Webshifters 2 - Changing Vision

by Julie E. Czerneda

  As Meony-ro spoke into a wrist com, another piece of military-issue gear not typically found in the storerooms of Cameron & Ki Exports, I met Paul's eyes and knew what he now saw in mine.

  Questions.

  Starting with how our desk clerk had responded—and so effectively—to a distress call I'd tight-beamed to Joel Largas on Minas XII.

  And ending with why Paul hadn't been in the least surprised to see him.

  Elsewhere

  « ^ »

  LEFEBVRE opened his eyes, then yawned. "Quite the dream," he told himself out loud, sitting up. Then he looked around, disoriented.

  This wasn't the Russell III. And it certainly wasn't his Latasian jelly-bed.

  He dropped his head back onto the pillow. It hadn't been a dream, then.

  In the space of a day—a mere day!—he'd found both Paul Ragem and Kearn's Monster.

  Among the many scenarios he'd imagined over the last few years, none had included friendship with the one nor the reality of the other.

  He couldn't help grinning, feeling as though he'd awakened from a much longer sleep than a night. Esen. What an amazing creature. Lefebvre's mind brimmed with questions. From what little Paul had been able to tell him in private before disappearing into the healing sleep of the 'Lass' intact med unit, she could become any intelligent life-form in the blink of an eye. It was wonderful. It was—

  Kearn's Monster. Lefebvre sat up again, leaning forward as an entirely new set of thoughts thrust themselves into his mind, destroying any sense of ease.

  He hadn't needed Paul's reminder that only the two of them could know the truth of Esen's existence or abilities. The message had been clear enough in her ocean-deep eyes. She trusted him, because she had no choice.

  She trusted Paul because the two of them were as close as living things could be, Lefebvre thought, somewhat surprised to feel a twinge of envy.

  The Esen Monster, he reminded himself, as though the name he'd secretly scoffed at would put some different look in those eyes, make that small face live up to its reputation as a killer. It didn't seem possible to reconcile the evidence Kearn trotted out at the least sign of interest—or lack of it—with the reality of Esen. A tendency to explode into a practically harmless puff of smoke hardly qualified her to tear apart ships in space and consume their crews. Lefebvre shook his head. There had been no time for the really important answers—and little privacy—since their rescue.

  The Kraal—Lefebvre recognized the tattoos if not the face—had indeed made short work of the Vegas Lass. There had apparently been fake ident codes and keys to overcome a last-minute attempt to lock out the approaching ship. All preparations that had to have been ready long before Esen's plea for help hit translight.

  And she'd noticed, too. That face, childish as it might seem, could assume very adult expressions indeed, including the long, considered look Esen had given Paul as he'd fallen asleep in the med unit.

  Lefebvre thought back to his childhood dreams of being an alien specialist, of working on a First Contact Team, of being the one to meet a totally new species.

  He hadn't expected it to come true quite like this.

  Chapter 31: Hold Morning; Galley Afternoon

  « ^ »

  IFTSEN Secondus.

  The wonder, I thought, as I usually did on approaching this planet, was that the Panacians had bothered to look here for life. It couldn't have been easy for them. They detested wearing spacesuits or e-rigs and, until this place, had happily left exploring poisonous atmospheres to others.

  Paul stood beside me, looking out the viewport. "You'd never know they were here," he said thoughtfully.

  I nodded agreement. It wasn't as though the Iftsen had gone out of their way to attract attention, as other species had done—particularly Humans, who maintained an extensive number of ships devoted to nothing but making themselves known to the rest of the universe. Not a shy bunch, I smiled to myself. Not that the Iftsen were shy, they were just too busy to reach outward.

  Like the Panacians, the Iftsen built. Unlike the Panacians, the Iftsen didn't alter what had been done before, but kept everything, incorporating the old into the new, building their cities into towering mazes of evolving styles. Scholars didn't need to dig into ruins on Iftsen. There were none. They only needed to take a perfectly functional lift system down through the various aeons of construction, all maintained with care.

  The same went for their other art forms, especially epic song. The Iftsen's oral history was one of the most intact of any species within web-memory. They almost didn't need us. Almost. As Ersh had said, it was our responsibility to preserve the Iftsens' accomplishments against disaster, as long as they existed only on this one fragile rock in space.

  A rock perpetually shrouded in heavy, multilayered clouds, seasoned by photochemical reactions my web-self found thoroughly fascinating, Iftsen Secondus was a rusty beacon below us. Light reached her surface as a faint, diffuse presence—encouraging the growth of plants with immense flat leaves, outstretched to starve their neighbors. It was a place insulated from the climatic fluctuations that charged the evolutionary changes pushing life elsewhere. Intelligence had arisen here, several times, in no hurry and with no need to impress anything else.

  The Iftsen maintained two shipcities: Upperside and Underside. Upperside, as its name implied, was an orbital station, Human-operated, and received most of the traffic to and from their world—a practical concession to the majority of trading species, who couldn't survive the Iftsens' chemical-rich atmosphere and would prefer not to strain their ships' scrubbers either.

  The other, Underside, had been tacked on to Brakistem, a city-state growing in the lee of the low mountains which constituted the western shore of the famed Bridklestet Sea. According to several Iftsen sagas, their species had originated in its depths. As there weren't, and had never been, depths greater than a meter anywhere in the Bridklestet, and its waters were acidic enough to keep even the Iftsen from wading, this seemed less than likely. But creamy foam trailed across its calm darkness in intricate ribbons of fluorescence and I remembered long nights seaside spent listening to the haunting, whistling call of the Bridklestet cranes. A life-form, I reminded myself, with nothing whatsoever in common with a bird and a fair similarity to mobile bamboo. Ephemerals cared so deeply about naming; I frequently found I had to hold my tongue—or whatever—when someone proudly recited the name of something and the word brought to mind something quite different.

  The 'Lass would leave us at Upperside. This was, according to Paul, where he expected to meet Esolesy Ki. It was also where Lefebvre would catch a transport to Panacia and his supposed niece would be safely on her way home. A suitably vague home. As I'd feared, being a visibly young Human induced parental instincts in the most unlikely individuals of the species, and it was becoming painfully obvious my Human-self would have great difficulty vanishing unnoticed.

  "We'd better get ready," Paul told me. "Unless you want to stay and watch the docking?"

  I shuddered. "There's nothing appealing in witnessing Meony-ro's attempt to ram one end of this ship into a hole. I've seen him drive a grav sled through the warehouse, remember?" I drummed my fingers against the rim of the viewport. "Paul, explain again why you have to come with me."

  "No."

  I slid a glance his way, pretending to keep looking out the port. Paul knew how much I loved watching the approach to a planet—it had been his idea to visit this window beside the massive cargo door. "That's not particularly reasonable. We'll both need e-rigs, there's nothing you can do that I—"

  "No." This time, the word issued through tightly-set lips. As if growling impressed me, I told myself, but desisted.

  "Horn Cameron? May I have a word?"

  We turned as one to greet Meony-ro. Who was piloting? I thought with some alarm, then was more alarmed by the look of what had to be mortification on the Kraal's face.

  So was Paul, asking quickly, "What's happened?"

  Meony-ro h
esitated, then looked pointedly at me. "Perhaps Fem Gloria would care to join her uncle on the bridge and watch the docking procedure?"

  She would not.

  Paul put his hand on my back and pushed firmly enough to send me forward a step. "Fine idea. Off you go." I pulled my lips back from my teeth in what probably didn't pass as a smile and went. Logically, Paul would tell me what was going on as soon as he could. He was remembering to keep in character, better than I.

  Just one more reason why I had to cycle out of this child-form as soon as possible.

  As if I needed more encouragement, Lefebvre's enthusiastic approach to our invented relationship provided it. He greeted me with such an air of pleased surprise I wanted to dodge back into the lift. Our interactions, I decided, should improve substantially once he'd spent time with me as something with warts and pungent body odor.

  In the meantime, there was no doubt I was the favored young niece, invited to perch in the captain's chair and learn all about docking.

  I endured, accepting my role for the sake of camouflage and remembering every detail. Pungent body odor, I reminded myself as I nodded cheerfully to Lefebvre, and slime.

  The erstwhile captain of the Russell III did know what he was doing, ordering last minute adjustments which Skalet-memory told me would nudge us perfectly into Upperside's assigned parking spot—somewhat of a relief as the five crewmembers following Lefebvre's commands were unknown to me. Chase had left ten of the Vegas Lass' regular crew of fifteen back on Minas XII, under the cover of their being investigated by Port Authority, a reasonable indication they weren't part of her scheming. She'd filled key stations with hired mercs on Panacia, taking Able Joe and the unconscious Lefebvre as her only passengers.

  Meony-ro, obstinately closemouthed about the ship he'd used to follow Chase from Minas—for that was what he must have done, no matter that Paul shrugged away the notion when I broached it—had nonetheless been able to carry enough crew with him to provide a skeleton crew for the 'Lass while leaving sufficient to escort Chase and her accomplices back to Joel Largas.

  And Logan, I thought, as Lefebvre ordered the lockdown of ship's systems and a switch to station air. They'd taken him as well, a clear provocation to the Tly I found exceptionally dangerous, no matter how unpalatable it would have been to let Paul and Lefebvre's tormentor go free. I hadn't tried to argue, knowing the futility of the attempt. Humans rarely saw the bigger picture when personal grievances were involved.

  "It had been a risk—"

  At a loss for words, I simply locked gazes with Paul. He blinked first. "So they're all free now," I said then.

  He shook his head, a lock of black hair tumbling over his forehead. "The Tly weren't interested in any disputes between traders from the Fringe," he corrected. "They only took the person who mattered to them."

  This had been the source of Meony-ro's urgent need to talk with Paul back in the cargo hold—news from his other ship, well on its way to Minas XII before being intercepted by The Black Watch. Which was, no surprise to anyone, armed after all.

  Paul and I were sitting across from one another in the 'Lass' galley, Lefebvre leaning, as seemed to be his habit, beside the closed door. I considered them both, schooling the expression of this form with exceptional care. It was a distinct handicap, knowing how well they could read this face.

  I hadn't succeeded. "You think it's for the best," Lefebvre accused me angrily, keeping his voice low. "Didn't you see what that fiend did to Paul? Or doesn't a web-being care about pain and suffering?"

  I wasn't sure which shocked me most—his accusation or the name of my kind casually on the lips of someone I'd only known for a handful of days.

  Paul turned on Lefebvre, a rare fury in his own voice. "Never speak to Esen about pain and suffering. You have no idea what she's been through to save my life and the lives of countless others. You have no idea what price she's paid."

  I raised my hands appeasingly, and Paul subsided. Lefebvre stood looking at us, red spots on his pale cheeks, unconvinced. "I care, Captain Lefebvre," I told him as evenly as I could. "I care a great deal. But it is the way of my kind to care for more than individuals. We dare not give the Tly an excuse to back Logan's ambitions against Inhaven. We must not invite retaliation against Minas XII and those who survived Garson's World. You're right. I do think having Logan return to his own kind is the best of bad choices." I couldn't help reaching out for Paul's hand, feeling it take mine and squeeze. "There will be," I surprised myself by adding coldly, "other opportunities for justice."

  Paul's fingers became a vise and there was a clear warning in his look to me, as if what I'd said disturbed him. "The Tly remain within the legal system of the Commonwealth, do they not?" I reminded them both, tugging my hand free. What did he think I meant?

  "Barely," Lefebvre countered, as if deliberately oblivious to the conflict between Paul and I. The former patroller had already expressed several graphic—and physiologically unlikely—views on how to deal with Logan. "Depends on whether you ask the Tly Deputy Minister or their neighbors."

  Paul stood, pacing around the table as though he felt it was time for action. Since customs and other officialese would take a while yet, I hardly saw much reason to expend energy. Well, I told myself philosophically, it was a sign my impetuous Human was feeling himself again. "The main thing is to get Esen back to a more—"

  I saw Paul struggling for some tactful word and cheerfully inserted: "—useful, practical, less embarrassing, and," why not, "definitely something bigger."

  That brought a chuckle from Paul and a look of doubt from Lefebvre. "All those things, my dear Es," my friend agreed. "I don't want to be recorded as arriving with you, if I can avoid it. Meony-ro has some ideas about that." He paused, stopping to gaze at Lefebvre. The two Humans regarded each other silently for a moment. I had no idea what they were doing, but Paul nodded suddenly. "Rudy will escort you on-station."

  Where I'll get rid of this form, I added to myself, suspecting both Humans were in danger of becoming downright sentimental concerning the present version of Esen.

  Elsewhere

  « ^ »

  "YOU promised we would destroy the Esen Shifter. We want to destroy the Shifter."

  Kearn could feel Sas' hot breath on his neck. He didn't need the reminder that the Modoren shared the Feneden's intense feelings on this subject. Insubordinate creature. "We will," he promised. "This is the first step. It's the best way—the most sure way—"

  "This is merely a trap," Anisco said with enough scorn in her tone to almost come through the translator near Kearn's ear. "It will not kill the Shifter. The Feneden will remain vulnerable. This is not acceptable, Hunter Kearn. We have disagreement."

  He mopped sweat from his brow, in spite of the chill in the room. "The trap keeps the Shifter where we can kill her. I assure you, Fem Anisco—"

  She snapped off the translator to consult with the others. Kearn used the moment to gingerly survey the room. The carpet had grown to cover the entire floor, glistening tendrils making attempts to climb up the walls but thankfully sagging back under their own weight. The three Feneden who did not use the translators remained on their swings, eyes flashing red as they blinked. Kearn tried to avoid looking at the cilia rippling down the back of Anisco's head. He no longer entertained any fantasies it was simply attractive and exotic hair.

  Despite the translators, communication was becoming more and more difficult. Almost hostile, Kearn fussed to himself. The Panacian, N'Klet, now safely awaiting her transport on the orbital shipcity, had been right. There was something wrong here.

  The Feneden claimed the Iftsen didn't exist, yet were uncannily familiar with Iftsen Secondus, insisting the Russell III, which was capable of independent liftoff, land at their chosen location—a wide strip of beach in sight of the Underside shipcity and Brakistem, places the Feneden refused to discuss. Kearn hadn't known what else to do, so he'd given the order—wishing Lefebvre were at the helm instead of the less experienced
Timri. The landing had been mercifully uneventful, in part due to the glassing of the beach under what had to have been multiple landings in the recent past.

  Kearn wasn't sure anymore if he dealt with legitimate representatives of a government or dangerous lunatics. Timri had sent numerous incomprehensible messages for the Feneden directed at their home system. The Russell III hadn't received a single reply.

  All that seemed to make sense was their desire to kill the Esen Monster. A desire that now seemed greater than his own.

  Chapter 32: Station Afternoon

  « ^ »

  "I'M fine."

  Lefebvre raised an eyebrow at me. I moderated my tone to something approximating sweet and told the med-tech again, "Thank you. I'm fine."

  The med, a grumpy, overweight Odarian who looked as though he should be cooking prawlies in some diner—or perhaps be an entree himself—wasn't impressed. "I have standards against which my sensitive and modern equipment measures your parameters, young Human. You are a bit short."

  I am a civilized, intelligent being capable of dealing with other cultures in a civilized, intelligent manner, I reminded myself, counting under my breath and really wanting to kick the appendage within reach of my foot. "That's because I am a young Human," I said sweetly.

  "I wish to make new measurements—"

  "I haven't grown in twenty minutes," I almost shouted. So much for sweet.

  "Gloria," Lefebvre said, finally stirring from his post by the door. I suspected he'd been enjoying my discomfiture—or else was fascinated by how this version of me was passing, or rather not passing, the examination Upperside chose to inflict on its visitors. The med hadn't measured him, I grumbled to myself. Human children were apparently uncommon fodder for this med-tech and he was determined to make the most of me.