I could have used a set of vocal cords, however, in order to tell my partner—from the sounds above, now busily repacking his case and otherwise attempting to conceal any sign he wasn’t alone in his captivity—that he’d been right to suspect we weren’t where we were supposed to be.
My web-self had thoroughly sampled the energy fields around the Narcissus and beyond, deciphering the complexities of electromagnetism and gravity as a Human would hum to a melody played by an orchestra.
There wasn’t a planet or even a star nearby.
Just the well-tuned power signature of a Tly battle cruiser.
Elsewhere
TORTURE would have been so much easier, Lefebvre thought wearily. He could have fought, reviled his tormentors, gained a moral victory from however long he’d resisted. He might have even held out until they believed his protestations of ignorance—not that he considered himself a hero, but surely time wasn’t on anyone’s side. Surely he’d been missed by now.
His fingers traced the pattern left behind by the dispenser in the skin of his forearm, marks of his betrayal. Torture, at least among Humans, had been abandoned as a means of obtaining information except on entertainment vids, where a villain’s threat of physical or mental pain still captivated a certain naive audience. In reality, there were drugs to unlock the tightest lips. The only defense was to prime the individual with a self-destruct—a suicide keyed to the presence of certain foreign substances in the blood.
Significantly less than legal, unless government sanctioned. And, understandably, not an option most career spacers considered.
Lefebvre ground the palms of his hands into his eyes until he saw spots, trying to ease the residual headache. They’d politely offered him painkillers after he’d told them everything they’d wanted to know, given him clean coveralls to replace the uniform that smelled like some distillery—all perfectly professional, nothing personal.
He took it all very personally, from being interrogated under drugs to being held without explanation in this cell, and would have welcomed any chance to express his feelings. There was nothing worth punching in what Lefebvre recognized as a ship’s brig and likely no opportunities in the near future. He’d known from the deepening vibration when they’d shifted to translight.
So close! Lefebvre lunged to his feet and, unsteadily at first, began pacing. After all the years of searching, of dead ends and blind alleys, he’d had Ragem within reach. The Panacian had been the one on the vid—no doubt about that—and it was a Human who’d come to her aid. Had it been Ragem, himself? No way to be sure, Lefebvre admitted, his assailant had been too careful. But Lefebvre knew, thanks to the Ervickian’s information, that Ragem had been using the alias Megar Slothe. The Panacian had known it, too, he’d swear to that. If the Human hadn’t been Ragem himself, Lefebvre was certain the two of them knew where Paul could be found.
All of which, he reminded himself with disgust, was now known to his captors as well. They’d been Human—that much he’d been able to tell, though they’d hidden their identities as individuals behind med-tech hoods and germ-free robes.
Was he being kidnapped by Ragem and his allies? Or by others chasing the Human for reasons of their own?
Lefebvre had a feeling neither group would place any value on his continued existence. But if Ragem was on this ship, he thought with an unsteadying rush of anticipation, he’d find him.
And ask the questions he’d hoarded all these years, starting with: Why?
17: Warship Morning
FROM my web-kin, I possessed a flesh-born legacy beyond price, an awareness of the life around me in the most exquisite detail, a heritage to protect that was vastly more than my life experiences alone.
From the only other one of my kind I’d encountered, Death, I’d gained a legacy of loss, an awareness of my own mortality, and a sickening heritage of hate I seemed unable to avoid no matter where I went.
Such as now. We were on a Tly ship—not just any Tly ship, but one built originally for war and kept, as far as I could tell, much readier for that use than any informant had revealed. Thanks to Death, this society had consumed itself with guilt until all that remained was hollow, driven, and lawless.
I’d come on board simply enough: the Ycl was an ambush hunter, well able to cling as an inconspicuous layer under objects such as Paul’s carrysack. They’d brought us from the Narcissus together, the weight of the bag puzzling the Tly guard assigned to carry it.
Captain Marvin had watched us exit their ship, hands writhing about as though they argued with one another. The debate had obviously not ended in their passenger’s favor for, when Paul attempted one quick appeal as he was pushed toward the air lock, the Cin had turned their broad back on him.
I would remember.
The Tly warship had been renamed The Black Watch, a cheery reference, I presumed, to her supposed function of preventing smuggling. In other words, she carried Tly inspectors whose mission in life, according to Joel Largas, was to aggravate all shipping moving through Tly space and confiscate what they considered contraband—or, to call it what it was, the beginnings of legalized piracy.
The ’Watch had stopped Captain Chase and the Vegas Lass. Under other circumstances, I would have enjoyed a look inside the ship’s holds to see how much of her so-called contraband carried Cameron & Ki labeling.
But cargo was hardly my concern. Paul was.
After boarding The Black Watch, we’d been separated: Paul being led down a corridor Skalet-memory told me led to the outer decks of the ship, likely on his way to a cell in her brig. Officers and crew on a Tly vector-class cruiser were housed within the safety of its core. That’s where Paul’s carrysack, and its passenger, were heading. I clung with every cell, thinking inconspicuous and optimistic thoughts, hoping not to be dropped too heavily to the floor when we reached our destination. It wouldn’t hurt, but it could attract unwanted attention if my edges jarred free and I landed on someone’s foot.
We arrived. The Tly guard deposited the carrysack with reassuring care on top of a long table. I tasted food residue as well as the bitter tang of a caustic cleanser. A galley, but which one? There would have been three in the old days: one for the captain and senior officers, one for the remaining officers, and the largest for the crew, sometimes shared with any troops on board. We hadn’t passed very many individuals on our way here, implying the ’Watch carried less than her potential complement of two thousand plus.
“This was all he had on the Narcissus, sir,” reported the guard to someone beyond the visual range of this form. “In the way of personal belongings, that is. The Captain said Kane ordered a crate of houseplants.” This last was included with every indication of doubt.
“Houseplants, you say,” repeated a very precise, very careful voice, male yet pitched almost in a falsetto, like a child’s. “Odd.”
“Yessir. But we didn’t find any sign of them.”
“Is that, in your estimation, suspicious?”
“No, sir. The Captain of the Narcissus—well, sir. A Cin, sir? I wouldn’t myself put much reliability into their testimony on the matter. It could have been another passenger altogether, frankly, sir, or the Cin’s imaginations.”
The voice appeared to consider this. “Thank you—Guardsman Turner, isn’t it? Manuel Turner?”
“Why, yessir. Thank you, sir.”
“That will be all, Manuel. Please have the med-techs contact me when the prisoner has received his treatment.”
What treatment? I drove my temperature up, holding form with a discipline Ersh herself might have envied, knowing that my only hope of helping Paul lay in self-control. This was no place or time for my usual impulsive approach.
The guard named Manuel left. Footsteps approached. There.
If I had had eyelids, I would have blinked. From the voice, I’d deduced Human, male, middle-aged. From the diction, I’d assumed educated, civilian, mannered.
This Human was male. I’d been right there. But the body il
luminating itself to me in heat and reflected light was gigantic, at the extreme range for most populations of this species, especially among the lightly-built Tly. He was unusually proportioned as well, with arms reaching almost to his knees and hands three times the size of Paul’s. His face beneath a shock of white hair was placid and almost dull, until I observed his blue eyes. I’d seldom seen eyes as coldly intelligent as these.
Great, I grumbled to myself. Just what I deserved for an opponent: a giant genius. I caught myself longing for Kearn.
The giant wore a Tly inspector’s uniform, custom-tailored with a high collar, as if in a vain attempt to disguise a neck thicker than Paul’s thigh. This inspector had not boarded the ’Lass, I decided. Captain Chase would have definitely mentioned this being.
He reached one of those mammoth hands toward the carrysack. I began to think furiously, and futilely, of a way to casually plop to the floor when he lifted the bag. Before it came to that, the com panel chirped: “Inspector Logan. We have a problem.”
The hand retreated, taking its shadow with it. I would have sighed if I could. As Logan walked over to the panel, I relaxed my adhesion to the bag and oozed off the table to the floor. Just my luck. This was the captain’s galley and the floor was carpeted in lush proto-grass—a not-quite living material that felt wonderful to Human feet and formed an endless-seeming obstacle course to me. Grimly, I thinned myself as much as possible and began forcing my way through the dense network of fibers toward the kitchen entrance to this room, making sure to stay beneath the long table. Meanwhile, I listened intently.
“The new subject you brought—he’s not going to be as straightforward to deal with as the other one.”
Other one? I wrapped a filmy pseudopod around a chair leg as I paused to listen and rest.
“May I inquire as to the reason, Med-tech Burroughs?” I still found the giant’s voice chillingly incongruous. In my expert opinion, it was both higher-pitched and softer than should have issued from those outsized body parts. It was either an affectation or the result of some internal defect. No matter which, although the words were polite, there was nothing about the voice itself that was pleasant.
“This one’s had the full set of anti-measures, sir. We’ve nothing that will get answers without killing him first.”
Skalet-memory rolled up, dispassionate in its experience, letting me decipher their cryptic terms into meanings too terrible for Esen alone. They had planned to use truth drugs on Paul; they couldn’t, because Paul’s body had been altered to suicide automatically in response.
When had Paul done this to himself? I compressed myself into a dense little ball of dismay.
I did know why: to keep our secrets.
To protect me.
“Thank you for your report,” Logan said in his soft, terrible voice. “Please have my guest transferred to the waiting area. And, Med-tech Burroughs?”
The voice from the comp sounded cautious, perhaps expecting to be blamed for failure. “Yes, sir?”
“Please insure there is a trauma bed and the appropriate staff available at all times until you hear otherwise.”
“But that’s only done during battle sims—sir.”
I could see Logan’s feet. He tapped the right one, just once, as if this was the only physical expression of a vast impatience he would allow himself. His voice, as before, was carefully precise and even. “I do not wish to lose this particular guest. We will be proceeding with less traditional methods. Your services may thus be required at some point, Med-tech Burroughs. Urgently. I trust you and your staff will be ready?”
“Yes, sir. I apologize for the misunderstanding, Inspector. We will be at your disposal.”
“Thank you.”
I didn’t need Skalet’s dark knowledge to interpret this exchange for me. Many otherwise intelligent cultures devoted time and effort to learning how to take one another apart as slowly and painfully as possible. Humans were not alone in that despicable accomplishment. They were, I thought bitterly, among the more proficient.
I could hear Inspector Logan beginning to go through the contents of Paul’s carrysack. I had no idea what he’d make of the combination of Lishcyn-sized silks and biodisrupter, but the longer he puzzled over it the better. I did know that Paul dropped the mail pouch and its contents into the cabin’s recycler before he was taken from the Narcissus.
No time to think of him now, I admonished myself, peeling my pseudopod from the chair leg and pushing my tissues through the sticky morass of carpet. My goal was ahead of me. I had to pass unnoticed into the kitchen.
What I’d do after that, I refused to consider.
Elsewhere
“THEY wouldn’t have cleared the Russell III for launch, otherwise, sir.”
Kearn caught his fingers drumming on his desktop and clenched them together fiercely. Almost of their own accord, his hands broke free from one another and began rubbing over the skin of his smooth head, as if searching for nonexistent hair to punish. “I don’t want her snooping around, Timri. You know the Ambassador caste are no more than spies for the Hive. I don’t see why we had to allow N’Klet on board at all.”
“Sec-ag T’Pleck insisted, sir,” Timri said louder, as if for some reason the comp-tech thought Kearn was hard of hearing.
He heard perfectly well. He felt oppressed, as if the ventilators weren’t working properly and his office was short of air. Her attitude wasn’t helping. “What is N’Klet doing now?” he worried out loud. “What is she up to?”
“She’s waiting to talk to you, sir. As she has since coming on board.”
“Then she can keep waiting! I’m Acting Captain and very busy. Lefebvre’s desertion has left everything to me—at a very difficult time—at a moment of crisis!”
Timri shifted but remained silent. Kearn looked up at her suspiciously, wishing she’d sit down instead of making him crane his neck. Probably deliberate.
The Feneden—the glorious Fem Anisco herself—had urged him, tactfully and with respect, not to speak to any Panacian, especially those from the School. The poor beings were clearly being persecuted by the Panacians, who were out to take advantage of their ignorance of the Commonwealth and the alien civilizations around them. Anisco had confessed they feared Kearn, the Shifter Hunter, would be influenced against them.
Kearn had no intention of listening to lies about his newfound friends, so it was with complete dismay he learned that Timri had taken advantage of the nap he’d desperately needed to allow N’Klet on the Russell III.
All he could do was pretend she wasn’t there—which he had done for over a day now—destroying any messages and refusing to see the upstart D’Dsellan.
“How are the Feneden?” he asked, feeling less alone the moment he spoke the name. At last, true believers had joined his quest. Kearn shivered. Although they’d brought shattering confirmation of his worst nightmares about the Esen.
So far, only he and Timri knew the Feneden’s legend of the Shifter: the monster of many shapes who appeared as a stranger to consume the unwary. At first, Timri had refuted any connection, having witnessed the destruction caused by the Esen Monster in space and convinced it had nothing in common with another old tale. Then the Feneden had showed them both an illustration from one of the ancient texts they had brought as sample goods: an illustration of a cobalt-blue teardrop, its surface split into a gaping maw, lined with horrific fangs and stuffed with the heads of still screaming victims.
Then Timri had agreed.
“The Feneden haven’t left their quarters, sir. I’ve stationed someone at their door at all times. In case they have requirements,” Timri added smoothly, before Kearn could protest her posting what amounted to a guard on his special friends.
“Very good,” he said, as if she wanted his approval. Although Kearn had officially appointed himself Acting Captain the moment the Russell III lifted from D’Dsel, leaving Lefebvre planetside, he knew perfectly well the crew had unofficially appointed Timri. It was tacitly un
derstood that Kearn could remain Acting Captain as long as he didn’t try to run the ship. Sas, who might otherwise have supported Kearn’s authority in some things, had taken to his quarters—inconveniently and violently allergic to their new guests. Apparently, the Feneden gave him a rash. As the Modoren aged, Kearn had noticed, more things did.
Timri could run the ship, Kearn told himself, just as glad to avoid dealing with the minutiae of crew assignments and complaints. Until they reached Fened Prime and he began the glorious task of gathering evidence.
Evidence to prove once and for all the existence of the Esen Monster.
18: Galley Morning
MY former Web had existed as six distinct personalities, separate most of our lives yet connected by the sharing of web-mass and memory. I felt the loss of the others as an amputation might feel to those with permanent limbs—only a ghost remained of what had been mine, a memory of ability and substance.
My memories were, however, perfect. At a whim, I could be embarrassed—and moved—by Ansky’s parade of love affairs, know her passion to understand the interactions between thinking organisms; I could gaze in awe at Mixs’ designs and feel her cold, clear patterns of thought; I could hear and almost share Lesy’s laughter. Underlying what they had been and what I was, I carried within my flesh memories of Ersh, first of us all.
But what I needed now were the least comforting memories, those of Skalet. She had found her niche with those species compelled to war and struggle, a specialty suited to her logical and detached mind. Until her death, she had lived among the Kraal, earning and enjoying a reputation as one of their greatest military theorists. I had been Skalet’s punishment whenever Ersh felt our web-kin in danger of straying too far from our great purpose. She’d be summoned by Ersh to teach me this or that about our Rules, under the guise of drilling some of her vast store of knowledge about strategy and planning into my frivolous young mind.
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