by Brin, David
"It survives, exists. The mother battleship continues, went the GalTwo mutter of a traeki, somewhere in the crowd.
"Our best effort has failed. "And now comes punishment."
Sooners
THE MOMENT LARK PRAYED FOR NEVER CAME. THE walls did not shatter, torn by native-made warheads or screaming splinters of greatboo. Instead, the sound of detonations remained distant, then diminished. The floorthrobbing vibration ofJophur defense guns changed tenor now that the element of surprise was gone, from frantic to complacent, as if the incoming missiles were mere nuisances.
Then silence fell. It was over.
He let go of the Egg fragment, and released Ling, as well, Lark pulled his knees in, wrapped both arms around them, and rocked miserably. He had never felt so disappointed to be alive.
"Woorsh, that was close!" Ling exhaled, clearly savoring
survival. Not that Lark blamed her. She might still nurse hopes of escape, or of being swapped in some Galactic prisoner exchange. All this might become just another episode in her memoirs. An episode, like me, he thought. The clever jungle boy she once met on Jijo.
His old friend Harullen might have seen a bright side to this failure. Now the angered Jophur might extinguish all sapient life on the planet, not only their g'Kek blood enemies. Wouldn't that fit in with Lark's beliefs? His heresy?
The Six Races don't belong here, but neither do they deserve annihilation. I wanted us to do the right thing peacefully, honorably, and of our own accord. Without violence. All this burning of forests and valleys.
"Look!"
He glanced at Ling, who had stood up and was pointing at Ewasx. The ring stack still quaked, but one torus in the middle was undergoing full-scale convulsions. Throbbing indentations formed on opposite sides, distending its round shape.
Both men joined Ling, staring with unbelieving eyes as the dents deepened and spread into circular bulges, straining outward until a sheer membrane was all that restrained them. The Jophur's basal legs started pumping and Hexing.
The humans jumped back when Ewasx abruptly skittered across the floor, first toward the armored door, then away again, zigging and zagging three times before finally sagging back down, like a heap of flaccid tubes.
The middle ring continued to throb and swell.
"What is it doing?" Ling asked in awe.
Lark had to swallow before answering.
"It's vienning. Giving birth, you'd say. Traekis don't do this often, 'cause it endangers the union of the stack. Mostly they bud embryos and let 'em grow in a mulch pile, on their own."
Rann gaped. "Giving birth? Here?" Clearly, he knew more about killing Jophur than about the rest of their life cycle.
Lark realized-the catatonia of Ewasx was not caused simply by the surprise rocket attack. That shock had trig- gered a separate convulsion just waiting to happen.
Membranes started tearing. One of the new rings, almost the size of Lark's head and colored a deep shade of purple, began writhing through. The other was smaller and crimson, emerging through a mucusy pustule, trailing streamers of rank, oily stuff. Both infant toruses slithered down the flanks of the parent stack, then across the metal floor, seeking shadows.
"Lark, you'd better have a look at this," Ling said.
He could barely yank his gaze away from the nauseating, bewitching sight of the greasy newborns. Upon stumbling over to join Ling, he found her pointing downward.
"When it ran back and forth, a dura ago ... it left this trail on the floor."
So what? he thought. Lark saw smears, like grease stains on the metal plating. Traeki often do that.
Then he blinked, recognizing Anglic letters. One, two,' three . . . four of them.
REWQ
"What the . . . ?" Rann puzzled aloud. '
Lark raised a hand to his forehead, where his rewq symbiont lay waiting for its next duty while supping lightly | from his veins. At a touch, it swarmed over his eyes, recast- j ing the colors in the room.
At once, everything changed. Till that moment, the stillquivering flanks of the Jophur had seemed a mottled jumble of distorted shades. But now, rows of letters could be I seen, crisscrossing several older rings. '
lark, the first series began, one ring opens doors. use it. rejoin the six. . . .
A squeal of pain interrupted from Lark's right, unlike any shouted by a mammal. He whirled, and cried, "Stop!"
Rann stood over one of the newly vienned rings, his foot raised to stomp on it a second time. The small creature shook, bleeding waxy fluids from a rent along one flank.
"Why?" the Danik demanded. "You sooners signed our death warrants with that crude missile attack. We might as well get in some of our own."
Ling confronted her former colleague hotly. "Fool! Hyp- j ocrite! You stopped Lark earlier, and now do this? Don't you want to get out of here?"
She bent over the quivering ring and reached toward it nervously, tentatively.
Lark turned back toward the ring stack . . . the corn-, posite being that had somehow managed to become Asx again, in a strange, limited way. The letters were already fading as he read the second line.
Give other to Phwhoon-dau,Lester. he,you, they must
This time, the scream was human. Ling! He spun around and rushed to her aid. She held the little wounded torus in one hand while the other clawed over her shoulder at Rann. The male Danik throttled her from behind, his forearm around her throat, closing her windpipe, and possibly her arteries.
Rann heard Lark's irate bellow and swiveled lightly, using Ling's body as a shield while he kept choking her. Rann's face was contorted with pleasure as Lark feinted right, then launched himself at the star warrior's other side. There was no time for finesse as they all toppled together, a grappling mass of arms and legs.
It might have been an even match, if Ling hadn't passed out. But when her body slumped, insensate, Lark had to face Rann's trained fury alone. He managed to get a few blows in, but soon had his hands full just preventing the Rothen agent from striking a vital spot. Finally, in desperation, he threw his arms around Rann, seizing his broad torso in a wrestler's embrace.
His opponent felt confident enough to spare some strength for taunts.
"Darwinist savage , . ." Rann jeered, close to Lark's ear. ". . . devolved ape ..."
Lark managed an insult of his own-
"The . . . Rothen . . . are . . . pigs. ..."
Rann snarled and tried to bite his ear. Lark swung his head aside just in time, then slammed it back into Rann's face, breaking his lip.
Abruptly, a stench seemed to swell around their heads, filling Lark's nostrils with a cloying, sickening tang. For an instant he wondered if it was the Danik's body odor. Or else the smell of death.
Rann managed to free a hand and used it to pummel Lark's side. But the pain seemed distant, and the blows vague, unsteady. Vision wavered as the awful smell increased . . . and Lark grew aware that his opponent was being affected, as well.
More so.
In moments, Rann's iron grip let go and the man collapsed away from him. Lark backed up, gasping. Through a haze of wavering consciousness, he noted the source of the stench. The wounded traeki ring had climbed onto Rann's shoulder and was squirting yet another dose of some noxious substance straight into the star god's face. |
Should . . . make it . . . stop, now. Lark thought. An | excess might not just knock Rann out, but kill him. j
Life had priorities, though. Fighting exhaustion and the' tempting refuge of sleep, Lark rolled over to seek Ling,', hoping enough life still lingered to be coaxed back into the world.
Blade
Dia
". . . THE MOST EFFECTIVE WARHEADS WERE THE ones tipped with toporgic capsules, filled with traeki formula type sixteen an' powdered Buyur metal. Kindle beetles were useful in settin' off the solid rocket cores. A lot of the ones that didn't use beetles either fizzled or blew up on their launchpads. . . ."
Blade listened to the young human recite her report to an
urrish telegraph operator, whose keystrokes became fast-departing beams of light. Jeni Shen winced as a pharmacist applied unguents to her singed skin. Her face was soot-covered and the left side of her jerkin gave off smoldering fumes. Jeni's voice was dry as slate and it must have been painful for her to speak, but the recitation continued, nonstop, as if she feared this mountaintop semaphore station might be the first target of any Jophur retaliation.
". . . Observers report that the best targeting happened, in rockets that had message-ball critters aboard. Usin' 'ern that way was just a whim of Phwhoon-dau's, so there weren't many. But it seemed to work. Before everything blew up, Lester said we should reexamine all the Buyur critters we know about, in case they have other uses. . . ." i
The stone hut was crowded. The missile assault, and subsequent fires, had sent refugees pouring through the passes. Blade was forced to wade through the tide offugi lives in order to reach this militia outpost, where he might make a report of his adventure.
He found the semaphore already tied up with frenzied news-about the successful downing of the last Jophur corvette . . . and then the failure of a single rocket even to dent the mother ship. That night of soaring hopes crashed further when casualties became known, including at least one of the High Sages of the Six.
Yet a low level of elation continued. Bad news was only expected. But a taste of victory came amplified by sheer surprise.
Blade recalled vividly the fiery plummet of both burning halves of the ruined starship, setting off firestorms. I'm glad it only landed in boo, he thought. According to the scrolls, Jijo's varied ecosystems weren't equal. Greatboo was a trashy alien invader-like the Six themselves. The planet was not badly wounded by tonight's conflagration.
Me neither, Blade added, wincing as a g'Kek medic tried to set one of his broken legs.
"Just cut it off," he told the doctor. "The other one, too."
"But that will leave you with just three," the g'Kek complained. "How will you walk?"
"I'll manage. Anyway, new ones grow back faster if you cut all the way to the bud. Just get it over with, will you?"
Fortunately, he had managed to land on two legs spread apart at opposite sides of his body. That left a tripod of them to use, dragging himself from the fluttering tangle of fabric and gondola parts. The moonlit mountainside had been rocky and steep, a horrid place for a blue qheuen to find himself stranded on a chill night. But the beckoning glimmer of flashed messages, darting from peak to peak, encouraged him to limp onward until he reached this sanctuary.
So, I'll be able to tell Log Biter my tale, after all. Maybe I'll even write about it. Nelo should provide backing for a small print run, since half of my story involves his daughter. . . .
Blade knew his mind was drifting from thirst, pain, and lack of sleep. But if he rested now he would lose his place in line, right after Jeni Shen. The station commander, hearing of his balloon adventure, had given him a priority just after the official report on the rocket attack.
I should be flattered. But in fact, the rockets are used up. Even if there are some left, the element of surprise is gone. They'll never succeed against theJophur again.
But my idea's not been tried yet. And it'd work! I'm living proof.
The smiths of Blaze Mountain have got to be told.
So he sat and fumed, half listening to Jeni's lengthy, i jargon-filled report, trying to be patient.
When the amputation began, Blade's cupola withdrew instinctively, shielding his eye strip under thick chitin, preventing him from looking around. So he tried pulling his mind back to the time when he briefly flew through the sky . . . the first of his kind to do so since the sneakship came, so long ago.
But a qheuen's memories aren't strong enough to use as a bulwark against pain.
It took three strong hoons to keep the leg straight enough for the medic to do it cleanly,
Lark
n SECOND STENCH MET HIM WHEN HE WAKED. The first one had smothered cloyingly. When it filled I Ithe little room, the world erased under a blanket of sweet pungency.
The new smell was bitter, tangy, repellent, cleaving the insensate swaddling of unconsciousness. There was no transitory muzziness or confusion. Lark jerked upright while his body convulsed through a series of sharp sneezes. All at once he knew the cell, its metal floor and walls, the cramped despair of this place.
A greasy doughnut shape-purple and still covered with mucus-sent a final stream of misty liquid jetting toward his face. Lark gagged, backing away.
"I'm up! Cut it out, dung eater!"
The room wavered as he turned, searching ... and found Ling close behind, wheezing at the effort of sitting up. Livid marks showed where Rann had throttled her, nearly taking her life.
Lark turned again, scanning for his enemy.
In moments, he spied the Danik agent's bare feet, jutting from beyond the rotund bulk of Ewasx.
Ewasx? Or is it still Asx?
The ring stack shivered. Trails of waxy pus trickled from twin wounds on either side, where the vienned rings had made their escape.
I could try to find out. . . . Try talking to-
But Lark saw an orderliness to the trembling toruses. A systematic rhythm. Almost regimented. Warbling sounds escaped the speaking vent.
"H-h-h-alt, humans, . . . I/WE COMMAND . . . obedience. ..."
The voice wavered unevenly, but gained strength with each,passing dura.
Ling met his eyes. There was instant rapport. Asx had gone to a lot of trouble to provide gifts. Time to give them a try.
"STOP THAT!" Ewasx adjured. "You are required to ... desist. ..."
Fortunately, the Jophur's limbs were still locked in rigor. The lowermost set shivered with resistance when the master ring tried to make them move.
Asx is still fighting for us, Lark realized, knowing it could not last.
"Use the purple one," he told Ling, who cradled the larger newborn torus. "Asx said it opens locks."
She lifted her eyes doubtfully, but presented the ring to a flat plate beside the door. They had seen Ewasx touch it whenever the Jophur wanted to leave the cell. Meanwhile, Lark used his frayed shirt as a sling to carry the smaller, crimson traeki. The one cruelly injured by Rann. The one Lark was supposed to deliver to the High Sages-an impossible task, even if the mangled thing survived.
A moan echoed from behind Ewasx. It was the Danik warrior, rousing at last. Come on! Lark urged silently, though Ling almost surely had never used such a key to force a lock.
The purple ring oozed a clear fluid from pores near the plate. Clickety sounds followed, as the door mechanism seemed to consider. ...
Then, with a faint hiss, it opened!
He hurried through with Ling, ignoring bitter Jophur curses that followed them until the portal shut again.
"Where now?" Ling asked.
"You're asking me?" He laughed. "You said Galactic ships are standardized!"
She frowned. "The Rothen don't have any battlecruisers like this beast. Neither does Earth. We'd be lucky to glimpse one from afar . . . and even luckier to escape after seeing it."
Lark felt spooky, standing half-naked in an alien passageway filled with weird aromas. A Jophur might enter this stretch of corridor at any moment, or else a war robot, come to hunt them down.
- The floor plates began vibrating, low at first, but with a rising mechanical urgency.
"Just guess," he urged, trying to offer an encouraging smile.
Ling answered with a shrug. "Well, if we keep going in one direction, sooner or later we're bound to reach hull, Come on, then. Standing still is the worst thing we can do,"
The hallways were deserted.
Occasionally, they hurried past some large chamber and glimpsed Jophur forms within, standing before oddly curved instrument stations, or mingled in swaying groups, communing with clouds of vapor. But the stacks rarely moved. As a biologist, Lark could not help speculating.
They're descended from sedentary creatures, almost sessile. Even
with the introduction of master rings, they'd retain some traeki ways, like preferring to work in one place, relatively still.
Lark found it bizarre, striding past closed doors for more than an arrowflight-then another, and a third-using their passkey ring to open armored hatches along the way, meeting no one. Asx must have taken this into account, giving us even odds of reaching an airlock and . . .
Lark wondered.
And then what? If there are sky boats or hover plates, Ling might understand their principles, but how will she operate controls made for Jophur tentacles?