“If they can get us nitrogen just like that, the Free Eemala must be a very large network,” said Josephine.
“Oh, yes,” said Qualt-zu-Quo eagerly. “Yes, many, many are free in spirit, and they help the cause whenever they can. But there are only a few without collars. And every collared subject of the Expanse has their daily tasks, their path from home to work, and they cannot take a single wrong step without terrible pain. But the Eemala have been fighting to be free for years. Even before Ningleenill defected.”
“Long before that,” said Uwaelee crossly. “Do you think we waited so long to fight back? Even on the dump we tell the stories. We have been rising since Oohalla fell.”
I wondered if Oohalla was the ruined city where we’d slept.
“How did you end up here?” said Josephine to the Krakkiluks.
“We were born here,” said Qualt-zu-Quo. “We were raised by Eemala. I can remember swimming in the sea, I think, though perhaps that is just a dream. When I had molted my tenth shell and was no longer a spawn, I was sent to Quar-ekhluk, in the heart of the Expanse, for training as a grown citizen. But at once I missed Yaela. I remembered my life before my eleventh shell grew. Others seem to forget. But I do not know—perhaps everyone remembers and some do not speak of it?
“The Eengleeya—the Eemala who took care of me on the beach where I came out of the sea, she told us stories. She told me of the Grand Expanse, as she was supposed to, but also of Yaela too, of the days when it was free. I knew I could return to Yaela one day, of course, if I pleased. And I considered that the Eemala could never go back to those days. And I didn’t want to cut my tleek-li, and I was of age for it to be done. . . .”
The Goldfish had left tleek-li untranslated. But Josephine looked at the reddish bristles piercing their shells and said, “These are your tleek-li?”
“Yes,” said Kat-li-Yaka.
“What are they?”
Kat-li-Yaka ran a claw over Qualt-zu-Quo’s arm, skimming the tleek-li, and Qualt-zu-Quo sighed. “We feel things. More than we can through our shells. Pain, but good things too.”
“And they cut them off?” I said.
“You are not exactly forced to,” said Kat-li-Yaka. “But almost no one refuses. For one thing, you see, one cannot wear the most fashionable embellishments when you have tleek-li.”
“Oh my god, that is a terrible reason,” said Carl.
“That is not the real reason,” said Kat-li-Yaka, who seemed compelled to defend her species’ honor. “When they are cut, we do not feel so much, but it is also far harder to hurt us. We are stronger, but also less . . . less . . .”
She couldn’t seem to find a word. Except in a way she already had. Less.
“We did not find Love at the Feast of Klulk-ya-Wukuk or at the dances on Drook-lit,” said Qualt-zu-Quo. “I was forever mocked and told I was so spawnlike, I never would advance beyond a sewage worker on a trade ship, let alone find my Love. Yet my heart said it was wrong, and though I did not wish to remember being a spawn, somehow I did, and I remembered tales and songs in which things were different. Never could I hope there was another Krakkiluk who felt the same. But then I met Kat-li-Yaka. . . .”
“And we knew our Love was a wild, free true Love!” said Kat-li-Yaka. “All the Expanse would despise us, so we loved each other all the more. And we ran back to Yaela to pursue freedom!”
“The cutting thing, doesn’t that hurt?” said Carl, more stuck on that than on Kat-li-Yaka and Qualt-zu-Quo’s happy ending.
“Yes,” said Qualt-zu-Quo. “Everyone says it hurts very much. They call it the Last Pain, because afterward nothing hurts so much again.”
Uwaelee had shifted a little closer through all this, poking her nose out from between her wings, reluctantly fascinated.
“Ugh, KraKLOO,” she said, though not quite in the same scornful voice she usually said it.
I thought of Lady Sklat-kli-Sklak and Tlag-li-Glig and Krnk-ni-Plik, throwing us out of the ship, and wondered how much easier it must be for all of them to hurt people if they’d all been so hurt.
“Do they grow back?” I asked.
“Never,” said Qualt-zu-Quo.
“Why would anyone . . . why would anyone . . . ?” said Carl.
Josephine said, very quietly: “I can . . . see why.”
“What?” said Carl, appalled.
“If you didn’t feel things you didn’t want to, things might be . . . clearer. It would be easier not to . . . get things wrong,” said Josephine, staring at her hands.
“Er, no it wouldn’t,” said Carl. “You’d already have gotten something whackingly wrong, because it’s a completely screwed-up idea.”
“Yes, but . . .”
I glimpsed the gills through her tangled hair. “For god’s sake, if Dr. Muldoon comes up with some kind of not-feeling-things hack for people, you are not doing it,” I said.
“Please do not do it,” said Qualt-zu-Quo earnestly. “I think it is a terrible practice.”
“I was just saying I could understand,” said Josephine, getting squirmy under the attention now. “You know, in theory.”
She started coughing, a little bit. I picked up her hand, not looking at her, as if it had sort of randomly happened, and she didn’t take it away.
“We had not finished the story of our Love,” said Kat-li-Yaka, rather annoyed. “And there is no other Love like it in the whole of the Expanse.”
“In a minute,” said Josephine, “Now that you’re here, what are you trying to do?”
“We dedicate our souls to the righteous cause of the Eemala,” said Kat-li-Yaka. “I fight for freedom for my beloved’s sake, and he for mine.”
“Yes, but how do you fight?” Josephine persisted. “Do you go out and get intelligence from the Krakkiluks, or what?”
There was a slight pause.
“We . . . don’t have connections in Krakkiluk society on Yaela,” said Qualt-zu-Quo.
“Mostly we offer our full-hearted companionship and solidarity,” said Kat-li-Yaka.
“Akk! And we feed the Wurrhuya!” said Qualt-zu-Quo eagerly. “It is . . . more important than perhaps it sounds.”
“Okay,” said Josephine. “But Ningleenill and Hoolinyae and the others—what are they doing?”
“Akk, well,” said Kat-li-Yaka. “They free other Eemala from their collars when they can. Of course their hope is to bring down the satellite and so free every collared Eemala at once.”
“But I guess you guys don’t have, like, missiles or superguns or whatever,” Carl said.
“Oh, yes,” said Qualt-zu-Quo. “We have. Ningleenill has been perfecting the technology for years.”
There was a pause. I tried to clamp down the electric spark of hope that started in my chest—I didn’t feel I could take being disappointed. But Uwaelee had no such qualms and burst into airborne somersaults.
“Then it can all be over!” she hooted. “No more collars. Naonwai— everyone—can be free!”
“They have a missile? Why haven’t they fired it?” asked Josephine, making an obvious effort to keep her voice very calm.
Qualt-zu-Quo said: “I am not a scientist, but I understand the problem is a matter of setting the missile’s course. The planet is moving and so is the satellite. It would have to be a perfectly precise calculation. If they fired and failed, there could be terrible consequences.”
Uwaelee wasn’t persuaded. “But we should do it! We should do it now!”
Carl, Josephine, and I looked at each other and at the Goldfish. Josephine was coughing again, but I knew we were all feeling the same quiver of excitement.
If the Goldfish could do the calculations, the Eemala could be free. If the Eemala were free, we could go home.
“Show it to us,” I said.
Qualt-zu-Quo and Kat-li-Yaka waggled their eyes. “We could not show a thing like that to spawn!” Kat-li-Yaka said.
“Show us!” cried Uwaelee.
At that moment the Wurrhuya lifted their heads an
d let out a rumbling call. Another Wurrhuya with two more Eemala on its back swept down into the cave, and began unloading canisters that must hold the gases Eenyo had promised us. Eenyo flapped down from the heights of the cave to greet them.
“Eenyo, show us the big gun!” Uwaelee begged.
The newcomers hooted in dismay, and Eenyo looked very stern.
“You told alien children of our most important asset?” he accused the Krakkiluks, who clattered and folded themselves up as small and humble as they could. “Ningleenill will be furious if he finds out.”
“Please—it could make all the difference,” said Josephine. “To us and you.”
But Eenyo had nothing else to say about it. “Now help set this up,” he told Kat-li-Yaka and Qualt-zu-Quo, and the Krakkiluks had to vacate their platform so we could sit in a little tent inflated with nitrogen and oxygen to breathe.
“You’re no different from Krakkiluks,” cried Uwaelee, exasperated. “Why don’t you listen?”
“I think it’s time you went home,” said Eenyo. “We told you, only this evening. Our friends will carry you back to Laeteelae.”
“I’ll fly back myself,” hooted Uwaelee sulkily. “Good-bye, humans!”
And before we could so much as stop coughing long enough to say good-bye back, she flew off in a huff, without a backward glance.
We felt pretty demoralized by all that, to tell the truth. We let ourselves be ushered into the tent and just lay there breathing.
“We’ve got to get the Goldfish a look at that missile,” I said.
“Well,” said Josephine despondently, “I suppose if we’re here for years, we’ll manage it eventually.”
“The Krakkiluks’ll have conquered Earth by then,” Carl said, and we all stared miserably into space for a bit.
“Goldfish, could you sort of have a look around and see what you can find?” I asked.
The Goldfish tried it—which I appreciated, because being a teacher robot, it didn’t really like doing things grown-ups said not to. But being orange and glowing, it was pretty conspicuous. Ningleenill soon noticed it nosing into things and shooed it back down to our tent at the bottom of the cave.
“It’ll be no use finding the missile if they won’t listen to us,” I said.
“I didn’t think Uwaelee would just fly off like that,” said Carl.
“She couldn’t do anything,” Josephine said.
“Yeah, but still.”
Yaela’s rapid night was coming on again. The Krakkiluks were putting the Wurrhuya to bed on mounds of dried moss at the back of the cave. We ate more carbohydrate paper and I noticed Carl had gone to sleep. I thought of telling Josephine that we should wake him up so we could go on trying to work out what to do, but it turned out she was asleep as well. I didn’t want to sleep; that would mean another helpless tomorrow to wake up to—but I thought maybe I’d just rest my eyes for a little bit.
When I woke up, it wasn’t tomorrow. It was pitch-black except for the soft glow of the Goldfish outside the tent. The Wurrhuya were rumbling peaceably in their sleep. Everything seemed very quiet.
Except that someone was shaking the tent.
“Humans!” sang a voice, as softly as such a voice could. “I—thing—up! Sky!”
“Uwaelee!” Carl cried, so eagerly that for the first time I wondered if he had just a bit of a crush on the Eemala girl, fur and four eyes notwithstanding. Anyhow, we scrambled out into the poisonous air. Uwaelee greeted us with a triumphant somersault.
“Aww, you came back!” said Carl, happily.
“OON bae YAE-nia,” hissed Uwaelee. “LIN-yel maYEENwa-nia.”
“What’s she saying, Goldfish?” Josephine asked.
“I did not leave, I only pretended. And I have found it. I have been creeping and creeping around and I know I have found it. Come on!”
She was pointing into the unlit upper reaches of the cave. I’d seen doorways to chambers and passages up there for which the Eemala had no need of stairs. The Krakkiluks could maybe have climbed the web of roots; we never could.
“Up, up!” urged Uwaelee in English.
“OON awaeya,” I said in what I hoped to be passable WOya. No fly.
“Hmm,” conceded Uwaelee, momentarily flummoxed.
“Wurrhuya!” Josephine exclaimed. “We can use the Wurrhuya!”
“Wurrhuya!” Uwaelee agreed, plunging toward them.
The Wurrhuya were sleeping so cozily, with their necks wrapped around their bodies as cats wrap their tails, that it seemed a shame to wake them. But I climbed up the heap of bedding to rub the nearest purple flank, and they both woke and blinked at us in the Goldfish’s glow.
Carl climbed up onto the creature’s back, and the Wurrhuya didn’t seem to mind. So Josephine and I did the same.
“So now what?” Carl said.
Uwaelee sprang into the air just above the Wurrhuya’s head, wheedling and beckoning. The Wurrhuya couldn’t take off vertically like a helicopter, but it did seem to understand. It ambled out of the cave and into the starlight on its little legs and then leaped, up into the night air.
Now, you might think that sneaking off with a gigantic flying beast in a cave system full of stressed-out rebels would cause a bit of a ruckus. And you would be right. As soon as the enormous wings swept down, there was clattering shriek of “Krrrrrrr!” and another of “Aaaakkk!” behind us. The Krakkiluks had woken up. Lights blazed and an alarm wailed. The Wurrhuya let out an alarmed “WURRRGH!”
“Oh, they’re so angry with us,” I moaned.
But there wasn’t anything to do but keep going. “Heewa,” said Josephine encouragingly. “It’s all right. Good Wurrhuya.”
“Lovely Wurrhuya, turn this way,” coaxed Uwaelee, flying backward.
The Wurrhuya swerved back toward the cave. Silhouettes of frantic Eemala wings around us and panicking Krakkiluks below —
“Yalu! Yalu!” cried Uwaelee, pointing.
A small opening in the rock wall, framed in tangling roots below it.
“Pyaeng-NEL!” Uwaelee urged, which the Goldfish was too preoccupied to translate, but from her gestures, it meant jump. Easy for someone with wings to say.
“Bring us in higher!” shouted Carl, doing his best to be a pilot even now, gesturing furiously. The Wurrhuya rose past the protruding roots. “Guys, get ready!”
“OOLill-we!” called a burgundy Eemala behind us. The Wurrhuya groaned in confusion and swung its neck back toward the call.
We had no more time to think about it. We jumped, and dangled nastily, and climbed—
And we were standing in a rough tunnel of stone, lit by twists of glowing filament. Uwaelee ducked in above our heads and scampered forward, leading us through turns and junctions, past storage chambers and dormitories—
Then ahead of us, the tunnel opened onto a sheer drop above a great chasm, dappled with broken moonlight. There was a flimsy ceiling of metal netting above, holding up a blanket of golden moss. From the air, the pit would have been hidden.
Suddenly, Hoolinyae swooped across the great shaft of space and into our tunnel, her wings hiding what lay beyond. “OONyala naWEY!” she shouted, furious.
But I had already glimpsed something down at the bottom: the narrow, pointed turret of what could only be a missile launcher.
“Goldfish!” I said. “Go on!” And the Goldfish darted past Hoolinyae and into the chasm.
“Oh, hey,” I could hear it saying to itself. “Would you look at that.”
Hoolinyae chased after it. And we could see into the chasm again—the Goldfish emitting a blue beam from its mouth that played over the weapon’s nose, steady even while the Goldfish dodged and dived.
“Waaay, Goltfeesh!” Uwaelee cheered it on.
“Hey, ma’am, gimme a second. I’m just trying to scan the onboard computer—I won’t hurt anything,” it said to Hoolinyae, forgetting to speak WOya. And even when Hoolinyae caught up, her hands slid off its plastic sides and the Goldfish dodged free.
&
nbsp; “OeLUYA ul-ing nal-ull INlana?” cried an indignant voice. Ningleenill swooped from a tunnel on the other side of the chasm and joined Hoolinyae in trying to catch the Goldfish.
“I could do it,” said the Goldfish brightly. “I need a little more data, but could I plot a course? You betcha I could. Why, we could have that satellite out of the sky in time for breakfast.”
“Goldfish, tell Ningleenill, tell him in WOya!” I shouted as Eenyo came flapping anxiously out of the caves and tried to soothe the scientist, which had the opposite effect.
At the same time, the Goldfish was talking in WOya. “Sir, I’m sure I could help you out,” and Ningleenill was saying, “Who let this stupid device in here? It was the Krakkiluks, wasn’t it?”
Eventually Eenyo and Hoolinyae managed to grab the Goldfish and steer it back to the tunnel where we were standing.
“Listen to it!” Carl pleaded. “It’s a lot smarter than it looks, I swear!”
“How can we get them back down?” worried Hoolinyae.
“Is there only one shot?” asked Josephine. “One missile?”
Eenyo’s hand strayed nervously to his collar, but he didn’t answer.
“Hoolinyae,” begged Uwaelee.
“No,” admitted Hoolinyae. “There are more. We have more than one try.”
“But not many. If we fail, there would be reprisals,” said Eenyo. “The collars would activate—millions would be hurt, at the very least.”
“What would happen if you didn’t fail?” I asked.
There was a brief silence.
“Please tell us,” I said.
“This is all very foolish,” complained Ningleenill.
“I know,” Uwaelee burst out. “I think about it all the time. Everyone’s Nangael—broken, dead! Everyone would feel it. Everything would be wonderful.”
“Everyone would feel their Nangael die,” agreed Hoolinyae, hesitantly. “They know what it would mean—they have been waiting for it their whole lives. There are only a few thousand adult Krakkiluks on the planet; they could not contain millions of us. Our people would seize the weapons and the ships and the governors’ offices. We are ready. We have been ready for so long.”
The ships. Those were the words that mattered to me most. I couldn’t help it.
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