Sliding Scales (33 page)

Authors: Alan Dean Foster

BOOK: Sliding Scales

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In place of body hair or scales, flattened fingernail-sized flaps of skin that ranged in hue from light gray to an almost metallic silver covered the visible parts of the slim body. Varying in length from one to three centimeters, they flapped like leaves in the breeze when the projection demonstrated the Dwarra's ungainly but satisfactorily motile gait. Females tended to be slightly smaller than males. According to the sparse records, the Dwarra gave birth to young who remained encased in a nourishing sac of gelatinous material until they were approximately a year old, at which point a second birthing ritual took place to celebrate the emergence of the infant from its mother's insides and manual transfer to its nurturing pouch, where it remained for an additional year before finally being asked to stand erect on its eight wobbly podal flanges.

As he finished perusing the limited information and waved off the floating, three-dimensional imagery, he decided that perhaps the inhabitants of looming, scenic Arrawd were not as much like himself as he had first thought.

Upon arrival, conducting leisurely observations from high orbit, the
Teacher
was able to reconfirm the available historical data on the state of Dwarran civilization. It was impossible to tell what, if any, advances the locals had made since the time the robot probe had carried out
its survey, but there was no question that the alien civilization spreading across the world below remained at a low-tech level of scientific accomplishment. There were cities, but they were unexceptional in size and even under high resolution exhibited nothing in the way of explosive technological development. If there were factories, they were fueled by nothing more exotic than the simplest of hydrocarbons. Though roadways were present in abundance, none appeared to be paved with any material more advanced than stone.

Harbors displayed a more sophisticated appearance, boasting among other recognizable components ingenious slipways for the handling and repair of large vessels. Evidence for extensive commerce was present in the form of extensive built-up areas and warehousing complexes. The seas of Arrawd, many in number and unassuming in extent, would be highly conducive to waterborne transportation. The smaller the body of water, the less ferocious were likely to be any prevailing storms, though the lighter gravity would permit higher waves. Mountain ranges further reduced the efficacy of land-based transportation and would tend to cause the locals to focus even more intensively on waterborne shipping. Even so, further observation revealed the presence of nothing more elaborate or advanced than large sailing craft.

Unfortunately for his purposes, while there were no great, sprawling conurbations, all indicators pointed to a sizable and largely dispersed population. When the
Teacher
finally announced that it had located an area appropriate to its needs, Flinx decided that he'd had enough of staring blankly from orbit. The small peninsula the ship had chosen was reasonably far from the nearest community of any size, distant from even a small harbor, and rippling with titanium-rich sand dunes. There was also
ample carbon locked up nearby in the form of an extensive and untouched deposit of fossilized plant growth. No indicators of urban population, no signs of commerce, no agriculture. A better spot might be found, but it would take more time to search.

“I concur,” he told the ship-mind. “Take us down as fast as practical. At the slightest sign of reaction from the native population, return to orbit and we'll try again on another continent.”

“I will be as subtle as possible,” the ship-mind replied. A slight lurch indicated that the
Teacher
had already commenced its owner-approved descent.

Of course, what it was doing was not only highly illegal, but almost universally thought to be impossible. By their very nature, KK-drive craft were not supposed to be able to come within a specified number of planetary diameters of any rocky world without causing destruction on the ground and damage to the ship. Only the UlruUjurrians, who had fashioned the
Teacher
as a gift to Flinx, had been able to find a solution to the problem, which continued to bedevil the physicists and engineers of all other space-going species.

Not that the Ulru-Ujurrians could properly be called space-going, Flinx mused as the ship continued to drop surfaceward. More like otherwhere-going.

The touchdown of the
Teacher
would have enormously impressed anyone on the ground—had there been anyone around to witness it. Executed under cover of night, as far as Flinx could tell the massive shape terminating in its coruscant Caplis projector came to rest in near silence among the thirty-meter-high dunes of the bucolic peninsula unnoticed by any living thing save for a pair of nesting amphibians. What little noise the ship generated was masked by a nocturnal onshore breeze, with the result
that even the two jet-black, half-meter-long creatures hardly stirred in their burrow.

For several long minutes, an edgy Flinx paced the confines of the command cabin while the ship-mind made note of and absorbed everything about its immediate surroundings, from the chemical composition of the gentle sea nearby (less salty than terrestrial oceans, its tidal shift hardly affected by the three small moons in the sky) to the efforts of a number of surprisingly mobile nearby plants to uproot themselves and move away from the
Teacher
's imposing bulk. Walking up to the curving foreport, he gazed down the length of the ship's service arm toward the now dark disc of the KK-drive generating fan. His craft was as exposed, obvious, and unnatural a part of the landscape as a thranx clan meeting in the arctic.

“How much longer?” The ship-mind was sufficiently intuitive that he did not have to specify the subject of his query.

“Working,” the
Teacher
replied succinctly. “I do not foresee a lengthy study period. The immediate surroundings are simple and straightforward and will be easy to mimic.”

“Then how about simply and straightforwardly concealing us?” Responding to her master's uncharacteristic irritability, Pip looked up from her resting place on the forward console.

“Processing.” The
Teacher
could be talkative when the environment was relaxed, and equally concise when the situation demanded it. “Observe.”

Once again, Flinx turned his attention toward the bow of the ship. It was no longer there. In its place was a narrow, low dune that terminated in a higher barchan of mineral-rich sand. The programming and complex projection mechanics that enabled the
Teacher
to alter the appearance of its exterior to resemble anything from a
contract freighter to a small warship also allowed it to impersonate more mundane surroundings. Gazing at the forward part of his vessel, a relieved Flinx had no doubt that the larger habitable section that formed his home now also blended effectively into its immediate surroundings.

Not far off to the left, a placid sea glistened invitingly in Arrawd's dim, tripartite moonlight. After weeks spent cooped up on board, the thought of a nocturnal swim in tepid salt water was tempting. No doubt his presence in such waters, however, would prove equally enticing to whatever predators roamed the perhaps deceptively sluggish shallows. Taking a reckless plunge in an alien sea was a good way to meet one's maker in advance of one's designated time. He would wait until morning, see what developed, have the
Teacher
run a bioscan out to depth, and then decide if his present locale was safe enough for him to take the plunge.

Seduced by the serene, moonlit surroundings of solid ground, he had already set aside his promise not to emerge from the ship.

“How soon before you can begin acquiring necessary raw materials and commence repairs?”

“I already have,” the ship informed him. Somewhere deep within its self-maintaining mass, faint mechanical noises sifted upward into the living quarters.

Flinx gestured toward the console. Obediently, Pip rose on thrumming, chromatic wings and glided over to settle on his shoulders. “That's great. If I'm not up, wake me at sunrise.”

The ship responded affirmatively, even though it knew the request was unnecessary. The ability of its human's biological clock to reset itself almost immediately to whatever new world Flinx happened to find himself on was
one that never ceased to amaze the multi-faceted artificial mind. Flinx called it “making myself at home.”

Perhaps, ship-mind thought to itself, the human had developed this unusual ability to make himself at home wherever he happened to be because he had never really had such a place of his own.

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