Beholder's Eye

by Julie E. Czerneda

  His eyes flashed to me, their gray almost black. "We've been through this, Es. If you're going to fight this thing, you're going to need help."

  What I'm going to need is a miracle, I thought, but tucked it in a private place. Habit, since there was no other to share my flesh. The pain of my loss was distant, as if I'd somehow shunted that away too for safekeeping.

  What bumped against the edge of my carapace was also in safekeeping until I had a private secure place to deal with its contents. Ersh's final legacy, wrapped and still-frozen in the cryosac, lay within a small box hanging from a strap. I trusted the thing looked of little value; there were thieves here, as well as entrepreneurs of every type. Ragem had taken to wearing a very visible biodisruptor on his hip, as well as a far less obvious pair of force blades, accepting the weaponry with an alacrity that confirmed my belief in the underlying barbaric nature of humanoids in general.

  Still, he was on my side. And I knew Ragem's nature; he wore the deadly things as a bluff rather than in any hope of using them.

  Our next stop. I hadn't told Ragem what we were buying here. The squealing and stamping emanating from inside the low, dark building won me an inscrutable look. "Ganthor?" Ragem wrinkled up his nose and balked in the doorway.

  I tapped him on his good shoulder. "Old friends," I said, not bothering to add aloud the I hope part of it.

  Ragem looked in vain for a sign. Unlike the other buildings along the row, each flamboyantly advertising its wares, the one before us had only a number code beside its door. "Come on," I urged him, taking the first downward step.

  None of my web-kin had been able to defeat our Enemy, not even Ersh. Divorced from any emotional context, the meaning was clear: nothing in my shared memories would help me save myself. Well, I didn't intend to die.

  Hiding had some charm. Unfortunately, hiding wouldn't stop the creature's rampage through civilized space. The battle with the Kraal convinced me it was capable of resisting the ephemerals' attacks. So I'd reached the inevitable conclusion. I had to kill it.

  I took another of the three steps down to the entranceway, Ragem now beside me, fastidiously avoiding the appendage rail with its sticky shine.

  How to kill it? How to survive? Here was part of my answer. Since nothing from before would help me, I would draw on what was only Esen's, what was unique to me and not shared by my Enemy.

  Starting with a barful of unemployed Ganthor mercenaries.

  *Contract void*, the Matriarch clicked, shaking her big head in melancholy above her bowl of beer. *Tly backing down*Conflict resolving* Bad news for the mercenaries; I couldn't help but be pleased by it.

  Ragem and I perched on stools beside her, her Seconds leaning against the bar to either side. The long, low-ceilinged room was hot, dark, and the source of the truly appalling smell Ragem had noticed at street level. The noise level had dropped only briefly as we stepped inside. Clickspeak worked well enough at close range, except when the bartender arrived with new glassware and deposited it on the counter nearby with a distracting clatter. We all glared at the being each time it happened. The bartender ignored us.

  *Opportunity for herd*, I responded using the tips of my claw against a bottle. Her nose twitched, bubbling mucus, but I couldn't supply any scent to help her. All I could offer was my credit chip.

  One of the Seconds took it in between the fingers of his hand and passed it through a reader. A well-prepared group, I thought, even though their funds had to be running low. It hadn't been difficult to find them. Mercenaries advertised, and there were no other Ganthor herds currently in the Ultari System. Skalet-like, I found I wanted known parameters.

  Another interruption as the bartender needlessly intruded to take away empties and slap down replacements. I glanced at Ragem and he nodded, "On mine, for the lot," he said to the bartender, intercepting its reach for the Matriarch's card and handing his over instead. There was a minor stampede as the Ganthor hurried to take advantage of this bounty, a stampede that broke into a shoving match as the lower seniority individuals were firmly put back in their place.

  The Second restored order with a quick *!!* before conferring with the Matriarch about my credit rating. They might prefer barter, but well-traveled beings such as these had learned the value of currency. Had I been Ganthor, I'd have shared the scents of pleased expectancy and new hope that raced through the room. As it was, I tried to keep my orifices as tightly closed as practical without suffocating.

  My card was returned. *Task?* the Matriarch clicked as she dipped her snout deeply into the bowl to slurp up beer, her long red tongue mopping up the foam overflowing onto the counter.

  *Specifics* I clicked, pulling out a sheet of folded plas and handing it to her Second. *Security* I summarized vaguely enough.

  *Resupply necessary* she clicked, curling up her hand in a gesture I knew expressed a distasteful topic.

  I'd known that detail, having been present when the poor Ganthor had lost all their hardware, and had made my own preparations. *Included* I clicked, pulling out a second credit chip, this one a prepaid account with the leading arms dealer on Ultari Prime. Depending on supply and demand, it was possible the canny Ganthor could buy back the very same weaponry they'd been forced to donate to the Tly.

  The Matriarch eased herself off her stool and stamped twice *!!*!!* to focus the attention of her herd. *We accept*

  Ragem and I had stood at the same time. I bowed, a D'Dsellan affectation I couldn't help, then nudged Ragem. The quick-witted Human stamped his boot on the floor twice, an accomplishment beyond the soft padding of my current feet. *Confirm when supplied* I clicked on the countertop.

  "Mercenaries and rostra sprouts," Ragem itemized as we headed to the shipcity, the servo aircar loaded to its capacity with our final purchases. His lips twitched.

  I hugged the icy box of Ersh bits on my knees. "Ganthor are very brave," I said defensively.

  "And the sprouts?" Definitely a grin now.

  I didn't answer. It would spoil the mood if I told him they were for a last meal if my plan failed at any of several likely moments.

  The ship wasn't exactly what we'd expected, but I was satisfied. My companion wasn't. "If this is a yacht, it's my turn to be a Quebit," Ragem had growled, obviously disappointed to find out he'd spent a fortune to buy a used intersystem taxi.

  Skalet- and Mixs-memory reassured me as I went over the ship. It was old, but sound. The luxury promised by the dealer consisted of some glued-on plas panels and fairly new carpeting, all intended to disguise where rows of seats used to be, but the control panels had been updated recently. "She's translight-capable," I stated, "And holds air. That'll do."

  I was more concerned that our supplies were in order. The Ervickian should have made sufficient profit on the taxi not to try and cheat us any further. Not a good bet. We'd have to open everything, except what we'd brought with us to the ship. I shunted the memory of the Ervickian's name into a place I could recall easily.

  Ragem recovered quickly, resilient as always. I found him stroking the pilot's seat a short while later, a bemused, wondering expression on his face. "Happier?" I asked.

  "It's not everyone who can afford their own starship," he said ruefully. "I should have been more grateful—"

  "Grateful?" I interrupted, my worry for him, and for myself, resurfacing. "Why? This ship is to carry us to my Enemy. I can't believe I'm letting you come."

  His fist struck the back of the pilot's chair hard enough to set it rocking. "Enough, Es! We've been through this." Ragem's lips were tight; the joy gone from his eyes. "And it's not your Enemy. It's mine. It's everyone's. This creature has cost me my place, my friends—let alone the murders it's committed and will commit again unless we stop it." He took a deep breath, looking at me almost accusingly. "No more talk of whether I belong here. It's not your decision."

  I kept my tail from retreating between my legs with an effort, having returned to my birth-form the moment we were in the privacy of the ship. I hadn't bot
hered shaving or putting on more than a vest. Once we lifted, it would be back to the Ket. Ragem was amazingly adaptable, but it seemed polite to use the forms he'd already befriended. Had I made the first new Rule for my Web?

  "Well," he said, his tone deliberately light as if to make up for the outburst and, I thought, to forestall any attempt to suggest there was a debate to continue. "We can't let her go up without a name." Ragem consulted the control panel. "Right now it's Speedy InterSys Transit No. 365."

  I laughed until my tongue drooped out the corner of my jaw. "You bought her, my friend," I said when I could speak coherently again. "You name her."

  Ragem's answering smile was the best thing I'd seen in days.

  * * *

  Out There

  CHEATED! Cheated! Cheated!

  Death flung itself through space, howling its disappointment, shuddering at the closeness of its escape.

  Almost death. Almost death.

  The Oldest had tried to trap it, almost succeeding. Death writhed at the memory of being lured by that exquisite taste into merging with its mountain, sinking together into lifeless rock.

  Must survive!

  Somehow it had pulled free. Somehow it had fled.

  Never go back, it vowed. Never never never.

  Besides, it remembered, there was more.

  * * *

  54: Taxi Night

  « ^ »

  RAGEM had christened our little ship the Ahab, citing a Botharan legend about a man who succeeded in defeating a terrible monster. I didn't bother informing him that the story was far older, Terran in fact, and involved a man cursed to follow his quarry into death. Both were possibilities.

  The Ahab lifted from Ultari Prime only a bit behind schedule. We'd had to delay—and pay the fine—to accept an emergency shipment. The plants the Ervickian had supplied were lush, green, and healthy, but he had neglected to include the lighting fixtures to keep them that way. Ragem and I went through everything else we'd ordered to make sure there had been no other potentially fatal omissions. I was really going to remember that being. At least we had rostra sprouts. Six large cases of rostra sprouts.

  Once the automatics were engaged, and we went translight, Ragem took the first turn to sleep. The Ahab did have two cabins: not quite the staterooms we'd been shown on the vistape, but comfortable and clean.

  I didn't waste any time once I was alone in the control room. The com gear I'd bought had been almost as expensive as the ship herself, and was illegal tech in the Commonwealth. Another reason to shop Ultari. I knew how to use it, in theory. One of the problems with shared memory was a certain lack of hands-on practice. But the system looked idiot-proof.

  It was also supposedly eavesdropper-proof. I composed and sent my first message, the contents of which I definitely didn't want shared. Confirmation was impossible. I had to hope the lure of revenge would be sufficient motivation.

  I checked that Ragem was safely asleep before sending my second message. He wouldn't approve. I wasn't sure I did. But I owed him a future.

  Then I set up the relay to Ultari Prime. Part of the cost of this device had been the services of what was euphemistically called an information collector. From the price tag, I hoped she was the best in the business; she'd soon be the richest. I was relieved to see the data feed start immediately, dumping directly into the ship's library for sorting.

  I stroked my hoobit, letting the machines work, finding an odd satisfaction in using the same ephemeral technology that threatened my secrecy to track down my Enemy. It would have to feed somewhere, sometime. And those deaths, while I couldn't prevent them, would help me find it.

  Meanwhile, I had one final task to perform. I'd left this until I was alone, feeling a need for privacy; a sign of respect for Ersh that I shared this last time without an alien observer, no matter how dear to me.

  Putting aside the hoobit and skirt, I opened the box that had never left my side and pulled aside the covering cryosac. There were a total of three blue gems inside; the other two having been tucked beneath the first I'd seen on Picco's Moon. I cycled ever-so-slowly, intent on making the moment last as long as I could.

  Ersh taste filled my mouth.

  Ragem tugged the lowermost sheet from the pile covering most of the control room deck. "Where did you say the last sighting was?" he asked, spreading his prize out on his lap.

  I keyed in the request. "An empty freighter was salvaged off the Commonwealth lanes near Inhaven."

  "Inhaven!" Ragem tossed aside the map he'd just found and ruffled through the others on the floor until he grunted with success. "Here it is." He frowned. "What's it doing over there?"

  The maps were poor representations of the volumes we dealt with; nonetheless I thought I could see a pattern emerging. "It's avoiding the Kraal. See? There's a loop of Confederacy-patrolled space here, and over there. It's learned to be wary of their weapons."

  "Why? They didn't work."

  "Caution. You wouldn't pick up something hot with your bare hands, would you, Paul-Human?"

  "If it avoids warships, shouldn't it avoid the Tly blockade?"

  The investment in information had paid off. "The Tly have pulled back their ships, according to this," I patted the constantly humming com. We'd had to dump the incoming feed into a second storage system, but it was worth it. "And it had good—luck—in the Fringe. I think it plans to hide there, where there is intelligent life, but away from more settled, more protected areas."

  "If it hides, Es…" Ragem's voice trailed off. I saw him look over the maps at his feet, his tongue darting over his lips as though his mouth had suddenly dried. "Where would we start to look? We can't stop it killing if we can't get ahead of it."

  "We do have one advantage," I reminded him. "We know what it prefers."

  "Skalet used herself as bait," he protested. "You know how well that worked. And she had a fleet of ships to defend her. We've got—" he flung his hands out wildly. "A taxi!"

  "I don't have a death wish, Paul," I assured him firmly. "And I have no intention of sitting around waiting to be eaten." Not quite, anyway. "I've thought of something a little less high-tech than Skalet's drones and warships."

  My something came from Lesy. My web-kin had been the one to add the Modoren form to our shared memory. Included in her sharing was a year's experience as a fisher in one of the many Modoren ports on their homeworld. The Modoren were very good at capturing their prey.

  "Chum?"

  "That's the Human term for it," I said, trying not to sound annoyed as Ragem interrupted my mental calculations for the second time. "The boats go out and spread a mixture of organics on the surface of the water. Organics that would be tasty to the type of fish they want. The fish sense the mixture and follow the concentration gradient to where it originates."

  "The boats."

  "Exactly."

  "And you want to do this over how many parsecs of space?" Ragem shook his head. "You might live long enough to see a result. I certainly won't."

  I nudged the map closest to me with my long toes, enjoying its feathery texture if not Ragem's sensible objections.

  "We—I," I corrected, "can detect even a single atom and know its likely origin. In web-form, I feel the energy flickers of electrons as they dance about their cores. If we place the chum in the right locations, our Enemy will find it soon enough."

  "And then what happens?"

  I kept my fingers from the hoobit; the Human was too good at interpreting the physical markers of my mental state in several forms now. "Let's get its attention first."

  The Ahab needed five more days translight to reach Inhaven. Ragem and I could have shaved a day from the total if we'd dared cut through Tly space, but neither of us felt like taking the extra risk. The Tly were smarting under Commonwealth sanctions; however, nothing in the news reports or other information we received from Ultari suggested those sanctions were doing more than temporarily subduing the territorial pangs of the Tly.

  The time was welcome.
What I'd planned to do required a certain sacrifice on my part, one much easier to bear if taken slowly, although less pleasant from Ragem's viewpoint.

  I was molting.

  To be exact, I was in web-form and shedding excess mass as a fine blue dust, carefully freed of any memory. Ragem's task was to suck up the dust using a portable cleaner and store each bagful in the ship's cryo unit.

  Every so often, I'd cycle to Ket to take a rest, Ragem would put away the cleaner, and we'd go over the latest information feeds to see if anything had changed.

  Then I'd cycle back, assimilate more mass from our dwindling supply of plants, and start molting again. It wasn't dignified, I admitted to the Ersh part of me whenever I grew queasy or protective of my mass, but it was a vast improvement over the other ways of losing mass I'd experienced in my short life.

  It also gave me time to think, or rather not to think. I needed to assimilate Ersh's last memories, her gift to me, before I tried any of the new things she'd finally decided to teach me. If I ever did, I thought ruefully.

  She'd taught me how to fly. I dreamed about it, reliving the sensation through Ersh-memory. It was simple, once you knew how.

  The only problem was the cost.

  I could exit the Ahab right now. I could soar beside her in the glory of vacuum, diving through waves of radiation, basking in streams of light. All I'd need would be every molecule of Ragem's flesh, as well as all of the remaining plant life on board.

  At least I now understood why my Enemy had been so voracious, yet had never—as far as I'd tasted—succumbed to the need to divide or die. Almost all of its victims' mass must have disappeared into the energy demands of translight travel.

  I was very glad Ersh had hidden this ability from us all.

  * * *

  Out There

  "THEY want us to stop."

  "They do," Joel Largas said thoughtfully. He pulled on his lower lip and considered his daughter.