by David Brin
Blade soon realized how far he had come. As the last light of day vanished from the tallest peaks, he spied a cleft in the mountains that any Sixer would recognize-the pass leading to Festival Glade, where each year the Commons of Six Races gathered to celebrate--and mourn-another year of exile. For some time after the sun was gone,
Loocen's bright crescent kept him company, illuminating the foothills. Blade expected the surface to draw closer as he was pushed northeast, but the simpleminded urrish altimeter somehow sensed changing ground levels and reacted with another jet of flame, preventing the balloon from meeting the valley floor.
Then Loocen sank as well, abandoning him to a world of shadows. The mountains became little more than black bites, torn out of the starry heavens. It left Blade all alone with his imagination, speculating how theJophur were going to deal with him.
Would there be a flash of cold flame, as he had seen darting from the belly of the cruel corvette that devastated Ovoom Town? Would they rip him to bits with scalpels of sound? Or were he and the balloon destined for vaporization upon making contact with some defensive force field? The kind of barrier often described in garish Earthling novels?
Worst of all, he pictured a "tractor beam," seizing and dragging him down to torment in some Jophur-designed hell, The cord-should I pull it now? he wondered. Lest our foes learn the secret of hot-air balloons?
Qheuens never used to laugh before coming to Jijo. But somehow the blue variety picked up the habit, infuriating their Gray Queens, even before hoons and humans could be blamed as bad influences. Blade's legs now contracted, quivering as a calliope of whistles escaped his breathing vents.
Right' We mustn't allow this "technology" to fall into the wrong hands ... or rings. Why, theJophur might make balloons of their own, to use against us!
The upland canyons answered with faint repetitions of his laughter-echoes that cheered him up a little, as if there were an audience for his imminent parting from the universe. No qheuen likes to die alone, Blade thought, tightening his grip on the cord that would send him plunging to Jijo's dark embrace. , only hope someone finds enough shell fragments to dross. . . .
At that moment, a faint glimmer made him pause. It came from dead ahead, farther up the narrowing valley, below the mountain pass. Blade tried focusing his visor, but again had to curse the poor vision his race inherited from ancient times. He peered at the pale shine.
Could it be . . . ?
The soft rays reminded him of starlight, glancing off water, making him hold off yanking the cable for a few duras. If it was an alpine lake, he might have just a little time to[ estimate the distance, include his rate of drift, and guess the right moment to pull. With my luck, it will turn out to be a mule spider's acid pit. At least that would take care of the mulching problem.
The glimmer drew nearer, but its outline seemed strangely smooth, unlike a natural body of water. Its profile was oval, and the reflections had a convex quality that-
Ifni and the ancestors! Blade cursed in surprised dismay. It is the Jophur ship!
He stared in blank awe at the size of the globular thing so huge, I thought it was part of the landscape.
Worse, he measured his course and heading.
Soon, I'll be right on top of it.
If anything, the wind stiffened from behind, accelerating his approach.
At once, Blade had an idea. One that changed his mind about the cruelty of fate.
This is better, he decided. It will be like that novel I read last winter, by that pre-contact human, Vonnegut. The book ended with the hero making a bold, personal gesture toward God.
The point seemed apropos then, and even more so now When faced with casual extinction by an omnipotent force, i sometimes the only option left to a poor mortal is to go out" with defiance.
That proved remarkably feasible. Qheuen mouth parts served many functions, including sexual. So Blade made i virtue of his exposed posture, and got ready to present himself to the enemy in the most deliberately offensive manner possible.
Look THIS up in your Galactic Library! he thought, wav- ( ing his sensor feelers suggestively. Perhaps, before he was vaporized, the Jophur would call up reference data dealing with starfaring qheuens, and realize the extent of his insolence. Blade hoped his life would count for at least that much. To be killed in anger, not as an afterthought.
Waves of tingling sensation coursed his feelers, and Blade wondered if danger was provoking some perverted version of the mating urge. Well, after all, here I am, veering toward a big, armored, dominant entity with my privates bared.
Log Biter would not approve of the comparison, I suppose.
As the wind pushed him toward the battleship-a thing so huge it rivaled nearby mountains-all sight of it vanished beneath the forward edge of his chitin carapace. It would be out of sight during final approach, an irony Blade did not find amusing.
Then, to his great surprise, there rushed into sight the very thing he had been longing for-a lake. A. large one, dammed up behind the great cruiser, drowning the Festival Glade .under hectares of cool snowmelt.
If they don't shoot me down, he could not help speculating. If they fail to notice me, I might yet reach . . .
But how could they not spy this approaching gasbag? Surely they must already have him pinned by star-god instruments.
Sure enough, the tingling of Blade's exposed feelers multiplied in rapid waves, as if they were being stroked- then stung-by a host of squirming shock worms. Not a sexual stirring, though. Instead the sensation triggered foraging instincts, causing his diamond-tipped incisors to snap reflexively, as if grabbing through mud at armored prey.
The feelers pick up magnetic and electric vibrations from hidden muck crawlers, he recalled. Electromagnetic . . . I'm being scanned! Each time he panted breath through a leg vent, another dura passed. The lake swelled, and he knew the ship must be almost directly below by now. What were they waiting for?
Then a new thought occurred to Blade. I'm being scanned . . . but can they see me? If only he had studied more science at the Tarek Town academy. Although grays tended to be better at abstractions-the reason why they took real names-Blade knewg he should have insisted on taking that basic physics course.
Let's see. In human novels, they speak of "radar" . . radio waves sent out to bounce of,distant objects, giving away the location of intruders, for instance.
But you only get a good echo if it's something radio mill bounce off. Metal, or some other hard stuff.
Blade quickly pulled his teeth back in. Otherwise, his bottom was his softest part, featuring multifaceted planes that might deflect incoming rays in random directions. The gasbag, he figured, must seem hardly more dense than a rain cloud!
Now, if only the urrish altimeter would wait awhile longer before adjusting the balloon's height, shooting hot flame with a roar to fill the night ...
The tingling peaked . . . then started to diminish. Moments later, coolness stroked Blade's underside and he sensed the allure of water below. Tentative relief came accompanied by worry, for cold air would increase his rate of sink.
Now? Shall I pull the cord, before the flames turn on and give me away?
Water beckoned. Blade yearned to wash the dust fromt his vent pores. Yet he held back. Even if his sudden plum, met from the sky didn't draw attention, he would land in the worst lake on Jijo, deep inside the Jophur defense perimeter, presumably patrolled by all sorts of hunter machines. Perhaps the robots had missed him till now because the possibility of floating qheuens had never been programmed into them. But a swimming qheuen most certainly was.
Anyway, the water gave him a strange feeling. There were flickerings under the surface-eerie flashes that reinforced his decision to hold back.
Each passing dura ratified the choice, as a separation slowly increased between Blade and the giant dreadnought, reappearing behind him as a dark curve with glimmering highlights, divided about a third of the way up by a rippling, watery line. It made him feel di
stinctly creepy.
Abruptly, a pinpoint of brilliance flared from the side of the globe ship, seeming to stab straight toward him.
Here it comes, Blade thought.
But the flaring light was no heat ray. No death beam, after all. Instead, the pinpoint widened. It became a glowing rectangular aperture. A door.
A mighty big door, Blade realized, wondering what could possibly take up so much room inside a mammoth star cruiser.
Apparently-another star cruiser.
From the gaping hangar, a sleek cigar shape emerged with a low hum, moving gradually at first, then accelerating toward Blade.
All right then. Not extinction. Capture. But why send that big thing after me?
Perhaps they saw his obscene gesture, and understood better than he expected.
Once more, Blade readied the rip cord. At the last moment, he would plummet from their grasp ... or else they'd shoot him as he fell. Or hunter robots would track him, underwater or overland. Still, it seemed proper to make the effort. At least I'll get a drink.
Again, night vision gave him trouble. Estimating the corvette's rate of closure proved futile. In frustration, Blade's thoughts slipped from Anglic and into the easier grooves of Galactic Six.
This specter of terror-I have seen it before. This thing I saw last-as it burned down a city. A city of felons-of sooners-my people.
His legs flexed spasmodically as the ship rushed toward him without slowing ... What the-
. . . and kept going, sweeping past with a roar of displaced air.
Blade felt hooks of urrish steel yank his carapace at all five suspension points. One anchor broke free, tearing chitin armor like paper, then flinging wildly as the balloon was sucked after the skyship's wake.
The world passed in a blur, teaching him what real Hying was about.
Then the Jophur vessel was gone, ignoring balloon and passenger with contempt, or else indifference. He glimpsed it once more, still climbing steadily toward the Rimmer peaks, leaving him swirling in a backwash of confusion and disturbed air.
Vubben
AFTER A TIME, VUBBEN FINALLY SUCCEEDED IN quelling his busy thoughts, allowing the tywush resonance to pervade his soul, washing away distractions and doubts. Another midura passed, and another prayer circuit, while his meditation deepened. After Loocen set, a vast skyscape of constellations and nebulae passed overhead. Twinkling abode of the gods,
As he rounded back to the west side, another kind of winking light caught one of Vubben's eyes-a syncopated flash unlike any gleaming star. Still wrapped in his trance, Vubben had to labor just to lift a second stalk and recognize the flicker as coded speech.
It took more effort, and yet a third eye, to decipher it,
JOPHUR SMALLSHIP,DEATHSHIP IN MOTION, flashed the lantern on Mount Ingul. HEADING TOWARD EGG.
The message repeated. Vubben even glimpsed a distant sparkle, echoing the words on a farther peak, and realized that other semaphore stations must be relaying the message. Still, his brain was tuned to another plane, preventing him from quite grasping its significance.
Instead, he went back to the sensory phantasm that had been drawing him inward-an impression of being perched atop a swaying ribbon, one that slowly yawed and pitched like some undulating sea.
It was not an unpleasant feeling. Rather, he felt almost like a youngster again, growing up in Dooden Mesa, zooming recklessly along a swaying suspension bridge, feeling its planks rattle beneath his rims, swooping and banking without a safety rail while lethal drops gaped on both sides. His taut spokes hummed as he sped like a bullet, with all four eyestalks stretched wide for maximum parallax.
The moment came back to him whole-not as a distant, fond memory, but in all its splendor. It was the closest thing to paradise he had ever experienced on Jijo's rough orb.
Amid the exhilaration, part of Vubben knew he must have crossed some boundary. He was with the Egg now, sensing the approach of a massive object from the west. A deadly thing, complacent and terrible, cruising at a leisurely pace uphill from the Glade.
Leisurely-according to those aboard, that is.
Somehow, Vubben could sense gravitic fields pressing down, tearing leaves from trees, scraping and penetrating Jijo's soil, disturbing ancient rocks. He even knew intuitive things about the crew within-multiringed entities, far more self-assured and unified than traeki.
Strange rings. Egotistical and driven.
Determined to wreak havoc.
Blade
THE BALLOON'S ALTIMETER MUST BE MALFUNCTIONing, he realized. Or else the fuel tank was running low.
Either way, the automatic adjustments were growing more sporadic. Unnerving sputtering sounds accompanied each burst of heat, and the pulses came less frequently.
Finally, they halted altogether.
The lake had vanished behind him during those frantic duras when the spaceship's wake dragged the balloon behind it, past the ruined Glade into a narrow pass, toward the Rimmer heights. Also gone was Blade's last chance to pull the rip cord and land in deep water. Instead, trees spired around him, like teeth of a comb you used to pluck fleas from your pet lornik.
And I am the flea.
Assuming he survived when a forest giant snatched him from the sky, someone might hear his cries and come. But then, what will they think when they find a qheuen in a tree?
The phrase was a popular metaphor for unlikeliness-a contradiction in terms-like a swimming urs, or a modest human, or an egotistical traeki.
This appears to be the year for contradictions.
A branch top brushed one of his claw tips. Blade yanked back so reflexively that his whole body spun around. All five legs were kept drawn in after that. Still, he expected another impact at any moment.
Instead, the forest abruptly ended. Blade had an impression of craggy cliffs, and a sulfurous odor stroked his tongue. Then came a sensation of upward motion!
And heat. His mouth feelers curled in reaction to a blast from below.
Of course, he realized. Go east from the Glade for a few leagues, and you 're in geyser country.
The balloon soared, its drooping canopy now buoyed by a warm updraft.
The Jophur ship must have dragged me into a particular canyon. The Pilgrimage Track.
The path leading to the Egg.
Blade's body kept spinning, even as the gasbag climbed. To other beings, it" might have been disconcerting, but qheuens had no preferred orientation. It never mattered which way he was "facing." So Blade was ready when the object he sought came into view.
There it is!
The corvette lay dead ahead. It had stopped motionless and was now shining a searchlight downward, circling a site that Blade realized could only be the Nest.
What is it planning to do?
He recalled Ovoom Town, where the aliens chose to attack at night for maximum terror and visual effect. Could that be the intent, once again?
But surely the Jophur would not harm the Egg!
Blade had never shown the slightest psi-ability. Yet it seemed that feelings now crept inward from his extremities to the flexing lymph pump at his body center. Expectation came first. Then something akin to intrigued curiosity.
Finally, in rapid succession, he felt recognition, realization, and a culminating sense of disappointed ennui. All these impressions swept over him in a matter of moments, and he somehow knew they weren't coming from the Jophur.
Indeed, whatever had just happened-a psi-insult or failed communication-it seemed to anger those aboard the cruiser, goading them to action. The searchlight narrowed from a diffuse beam to a needle of horrific brilliance that stabbed down viciously. It took duras for sound to follow ... a staccato series of crackling booms. Blade could not see the obscured target, but glowing smoke billowed from the point of impact.
A shrill, involuntary whistle escaped Blade's vents and his legs tightened spasmodically. Yet there was no impression of pain, or even surprise. It will take more than that, he thought proudly. A lot more.<
br />
Of course, the Jophur could dish out whatever it took to turn the defenseless Egg into a molten puddle. Their intent was now clear. This act, more even than the slaying at Ovoom Town, would tear the morale of the Six.
Blade urged his windblown vehicle onward, hoping to arrive in time.
Lark
THREE HUMANS IN A PRISON CELL WATCHED A PANorama of destruction, reacting in quite different ways. Lark stared at the holoscene with the same superstitious thrill he felt months ago, encountering Galactic tech for the first time. The images seemed to demand habits, ways of seeing, learned at an early age. Things he should recognize-the Rimmer mountains, for instance-possessed a slippery quality. Odd perspective foldings conveyed far more than you'd see through a window the same size . . . especially when the scene hovered over the Holy Egg.