Beholder's Eye

by Julie E. Czerneda

  "What are you going to do about it?" Char Largas' face was pale with fury, but she kept her voice down. They were on the Loyal's bridge and everyone in earshot was family. No point adding to the rumor mill. News spread translight anyway.

  "Be polite and stop," he answered easily.

  Her control snapped. It had been a difficult week. "What!? After what Kearn did to us?"

  Joel sighed. Standing up from the captain's seat, he took Char's arm and moved her firmly toward the rear lift. There was an alcove beside it with enough privacy for a quick nap on the narrow bench or an argument. He'd prefer the nap, but from the look in her eyes, that didn't seem likely.

  "The Rigus chased off the creature," he began. As her scowl deepened, Joel added quickly: "I know what happened to the Best, but do you honestly believe there was another option?"

  "They deserted us!"

  "And three good people died because of it. Yes. I know, daughter." When had he not been this tired, Joel thought. Lately, he felt as if all the time translight sidestepped for them had crashed down on his shoulders. "But Kearn, right or wrong, was trying to stop that thing from killing anyone else. And they came back, didn't they? We got the med treatments, all Al stuff, no argument, didn't we? Their engineer patched up the Best."

  Char was unconvinced, her hands remaining tight fists, her generous mouth a thin unhappy line. He knew the feeling. It was hard to let go of rage these days. It kept the body warm when hope had become elusive. But he had to believe the end was in sight. And he had to keep them believing, even when he couldn't.

  "Did they say why they want us to stop the convoy?"

  "They want you to transfer over. And me. Anyone who saw the creature."

  Joel had expected this. The Rigus had vid records from one perspective; the Loyal didn't have scanners but her crew had been eyewitnesses, probably the only living ones available to Kearn in his hunt.

  "So we make a visit, Char," he said lightly. "Let's take a shopping list, shall we?" he added, watching a reluctant grin ease the corners of her mouth. "Seems to me we've been running short on a few perishables."

  "I'll get one ready," she promised, mollified. "A long one."

  "We will get to Inhaven," Joel said, reaching out to almost touch her cheek. "All of us."

  "Yes, sir," she said, but he feared it was for his sake and for anyone listening, not because she believed in the future anymore.

  * * *

  55: Taxi Afternoon; Colony Afternoon

  « ^ »

  "READY?"

  "As she'll ever be," Ragem responded, one finger pressing on the control we'd jury-rigged on the panel. Neither of us were techs. I sincerely hoped Mixs-memory and Ragem's childhood model building wouldn't let us down now.

  "Well?"

  He gave me a harried look, then examined the panel display. "It looks as though the first bag is emptying. How much did you want to send out?"

  I thought wistfully of the tiny flecks of blue me, abandoned into space like so much lint. No way to retrieve them now. "Just the one bag," I decided, not eager to spend another five days filling up the Ahab's storage locker.

  He lifted his hand from the control a short time later. "Done."

  "I'll reset our course, then." The automatics on the Ahab let me simply punch in the new coordinates.

  "Are you sure we should have done that translight? Those particles are going to have quite a kick to them when they decelerate to sublight."

  "Ships pull debris with them all the time, Paul-Human," I said, standing up and stretching my long Ket arms behind my back. If I'd raised them over my head, I'd have hit the ceiling. "That's what hull shielding is for."

  Ragem straightened up, too. "With luck, maybe some will hit our friend out there."

  I shuddered and drew my arms back around to hug myself.

  "Sorry, Es."

  "No. This was my idea. I'm all right."

  We had a routine of sorts. It was Ragem's turn to cook, so he walked over to the servo kitchen at the back wall: our yacht's dining room. I set an alarm to let us know when the Ahab reached its next chumming point and went over the latest data feed. The information was still coming in, but the lag was increasing. How much of this was due to our distance from the nearest relay and how much to my informant approaching the last of her payment, I wasn't sure.

  I was sure the information was worth every credit. "There's been another attack," I announced, numbed as much by the implication that we were closing in as by the consistent violence of my Enemy. "A freighter—within a day of Inhaven's Vineland colony."

  "How many on board?" Ragem said in a carefully even voice.

  "Eight."

  He went on working, his back to me. Maybe it was time to broach a topic I'd left safely alone up to now. "Paul-Human," I began, watching him for any reaction, "What do you want?"

  "Want?" He glanced over one shoulder at me, eyes puzzled. "I'm not sure what you mean, Es."

  I padded over to sit at the pull-down table near to where he was adding vegetables to one of our two pots. The other he'd labeled with a skull and crossbones for my personal use. Human humor. "I mean, what do you want after all this is done? One way or another."

  "Oh."

  This monosyllable was all he uttered for a few minutes. I crouched and fondled a board he'd made me on one of those days when I'd been less company than the furnishings in his cabin. The board had four areas, each with a different surface texture. It was a close copy of a common Ket art-form. I trailed one finger over the tips of tiny pins, valuing this latest symbol of our friendship.

  Ragem passed me a plate and I put away my treasure. "What do I want?" The question was troubling him, I noticed with regret. But it had to be asked. "If it were a perfect universe—which it isn't—" he said with abrupt, typical honesty, "I'd like to be back on the Rigus, exploring new worlds and species. With you and Tomas around to liven up the place." A short pause, then he winked at me. "And Kearn reassigned somewhere—Lawrenk's got a place in mind that's waaay out there."

  He wants his web restored, I thought. I'd been right.

  "Anyway," the Human continued, a bit too briskly and with his face turned away from me. "Want and like aren't even close to where we are at the moment, are they? We've a lot to do first, my jelly-faced friend."

  I didn't disagree.

  I watched the display. The last of me trailed outward from the Ahab, adrift and alone. "That's the end of it," Ragem announced awkwardly. He knew, if couldn't comprehend, the strong attachment I felt to even these tiny insignificant bits of myself.

  "Then it's time," I said. "Do you want to land her, or should I?"

  Ragem looked at the automated controls, then at me. "If it's all the same to you, Esen, I think neither of us should."

  "Auto it is," I agreed.

  There wasn't a shipcity or spaceport to receive the Ahab on our chosen landing site, the very lack a reassurance that we weren't endangering other intelligent life. The organisms coating this lush little world would just, I thought looking at the display, have to get out of the way.

  As landings go, ours wasn't bad. I cycled into the Lanivarian the moment I felt the ship's gravity switch off. Ragem was already in motion, pulling on the hooded suit I'd bought for him.

  "Could you have found anything more conspicuous for me to wear?" he complained again.

  True, the suit fabric was gaudy enough to use as evening wear in a Denebian saloon. Its dark surface might conceivably blend in to some underbrush, if it didn't flash with its own light every so often. Such was the nature of a senso-screen. "Do you want me to check it again?" I asked him.

  The hood nodded.

  I cycled into web-form. Perfect. To my web senses, Ragem was gone. The screen and its power outlay were right before me, but felt painful to even examine closely.

  "Good," I said, cycling back after snatching a bit of mass from one of the few remaining plants. There were lots more outside.

  Which was why I had decided to make my st
and on Inhaven's latest colony, Ag-colony 413, a project abandoned during the recent escalation of the dispute with the Tly since there hadn't been any major investment in time or effort here for Inhaven to protect. We had carefully spread our chum lines leading to this world from six directions; the concentration gradients would peak here, in the system, as every particle obeyed the dictates of velocity we'd given it and continued on its course until crashing into atmosphere or rock. If I'd wanted to paint an immense sign advertising my presence, I couldn't have done better.

  There could be no time, or days until my Enemy tasted the trail and came to me. But it would come, I knew.

  If there was any justice, maybe we'd have enough time to prepare.

  * * *

  Out There

  SAFE at last. No pursuers, no energy weapons, no tricks.

  Death flung itself past yet another uninhabited system. There were living things, but no life-forms worthy of its hunger.

  Ah! A shell. It took up the chase, reveling in how its quarry tried in vain to twist and evade. Death gathered itself for the kill, ready to rip out the softness hidden within—

  What was this?

  Death stopped, senses aflame. The shell, ignored, accelerated out of reach, its occupants escaping with a tale to use at the next barside gathering.

  Death tasted.

  Death knew.

  * * *

  56: Colony Night

  « ^ »

  "I AM not, I repeat, not, going to sleep in this."

  "Yes, you are." I couldn't believe this was going to be the failing point of all my plans. Stupid Human!

  "You wear it, then!"

  "I don't need it!"

  "Says who!"

  This was ridiculous. I reached for the hood Ragem had just thrown at me, picking it up carefully from the grass. "Please, Paul. You're being unreasonable."

  "Unreasonable?" the Human pulled himself up to his full height to better glare down at me, an effect spoiled by the way his hair, wet with sweat, stuck up in all directions. I tried not to twitch my nose, but he did smell. The senso-screen fabric had turned out to have one slight disadvantage as a disguise.

  It was hot.

  Ag-413 being a semitropical paradise and our landing at the equator hadn't helped matters.

  "Esen, I'm going to pass out in this thing," he said, wilting again. "There's got to be some other way." Before I opened my mouth, Ragem shook his finger at me. "And I'm not taking off in the Ahab."

  I looked overhead, as if I'd be able to spot a blue projectile heading our way through the looming clouds and leafy giant ferns. "Give me your force blade," I said, shaking my head at him.

  "Killing me isn't an option either," he quipped. I gave him a look he could interpret however he liked.

  The suit had been crudely sealed together from three large pieces of senso-screen. Working together, Ragem and I were able to salvage enough still-functional material to make a sort of tent. I made him crawl into his sleeping bag, then draped the odd-shaped thing over him, propping up the end over his head with some branches. "It's more comfortable," he offered.

  I cycled. He was invisible to my web sense, except for his feet. It was certainly confusing to detect nothing but appendages, but not confusing enough. They resonated as Human to me.

  When I told Ragem, he tucked his feet up under the fabric just to be sure. "I still don't understand why you aren't wearing one of these. You're the one it's after."

  I looked upward again and didn't bother answering.

  We'd made camp at the edge of an artificial clearing. Inhaven had started work here; there had been signs of experimental crops and a rudimentary road system around the crude landing area as we'd dropped down. Any buildings and machinery had been removed, an orderly evacuation rather than a rout.

  I walked back and forth, sometimes dropping to all fours for old times' sake, sniffing the living messages on the night air. I'd already found what I was after, a magnificent giant fern, almost as old as I was, daunting in its mass and stillness. Ersh, I thought to myself, this had better work.

  I reviewed my planning for flaws, found dozens, and decided it was a pointless exercise at best. Shivering despite the warmth of the air, I turned and trotted back to where Ragem rested. I knew by the gleam of his eyes as I approached he was no more inclined to sleep than I was. So I lay down against him, tucked my nose under his arm, and tried to be a good example.

  I'd never had a nightmare before, beyond a restless worrying about cliffs, not that I remembered anyway. Ersh had explained to me once that dreams were closer to the waking mind in ephemerals and so were sometimes experienced as the truth. In us, they lodged deeper, distinguishable only in that they faded while memory remained vivid and alive.

  But this had the feel of nightmare to it.

  I didn't know my form. It wasn't that I had none, or that I wore some new and unassimilated shape, both were patently impossible. I simply couldn't recall anything about the thing I was.

  I knew where I was, however. I was in Ersh's room, her inner sanctuary. It was intact again, the way it should be. Then, as if the recognition distorted the image, it was in ruin. I choked on dust, yet didn't know yet if I breathed air. This couldn't be true memory, I realized, helpless to do more than live in it.

  The air cleared again. Ersh. There she rested, in the perfection of her web-form, a message ready to taste in the air. I tried to cycle, to be able to understand.

  I couldn't. I was locked in this, this, thing!

  Ersh's surface became mirror-bright. I found myself staring at Ragem's face, using his hands to touch it, to run down his body. Yet it was mine!

  What was happening? What did it mean?

  Suddenly, Ersh formed a mouth, with ragged sharp teeth framing it top, bottom, and sides. She advanced toward me. I screamed in horror and saw Ragem's face—my face—screaming in the reflection. I couldn't move. The mouth enlarged, bigger, bigger. It was larger than I and coming closer…

  "Es!" Something pounded on my rib cage. "Wake up!"

  I fought my way out of the lingering horror of the dream, finding myself blinking at the small handlight Ragem—properly himself—shone between us. He was looking at me with concern. He was also a good arm's length away and from his position, it had been his foot in my ribs.

  "Sorry. But you were snarling in your sleep," he explained. "Are you all right? I thought you were going to bite me."

  "Keep under the screen," was all I managed to say.

  Neither of us found it easy to fall back to sleep. I'd almost drifted off when Ragem said out of the darkness: "You know, you've never told me where you live."

  "Where I live?" I repeated, trying to make sense of the comment.

  "Well, do you live on Picco's Moon?"

  Not any more, I said to myself, controlling a shiver. Ragem, seeming in the mood to hear his own voice, kept going in a slow sleepy way when I didn't reply. "The others had places of their own. Where is yours? On Lanivar?"

  "It takes experience and training to live within another species' culture," I admitted quietly. "Ersh hadn't felt I was ready."

  "Oh."

  The silence and the dark didn't help my thoughts. "It wouldn't have been long," I continued, almost to myself. Another hundred years or so, at the rate I made mistakes. "She'd likely have sent me to one of the Fringe worlds, a colony or perhaps a mining operation. There's few questions asked in new settlements. I'd have started an identity of my own, something innocuous and dull. Safe. Maybe a small import business, so I could travel without attracting any notice. To live like the others—it takes a lot of preparation to create an identity that fits into an existing society."

  I paused. From the even sound of his breathing, he'd fallen asleep somewhere during my explanation. Just as well, I thought, settling myself to do the same if I could. For if I survived my Enemy, my new life must start with an identity and a place secret from everyone—including my only friend.

  * * *

  Out There


  "YOU want us to what?"

  "Hush, Char," Joel admonished his eldest. The small man across the gleaming desktop had thus far failed to impress either his offspring or himself. Funny how people seemed larger than life when you were only talking through a com link. Joel Largas was also unimpressed with the reason they were standing in the office of Acting Captain Kearn.

  "Three ships Two," Kearn temporized, his hand stealing up to rub frantically across his balding head. "That's all. Two. A short jaunt with us and you're back on course."

  "And what do we get in return for these two ships and your short jaunt?" Char demanded. She was a captain in her own right, at least when the Largas Loyal had been one of a fleet instead of a sole survivor, and refused to be cowed by Kearn's Commonwealth uniform or his nonhuman security officer standing alertly to one side, whiskers flicking back and forth with the conversation.

  Kearn looked at Joel Largas in appeal. Joel raised one eyebrow. "A fair question, Acting Captain. You're asking us to disrupt the convoy, slow it down. There's a lot of tired, hurt people on those ships and 'pods. They aren't patient with delays."

  "We know, sir," the voice belonged to a tall woman, an engineering specialist if Joel read the bars on her uniform correctly. Something in her face told him this one had seen trouble in the past and had no patience for fools of any rank. He felt sorry for her on this ship.

  "You're the one who came on the Best," Denny said. "You patched her up in no time."

  "Lawrenk Jen," she acknowledged with a nod. "My pleasure." Lawrenk had a stack of plas sheets in one hand. She held them up, as if for Kearn to notice as well as those from the Loyal. "These are confirmations from Inhaven, welcoming you and your families to the colony of your choice. I also have settlement vouchers for everyone in your convoy, entitling you to land and supplies once you've decided on a destination."