charge while the others cavorted.

  “How’s the molt?” Paul asked, poking a finger in the general vicinity of my abdomen. The extra two arms on his suit stuck out, courtesy of having the former contents of Paul’s carrysack shoved into them. It gave him a certain rakish look for a Panacian, somewhat appropriate given our hosts.

  “Fine,” I said, feeling no more than a pleasantly weary tingle, as though I’d stretched all of my muscles at once. Which, I supposed, I had.

  An Iftsen rocked past, waving a gallant pseudolimb in our direction. Judging by its protruding forehead, it was presently male—a variable state among this species—and Nabreda. Due to the fragmented geography of their world, and their own good nature, the Iftsen had managed to preserve several side branches of their species, unlike the evolutionary carnage of my Human companion’s lineage. Some Iftsen branches were more stunted than others, as the expression went, and several subspecies spent most of their time dodging into holes in the ground whenever startled.