In lieu of dancing, the Human might have been meditating, so shallow and slow was the rise of his chest with each breath, but his eyes never left me. Each time I made to speak, he’d close his eyes briefly, No.
I didn’t dream, but this was nightmare enough for any being. I went through every form assimilated in my memory, searching for anything that could help Paul survive until help came. If it came.
There was nothing. I was locked as living flesh, flesh that, with the exception of web-form, was as vulnerable to vacuum as the flesh encompassing the spirit of my friend. I wondered how terrifying I would be to Kearn now.
Soon, I knew, I’d have to assume my natural form. I could scrub some of the carbon dioxide from our pocket of air before it poisoned his blood, grant Paul an hour or so more of life, while robbing him of whatever comfort my companionship provided. There wasn’t, I had to admit, much a blob of corrosive blue jelly could offer in that regard.
My promise was another reason not to cycle—not until he lost consciousness. I couldn’t bear to see fear in his eyes, to be the proof he was about to end.
Memory overwhelmed my sight for a moment, painting his dear face with marks of pain and abuse, merging with the despair of the present. “This is Logan’s doing,” I said, as unable to save my breath any more than I could keep rage from my voice and thoughts. I felt cilia writhing as my temperature rose with my anguish.
Paul’s gaze intensified, his eyes darkening as if he heard more than I said aloud. “Es, when we met, you spoke to me of how each species, each individual, has its limits, that point beyond which none of us can go because of our very natures. I told you mine, as a condition to our friendship. Do you remember?”
Of course I did. “You won’t endanger innocent lives.”
“Then tell me, Esen, because I must know. Was I wrong to befriend you? Are you capable of killing someone? Will you hunt and kill Logan if I die here?”
“Your definition of innocent appalls me,” I Said, trying hard to be angry instead of simply terrified.
Paul was implacable. His eyes burned into me like coals. “What will you do? Tell me, Esen. And I want the absolute truth.”
I studied his face, needlessly memorizing it, endlessly fascinated by the curve of his eyelashes and the shape of his nose, knowing to each cell how fragile a being formed the other half of my Web. Fragile in form, yet so much stronger, I told myself. “The absolute truth, my friend?” I looked up at the stars, imagining where I might go, what I might do. “I will remember you. Always.”
His voice was relentless, if gentle. “What will you do?”
I looked back at him, understanding what he needed to know. “Do not fear my grief, Paul Ragem. I would never taint my memory of you with revenge or rage.” As if, a darker thought intruded, there could be enough blood to pay for your life, in Logan’s flesh or on all the inhabited worlds.
“Will you go home?”
I flicked a finger at our surroundings, inviting him to share the joke. “Home is where the Web gathers.”
“I meant Minas XII.”
“When you are gone?” I paused for breath, then shook my head. “I will be alone. I don’t think I will be able to stay among your kind for some time.” Seeing echoes of your face, but never you. I lightened my voice—a difficult feat as my Feneden-self was already gasping slightly. “There are places I may go. Perhaps I will visit the Iberili and sleep with them for a while. Ersh did, once. There’s a lot to be said for resting.”
Paul was frowning. “Esen, the Iberili hibernate three hundred years at a stretch. You can’t disappear that long—you’d lose track of languages, you won’t know the cultures—you won’t be safe.”
“I can relearn what I need,” I reminded him. “It just takes time and patience. I have the one and am learning the other. You shouldn’t talk so much,” I continued, worried about the blue tinge to his lips. “Have a bit of air.”
He obeyed, but only so he had the strength to demand almost harshly, “What of the Web of Esen? What about protecting this sector? I thought it was your chosen task. How can you abandon it?”
I shook my head. “As you said, there are those with enough knowledge of my kind to be dangerous. They can deal with any web-being who misbehaves—perhaps better than I could.” My only success in that area having involved far more luck and discomfort than skill.
“You think we can trust them?” His lips twisted, as if on a bitter taste. I’d settle for any taste at all, right now, I thought, inclined to focus on the hollow space down one side as a far more comforting topic than this one. Still, if Paul wanted to spend our air in conversation, he had the right. “We don’t even know who it is. Why leave, Esen?” he asked, as though driven. “Esolesy Ki has a good life, a family—”
He wanted the truth? “It’s your family, Paul. Not mine. There would be no belonging,” I shook my head, unsure how to help him understand what I knew to my core. “You are the only web-kin. The only one with whom I am truly Esen-alit-Quar. You are all I have.”
“Esen.” Paul seemed to make some decision, because his voice suddenly firmed. “I am not all you have.”
“Lefebvre?” I would have laughed, had I not thought it more likely another sound would come out.
“No.”
What was he saying? I surged to my feet, a regrettably silly action as I immediately fell to my knees with dizziness, in control of the need to cycle from this failing form only because of the fresh air from the tank Paul held under my nose. He held me as well, and dropped his face into the air to control his own whooping gasps. I put my hands on his shoulders and pressed my forehead against his.
“What have you done?” I whispered urgently, staring into the one gray eye I could see.
“Esen,” Paul told me, his breath warm on my lips, “the faces I gave you in your gift. They are more than my past.”
I pushed back so I could see all of him. What I saw wasn’t reassuring. There was a hardness there, a determination that had more in common with a doctor about to set a broken leg, than a friend’s caring last moments. “What are you saying?” I asked.
“As part of your Web,” the Human said with a strange edge to his voice, “it was my role to gather information and prepare it for you. By all I know of you, that makes me the Senior Assimilator.”
There was a notion to roll Ersh right off her rocky mountain, I thought, but couldn’t argue.
Paul took my silence for agreement. “As Senior Assimilator, I decided our Web needed more.”
“More?”
“I knew you’d outlive me. I knew before I chose to return to you, fifty years ago, that whatever we accomplished together had to last longer than I could. Esen—you can’t exist alone. And I couldn’t allow you to exist in secret.” The air had to be fouler than I thought, I decided, trying to make sense of what Paul was saying so passionately. “I knew you were young—too young,” he went on. “You make mistakes, potentially dangerous ones to you and those around you. You have enemies we don’t even know yet. Do you understand? I had to make sure others would be there to protect you—when I was gone. That others would know what I do.” He gripped my arms, tightening his fingers as if afraid I was about to run. “Esen, those faces in my gift, are my gift. They all know you. They know all about you. Web-kin, Esen. You aren’t alone.”
Had I been Human more often, maybe I would have seen Paul’s frequent trips away from Minas XII, his network of beings on many worlds, his occasional secrecy, for what they were. Had I been Human more often, I told myself grimly, maybe he wouldn’t have done this at all.
It was never easy, changing vision to see through another’s eyes and mind, making the accommodation necessary when my thought processes had to deal with a different set of interpretations once I cycled. The most familiar aspects of one’s life took on completely new meanings.
Only this time, I had a choice how to see: was Paul’s gift to me a glorious extension of my Web? Or were those faces a list of spies—a threat I
’d have to avoid?
If I could have refused to see either, to step back to what I’d been, what we’d been together—the wish of a child.
From safely unknown among those I knew, the Human had made me known to those I didn’t—surrounded by those who might, or might not—my most secret and safest self a fractured and uncertain thing.
Ersh. I wrapped my arms around my torso, rocking back and forth in a reflex this form found comforting, feeling cold inside and out. “What have you done to me, my friend?” I whispered. “What have you done?”
Elsewhere
KEARN was looking at himself in the mirrored tiles of the ’fresher in his cabin when the expected knock on his door came. He closed his eyes tightly for an instant before saying: “Come in, Captain.”
Lefebvre entered. Kearn could see his face over his shoulder in the mirror, but didn’t detect anything there but respectful attention and a touch of anxiety. “The Feneden have been intercepted by the Commonwealth cruiser, the Vigilant, sir. I believe that’s the ship you contacted from Upperside?”
It had been N’Klet, but Kearn didn’t plan to tell Lefebvre that detail. He brushed a nonexistent piece of fluff from the polished strip of silver topping his left epaulette. “Thank you, Captain. I’ll be up to the bridge shortly. Be ready to change course once I confer with the Feneden and the Vigilant.”
Lefebvre shut the door, but stayed inside the cabin. Kearn felt his pulse begin to race but clamped his lips together as he turned. “What is it, Captain?” he snapped, quite pleased with the firm sound of his voice. There was, he firmly believed, great benefit in a full dress uniform on important occasions. It didn’t hurt to know a secret or two.
Unfortunately for Kearn’s confidence, Lefebvre didn’t look like a someone intimidated by gilt or guilty secrets. “Sir. I’d like to know what you’re planning to do.”
“About you? And Comp-tech Timri?” Kearn asked, sitting behind his desk and hiding a wince as he did. There were, alas, disadvantages to a uniform donned once every decade or so.
Lefebvre shook his head, then pulled up a chair of his own. Kearn stiffened. “About Esen,” Lefebvre said. “And Paul.”
Kearn wove his fingers together, controlling the urge to run them over his scalp. “Are you going to provide me with any useful information, Captain Lefebvre? Information that has a bearing on my disposition toward either—individual?”
Lefebvre’s eyes glinted warningly. “I’ve always provided you with whatever credible information is in my possession, sir. You know that.”
“Yes. Yes, of course you have. Then,” Kearn pulled open the desk drawer and brought out the Kraal knife, not needing to watch Lefebvre to sense his sudden attention on the deadly, ornate thing, “then we have nothing more to discuss at this time. I really do think, Lefebvre, that you would learn not to waste my valuable time.” As Kearn continued to ramble along, slipping into the familiar phrases of the lecture he’d given to every new arrival to the Russ’, his hands were busy twisting the handle from the blade.
He slid both pieces across the desk, soundlessly, and looked at Lefebvre. “So you see, Captain. I’m much too busy for these little chats of yours right now. I’d like you to think for yourself on occasion.”
Kearn’s mouth was dry. Would Lefebvre understand what he couldn’t say out loud? They didn’t know one another, not in ways that could help now. He heard himself continue babbling, saying the usual meaningless drivel he’d always used to build a safe wall of regulation and rank between them. All the while, Kearn—as fearful and fascinated as when he was forced to watch an Urgian snake handler dance with sixteen cloud vipers amid its tentacles—watched as Lefebvre’s blunt, competent fingers lifted the handle, turning it slowly so he could look inside.
Lefebvre immediately glanced up at Kearn, meeting his eyes with an expression of shock and dismay. He pantomimed tossing the handle over his shoulder, obviously believing, as now did Kearn, that the device within was some type of recorder and transmitter.
“I’m glad you are paying attention, Captain,” Kearn continued, while he brought together both fists, then snapped them apart. Destroy it, but keep the evidence, he tried to say with his eyes alone. “Now, I think you’d best let me get back to my work, and you look after your end.”
Lefebvre’s brisk, approving nod was the friendliest gesture Kearn could remember seeing in a long time. He sagged with relief, covering his face with his hands for a moment.
Kearn might have imagined it, but he thought Lefebvre’s hand brushed his shoulder before the captain left with the knife handle.
46: Asteroid Afternoon
PAUL was asleep, his head cradled on some filthy material I’d folded into a pillow on my lap. It was sleep, I reassured myself, thoughts heavy and slow, running my gloved fingers lightly across his hair. I wasn’t entirely sure I could wake him up; on the other hand, remaining conscious held little that was attractive.
It was growing harder to hold form. I’d opened the fasteners on the arms, thighs, and front of my Human-fitted space suit to allow some of my heat to escape. My Feneden-self, while a nuisance in many ways, was considerably more tolerant of a raging fever than most.
Under those conditions, I wasn’t surprised to have a hallucination or two. Still, the figure waving at me through the frosted air lock did appear more substantial than I’d been told such things would be.
Paul would know best, I told myself, nudging the sleeping Human. When he didn’t stir, and the figure began pounding on the door with a rock, I reached for the control on Paul’s suit that would pump out another short burst from the little remaining in his reserve tank.
The air—or the banging—did more than my physical approach. “What? Es?” Paul coughed, then drew three deep breaths from the fresher air rising from the neck of his suit. Awareness flooded back into his eyes and he climbed to his feet, pulling me with him.
This seemed to relieve the hallucination, who stopped pounding and began pointing at something behind me. I looked around, but saw nothing but the other door. Then, I understood and, grabbing Paul’s arm, tried to tug him toward the inner air lock control. “They can’t come in, Paul, until we get out of here,” I explained, surprised when my Human resisted my urging, standing like a statue.
“Who are they?” he said, hoarsely, breaking free of my grip and taking my arm instead. Who was holding up whom? I thought, as we both staggered. “I’m not leaving until we know, Es. If they break in—”
“If they break in, you’ll die in the vacuum!” I said in horror. The hallucination had started pounding again.
“If they are willing to break in, they don’t plan to let me live, do they?” Paul looked down at me, eyes sunken and blue-tinged, cheeks almost hollowed, lips already losing the pink tinge provided by the burst of suit air, and smiled faintly. “Sweet Esen. You know what to do then.”
“I won’t leave you.”
He ignored my protest. “I want you to go to any of the faces—there’s contact information in our system. Please, Es. The pass phrase is: ‘Ersh wouldn’t approve.’ It’s also the code to identify yourself to them. Remember that.”
Remember it? In spite of everything, my friend could make me laugh. I must have said that a thousand times, only to him, only in private. As for going to one of my so-called Web? That, I decided, was something I couldn’t promise. Not yet and certainly not in the grip of emotion.
“How do we find out who this is, beyond dying in front of them?” I asked practically. The helmets had our com equipment; the dome appeared to have very little working gear except the venting system and some lighting. Of course, it had only been a warehouse for a planet-destroying work of art, not a shelter.
The question was answered, not by Paul, but by the hallucination outside. The suited figure’s pounding changed to something varied in tempo and force.
It wasn’t click speech, I decided, puzzling a moment. Then I recognized a pattern. “Paul, isn’t that—?”
He did
n’t waste time discussing the message, for that’s what it had been, nor bother telling me what it meant. “Hurry, Es!” was all Paul spared breath to say as he urged us both to the inner door. Well, I thought, this was a positive sign.
Paul rested his hand on the control, then put one arm around my slender, Feneden shoulders. “You know—”
“It’s likely almost vacuum in the dome?” I finished, and nodded grimly. If the being who’d tapped in a Commonwealth code was a friend—or a rescuer intending to succeed in that profession—I hoped they knew as well.
There was no point in taking a deep breath; the atmosphere in the air lock was almost poisonous now. We pulled sheets of packaging over our heads against the cold and to keep in what breath we took with us, and plunged through as Paul keyed the door open. He whirled to shut it behind us.
We lay flat, hoping what air remained was cold enough to be dense and settle to the floor I waited as long as I could bear before trying to breathe. When I couldn’t help but gasp, the air seemed to be leaving my lungs rather than entering it. My heart hammered in my ears, ready to burst with effort. I could feel Paul shuddering against me. Shunting my fear and grief to where I would feel them later—and forever—I prepared to cycle, readying myself to wait for the cessation of his life so I could accept Paul’s final gift—and leave this place of death.
Before I could relax my hold on this form and free myself, a large, warm mask covered my face. I hadn’t thought air could seem as thick, rich, and absolutely intoxicating as hot spurl, but this was. I heaved in as much as I could hold, feeling new life circulating throughout this form.
Paul? I clung to the mask, pressing my hand over what felt like someone else’s, and sat up.
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