Raising Caine - eARC (41 page)
Read Raising Caine - eARC Online
Authors: Charles E. Gannon
Tags: #Fiction, #Science Fiction, #Space Opera, #Alien Contact, #General
“Do you know if the attackers are still near Disparity?”
“We suspect so. There is no indication that they have left the system.”
Macmillan now sounded distinctly annoyed. “Then why haven’t you hunted them down, chased them off?”
“I reemphasize that Disparity is a transitioning colony world. We have no such defense-in-depth, and cannot risk losing more of our assets.”
Gaspard threw up his hands. “But this system is adjacent to your homeworld.”
W’th’vaathi’s sensor cluster fixed on him. If the Slaasriithi had been a human, Riordan had the impression she would simply have shrugged and asked, “And what’s your point?”
The ratiocinator’s silence seemed to increase Gaspard’s exasperation. “How can you
not
have more developed defenses at such a close approach, such a key access point, to your homeworld?”
“Why should we?”
“
Mon Dieu
, because this might be the system from which an invader would stage an attack to
destroy
your homeworld!”
“But the destruction of any race’s homeworld is directly prohibited by the Twenty-First Accord. And there are many defenses at the system you call Beta Aquilae. But even if it was to succumb to an attacker, we would simply shift our emphasis to a new homeworld.”
Caine goggled. “A new homeworld? Can’t there only be one?”
“Yes. One at a time.”
“No, no. I mean, how can you come from more than one world?”
“Ah. You have confused the word ‘homeworld’ with ‘world of origin.’ They are explicitly not the same.”
“Not to you, perhaps.”
“I commend you to consider that you should not consider these terms synonymous, either, and that other races use these as we do, rather than in the context you have presumed.”
Wait: so when the Dornaani, or other races, refer to their “homeworlds,” they do
not
mean—?
But W’th’vaathi was expanding upon her comment. “Once a race has been changing biospheres for millennia, the planet of its origin becomes more a matter of curiosity than urgent information. Now, we must resume the journey at once. The others of Unsymaajh’s subtaxae shall forage for your nutritive needs as we travel, and any newly summoned water-striders should join us before mid-day.”
As they walked out of the trees and met the stares of the rest of the survivors, W’th’vaathi stopped and studied the three water-striders waiting patiently in the river. She turned to Riordan. “The convector subtaxae who have observed you reported that you had been traveling with the water-striders. Were they in error?”
Caine shook his head. “No.” He gestured toward the striders. “They’ve been keeping us safe for the past several days.”
Unsymaajh’s head moved forward slightly, as if he were trying to get a better look at something between Riordan’s eyes. “They have been keeping you safe? How?”
“By escorting us downriver.”
Unsymaajh and W’th’vaathi exchanged glances with their undetectable eyes. W’th’vaathi turned back to Riordan. “Did you not summon them?”
Caine looked at the rest of the group, who were all looking at him: every human face was a study in perplexity. “Did I
summon
them?” Caine repeated, feeling stupid. “No: I don’t know how to do that. They just—showed up.”
Another set of looks were exchanged among the Slaasriithi, more of whom were drifting toward the shore, and toward the humans, all the time. “So,” W’th’vaathi said slowly, “Yiithrii’ah’aash did not brief you on the flora and fauna that our race brought to this world, even though you are so strongly marked—and with the musk of the water-striders most strongly of all?”
Riordan shook his head. “No. Besides, that marking wasn’t conferred by Yiithrii’ah’aash. A water-strider did that, just before it died.” W’th’vaathi folded her tendril-fingers patiently, and settled into a hip-stabilized crouch. The expectation of hearing the story behind the death of the water-strider was obvious. Caine imparted an extremely truncated version.
At the end, W’th’vaathi extended her neck a little further and said, “Come.”
Riordan followed her down to the water. W’th’vaathi turned. “Wade toward the largest of the water-striders. You have nothing to fear. Truly.”
Caine moved out into the water, and, after a few steps, the largest of the water-striders seemed to be bending its—well, its “knees”—to get a better look at him. The further out Caine waded, the further down the water-strider bent, its legs spreading sideways and its joints allowing the heavy body to lower toward the river. For a moment, it resembled a four-legged mammalian tarantula, the joints of its legs higher than the trunk of its body.
By the time Caine had waded hip-deep into the current, he was only a few meters from the creature, which was almost eyeball-to-eyeball with him. And in those alien eyes, Caine read—what? Nothing? Perplexity? Curiosity? Or even—expectation?
“She is waiting,” W’th’vaathi called from the shore, as one of the water-strider’s legs began stretching out, lowering into the water at a more gentle angle.
“For what?”
“For you to take your place.”
Caine hated feeling stupid and he’d spent most of the last five minutes doing exactly that. “To take my place where?”
“Upon her back.”
“You mean, we’re supposed to—
ride
them?”
“Of course.” W’th’vaathi’s reply was mild: too mild to conceal a hint of ironic amusement.
Or so Caine told himself.
Chapter Forty-One
Southern extents of the Third Silver Tower; BD +02 4076 Two (“Disparity”)
By the time noon was past, the group had made as much progress downriver as they normally made in a full day. Also, Riordan no longer felt like one of the water-striders was standing on his chest every time he inhaled.
W’th’vaathi, who had not noticed how Ben Hwang and Caine surreptitiously arranged to be on the same water-strider as she, remarked. “Your respiration seems less labored, Caine Riordan.”
Riordan smiled. “Yes, thanks to you and the water-striders.”
“It is a great misfortune that you were unable to obey your instincts to leave the area under what you call the cone tree. You may have become more deeply infested with the defense spores than we believed possible.”
Caine tried to remain calm. Being super-saturated with defense spores did not sound particularly promising.
“Without your filter masks,” W’th’vaathi continued, “you would be affected. However, even with them, you would eventually succumb. Uptake also occurs through mucous membranes, albeit more gradually.”
Great. In addition to my eyes, I have a vented suit, courtesy of those damn pirhannows.
“Can I be cured?” Caine asked when he was sure he could keep his voice level and calm.
“Yes,” W’th’vaathi replied. “But my knowledge in such matters is incomplete. I was not even aware of these defense spores until Senior Ratiocinator Mriif’vaal informed me about them.”
Ben Hwang was frowning deeply. “W’th’vaathi, did Mriif’vaal happen to mention whether these defense spores would impact
all
biota that are not Slaasriithi in origin?”
“No. For instance, they do not affect the indigenous biota of Disparity. If they did, we could not build symbiotic relationships and ecological synergies with it.”
Ben nodded. “Of course. But that’s not what I’m referring to. I’m talking about, well,
unwelcome
xenobiologies.”
“I do not know. Why do you inquire?”
Caine saw it before Ben replied. “Well, it’s somewhat peculiar that, even before we arrived here, both Yiithrii’ah’aash and Mriif’vaal knew that these spores would be dangerous to humans. And evidently they also knew that you possess an antidote or cure for afflicted humans. I find that curious.”
W’th’vaathi’s “head” turned toward Ben, wobbled a bit as the water-strider moved into slightly shallower water and cast about for better footing. “Yes. That is curious.”
“It makes me wonder if you’ve had human visitors before,” Caine speculated in a casual tone that, he realized, was probably lost on the Slaasriithi.
“I believe so,” W’th’vaathi affirmed. “Of course, you have been long known as a protected species, watched over by the Custodians of the Accord. But it seems you must have been known before that, even before we started receiving your broadcast signals more than a century ago.”
“What makes you think that?”
W’th’vaathi’s neck wiggled a bit. “Because there is no mention of your ever being ‘discovered’ or ‘assessed’ by the Custodians, as were the Hkh’Rkh, and even the Arat Kur. From the earliest Custodial records, knowledge of your homeworld and the systems reserved for your expansion have always existed. Logically, our species may have had earlier contact. At that time, perhaps it was deemed prudent to create spores that are particularly inimical to your biochemistry. Otherwise, how would our Senior Ratiocinatorae know to preemptively provide for your safety during your visit, and indicate that there was a cure in the event of an accidental exposure?”
“How indeed?” murmured Ben Hwang with a quick glance at Riordan. Once again, getting a better picture of what had been going on in this particular stellar cluster twenty millennia ago rose up as a significant, even urgent, intelligence objective. “Tell me, how do the spores work?”
“There are many different spores: a novitor or hortator would be able to provide a comprehensive explanation. My understanding is that when human secretions are detected in our environment, the small but persistent production of defense spores is triggered to enter a hyper-production stage. Some of the defense spores cause our fauna to avoid humans, some will agitate suitable species to attack, instead. But the most common variety of spores simply lodge in your mucous membranes and generate a pronounced histaminic response, as well as respiratory swelling. The sequelae include decreased cognitive clarity and mobility, thereby rendering the subject—
“—extremely tractable,” finished Hwang.
“You perceive, then.”
“All too completely,” Hwang murmured.
“And what of you, Caine Riordan? Do you understand how very profoundly
you were marked by the dying water-strider, and why?”
“I probably don’t fully understand either,” Caine confessed.
“Then I shall elucidate. The water-strider marked you more deeply and broadly than is typical outside the limits of its own species. To simplify, it marked you with powerful rapport and affinity spores when it last breathed upon you. When it rubbed you, it saturated you with compliance pheromones. That is why the water-striders are waiting to aid you.”
“And it imparted these gifts because I was kind to it when it died?”
“That is part of it, certainly, but there is something else: you have been marked before. That other mark is deep and strong, but it is also unfamiliar. I believe it is very old.”
“Yes. It happened about two years ago.”
“I do not mean that the marking occurred long ago. I mean that the marker itself is unfamiliar to today’s taxae. It seems ancient, even primal. It is—most striking.”
Ben nodded slowly. “So, you feel it yourself.”
“Yes. It is peculiar to find glimmers and scents of our unrecorded past wafting about an xenosapient such as yourself, Caine Riordan. It elicits many questions.”
I’ll bet it does.
Caine was wondering whether he should let the topic slide when a flapping sound and a rising shadow distracted him: the water-strider upon which he was riding had raised the two membranous fins that had been laying folded to either side of its back-perched passengers. “Is everything all right?”
W’th’vaathi’s bifurcated prehensile tail flicked dismissively. “Our herd has detected the presence of another, downstream. Although none of us are masters of water-strider communications, I presume it is alerting the others that our approach is not a challenge or a purposive territorial encroachment.” Her tone changed. “Or they could be sending pre-mating signals.”
“Mating signals?” Caine suddenly wanted to be off the water-strider’s back, far away from having to witness, let alone dodge, the amorous frolics of these ungainly giants.
W’th’vaathi may have been amused: one of her tails shimmied irregularly. “Allow me to be more precise. They might be exchanging expressions of interest and receptivity. For later.”
From further back on the creature’s back, Macmillan snorted. “Hey, baby, here’s my number. Call me.” If W’th’vaathi understood Macmillan’s truly alien quip, she gave no sign of it.
Caine glanced at the two ribbed and leathery fins rising up on either side; fully extended, they were more akin to long, triangular pennants. “These extensions must serve a purpose other than imparting mating signals. Stability while swimming, perhaps?”
W’th’vaathi’s head swayed gently from side-to-side: a gesture that Riordan had come to associate with tentative agreement. “Fossil records suggest that this may have been their original purpose. But that was probably before their large flippers elongated and evolved into legs. However, the force of evolution does not waste useful resources. Study the tips of the spines which raise and spread the fins.”
Caine did so and noticed that the spines protruded beyond the membrane of the fins and did not end in tapering points, but were angle-cut, akin to the nub of a quill pen. It took several moments of scrutiny before Riordan realized what he was looking at: “Are those breathing tubes?”
“Yes. When a water-strider submerges and seals the row of large respiration ducts on either side of its spine, the fins function as snorkels.”
Hwang nodded. “So, the fins’ courtship use is secondary. Tell me: do fin differences signal sex differences?”
W’th’vaathi turned from her position just behind the head of the water-strider. “As with us, and many other species that we brought to the stars, the water-striders are not gendered or sexed as is your species. Rather, among striders, there are two different reproductory variants, the impregnator and the depositor.”
“Those sound like the same things,” Macmillan murmured.
“In your heterosexual dyads, yes, but not among this species. The impregnator chooses which of the depositors it shall fertilize, as well as the kind of offspring: either a depositor or, far more rarely, another impregnator. In this way, the herd’s fertile and dominant impregnator determines the demographics of the herd, and even its genetic characteristics.”
“So why are the impregnated water-striders called depositors?” Hwang asked, hanging on to a fistful of their mount’s fur as it dipped back out into the deeper water.
“Because they do not retain the fertilized egg. It is immediately passed back to the impregnator and embeds in its womb.”
Macmillan stared. “So the impregnator is also the…the mother?”
W’th’vaathi’s left tail-half flicked once. “As I mentioned, terrestrial sexual dyadism offers few productive analogs for understanding water-strider reproduction. Caretaking and post-birth nutrition are the province of the depositor which was impregnated, not the impregnator. Also, any attempt to apply the sex-associated dominance and behavior templates common among your planet’s social mammals will be quite futile. For instance, genetic selection is not established through external forces, such as you biota’s male aggression contests, but by the impregnator’s detection of desired traits in a depositor’s pheromones.”
Riordan nodded, seeing the paradigm of Slaasriithi consensuality reprised in the water-striders. “So the evolutionary rule is not survival of the fittest, but selection of the fittest, according to the changing needs of the herd.”
W’th’vaathi’s tendrils straightened with a pop. “An apt adaptation of one of your own axioms, if I am not mistaken. And, as you may perceive, not wholly inapplicable to we Slaasriithi. Water-strider reproduction resembles ours in many particulars.”
“Och, here we go,” Keith exclaimed, “the alien ‘birds and bees’ talk. Damn, how I wish I’d stayed home in Dundee.” Caine raised an eyebrow at Macmillan who simply shrugged and smiled.
W’th’vaathi had, once again, shown no understanding of the big Scotsman’s comments. “These words baffle me, although we know of your terrestrial bee and admire many of its features.”
Ben glared at Keith who smiled sweetly in return. “Mr. Macmillan was using an idiom that refers to the—the details of mating.”
“I understand. Although I must offer an initial correction; one could not characterize any stage of Slaasriithi reproduction as mating. What humans refer to as sex—and the consequent emotional phenomena you label longing, romance, and passion—are anathema to us. Our reproductory process is partly instinctual, and partly guided by Senior Ratiocinatorae, much the way that a water-strider impregnator determines which depositor shall be fertilized.”
Hwang stared dubiously at W’th’vaathi. “So you have a womb?”
“No, not presently. As I mentioned, all Slaasriithi are capable of all reproductory roles. The ratiocinator that guides the process will, itself, not receive a quickened egg. However, in conjunction with communally informed instinct, it determines the demographic mix that shall arise from a gathering of Slaasriithi who are to be quickened.”
“And how does the ratiocinator accomplish that?”
W’th’vaathi’s tendrils swayed in time with the rolling gait of the water-strider. “Pheromonic emissions from the entire community determine what proportion of each caste should be quickened, which is achieved in a communal pool. Each individual who is to become gravid both releases and receives genetic material from all the others.”
Caine tried to rise above the bizarre images W’th’vaathi’s description was prompting. “Then how do the taxae remain, er, coherent subspecies? Doesn’t the free exchange of”—
the mind reels
—“genetic material create hybrids?”
“This is, again, an expectation that would be logical in your genetic template, but not ours. Fragments of each Slaasriithi subspecies are present in every individuals’ genome, regardless of their taxon. Therefore, all taxae are repositories of genetic diversity for all taxae.
“Once the genetic exchange is complete, the ratiocinator releases a second pheromone that triggers the chemical process which determines how each pre-gravid Slaasriithi’s host gamete will select and become receptive to the various genetic material that surrounds it. In this way, the community maximizes genetic diversity while also producing demographic outcomes optimal to its changing needs.”
“But then…you have no families?” Macmillan’s voice had become serious, now. Haunted, even.
“Not such as you mean. Our young are far more self-sufficient upon birth; the genomes of the respective taxae pre-specialize its members for their predetermined tasks and predilections. Consequently, the genetic complexity that enables humanity’s variability and versatility is not necessary. Our young aggregate in groups maintained by older and less mobile members of their taxae, who control them through pheromones and redirection.”
“It all sounds very…logical.” Ben’s nod was emphatic, but his voice was carefully controlled.
“Logic is often over-rated, Doctor,” Macmillan countered quickly. His face was pale and his freckles stood out more profoundly than before. “And so do these, eh, OverWatchlings also oversee your breeding, prodding the ratiocinators here and there, where needed? That would be logical too. Why let anyone make a choice for themselves?”
Riordan turned toward the Scotsman, who matched stares at first, but then looked away, jaw muscles bunching.
What’s got into you, Keith?
If W’th’vaathi had detected Macmillan’s sarcasm, he nonetheless elected to treat the question as serious. “I have failed to make clear the role of the OverWatchlings. They are not, strictly speaking, intelligent. To use the closest terrestrial analog, imagine a queen bee who sleeps until the nest is disturbed. Awakened, she instinctively sets about sending pheromone commands to alert and marshal the hive’s defenses.”
