Beholder's Eye

by Julie E. Czerneda

  I cycled back to the Lanivarian, and found to my dismay that I was furious. It was an effort to get the growl out of my voice. "Why did you do that?"

  Ersh cycled, too. It was the ancient Human who cocked her wizened face at me. Skalet and Lesy snatched up their Kraosian clothing and retreated from the room without a word. I stood my ground, having nowhere else to go.

  "I said I was proud of what you salvaged from your posting. That has nothing to do with what you did afterward—with the Humans." She took up her cane. "And if you're ready, it's time we discussed the consequences of that."

  I nodded reluctantly.

  "Come," she said, shuffling to the door that led to her private chamber. I sent off a quick prayer to the Snaggle-Toothed God of my present form and followed.

  The chamber had one chair, Ersh's. It had one light, controlled by Ersh's hand. And it had one exit, with Ersh's permission. Duras plants lined the walls, growing under lights in precise measured ranks. Ersh didn't believe in scrounging for mass.

  I knew this room, having spent a lot of time in here during my formative years. It was Ersh herself who seemed new and strange, her unfamiliar Human shape out of place. I couldn't read her face at all.

  Ersh-memory floated up as I waited. As usual, it was full of gaps and edits. It was one of the reasons Ersh was still the center of the Web—her talent at not-sharing. She'd left in her reaction when I'd arrived unexpectedly on her doorstep. I tried not to wince.

  "You've made us famous," she said after a soul-destroying pause that Kearn would have died to achieve.

  There wasn't much to say to that, but I met her glittering eyes. "I didn't see any choice in the matter."

  "Choice?" she sputtered, tiny flecks of saliva appearing at the corners of her thin lips. "I trained you. We all trained you. When did we say, in this or that situation, the choice will be up to you?" She waved her stump of an arm.

  There was a time when I would have lain on the floor and showed my belly then and there. Even crippled, withered by this form, Ersh crowded the room with her age and wisdom. She dominated us all by her position in the Web. Her memories were the oldest we shared; she had been the First.

  But I'd been on my own. In a way, I'd formed my own Web, a fragile little web of friendship, even if it had been cut. I spoke quickly, before my brand new courage failed.

  "Tell me, Oldest. What would you have done differently? Should I have let Ragem die? Should I have let his crew-mates perish instead? To keep our moldy secrets, should I have forgotten the Rules of the Web, to find and preserve intelligence?"

  Ersh sucked in her cheeks. For a moment I was startled, then realized it was a smile—she didn't have many teeth left. It wasn't a pleasant expression. "You quote rules to me, Youngest?" she said, tiger-soft. Then a spittle-coated roar: "I made up the damn Rules!"

  "Don't you believe in them?"

  "Don't you talk back to me!"

  "Fine," I said, turned, and walked to the door. Inside I shook like jelly and wanted to cycle into something with a lot of body armor.

  "Wait." The voice was suddenly the deeper one I was used to, and I stopped. I knew what she was now without looking, the form Ersh used most. "You shared deeply and well, Esen. We are each other's flesh. Let's honor that by not bickering, at least."

  I went out to the other room, picked up a kitchen chair, and brought it back. Deliberately, I sat down and looked at Ersh.

  The Tumblers were native to this moon, which gave Ersh both cover and company when the strands of the Web were stretched by distance. In Tumbler-form, she was more mineral than meat, looking like a tower of spun plas. Her deep, musical voice emanated from resonating crystals. A dignified, capable body. When I'd been very young, I used to sneak up and tap her quickly with a hammer of stone—she'd ring like a bell. Ersh had never been impressed by this habit.

  "What do you want me to do, Ersh?" I asked quietly. "The past is done."

  "True. A past with a foul, poisonous taste."

  "It's not that bad," I protested. "A few Humans with a wild story—a hint of a mysterious life-form. This kind of contact was bound to happen sometime." But why to me, I thought with a significant amount of self-pity.

  "Some have asked that I excise you, cut you forever from the Web."

  Really bad news takes time to sink in, so I didn't bother dwelling on it. "They all shared with me," I countered, bitter. Mixs and Skalet, no doubt. At least those two, though I hoped no others.

  Ersh chimed, a discordant sound. "They appreciated the necessity of knowing what you'd done."

  "What I did was—" I hesitated. "I saw no other way, then or now. Ersh, the Humans don't know anything important about us—you shared my memory of it."

  "Your sharing wasn't complete, Esen."

  I worked at keeping my ears up. "What do you mean?"

  "Did you think to fool me?"

  This seemed like a dangerous question to answer so I kept quiet. Ersh made a wind-over-sand sound—a Tumbler sigh. "I know you well enough, Esen, to fill in some of what you didn't share. Ragem, Tomas. These names come with a taste of friendship. This tells me you've forged connections with these ephemerals. They will search for you; you are now of their Web."

  I whined my disbelief, deep in my throat. After Rigel II? I remembered Ragem's horrified expression.

  Ersh, of course, remembered it, too. She said sharply, "You terrified the being—what did you expect? You weren't exactly clear-headed yourself. Ragem's fear won't last. He's your friend." A stress on the last word, or did I imagine it? Maybe it was only my conscience.

  "The Humans won't find me again," I said, talking as quickly as I could, afraid of what she was trying to tell me. "Their memories fade. They only live a handful of years at best." Ersh sat silent, considering me with a deadly attention. I slowed down. "They made records, Ersh, but of what? Their meds examined me, and found me Lanivarian. All they have is an image of something unusual. Who'll believe in me after a decade or two?"

  "Unfortunately, we can't wait. Our problem is immediate. And needs a drastic solution."

  How could a being whose life span was longer than most civilizations use the term immediate? I fought back my confusion and growing alarm, focusing on what was familiar. It was my fault—whatever it was. "Does this mean you are planning to excise me from the Web?" I asked numbly.

  "Pointless," Ersh chimed a harmony, the key minor and ominous. She tilted forward slowly. I moved my chair out of her way as she gracefully tumbled past me to one wall of the room. "Close the door and lock it."

  A lock? Against whom? I obeyed anyway, recognizing with dismay that I was becoming a participant in something unexpected again. Ersh was a far less comfortable partner than Ragem.

  I didn't see how she did it, but a small rectangular space opened in the rock wall. A puff of mist slipped out and sank. A Tumbler's hands are quite dexterous, like a set of trowels with joints. Ersh reached one hand inside the opening, and carefully brought out a well-wrapped object about the size and shape of a pear, held in the tips of two fingers. I craned my neck and made out several more of the objects nestled within. Ersh resealed the hidden compartment before turning to me.

  "Take this."

  It was cold in my paws, cold and heavy. I stared at the wrappings, cataloging them as leather—very old leather.

  I looked up at a gentle sound from Ersh. It was a bell tone, the one I used to get when I snuck up on her with my favorite hammer. "Some might call what you're holding a gift, Esen," Ersh said quite sadly. "You are at least wise enough to know better. Lock the door behind me. We will talk again when you are ready."

  I did as she asked, without bothering to understand, then curled up in my chair facing Ersh's empty one. I held the thing—her "gift"—in front of me and waited for inspiration. After what Ersh said, I wanted nothing to do with it. But how to get rid of the thing without causing more trouble?

  The warmth of my paws slowly thawed and softened the leather. I used one slim toe to tease open
the top of the wrapping. It wouldn't do any harm to see what I was refusing.

  A smooth, blue drop winked back at me, its flawless surface like some fabulous gem—or an eye. An irresistible hunger surged through me and I snapped up the morsel before I had time to think.

  Ersh-taste exploded in my mouth, scalding like acid. I cycled desperately, hoping to save my Lanivarian form.

  Web-form. Blind, deaf, and dumb, I huddled as Ersh-memory burned through me in a different kind of pain. She had been right. This was no gift.

  I now knew what I had done. It wasn't the Humans Ersh feared.

  The Web had mortal enemies. Enemies Ersh had fled by traveling across a galaxy. Enemies she had hidden from for thousands of years. We'd been safe.

  Until I'd introduced myself to a Human and become famous in the process.

  * * *

  19: Moon Night and Day

  « ^ »

  MYSTERIOUS powerful beings, bent on searching out and destroying all strands of the Web, able to spot us in any form—

  Maybe Ersh was senile.

  However, believing that could mean worse things than monsters, if Ersh could end, I decided, squirming uncomfortably, then it followed that everything could end. Surely at my age I was entitled to depend on living forever, even if that included forever answering to Ersh.

  So I had to believe in monsters, ready-to-pounce ones at that. Damn. I picked up more loose stones in my beak, absently swallowing a few smaller ones to comfort my empty gizzard. It was too dark to fly, but I felt better as something that could safely fall off Ersh's mountaintop.

  I tossed back too big a stone and almost gagged on it. I flicked it out of my throat and away with a twist of my head, wishing forlornly that Ersh's "gift" was as easy to spit out. I resented having to keep it in my private memory, festering among my treasures.

  A subdued thunk came from the shadows below me as the stone I threw hit another. The tiny impact dislodged a second rock from its bed, sending it rolling downhill, clattering, in its turn ousting others from their places.

  I peered over the cliff edge and tried to see, but the darkness was complete, a treacherous velvet draped over the cracked landscape. It was easy enough to follow the progress of my little avalanche by its sound, a delightful rushing cascade that quickly grew to a formidable growl.

  All at once, the sound included an orchestral accompaniment: multiple bell tones, one or two somewhat flat. Oops. I'd hit a Tumbler. No, I winced, more than one.

  Great. Even fate was going out of its way to booby-trap my life lately. What were Tumblers doing down there at this time of night? Tumblers considered traveling without Picco looming overhead to be unsafe.

  They had a point, at least with me upslope. 'Course, if these Tumblers were waiting to see Ersh, the hillside might be the logical place to squat; it gave an easy view of departing guests—Tumblers tended to be on the shy side unless annoyed. I shuffled back hastily, in case my silhouette was visible against the starry sky.

  I'd come up here to avoid the others. Ersh was supposed to have secrets—not me. Assimilating even one of her secrets twisted my position in the Web from youngest and last to youngest and second. The others would want a chunk out of me if they knew. I wasn't planning to tell them, but I had a creeping suspicion that it would somehow show on my face—whatever face I chose.

  I balanced on my right foot as I stretched the tension out of my left foot and wing. Just like Ersh to give me a promotion I couldn't enjoy. What else did she have in mind? I was cold, suddenly, inside and out. I fluffed out my feathers to hold more body heat against my skin. What if Ersh expected me to actually do something about her monsters?

  Time to think of anything else. My present eyes bulged from either side of my head, though aimed forward; the arrangement provided me with a horizon-spanning view of the night sky, dusted with stars as long as Picco was behind its moon. (Tumbler science held tight to the belief that the gas giant circled the moon—as a guest I didn't argue the point.) I firmly pushed Ersh from my thoughts and concentrated on a part of the universe that surely couldn't cause me trouble.

  But the brighter stars overhead reminded me of sugar sparkles on a cookie. Ragem and Tomas were out there, their uncomplicated lives continuing without me. I clicked my beak in a sigh.

  "May I?"

  I almost fell off the cliff, catching myself at the brink with one frantic beat of my wings. Rocks slipped under my talons, dropping into the dark, clattering. I hoped the Tumblers were out of range.

  Ersh settled beside me, avoiding my still-flailing wings as I attempted to put my feathers back in order, her body blurring from crystal to skyfolk. There was an irritated tinkling from below. I hummed a bit to cover the sound.

  Her great talons gripped a handy boulder as she arranged her own wings into a shelter against the night air. Her head swiveled up. "Ahh. Nice stars tonight, Esen. You've always had a knack for the spectacular."

  Actually, a literal translation of what she said in the language of the skyfolk was more like: "oppressive-dark-useless-flickers," and "insane-vision-talent-perverse" but I was reasonably familiar with the skyfolk's doleful expressions and knew what Ersh meant. I hoped.

  "I never try to be spectacular," I said somewhat morosely, resisting an urge to retract my neck and pull my head down between my shoulder blades.

  "It was a compliment, daughter."

  In the skyfolk tongue, "daughter" came out as "ultimate-destiny-future-soul." Ersh was after something.

  I changed my mind about being able to read her meaning through this form's convoluted language. A mistake could land me in serious trouble. I cycled, hoping Ersh wouldn't take offense, and clutched my now-furred knees to my chest for warmth. The mist from my excess mass condensed in fine drops on the night-chilled rocks. "Ansky is my mother," I reminded Ersh through the nervous chattering of my carnivore's teeth. I knew all about sex and babies. I'd snuck some mating pheromones last time I'd been on the Ycl homeworld. Made me dense and dizzy for a while, until Ansky found me and explained that it took a cooperative triad and would I please metabolize the pheromones out of my system.

  "You're being overly technical. I am Ansky's parent and so yours, too." Ersh had also cycled, politely keeping form. She occasionally followed her own rules. "We need to talk, daughter." Ersh was also frequently stubborn. I decided to concede her the point.

  I moved my tongue carefully around words with more hiss than click to them. It took practice not to spit. "What do you want, Ersh?" I cringed the moment the words were out. Modorens must be rather blunt.

  "To further enlighten you."

  I forgot the cold and the damp rocks under my behind. The fur along my spine shivered erect from the base of my tail to the top of my head. "I feel enlightened enough, Ersh." This was about as daring as I could get without turning and running.

  Ersh might have been one of the statues Humans put in pairs in front of old buildings. She was mainly silhouette; even with the enlarged pupils of this form, I could only collect enough starlight to make out the curved tip of her ear, the flash of teeth as she licked her lips pensively. "Really?" Somehow she managed to impart menace into the single word. "I didn't expect you to be foolish, young Esen."

  Privately, I thought about old fools as well as young ones. "I'm not being foolish," I said after a moment. "I don't like knowing secrets. About the Web," I added truthfully; the truth was important after sharing flesh. "I don't see why—"

  "The others can't know?" Ersh finished. "I wish they could. But I'm stuck with you, however irresponsible, flighty, and stubborn you are. These are faults you'll grow out of in time, Es," she said with what sounded like dubious hope. "But only you and I have the ability to keep secrets during the sharing of flesh." Her voice deepened with a dangerous snarling undertone. "I will take no chances on what I know being assimilated by those outside my Web."

  "The Enemy." Just saying it evoked the Ersh-tasting memory, the words wrapped with dread, fear, and oddly, a wisp of longin
g. But no form, no details, only emotion. Not that I wanted to know. I squirmed a bit, trying to find part of my rocky seat that didn't slope. In my experience, trouble followed those who deserved it. The activities of the Web were downright boring—let alone our tendency to simply outlive everybody else. Something wasn't fitting together at all. "Ersh, why do we have an enemy?"

  She didn't answer directly, instead asking in her familiar drillmaster tone, "What is our purpose?"

  I recited without thought, "The purpose of the Web is to find and preserve intelligence. To commit to shared memory the culture as well as the form. To be a living repository so no accomplishment of intelligence will be lost."

  "Quite a noble purpose, don't you agree?"

  I hadn't thought of judging it. The purpose was part of life, as fundamental to the Web as sharing form. Yet her voice—this form had little subtlety of expression. Ersh's voice had sounded sarcastic, which I knew had to be wrong.

  "Other civilizations are ephemeral," I said cautiously, whiskers straight with apprehension, finding my claws had a tendency to poke out. "Without us, they would disappear forever, even their works becoming dust—"

  "So ours is a noble purpose." Couldn't miss the sarcasm this time. "And you have no doubts?"

  I closed my teeth on the quick answer and thought hard. "You gave the Web this purpose," I countered. "If there are doubts, wouldn't you have given them to us, too?"

  Ersh gave a soft grunt. Maybe I'd said something clever, but I didn't count on it. "The Human—Kearn—might argue that we're parasites," she said. "He could say we copy other forms for our own benefit, steal their knowledge only to perfect our disguises."

  Old ground—this was simple basic training. "Using a form is essential to understanding the species," I repeated, again from rote. Exhaustive details on Kraosian architecture swam up behind my eyes before I could suppress the memory. "We remember a lot more than we'd need for simple camouflage," I complained before I thought.

  Ersh sat, attentive but still rigid, a demigod expecting a sacrifice—an unfortunately apt image, I decided. Her age wore against me, almost immeasurable even by Web standards. I found myself thinking of before and realized with a sick feeling that I hadn't asked the right question at all.