Infinity's Shore (99 page)

The red symbol accelerated, slowly closing the distance to its intended prey.

Boy, I pity whoever's in that swarm, when the stink rings catch up with 'em.

It took Rety a while longer to fathom the unpleasant truth.

That
swarm was the one that contained her own ship.

The Jophur were coming for her first.

My usual luck
, she complained, knowing better than to think the universe cared.

E
VERYTHING CHANGED.

One moment, he had been surrounded by sky. Mountains, clouds, and prairies stretched below his wicker gondola. The urrish balloon bulged and creaked overhead.

From the high northwest, a glittering object fell toward him, like a stoop raptor, unstoppable once it has chosen its prey.

That's me
, he thought, feeling transfixed, like a grass mouse who, caught in the open, knows there is no escape, and so has little choice but to watch the terrible beauty of Death on the wing.

Death came streaking toward him.

He felt an explosion, a shrill brilliance…

 … and found himself
here.

A gilded haze surrounded Dwer as he took stock.

I'm alive.

The sensations of a young, strong body accompanied irksome itches and the sting of recent scrapes. His clothes were as they had been. So was the gondola, for that matter—a basket woven out of dried river reeds—its contents undamaged.

The same could not be said of the balloon itself. The great gasbag lay collapsed in a curved heap of blur cloth, its upper half apparently cleaved off. Remnant folds lay spread across the interior of what Dwer came to realize must be a prison of some sort.

A spherical jail. He now saw it clearly. A sphere whose inner surface gave off a pale, golden light, confusing to the eye at first.

“Huh!”

To Dwer's surprise, his principal reaction was intrigue. In those final moments, as the missile fell, he had bid farewell to life. Now each added moment was profit. He could spend it as he chose.

He decided on curiosity.

Dwer clambered out of the basket and eased his moccasins onto the gold surface. He half expected it to be slick, but the material instead
clung
to his soles, so that he had to pull with some effort each time he took a step. After a few tentative strides, he came to yet another startling revelation.

“
Down” is wherever I happen to he standing!

From Dwer's new position, it looked as if the gondola was tilted almost sideways, about to topple onto him.

He squatted, looking down at the “floor” between his legs, riding out the expected wave of disorientation. It wasn't too bad.

I'll adapt. It'll be like learning to ice-walk across a glacier. Or probing face caves at the end of a rope, dangling over the Desolation Cliffs.

Then he realized something. Looking down, he saw more than just a sticky golden surface. Something glittered
beneath
it. Like a dusting of tiny diamonds. Gemstones, mixed with dark loam.

He leaned closer, cupping hands on both sides of his eyes to keep out stray light.

All at once Dwer fathomed; the diamonds were stars.

Lark

C
ROUCHING BEHIND AN AROMATIC OBELISK, TWO humans had an unparalleled chance to view events in the Jophur control room.

Lark would much rather they had stayed in the quiet, safe “observation chamber.”

Towering stacks of sappy toruses loomed nearby, puffing steam as each Jophur worked at a luminous instrument station. The density of smells made Lark want to gag. It must be worse for Ling, who hadn't grown up near traeki. Yet she seemed enthralled to be here.

Well, this was a terrific idea
, he groused mentally, recalling
the impulse that had sent them charging into a pit of foes.

Hey, look! The Jophur seem stunned! Let's rush down from this nice, safe hiding place and sabotage their instruments while they're out!

Only the Jophur didn't stay out long enough. By the time he and Ling made it halfway across the wide control room, several ring piles abruptly started puffing and swaying as they roused from their torpor. While machine voices reported status to their reviving masters, the two humans barely managed to leap behind this cluster of spirelike objects, roughly the shape of idealized Jophur, but twice as tall and made of some moist, fibrous substance.

Lark dropped down to the floor. All he wanted was to scrunch out of sight, close his eyes, and make objective reality go away.

Responding to his racing heartbeat, the purple ring twitched in its cloth bag. Lark put his hand on it and the thing eventually calmed down.

“I think I can tell what's going on!”

Lark glanced up the twin, tanned columns of Ling's legs, and saw that she was leaning around one of the soggy pillars, staring at the Jophur data screens. Reaching up, he seized her left wrist and yanked her down. She landed on her bare bottom beside him.

“Make like vermin,” was his advice. On matters of concealment and survival, Ling had a lot to learn from a Jijoan sooner.

“Okay, brother rat.” She nodded with surprising cheerfulness, then went on eagerly. “Some of their screens are set to spectra I can't grok. But I could tell we're in space now, racing toward Izmunuti.”

A wave of nausea struck Lark—a sensation akin to panic. Unlike his siblings, who used to talk and dream about star-flight when they were little, he had never wanted to leave Jijo. The very thought made him feel sick. Sensing his discomfort, Ling took his head and stroked it, but that did not stop her from talking, describing a complex hunt through space that Lark failed to visualize, no matter how he tried.

“Apparently there must have been a fleet of ships on or near Jijo,” she explained. “Though I can't imagine how
they got there. Maybe they came snooping from Izmunuti and the Jophur are chasing them away. Anyway, the mystery fleet seems to have split into five groups, all of them heading separately for the flare star. And from there to the transfer point, I suppose.

“There's also a couple of small objects trailing behind this ship … connected to it, as far as I can tell, by a slender force string. I don't know what their purpose is. But give me time.…”

Lark wanted to laugh out loud. He would give Ling the world. The universe! But right now all he really wanted was their nest. Their little green hideaway, where sweet fruits dangled within reach and no one could find them.

Lark was starting to push the vertigo away at last, when a noise blared from across the room.

“What's that?” he asked, sitting up. He did not try to stop Ling from rising partway and peering around for a look.

“Weapons release,” she explained. “The Jophur are firing missiles at the nearest squadron. They must be pretty confident, because they sent just one for each ship.”

Lark silently wished the new aliens luck, whoever they were. If any of them got away, they might report what they saw to the Galactic Migration Institute. Although Jijo's Six Races had lived in fear of the law for two thousand years, the intervention of neutral judges would be far better than any fate the Jophur planned to mete out, in private.

“The small ships are trying evasive maneuvers, but it's doing no good,” Ling said. “The missiles are closing in.”

Rety

S
HE CURSED THE DROSS SHIP, FOR NOT GIVING HER control.

She cursed Gillian Baskin and the dolphins, for putting her in a position where she had no choice but to escape from their incompetence into this impossible trap.

She cursed the Jophur for sending missiles after this decoy flotilla, instead of expertly finding the right prey.

Above all, Rety swore an oath at herself. For in the end, she had no one else to blame.

Her teaching unit explained the symbols representing those deadly arrows, now clearly visible in the display, catching up fast.

One by one, the ships behind hers met their own avenging predators. Surprisingly, the amber pinpoints did not snuff out, but turned crimson instead. Each then drifted backward, toward a meeting with the big red dot.

The Jophur did not swallow their captives. That would take too much time. Instead, they were snagged at the end of a chain—like a tadpole's tail—that waved behind the mighty ship.

Rety wondered.
Maybe they don't want to kill, after all. Maybe they just want prisoners!

If so, Rety would be prepared. She held yee with one arm, and the teaching unit with the other, setting it to begin teaching her Galactic Two—Jophur dialect.

When her own missile arrived, Rety was calmer than she expected.

“Don't worry, yee,” she said, stroking her little husband. “We'll find somethin' they want, an' make a deal. Just you wait an' see.”

With desperate confidence, she held on as the ancient Buyur vessel suddenly quivered and shook. In moments, the motors' grating drone cut off … and then so did the downward tug of the deck beneath her. In its place, a gentler pull seemed to draw her toward the
nose
of the disabled ship.

The lights went out. But Rety could see a bit. Stepping and sliding carefully along the slanted floor and walls, she followed the source of illumination to an unobstructed viewing port, where she peered outside and saw a world of pale yellow dawn.

yee commented dryly.

“
beats being dead, i guess
.”

Rety agreed. “I guess.” Then she shrugged.

“At least we'll see, one way or t'other.”

I
FOUND A LIBRARY REFERENCE. THEY ARE CALLED
capture boxes
,” the Niss explained. “
This weapon offers a clever solution to the Jophur dilemma
.”

“How do you figure?” Gillian asked.

“
We thought we had them in an awkward situation, where they must come close and inspect every decoy in order to find us. A cumbersome, time-consuming process.