A suspicious being, Kearn thought, might believe Ragem had rented multiple rooms under his alias to confuse pursuit. He didn’t like the idea that logically followed: that Ragem knew he was being chased and probably wouldn’t use any of those rooms.
“Ashtst!” This satisfied sound from Sas, as the door swung open, coincided perfectly with a shouted “Stop!”
Kearn whirled to find the previously empty corridor now filled by Port Authority in full riot gear, running toward them. He took a couple of steps back from Sas, attempting to look horrified. “Stop!” he echoed loudly. “What do you think you are doing?”
Sas, with the agility of his kind, had already leaped up, lips curled back from his formidable natural armament. He snarled and spat, but the curses didn’t render as much more than crackling through the implant in his furred throat. Kearn took the meaning, and backed away even more as Port Authority surrounded them both.
“What is the meaning of this?” he shouted, shaking his arm from the grip of a guardsman. “Don’t you know who I am?” Kearn regretted the lack of uniform more than ever.
“Why, yes, sir. We do,” came the surprising answer.
“Y-you do?” Then Kearn’s blood turned to ice in his veins as he stared past the dozen or so who’d trapped him to the ring of curious onlookers beyond.
A tall, dark-haired, familiar Human sketched a mocking salute before fading into the crowd.
Ragem!
Kearn felt his heart almost stop and his eyes bulge as he tried to look everywhere at once.
Where Ragem was, the Esen Monster was sure to come.
38: Seaside Afternoon; Shuttle Afternoon
I MISSED Paul. I missed the Herd. Let’s face it, I told myself dolefully, there were definite reasons why almost all intelligent species were social. Even the Web had been communal—albeit a deliberate evolution rather than innate. The Human saying: misery loves company, came to mind, but I dismissed it. I wasn’t miserable. I was Esen the diplomat. Esen the daring!
I couldn’t help but add to my list: Esen who hoped she knew what she was doing.
I checked the groundcar settings again, needlessly, but compelled by some inner restlessness to constantly verify my location. My Feneden-self appeared instinctively wary of being lost. As this was a sensible concern on a strange planet, I approved.
Not that I could get lost here, I thought, admiring the immense shadows cast by the overarching leaves, each larger than my vehicle. It might be day-dim, but I’d know my way along this road in the dead of night. My own memories of Brakistem and the shore of the lovely, dark Bridklestet were as vivid as if I’d just lived the moments. Away from the changes wrought by the Iftsen, the landscape seemed reassuringly eternal.
Maybe that’s where the loneliness came from—remembering. I’d come with Lesy twice, Ansky once, Mixs three times. Skalet never, since she’d been uncomfortable in a culture that valued disorderly behavior. I hadn’t come with Ersh either, but that was a different matter. Ersh traveled, but always alone and in secret—a caution so much a part of her that none of us found it curious, and only I had to endure. I literally matured in Ersh’s shadow, knowing at any moment, on any world, if I made a mistake, she’d most likely be somewhere close enough to know. As if, I now believed, she’d sensed from the beginning I was like her, and could hide certain memories from the others when we shared flesh. So she’d been forced to keep her eye, or whatever, on me as much as possible.
Her subterfuge had, I remembered, rather fondly, led to my early conviction that no matter how I tried, Ersh could read my most secret misdeeds right out of my mass, so I might as well confess immediately. It had taken me until my third century to discover her method and know for sure I could have a private self. As long as Ersh wasn’t watching.
I sighed, feeling not so much grief as a distinct longing for the days when there was someone older and wiser to catch my mistakes. You never know what you’ll miss most, I thought.
The road wound around small hills, echoing the passage taken by the streams of not-quite water. Those gleamed, unshadowed by foliage. Then again, life at the active interface between Iftsen Secondus’ atmosphere and any exposed solvent required adaptations to keep one’s body parts from becoming part of the reactions. The skin bits the Iftsen shed everywhere they went made perfect sense here—as well as forming the basis of a not-inconsiderable food web.
All of which would be much more enjoyable if I wasn’t sending the groundcar careening around each lazy corner at its maximum speed. The meandering Iftsen road didn’t have a shuttle to catch. Hopefully, I still did.
Paul should have my message by now, I estimated, proud of this mature and thoughtful gesture on my part. Don’t worry, was the gist of it. Of course, there was as much chance of Paul not worrying as there was of my making sense of the fragmented and diffuse images picked up by the oculars on my head.
I’d tried using my hands to push the squirming cilia out of the way. It hadn’t made any difference I could detect.
What should make a difference was my arrival at the shuttle. I had thought very carefully this time and hadn’t found any reason why this shouldn’t work. After all, I reassured myself, Logan had wanted to meet a Feneden.
He didn’t have to know I wasn’t one.
I made the last turn, relieved to see the plain and ugly lines of a Tly personal transport shuttle caught among the dappled shadows, then alarmed to notice the shoreline mere steps beyond it. The shoreline had undoubtedly been much farther away when they’d landed the craft here. The Bridklestet might be shallow, but it had tides nonetheless. I hurried to pull the groundcar alongside the shuttle.
So far, so good. The Black Watch was unlikely to be in orbit. The Iftsen might ignore starships landing on their world, but, unlike Minas XII’s, Upperside’s Port Authority took traffic control quite seriously. So this shuttle was the only way I could find the ’Watch and the repulsive Logan. Who, I said to myself quite cheerfully, was a being definitely both able and motivated to find the Iftsens’ planet-killing weapon, especially when accompanied by his new ally—an ally who had a reasonably accurate idea of where, in the sunward asteroid belt, the Iftsen had hidden their ultimate defense.
What I could do about the weapon once we found it was something I intended to leave up to Skalet’s ample memories of such devices. As for what I could do about Logan? I smiled with anticipation.
I keyed open the groundcar’s roof and sat looking around, exhibiting a reasonable amount of caution. Logan had to be watching this area. He would have expected a ’digger full of Ganthor to bring me; a ’digger full of surprised and displeased Ganthor once they realized they were about to be left behind on Iftsen Secondus by their employer. So what had he planned? To talk them into heading back to the shipcity and buying tickets home? That didn’t seem Logan’s style.
There had to be a trap. Reluctantly, I laid Skalet-memories of less honorable tactics over my Feneden-perceptions of this peaceful setting. As I did, the Bridklestet lapped a little closer to the landing gear, a gentle background hiss as her acidic waters etched the salt-crusted shoreline. Deception on all sides, I thought, gazing along the lines of froth repeating the curve of shore in both directions.
I shut down the groundcar, listening. Other than its fading hiss, and a faint susurration as hundreds of huge leaves slowly twisted to steal more of the cloud-filtered light from the neighbors, all was quiet. Too quiet. There should have been cranes whistling like giddy lunatics in the distance. At the very least, once the machine had stilled, the air should have hummed with the ever-present droning of griffids—tiny herbivores who lived out their lives attached to a single leaf until it died and fell to the ground, giving them the opportunity to lay their eggs at the tree base before scampering up to fasten on a fresh feeding ground.
The griffids were here. I could see dozens hanging above me, their bodies suspended from feeding appendages drilled into the massive ribs of the leaf, rows of beady eyes fixed on me. Their bladders
were collapsed within their lower limbs as they held their breath, becoming as inconspicuous as possible. Something had scared them, recently and badly.
My hands had difficulty with the door latch, trembling in a reflex I did my best to ignore. Although I didn’t see anything I could identify as alarming, this form was strangely on edge, as though something was hiding behind me, ready to spring.
If being Feneden wasn’t an essential part of my plan, by now I’d have gladly cycled into just about anything else. Even my Ket-self had been steadier, which was, I thought, saying a lot.
My body temperature rose involuntarily, the dump of energy helping me control my instincts to change. This had the surprising effect of sending my cilia flailing wildly about, responding to the heat rising from my skin: a conclusion I arrived at somewhat later. My first reaction was to thump the side of my helmet to settle them down.
While that didn’t happen, something else did. The helmet, formerly completely transparent, suddenly displayed an arc of tiny, brilliant specks over my head. Stars, I realized, completely distracted by finally receiving a meaningful image through my upper oculars. It blended within my awareness of my surroundings as the rumble of distant thunder could be recognized while listening to music. Polarized light, recited something that tasted of Ersh in my thoughts. Other memories floated past: this was how the Feneden oriented themselves on their world, a sense so vital to their awareness of place and self that I guessed the e-rig’s helmet was preset to display stars where none could be seen.
Where none could be seen. I tucked the thought away, aware of connections making themselves in my innermost memories, not ready to be distracted.
I did feel better, I admitted. As I cooled, the currents through my cilia eased as well. There were other displays, starting to fade. I tapped the helmet again, very lightly, and the depictions of various gauges and controls brightened immediately. I shook my head, chagrined at this proof of one of Ersh’s many rules, namely: Never use unfamiliar technology. As if there’d been an owner’s manual, I grumbled, but took a moment to examine what the suit was telling me. Other than the stars, which only showed to my upper eyes, the rest was reasonably standard stuff. One thing relieved me. This e-rig appeared to have been serviced recently, implying I didn’t need to worry about running out of breathable air.
Because the air outside the suit was anything but, and getting worse. It was growing darker—something this form apparently didn’t mind, now that I could show it some fake starlight—and the corrosive evening mists were beginning to drift down from the treetops. The forest was ready, the edges of each huge leaf already perceptibly curling into their protective night roll, inadvertently protecting their parasitic house guests along with their own tender undersides.
I climbed out of the groundcar and headed for the shuttle, examining the ground carefully before each step. I hadn’t yet spotted Logan’s welcome for the Herd, which didn’t reassure me at all.
In unnecessary confirmation I was being watched, the shuttle’s engines powered up, startling in the silence, and the door whooshed open. Given the proximity of the rising water to the craft, and the approaching nightfall, I got the hint. They wanted me to hurry. Fine, I thought, but kept to my deliberate pace. If they wanted a Feneden this badly, they could wait.
My care paid off. As I stepped on the ramp, my cilia collected a burst of heat energy. I paused, looking upward, my Feneden-sense revealing a ring of hovering warm objects my eyes couldn’t see. Antipersonnel mines, Skalet-memory cataloged and explained. Hidden when dormant. Deadly when activated.
They could, I remembered with a shudder, be set to hunt by species. Had the Ganthor refused to listen to me and come along— I stopped my imagination in its tracks.
As I entered Logan’s shuttle and the door closed behind me, I began to seriously doubt my ability to deal with such a being.
It was, of course, too late to change my mind.
Elsewhere
“YOU!”
Of all the beings who might have interceded with Port Authority, not that he’d expected any rescue, Kearn had never imagined N’Klet. Yet he’d been freed from the holding brig almost immediately, whisked through procedures with a speed that implied very high level interference indeed. The Port Jellies hadn’t been pleased, but they’d been disturbingly cooperative.
And there the Panacian stood in the waiting room, her limbs primly folded. “My dear Fem N’Klet,” Kearn began after his initial hesitation, hurrying forward. “This is most embarrassing. How ever did you—?”
She inclined her head graciously. “Upperside Shipcity has obligations to the Hive as well as the Iftsen, Hom Kearn. It is Port Authority’s pleasure to serve. Now, we have urgent matters to discuss, Hom Kearn.” This suggestion came more softly. “Please come with me.” She gestured to the exit.
Kearn stared at her glistening blue form, wondering why he found it impossible to move his feet, wondering how he could be afraid of this small, courteous being. They’d had their disagreements, but there was no reason to suddenly think her more a threat than the ominous figure of a still-alive Paul Ragem—who had certainly been the one to arrange their arrest.
But his apprehension was real enough to make him ask: “Fem N’Klet? My officer, Sas? Has he been released as well?”
A wave of an upper claw indicating agreement. “He demanded a shuttle to Underside, Hom Kearn, apparently to rejoin your starship. I assumed this was on your orders and made the arrangements. Was this incorrect?”
Was this a lie? Kearn asked himself, finding no clues in her impeccable comspeak or polite body language. Or, the horrifying thought occurred to him, was Sas in league with Lefebvre—gone to free his co-conspirator and act while he couldn’t protect himself? Kearn felt short of breath.
N’Klet bowed, passing him a plas sack. “Your belongings, Hom Kearn.”
Kearn took the bag and opened it, trying unsuccessfully not to sag with relief. He’d brought his precious recordings with him, as well as the Kraal knife—not daring to leave them anywhere else. All here. His weapon as well. Surely if she intended him harm, she wouldn’t return it.
And if she wanted his secrets, she hardly needed to talk to him with these in her possession, he realized, closing the bag with numb fingers. “What do you want from me, Fem N’Klet?” Kearn asked.
Her compound eyes caught the light as she inclined her head toward the office door, opening and closing as a variety of beings, official and otherwise, conducted their business. “Not here.”
Kearn swallowed. He had no choice.
N’Klet had austere quarters for a Panacian representing a Queen, almost bare. Kearn knew the Ambassador caste prided themselves on suiting their meeting areas to make the best impression on their guests, whatever the species. This didn’t feel right, he fussed to himself as he took the only other chair in the room and faced her across a thin, plas-topped table. The interrogation room at Port Authority had been more welcoming.
N’Klet had arranged herself on a Human-suited chair with effortless grace, her every movement flawless and supple. Kearn felt all of his clumsiness as he watched her. The scarring along her side was almost completely gone now, leaving no more than faint impressions. What could have happened? he wondered, distracted. She’d never said.
N’Klet tilted her head as if following his gaze and looked down at herself, then back up at him. “An accident, Hom Kearn,” she offered unexpectedly, as though sharing a confidence to put him at ease. “I am actually not a member of the Family which operates the Ambassador’s School on D’Dsel. Rather, I’m attached to the Iftsen delegation. Their well-being during their visit to D’Dsel and the School was a responsibility I assumed gladly for the Hive. There was a regrettable—incident—during our arrival on D’Dsel in which I was exposed to their atmosphere for a time.”
Kearn winced. Had it been a long enough exposure, N’Klet’s entire carapace would have dissolved, costing her life. An agonizing death. “My sympathy, Fem N’Klet.”
“Her Radiance was most gracious,” N’Klet continued, bowing an acknowledgment. “I had been damaged and, of course, suffered a distressing loss of my former Queen’s scent. But, as you see, I am fully recovered—which is fortunate, as this desperate situation requires someone familiar with the Iftsen as well as yourself.”
“I don’t understand. I’m here to find Paul Ragem—”
“Ah.” She made the gesture of extreme mortification, then passed a message cube across the table to him. “That is the first matter we must discuss, Hom Kearn. My most gracious and honorable Queen has sent this message of apology to you as well as to the offices of Cameron & Ki Exports. She wishes you to know she was in error. The Human known as Paul Cameron is not Paul Ragem.”
Kearn dropped the cube. “What did you say?” he blurted. “What’s this nonsense? Of course he is. I—” he closed his mouth, somehow not wanting to say: I saw him with my own eyes.
The Panacian stiffened. “There is no nonsense here, Hom Kearn. My Queen regrets any confusion her misidentification may have caused. She has reviewed the tapes as well as genetic information I obtained from Paul Cameron’s quarters. There is no doubt. The resemblance is striking, but Cameron is not Ragem. Please understand that you Humans are a very uniform species to us, and identifying individuals is fraught with uncertainty. My Queen anticipates you will accept her apology. And cause no further disruptions on Upperside.”
Kearn felt his face grow hot and knew he was likely glowing red from his neck to the top of his head. Somehow he managed to grind out, “Please inform your Queen that I accept her apology and understand completely.” He paused to collect himself. “This is very disappointing and embarrassing news, Fem N’Klet.”
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