Changing Vision (24 page)

“I promise I will never abandon you, Paul Ragem,” I finished to myself, and prepared to wait.

“SHIFTER.”

“Yes, yes. Isn’t it amazing? Isn’t it wonderful? All these years—hundreds of systems, thousands of worlds—and here they are. Right here.”
If Kearn became much happier
, Lefebvre thought critically,
he’d order him sedated.
He’d never expected a successful Kearn could be more difficult to endure than Kearn the failure.

It didn’t help Lefebvre’s disposition that this meeting was taking place while blister burn continued to roar at random through the nerves of his face, hands, and legs. Kearn had been warmly concerned—until he’d launched into his story about the Feneden and effectively forgot all about his captain’s misadventures.

Which was just as well
, Lefebvre told himself. Without proof, he wasn’t about to bring up the subject of Paul Ragem. Kearn smelled blood—or at least whatever might pass for it in the large amorphous blob of jelly he’d described as the monster’s natural form. The proof was as obvious as the newly polished rank insignia on Kearn’s collar. Lefebvre hadn’t seen Kearn in his Commonwealth uniform since his first day on board, the Human preferring what he considered a more scholarly look, almost living in a brown-toned jacket with overly large pockets kept stuffed with important-looking sheets and extra stylos. Not today. Other than a slight stretching of the fabric around his middle, Kearn looked ready for inspection.

His speech was snappier as well. “They have some
specific needs—dietary and climate. I’ve given all that to Timri—she’s recalling the crew from their stopovers. They can get quarters ready for the Feneden by noon, can’t they? Fem Anisco was very eager not to inconvenience me—us—and agreed to as early a start as possible.”

“Start? To what, sir?” Lefebvre wondered if he wanted the answer. He knew he didn’t want to be the one facing the crew when they began staggering back to the ship from whatever bar or bed they’d found.
There’d be a desertion or two for sure, this time.

“Our search—we are heading to Fened Prime, Captain Lefebvre. The ancestral home of the Esen Monster!”

He had to be on something
, Lefebvre thought. Before he could draw breath to object, Kearn pressed a crumpled piece of plas into his hand, saying: “These are some supplies—the Feneden didn’t know where to get them, but you do, don’t you, Captain? You know your way around every shipcity—surely there are dealers, traders with surplus. I’ll leave it all in your capable hands.”

Stunned, Lefebvre could only raise an eyebrow. “You want me to go back out to the shipcity, sir, tonight? Now?”
It couldn’t be this easy.

“You’re up to it, aren’t you?” Kearn demanded in a tone that said Lefebvre had better answer yes.

“Of course, sir.”

“Keep an eye out for robbers this time, Captain. Honestly, that’s the sort of mistake I’d expect from a newbie, not you. You have to be bold with these Port scum. You can’t look like a target.”

“Yes, sir. Good advice. I’ll be more careful.”

In fact, Lefebvre decided as he walked away, wincing with each step, he planned to look very carefully indeed for a certain robber.

And a certain Ervickian.

THE stowage area of the Iftsen freighter was 432 paces long and 102.5 paces wide—if I didn’t count the cramped spaces under the overhead cargo racks. Those were mostly empty. I’d already climbed up and investigated any crates without seals, finding only personal effects, presents for the family, and a few jugs of chocolate syrup bound to cause some excitement back home. I spent some time pondering how to explain to a Human such as Paul what chocolate tasted like in the Iftsen atmosphere, but gave up. Not only was it inaccurate to relate what the Iftsen called taste to the similarly-named, but physiologically different, sense in Humans, the Iftsen didn’t actually consume chocolate. They combusted it in their respiratory bladder.
With quite the pleasurable aftereffect.

Paul wasn’t back yet.

Once in a while, I could detect thumping and other unusual sounds coming from the deck above. Since my Panacian ears were quite ordinary, and the deck thick, I refused to speculate what the Iftsen were doing. I’d hoped they were becoming sober, but on second thought knew the hope came from my sensible Panacian-self. The
Didjeridoo
’s crew would report to stations in the morning, there were no tasks to be done beforehand, hence, to the Iftsen, it was perfectly reasonable to divorce themselves from whatever else was happening on or off the planet and have some fun.

I could
, I thought with some disgust,
fall dead and rot down here before they’d notice. If then.

If I could find some living mass to increase my own, I could be up there and cheerfully oblivious, too, instead of alone in the drafty stowage and worrying about just about everything possible.

I examined the notion fondly, but without any real intention of following it. For one thing, there wasn’t any living mass down here, unless I could catch the rat I’d surprised behind some crates. For another, I had no desire to abandon Ersh’s teachings—not now, when they were all I had—and she’d drilled her conservative, safe approach firmly into me:
if the current form can manage, use it.

I was currently Panacian,
and a lovely one at that
, I decided, admiring anew my freshly-minted carapace. I was also, as Paul had rightly noted, conspicuously unknown to others of this kind. There were literally no strangers on the Hiveworld. Every new adult Panacian was anointed with his or her Queen’s scent at the Spring Emergence, the scent ceremoniously reapplied after each molt.

Mixs had become expert at hiding among the resting cocoons, waiting her chance to cycle and simply walk out with the others to where the Queens waited. In the guise of reincarnation, she’d dared reclaim her name and house time after time. She’d brought me for visits, carefully scenting me with samples stolen from remote families whose Queens were unlikely to travel to the cities.

Something else I was unlikely to find in the stowage compartment
, I grumbled to myself. At the moment, my footprints left no trace of a Queen’s claiming scent, a glaring omission informing any Panacians who happened to cross my path that I didn’t belong—anywhere. Hiding my lack of scent in boots, I knew, would simply not work. There were strict laws against public obscenity on D’Dsel.

All of which brought me pacing back to the port which had closed behind Paul, confining me here. I glowered at it, then checked the chrono above again. He’d been gone for almost two hours.

This so-important mail of his had to be in another courier
pouch, most likely sitting in the vault of another starship.
Not necessarily a close neighbor
, I thought. D’Dsel’s shipcity was the largest this close to the Fringe, its immaculately maintained shipways fluctuating ceaselessly as docking tugs moved incoming and outgoing vessels either to their assigned dock or into position for lift. At a rough estimate, there would be several thousand larger freighters and passenger ships fins down and open for business, with triple that number of smaller traders making quick stopovers in search of profitable crumbs.

All of the docked ships would have ramps run out to the nearest shipway, creating a city more temporary than anything the Panacians themselves built—a charming feature to my Panacian-self, although the shipcity’s overall design was exceedingly dull and fixed.
Matching offworld tech had its downside.

I couldn’t begin to guess which ship was Paul’s destination. Several here likely carried goods for Cameron & Ki—once a shipment left our primary carrier at a distribution point, it could be taken up by any number of registered short- or long-haul companies. Largas Freight came here, but the bulk of their routes went deeper into the Fringe, carving new territory rather than competing for a share within established systems. Joel’s choice was one I’d long suspected had less to do with profit than with avoiding well-intentioned but cumbersome Commonwealth bureaucracy.

I put my claws on the door, idly testing if it was firmly shut. For a being who had been content to spend twenty years waiting for a hand to regrow—the result of combining the unexpected fragility of my crystalline Tumbler form with an admittedly desperate effort to climb back into my room without being spotted by Skalet—I was discomfited to find each and every minute crawling like parasitic worms under my carapace.
Living with Humans
, I sighed to myself,
had a way of doing that.

Suddenly, the waiting was over—
not
, I realized with dread,
for the better
—as the entire ship resounded with an alarm. Seconds later, I felt the heavy shudder through my feet and grabbed for the door handle. In lieu of a quake,
there was only one possible explanation: the
Didjeridoo
had just been picked up by a tug.

The Iftsen, it appeared, were in more of a hurry than we’d been told.

I could have marshaled several good reasons for what I did next—given time to think of them—but reasonable thought had very little to do with the alacrity with which I switched off the safety lock on the port, hauled open the door, and flung myself out into the air.

Although reasonable thought might have prepared me for the discovery, as I continued to fall, that the ship’s ramp had already been withdrawn.

This early, an hour before dawn, was when the tidy Panacians insisted cleaner servos run through every nook and cranny of their cities, following the solemn passage of the Rememberers, an insistence enforced by Port Authority on D’Dsel. As a result, it was probably the cleanest shipcity in the settled galaxy, although from what I’d seen, not too clean for rats and other wildlife to make a living.

I hadn’t
, I thought gratefully,
broken anything except my pride.
My body had been soft enough from my recent molt not to crack when I’d hit the pavement, although I had some painful dents in my thorax and abdomen likely to remain until I molted again. As a consequence, I’d be wearing the evidence of my stupidity in this form for many years to come, unless I paid for some reconstructive surgery.
I was probably better off keeping the dents as a lesson
, I scolded myself. I’d been lucky not to be caught under the grinding treads of the tug itself.

All that remained of our meeting place now was an empty stretch of darkened pavement, littered with packing and other debris the servos were consuming with machine enthusiasm. I heard bottles being crunched and wondered if the partying Iftsen were aware of their own departure.

Servos were one thing—the variety of sweepers, suckers, and odd ones with spikes moved around me without interest in living litter. The inhabitants of the shipcity were another matter altogether. Even had I known where to start
looking for Paul in this maze, I would have stuck to shadows. It didn’t matter that this was a civilized jungle consisting of starships and all the trappings of technology—in the bowels of night, the shipcity had its own assortment of hunters and hunted.
Explanation enough
, I supposed,
for Paul’s desire to be armed
, if not his choice of weaponry.

Not that I was worried for myself.
It was just best—more of Ersh’s wisdom—to avoid situations where one’s relative invulnerability might actually be tested. And I disliked angry voices.

Such as those accompanying the two figures moving toward me along the shipway, stepping in and out of the circles of ramp lights at a very rapid walk for the Human male, and—I trailed the polishing inner edge of my lower arm over my eyes in case they were fogging in the predawn damp—what was a flat-out run for his Ervickian companion.

I began stepping back toward the hiding place I’d noted earlier—one of the servicing columns festooned like some giant tree with pipes for everything from atmosphere replenishment to fuel, an unimaginable luxury to one used to Minas XII’s approach to service—slowly, so my own motion shouldn’t be obvious, careful to hold my limbs to avoid reflecting glints of betraying light. I slipped under the cover of a cable broader than my shoulders, ducking as low to the ground as possible before trying to look out. After all, the Human might be Paul, in which case I wanted to gauge his mood before confronting him with my creative interpretation of my promise.
Best to ease into such things.

Within seconds, they were close enough that I could make out what was being said, not just its furious tone. “I’m beginning to think you planned this, too. You’d better not be lying to me, Able Joe, or your crèche will be emptier by one.”

I didn’t need the deep voice to tell me this Human wasn’t mine; I could see that for myself in the lights cast by neighboring ships as the pair stopped right in front of my hiding place.
Perfect
, I told myself.
Just perfect.

The Human stood, fists on his hips, looking around the
gap where the Iftsen freighter had stood. I increased my body temperature, resisting an impulse to change into something less conspicuous, or at least something that could scamper away unnoticed. The Ervickian, a young one, was kicking the tiny servos out of his way as he circled the Human, as though pretending to search for something.
If it was a starship
, I smiled to myself,
he was definitely out of luck.

The Human was younger than Paul
, I decided, studying him, maybe by twenty standard years, though his face appeared older. An artifice of the night and his equally dark mood, perhaps, since otherwise I would have judged it a face that should smile easily: not handsome, as Humans went, but with blunt, open features. His frame was considerably shorter than Paul’s yet more massive, without exceeding Human norms. When the Human reached out to grab the Ervickian’s ear, possibly exasperated by the being’s pointless and noisy torment of the servos, he winced and let go almost immediately, as though his hand was damaged.
What was so important here?