Ascending (21 page)

So it was not Uclod’s fault that Lajoolie was in this dire situation; indeed, she could readily understand if Uclod resented her, regarding her as an undesired stranger foisted upon him when he would have preferred to make his own choice. But Uclod had been the soul of kindness since their recent wedding—he treated Lajoolie as an equal, he included her in everything he did, and he seemed to like having her around.

In return, Lajoolie played the role that had been drilled into her through constant lessons in wifely deportment. Deference. Meekness. Modesty. A type of retiring femininity wherein she pretended to be small and demure, even though she was big and powerful.

This is why, for example, she spoke in false high-pitched tones. All Tye-Tyes had low voices—they were large people with large throats, and vocal cords like the strings of a bass viol. But the marriage brokers had decided a Tye-Tye’s natural voice was apt to remind small men (like Uclod) that the woman was a brawny behemoth who could easily cause grievous bodily harm. Therefore, Lajoolie feigned a falsetto, as well as missish helplessness and delicately modest submission.

“Does Uclod enjoy such displays of quivering frailty?” I asked.

“All men do,” she replied. “That’s what I was taught.”

“Why should you believe the teachings of awful people who threaten your kin? And anyone who says, ‘All men enjoy this,’ is certainly incorrect, for men are changeable ones who do not like
anything
all the time. In my experience, men get sudden ideas in their heads: that it is weak or unmanly to accept certain types of attention, even if they were happy with identical behavior two days ago. To your great astonishment, what they loved yesterday is the absolute worst thing you can do today…and they look upon you with disgust or pity, as if you are some loathsome insect who turns their stomach.”

Lajoolie stiffened a bit in my arms. “Uclod isn’t like that,” she said.

“Perhaps he is not like that yet,” I told her. “Someday, however, he will be in a terrible mood because of nothing in particular, and he will glare at you and snap, ‘Why do you always talk like that, so goddamned artificial? You could drive a man crazy!’ Or perhaps he will not say anything at all…but he will think it, and every word that comes out of your mouth will make him angrier. You will not understand why he glares so hatefully, and you will ask, ‘What is wrong?’ but he will wince at the sound of your voice. There will be nothing you can say to make him love you again, since it is your very voice he despises; but you speak to him anyway because you are crazed and unhappy, and you think there
must
be words to make it all better again, if you can only say them in exactly the right way. You know you are only making it worse, but you cannot help yourself…”

All this time I had been holding Lajoolie in the dark. My one arm was wrapped around her back and my other was holding her hand, a position most suitable for giving comfort to a person who has recently been moved to tears. Now she let go of my hand; a moment later, I felt her arms curl around me, pulling me in until my cheek lightly pressed against her shoulder. “All men aren’t like that, either,” she said softly. “Most of them try to be decent. The man who used you and killed your sister—he was the exception, Oar, you know that.”

“He was an utter fucking bastard,” I whispered. “And even though he’s been dead for years, he still makes me feel most sad.”

“Obviously, he affected you deeply,” Lajoolie answered with the ghost of a chuckle. “Do you realize you actually used a contraction? You said, ‘even though
he’s
been dead.’”

I jerked away from her in horror. Then I started to scream. I screamed and I screamed and I screamed and I screamed; then I screamed some more.

Contractions

Here is why I screamed.

My own native tongue has contractions similar to those in English—inelegant short forms created by jamming words together. In the highest literature of my people, you can tell that characters are not well-bred when they use such figures of speech. Cultured persons always speak correctly; it is only the uncultured who treat the language with slovenly lack of enunciation.

This distinction impressed itself deeply on my mother. When my sister and I used contractions—which we did occasionally through carelessness or rebellion—our mother would chide us and say that good clever
pretty
girls should not speak sloppily. She herself never used contractions…until one day when I was twelve years old and Mother had a slip of the tongue.

You can imagine how Eel and I teased her about it. Mother hotly denied she said any such thing: “You girls must have dirt in your ears if you cannot hear what I say!” We had to go wash thoroughly, then do a number of unpleasant chores that were completely unnecessary, since all chores in our village were handled by automatic devices.

In a day or two, Mother slipped again—another contraction. This time Eel and I prudently did not point it out; but we caught each other’s eye and indulged in a moment of sisterly acknowledgment. We did
not
have dirt in our ears. It was our mother who had grown lax.

Such slips soon became a common occurrence…increasing to several times a day…then almost every time our mother spoke. Once in a while, when we did not feel like good clever pretty girls—when we felt like
defiant
clever pretty girls—we would use contractions ourselves, right to Mother’s face, just waiting for her to berate us. We were eager to cry back at her, “You use words like that all the time!”

Alas, our mother had ceased to notice; or more accurately, she had ceased to care. Her brain was becoming Tired. Indifference to enunciation was an early sign.

When we realized that, my sister and I swore an oath to the Hallowed Ones: we would never use a contraction again. We would speak with utmost precision, never letting ourselves get carried away with excitement or emotion. It soon became fierce superstition—that our brains would never grow Tired as long as we avoided untidy speech. Deprived of contractions, Senility had no chink through which it might enter our heads.

From that day to this, I had kept my oath. I had kept myself safe. I had never said the fatal words.

Now the spell was broken.

Or perhaps it was
I
who was broken. That is why I screamed.

A Short Tussle

I remember Lajoolie holding me in the dark. I also remember fighting her, lashing out as I screamed and screamed. Under other circumstances it might have been an Interesting Struggle, revealing which of us was stronger. The blackness, however, proved the deciding factor—with no food in years and no light for photosynthesis, I rapidly exhausted the last of my energy reserves.

My only warning was a wash of dizziness, strong enough to cut straight through my frenzy. I attempted to say, “I am sorry, Lajoolie,” but I do not think the words came out. Then my muscles went limp, and so did my mind.

Awakening

When I regained consciousness, the room was much brighter. The brightness came from dozens of glow-wands laid upon my body; someone had opened my jacket and stacked the wands on my chest, with more wands stuffed down my sleeves and others arranged along both sides of my legs. It was warm where they touched me—the pleasant heat of stones that have been baking under a summer sun.

I closed my eyes and basked. This light was not nearly so filling as the illumination in an Ancestral Tower—the towers were filled with many healthful energies far beyond the visible spectrum—but the glow-wands provided sufficient sustenance that I felt alive again…and I would get up very soon, after I had soaked in a bit more nutrition.

Someone said, “Did she move?”

The voice belonged to Sergeant Aarhus. When Festina and Captain Kapoor had headed in opposite directions, I could not remember whom Aarhus had followed. It dawned on me perhaps he had not gone with either party; perhaps he had remained unseen in the blackness, listening to Lajoolie and me speak. Was that not the behavior one expected of a zealous Security mook? Hiding in the dark. Keeping us under Covert Surveillance.

And what did he think we might do if left to our own devices?
I asked myself.
Did he fear we would damage a ship that was already broken?
But perhaps Aarhus did not care so much about Lajoolie and me as he wished to guard baby Starbiter. The Zarett might provide our only way to call for help; therefore, the sergeant had posted himself to protect the child.

When I passed out, it must have been Aarhus who obtained these glow-wands. The sergeant would know where such items were stored; he would also be familiar enough with
Royal Hemlock
to find his way in the dark. I could imagine him staggering desperately through the blackness, mumbling to himself, “I must save Oar. I must save Oar. She is too beautiful to die.”

I found myself wondering dreamily if Aarhus had fallen in love with me. After all, I was far more attractive than opaque human women…and far more charming as well, for I was not a mousy little thing eternally fretting about conformance with the dictates of society. Perhaps the sergeant sensed in me a Tempestuous Beauty who could never be Tamed.

Which is quite enough to make some men fall in love.

For a while.

Until something in the male head goes click and suddenly you are Just Too Much Trouble.

A shudder passed through me and I clenched my face in chagrin. All my life I had been most adept at devising delightful fantasies, pleasant reveries of Love and Romance. Why could I not do that now? As soon as I began inventing a tale of Aarhus in love with me, why did something in my brain bring the fantasy to a crashing halt:
Foolish Oar, real love is not so carefree or so sweet?

Was this what it meant to have a Tired Brain? To find oneself unable to spin rosy dreams? To be constantly burdened by
It is not so easy
and
You must not ignore certain facts
?

Most frightened, appalled, and desperate, I opened my eyes.

Quite Well Again

“Behold!” I said. I sat up and threw my arms wide, attempting to seem like a person not at all tormented by doubts. “Rejoice, for I have recovered! I am quite well again.”

My motion sent several glow-wands tumbling off my body. Sergeant Aarhus rushed over to put them in place again. Sometime since I had fallen unconscious, he had removed his ostentatious mook-armor. Now he was wearing an olive-colored coverall, emblazoned with insignia patches I did not bother to read. My attention was more focused on the fact that he had rolled up his sleeves, revealing nicely muscled arms all covered with yellowish hair.

Though men of my own species do not have hair on their arms, I am not so prejudiced as to disdain extra epidermal embellishment. In the course of my relations with humans, I have discovered that hairy arms can be excellently
cushy
.

Before I could remark upon the sergeant’s pleasant pelt, Lajoolie knelt beside me. “Are you sure you’re all right? Why don’t you lie back down?”

“I do not need to,” I told her. “And if I sit up, I can absorb light through my back as well as my front.”

To do that, I had to take off my jacket completely. As I did so, Aarhus averted his eyes; and for a moment, I felt a pang of concern, wondering if he was turning away because he did not like the way I looked when I was not covered by clothes. I told myself this could not possibly be—more likely, he suffered from overdelicate modesty, whereby he considered it rude to stare at my unclad flesh. Such a quality would soon vex me if he did not Get Over It…but in the short run, I decided to regard it as endearing.

“How are you all?” I asked in hearty bright tones. “Are you as well as I am? What has been happening since I began my perfectly normal nap?”

“Nothing much,” Aarhus replied, still looking at the wall rather than me. “You’ve only been out for an hour. No one’s come by with any news, and Nimbus is still locked like a rock around his kid.”

He jabbed a thumb at the chair where Nimbus had been sitting. The cloud man was still there, enclosing his daughter in the same quartzlike form as before. “Have you not even poked him,” I inquired, “to see if he reacts?”

“No,” Aarhus answered. “No poking unless the captain or admiral okays it.”

“Hmph!” I said, thinking the sergeant’s attitude most mulish. I was halfway tempted to poke the cloud man in sheer defiance…but such antics would be most childish, and perhaps would make Aarhus think less of me. The notion of having him love me still played in the back of my mind; and although the rest of my mind derided this notion as a foolish dream idyll—an Infantile Whim—I still found myself desirous of his good favor.

It is truly astonishing how a sane and clever one can be torn by ill-founded impulses.

“Now, Oar,” Lajoolie said, “you really should relax.” She laid her hand carefully on top of my head, precisely where ear-globes would be attached if I belonged to her species. I suppose that to Divians, this was a comforting gesture—or perhaps a means of determining one’s state of health, like feeling for a pulse. “Are you okay now?” she asked. “You went a bit…out of control.”

“I was not out of control,” I answered. “There is nothing wrong with my brain.”

“You’re perfectly clear-headed,” said Aarhus.

“Yes,” I said, then realized he had been making a joke about my personal transparency. “But I
am
clear-headed,” I insisted. “I am not dizzy, I am not Tired, I am not filled with irrational fantasies…”

The ship gave a sudden lurch. I looked at Lajoolie and Aarhus. “You felt that too, correct?”

How We Were Found

Before they could answer, the ship lurched again. This time, there was no possibility of mistake. Aarhus was thrown against the cabin wall, hitting hard with his shoulder. Lajoolie lost her balance and toppled onto me…but I was falling sideways myself, striking the hard cabin floor with a resounding crack. (That was, of course, the floor breaking—I am made of sterner stuff than whatever substance underlies the carpets of the human navy.)

I shoved Lajoolie off me just as the ship heaved in the opposite direction. She steadied herself by grabbing Nimbus’s chair; the chair was firmly secured to the floor and did not budge, even with Lajoolie’s great weight flung against it. I caught hold of the desk, which was also bolted down—in fact,
all
the furniture in the room was fastened in place, except for the desk’s chair, which slid on metal railings. This was a Wise Safety Precaution in case of Navigational Upset…for when
Royal Hemlock
shifted again, the chair slammed forward as far as its rails would permit, going <
WHUNK
> at the end like an ax hitting wood.

“What is happening?” I cried.

“Something’s grabbed us,” Aarhus answered. The ship lurched again. “Something damned clumsy.”

“Could it be the Shaddill?” I asked.

“Don’t know,” Aarhus said. “My X-ray vision isn’t working today. If either of
you
can see through the hull, go ahead and have a peek.”

I recognized this as sarcasm. However, it reminded me that Festina said this ship had no windows—only exterior cameras which would not be working now. As a result, no one on board could know what had seized us…which made me feel better, since I was not the only one waiting in ignorance to see what transpired next.

“It’s likely the Shaddill,” Lajoolie said, full of fear.

“Or our navy,” Aarhus answered. “Captain Kapoor thought we got away from New Earth without being noticed…but if anyone spotted us, the Admiralty might have sent a ship chasing close on our tail.”

“It’s not the Shaddill or your navy. Lucky us.”

These words came from Nimbus. With a sudden whoosh, he expanded from hard-rock form to his usual manlike mist, holding the small Starbiter steady as the ship continued to rock. “To be accurate,” he continued, “our rescuers don’t
look
like Shaddill or the Outward Fleet on long-range scans.”

“How could you do a long-range scan?” Aarhus asked.

“I didn’t. My daughter did.”

Of course, we demanded to know how Nimbus had tapped into Starbiter’s powers; but the cloud man was reluctant to explain. He seemed worried we might think he had taken undue liberties, for he kept saying things like, “I’m completely trained to deal with any medical situation,” and, “It’s my most basic function, testing a female Zarett to make sure her systems are working”—all of which made him sound most guilty, as if he had done something improper to the child. When he finally revealed the truth, however, he had not done anything wicked to Starbiter…

He had merely tickled her.

Earlier, when we discussed using the little girl to send a distress signal, Nimbus had recognized the worth of our plan, even if he was not so keen about the suggestion to incinerate the baby until she cried, “Wahh!” Instead, he wrapped around her in a protective shell, then carefully eased microscopic bits of himself inside his daughter’s body. The process was similar to the way he moved through Mama Starbiter’s tissues, but on a very tiny scale. A few of Nimbus’s cells worked their way through the child, found the small knot of glands that permitted FTL broadcasting, and stimulated those glands.

The result was no more than an itch…like a scratch in your throat that makes you go, “Ahem!” over and over. Little Starbiter responded to the itch with a sort of irritable clucking—a cranky collection of trans-light noises which could never be mistaken for words but which were apt to attract attention from anyone close enough to hear.

And that is exactly what happened. Somebody had heard the signals and came to investigate. Nimbus watched the newcomers’ approach by linking some of his cells to young Starbiter’s long-range scan abilities: hiding inside the baby’s eyes to see what her scanners could see. This was the activity that had caused him shame. According to a whispered comment from Lajoolie, male Zaretts were highly averse to using the capabilities of females in any way—Nimbus and the rest of his sex attended to their women’s health needs, but scrupulously avoided any action which might be construed as Taking Over The Driver’s Seat.

What an excellent quality that is! They should preach this philosophy to males everywhere.

“It wasn’t wrong tickling the girl to send a Mayday,” the cloud man muttered. “Uclod clearly wanted that, and he’s her owner. So I was just carrying out the owner’s wishes, right? But actually linking myself to her, and seeing through her scanners…well, I had to keep watch, didn’t I? Uclod would want that too, even if he didn’t say so explicitly. He’d want to know if the Shaddill were coming, or the human navy…”

“So who is it?” Aarhus interrupted. He had allowed Nimbus to ramble in guilt-laden fashion about linking with his daughter, but the sergeant was obviously impatient for a Situational Report. “You only started sending the signal an hour ago,” Aarhus said. “Who was close enough to respond in so little time?”

“I couldn’t see exactly,” Nimbus replied. “Starbiter doesn’t have enough control to focus her scanners on anything in particular. And she doesn’t have much attention span either; I tried to keep her looking in one direction, but her gaze kept wandering all over the place.” He added defensively, “That’s perfectly normal for a child her age.”

“Sure, sure,” Aarhus said. “But what did you
see
?”

“Mostly a bunch of blurs. Nothing large enough to be the Shaddill or even a navy ship. I think it’s a swarm of smaller craft: single-person runabouts or family-sized yachts.”

“Hmm,” Lajoolie said. “That explains the jostling when they took
Hemlock
in tow. This ship is so big, we’d have to be grappled by a whole pack of smaller vessels. They must have had trouble coordinating who pulled which direction when.”

She looked to Aarhus, obviously wondering if he agreed. However, the sergeant had other things on his mind; he was staring upward with an unhappy expression on his face.

“What is it?” I asked.

“Trouble,” he said. “Unless I miss my guess, we’ve just been rescued by an outreach crusade.” He grimaced, then looked around at the rest of us. “Hope you haven’t got anything planned for the next ten years—we’ve just become Cashling slaves.”

Devising A Suitable Ransom

Lajoolie’s face blanched to an unattractive shade of yellow. “Are you sure?” she whispered.