Changing Vision

by Julie E. Czerneda

  Well, I decided, checking out various body parts, that was fun—an opinion possible to my Ganthor-self. My current hide was even thicker than my Lishcyn-self’s and, although I massed slightly less, my form was more dense and heavily boned. The impact had felt roughly equivalent to a boisterous greeting between Herd mates at a bar.

  I tested the air, mucus bubbling from my nostrils as I savored the dissolved aromas. Herdscent drifted down to me through the hole in the roof, alluring and almost irresistible. Considering the present state of the Ganthor above me, I had no intention of answering its call. They wouldn’t, I reminded myself, take well to a stranger.

  There were other organics. I turned, sampling in every direction: stale Human overlaid everything, including the cinnamon tang of an Engullian and a bitter bouquet of what Ersh-memory labeled as banned drugs of several sorts. Well, it was the Dump.

  I grunted, catching a fresher, hotter taste in the air. Human. Web-memory bubbled up, its molecular discrimination totally precise: Logan.

  Ganthor were brave and loyal. They weren’t the brightest. That was my excuse later for what I did next—namely, start running in the almost total darkness toward that scent.

  Luckily, there were no holes or walls in my path, since I didn’t plunge into the one or run snout-first into the other. The notion of such obstacles did help cool my Ganthor enthusiasm. The thought of who I was running to slowed me even more. But I didn’t stop, hearing new sounds from behind that I feared meant Paul had followed me down here, with or without Meony-ro.

  I had to reach Logan first.

  By rough estimate, I was almost under the shuttle before I tasted blood in the air. It had an interesting effect on my Ganthor-self, being a herbivorous species that instinctively gathered in a group for defense. This blood, though not Ganthor, suggested a predator; my lone Ganthor-self felt the urge to wait for others. I ignored it.

  I took two more steps, then heard a click. It wasn’t a word in clickspeak, but I knew its meaning. Ahead of me, in the pitch dark, someone had armed a disrupter. I stopped and tried to be quiet, but it wasn’t exactly a feature of this form. In the otherwise silent warehouse, I panted and wheezed like a bellows, and there were soft popping noises as my breath passed through the mucus coating my nostrils.

  A small light came on, its immediate circle of brightness empty of all but a long arm and a trail of red droplets, casting rays that reached to my legs. Above, the light reflected from the metal of the shuttle. Paul and Meony-ro must have undermined the entire ship.

  “A War Hog,” said a high-pitched voice I knew too well. “Alone, unarmed, and mute. Well, you certainly aren’t of any use to me.”

  I cycled before Logan could fire, standing before him in Human-form, shedding excess mass as a puddle of water around my small bare feet. “I wouldn’t call them that to their snouts,” I advised him.

  Logan crawled into his own light. He’d been injured, badly, I thought. Blood soaked the neck, shoulder, and chest of his uniform, running down one arm and huge hand to drip over the barrel of the weapon he aimed at me. There was nothing in his glittering blue eyes to show he was anything less than ready to use it; though wounded, the massive Human looked more dangerous than ever. “It appears I face a disturbing choice,” he observed calmly, as though we sat across from one another at some dinner table. “I can believe in the dead. Or I can believe in you, shapeshifter. I’d prefer not to believe in either.”

  “Yet you believe in a mythical weapon. And over the evidence of your own eyes. You wouldn’t be here, on Minas XII, otherwise,” I said as calmly.

  “True, true.” Unbelievably, Logan heaved himself up, becoming a silhouette the size of a mountain. I swallowed and stood my ground. Clothes would have been nice. “Where’s Ragem, little ghost? Such a clever man, with his secrets upon secrets. Too clever. Do you know, he tricked me into stealing a pile of junk? Then he turned the Hogs against me? No matter. You are quite right about what I believe.” His voice dropped to a husky whisper, deepened with what I took for excitement as much as pain. For Logan, maybe they were one and the same. “I believe your Ragem has the real Kraal superweapon, right here. He or the Kraal with him.”

  Logan didn’t miss much, I thought with disgust. Meony-ro’s presence on the ’Lass had been just one more confirmation of his pet theory.

  Paul could walk in range of this madman’s voice at any second. “There is no Kraal weapon,” I told Logan. “Everything you think this weapon did—was done by one of my kind. You don’t need Paul to find that out.” What I needed was some way to get the Ganthor involved.

  His free hand snaked out after my arm, but his own blood lubricated the grip so his fingers slipped off my skin. I took a step to put myself out of reach, halting as the weapon’s tip moved deliberately into the light as a reminder. “I need you, little ghost,” Logan disagreed, as if not hearing a word I said. “You are my key to Ragem. He has the Nightstalker. With it, I will take Tly back to her rightful place. With it, I will rule.”

  Madness was something I’d always found difficult to assess, there being so many different perceptions and patterns of thought between species—let alone the honestly eccentric. Like Ersh and my former web-kin, I considered all ephemerals a little mad, obsessed with hurrying through their lives when they should by rights hoard every minute. But what looked back at me now, blood-streaked and ominous, was the real thing.

  So much for talking my way out of this, I thought with disgust. I chanced a step to the right. Logan’s weapon tracked the motion with menacing smoothness, implying nothing wrong with his reflexes. Judging by the blood pooling around his feet, I could wait for him to pass out. Since any other Human would have done so by now, I had no idea when that would be.

  And it wouldn’t be soon enough, I realized. I didn’t need to look around to know we were no longer alone.

  Logan knew it, too. He smiled, keeping his attention on me, and called out: “Come where I can see you, my friend.”

  “We’ve been through all this before, Human,” I said with deliberate sarcasm, talking more to the one I couldn’t see, than Logan. “I thought you’d learned you can’t use me as a hostage. Fire your weapon. You can’t harm me—Paul knows it and so do you.”

  Of course, I wasn’t so sure about that, I said to myself, holding my breath. I should be able to cycle before his finger pressed the firing mechanism—and I should be able to thin myself so the burst went through my web-flesh. It was a lot of “should bes” I wasn’t planning to test. If the Iftsen could bluff, I thought, so could Esen.

  Logan might have believed me. Unfortunately, it seemed Paul did not. He stepped out of the darkness, empty-handed, his face a mask of dust and sweat.

  Three things happened simultaneously. I began to frantically think of something else, Logan smiled with satisfaction, and Paul spoke one word:

  “Now.”

  Lights kicked in from either side, blinding me at first, pinning Logan in their midst. They appeared to confuse him. He dropped his weapon, putting his better hand up to shade his eyes.

  To my left was the Matriarch of the Herd from Iftsen Secondus, flanked by her Seconds, each bearing enough armament to take out the entire building, let alone subdue one Human.

  To my right, no less deadly, stood Meony-ro, Rudy Lefebvre, and Joel Largas.

  I looked suspiciously at my dear Human friend, whose mask had cracked into an immense grin. Likely relief, I thought, then added, less charitably and more honestly, of course, Paul would know perfectly well how I’d feel standing here wearing gooseflesh and nothing else in front of his father-in-law.

  “Gloria, are you all right?” This from the ever-quick Lefebvre, who rushed forward with his arms open.

  I decided it was a very reasonable moment to let myself be hustled away.

  After all, Paul had added himself—and half the planet—to what otherwise would have been an excellent and charmingly discreet plan.

  It was, I thought, with a pleasant sense of having
the shoe, as Humans would say, on the other appendage, only fair he tidy up the result.

  Elsewhere

  LEFEBVRE lifted his glass, then paused, deep in thought. Strange. It was getting hard to think of a new toast. “To women!” he exclaimed, sure this one could be repeated indefinitely.

  “To women,” his drinking companion concurred. “So Rudy. How’s your niece?”

  Lefebvre peered at Joel Largas. “She’s fine, thanks. On her way home.”

  “Smart work. She’s lucky to have you, Rudy. To you!”

  Lefebvre accepted the toast, not entirely sure it was deserved. It had been a satisfying sequence of events, he thought, but at any point, things could have gone sour. An informant’s report on The Black Watch; his conviction that Logan was capable of daring an incursion on Minas XII; getting here in time. He shuddered. “We were lucky.”

  They were interrupted as three newcomers to the bar, working spacers from their look, veered close for no other reason than to clap Largas on the back. One of them bore a remarkable resemblance to the old trader. “Luck? I don’t believe in luck,” Largas said emphatically, once they were alone again. “I believe in people. Take you and Paul. Great job. Why, if you hadn’t warned him, he might never have realized what those Ganthor were doing in the Dump. We could have had a minor war break out—not that I’d mind. There’s some who live there we could do without, if you know what I mean.”

  “How did you know about the Ganthor?” Lefebvre asked curiously. “They were pretty well hidden—especially for Ganthor.”

  Largas waved to the bartender, before turning his piercing eyes on Lefebvre. “Information is always the key, Rudy. Remember that. People like to talk. And I listen to every bit that comes my way. You never know what will matter.”

  The presence of a Ganthor Herd had certainly mattered to Paul. He’d realized immediately what Esen was up to—trying to capture Logan by herself. He’d arranged for Largas, with a vested interest in Logan’s activity and his uncanny knowledge of the Dump, to bring Lefebvre to the right place at the right time. Fortunately, the Matriarch had been very reasonable about local talent.

  Esen, Lefebvre recalled, had probably been even more surprised than Logan, He smiled into his glass as he remembered the look she’d given Paul. And that blush? She’d insisted on running for cover as quickly as possible, particularly to avoid Joel Largas.

  The more time Lefebvre spent with Largas, the more he liked the being. But Largas was trusted by Esolesy Ki, not Esen. Paul had made that quite clear. So the mysterious young girl being held by Logan was his niece, Gloria, a fiction reinforced by the unwitting Meony-ro.

  It had been convincing.

  It had been close. Too close. Lefebvre put down his drink. No point risking what had been achieved. “I have to get back to my ship,” he told Largas. “Nice meeting you, Joel.”

  Largas’ eyes were keen under their bushy brows and he offered Lefebvre his hand. “I happen to have an opening for a Captain,” he said as their hands met. “If you’re ever tired of working for cruise lines, that is.”

  Lying to this being wasn’t right, Lefebvre knew as he released Largas’ hand, not surprised by the firmness of his grip. But Paul had warned him. When Lefebvre had casually brought up the topic of the Monster of the Fringe, to see for himself, Largas had grown unusually tight-lipped, revealing only that the monster was very real and that Lionel Kearn was a blithering idiot incapable of finding his own nose.

  No wonder Esen kept her secret.

  “I’ll keep that in mind,” Lefebvre said quite sincerely. “I don’t know what’s ahead, frankly.”

  If there was anything he could predict about his own future, it was going to be something he’d never have imagined before meeting Esen-alit-Quar.

  52: Cliff’s Edge Night

  WINTER was coming. I stood on the porch and watched my breath float upward, looking beyond its faint mist to admire the thick crown of stars overhead. There would be a cold snap tonight, and doubtless a blizzard ready to kill the unwary tomorrow. I fluffed my fur in anticipation. Minas XII was like that. You had to catch its beauty on its terms, not yours. And be ready to duck.

  Paul should be home soon. The minor distraction in the warehouse I’d arranged to keep Paul from accompanying me to the Dump—doomed to failure, since he’d already outflanked me completely—had turned into something a bit more complicated. All I’d done was open a few cages of pollinating insects. Peaceful, but large and noisy insects. They should have been a harmless-enough nuisance. How was I to know the things were being shipped pregnant and would vigorously defend their new nesting territories throughout the warehouse? The importer had kindly supplied antivenom, which hadn’t put Paul into a better frame of mind.

  His aggravation wouldn’t last. Especially with his favorite supper in a bag on the table, I thought happily. After picking up my order, I’d left Lefebvre and Largas at the Circle Club, looking as though they planned to drink all night. I had no idea of Lefebvre’s capacity, but knowing Joel’s, I winced.

  Lefebvre had promised to visit: a friend I’d made on my own. I treasured that newest gift, like the starry skies above me.

  It had clouded over before Paul’s shuttle touched down outside. He’d hurried in to avoid the growing cold, heading straight to the ’fresher to, as he put it, wash off bug guts. I didn’t dare ask who’d won the battle of the warehouse. Some topics, I knew, were best left alone.

  This delay gave me time to prepare, so when Paul returned a few moments later, futilely trying to rub some order into his damp hair, I had all the reaction I could have wanted.

  The Human stopped dead in the doorway to the kitchen. He wasn’t, I was pleased to note, looking at the less-than-artfully arranged meal on the table. Instead, he was looking at me.

  I turned completely around, then back again. “Well?” I’d bought the clothing at a children’s store on my way home. It had only been a matter of assuming this form to suit. My hair wasn’t much better than his at staying tidy, but I’d already become resigned to that.

  When Paul didn’t speak, my new heart gave an odd and uncomfortable lurch. I studied his face. There was plenty of emotion there—his eyes were glittering as if about to leak, and I saw him swallow—but I was suddenly unsure it was a happy one and lost some of my own joy.

  He saw it. “Esen,” he said very gently. “You don’t have to be Human for me. We’ve been together all this time without it. I understand your reasons and they’re good ones.” He paused. “I’m your friend in any form. You know that.”

  I nodded, feeling my own eyes beginning to fill. It was, I told myself sternly, no worse than oozing mucus as a Ganthor. “This,” I touched my cheek, “is me as well.”

  Paul leaned his back against the doorframe, folding his arms like someone who’d had a very long, very tiring day. With bugs. “What do you want me to say, Esen?” he asked. “I’ve never asked you to be anything for me and I won’t now. Do you want me to admit this version of you is special? Yes. It is. I admit it. That doesn’t mean I require it or expect it or even think it’s a good idea. You have a purpose and a life beyond our friendship.”

  Being Human meant lacking so many senses to help me puzzle out his mood, an insight of itself, I realized, into how very good Paul was at understanding other species as well as his own. Unless it was something that occurred as this form aged, I thought. This time, however, he was wrong.

  “You misunderstand me, Paul,” I said just as gently as he’d spoken to me, moving close and putting one hand on his folded arm. “We share a closeness built from our differences. How could that change? My assuming this form can’t change my thoughts into Human thoughts, my viewpoint can never be exactly as yours.” I smiled up at him, knowing this face had rather attractive dimples in each cheek. “But when I’m with you, this form returns to me something I was in danger of losing, something you valued in me even when I did not.”

  Paul’s mouth curved up at the corners and his eyes were warm
on my face. “And what might that be, old friend?”

  “I may be the Eldest in my Web,” I informed him. “But I’m also Youngest.”

  It was after supper, the first meal we’d ever shared as the same species—although I couldn’t share Paul’s delight in slimy mollusks—that we bundled up and went outside. There was snow tumbling down, a silent heavy drift that coated the mountainside in treacherously soft white. It was hard to discern where the snow ended and the clouds began. The hail, I thought philosophically, would start with the wind.

  “Am I supposed to send you to bed, Youngest?” Paul asked through a pretend yawn, stretching his arms up. One promptly dropped to dump a handful of snow down my neck.

  Startled, I glared at him until I saw the mischief in his face. “I’ll cycle into Ganthor if you want a snowball fight,” I threatened.

  His hands went up in mock-surrender. “Cheat.”

  “Bully,” I answered contentedly, digging snow out of the robe I’d thrown on—given it was Paul’s, I wasn’t too concerned. ’Course, if I was going to wear this form more regularly, I’d have to have a coat. And boots. “I’m going to have to do some shopping,” I reminded Paul. “And we’ll have to build another hidden closet. Mine’s already full, and I can’t imagine explaining a child-sized set of Human clothes to anyone outside the Group.”

  I’d said it deliberately. Paul knew it, and flashed me a surprised and grateful look. Perhaps he wondered why.

  Perhaps one day, I’d tell him.

  I used to look ahead and believe I knew the future, that I could predict and become whatever my chosen task demanded.

  Now, thanks to Paul and his larger vision, I had absolutely no idea what the next fifty years might hold.

  I smiled at my first friend, Paul Ragem, and felt free.

  Elsewhere

  FIFTY years.

  N’Klet examined her carapace critically in the mirrored tiles. The fading pits and scars were still noticeable. She would need more time like this to heal completely. Inconvenient.