Ascending (10 page)

For one thing, most who had stayed on the Divian home-world were suffering difficult times. Their planet had lost a goodly percentage of its underclass—the poor who worked at unappealing jobs for a pittance a day, the sick who fueled the economy by requiring expensive medical treatments, and the persons of despised background who served as scapegoats for those in power. With these people gone, the economy tottered, and the rich had to cast around for new underlings to grease the wheels of industry with their life-blood…but the new underlings were just as likely to jump ship as the old ones. The Shaddill were still around; their offer was still open. At the end of a bad day, anyone could decide that her boss was a fool, her lovers unworthy, her family more trouble than it was worth, and poof! Away she went to a new life, in a place where no one was hungry and no one had guns.

When the first wave of emigrants came back to say how wonderful their life was, a second wave of departures went flooding out. Those who were bored. Those whose lives had grown harder since the first wave left. Those who would have gone the first time but feared the Shaddill would butcher them for meat. Young people who could not get jobs, old people who despised the jobs they had, curiosity seekers, petty criminals running from the law, faithless paramours abandoning unwanted commitments, unappreciated homemakers storming out of the house, scientists wishing to learn advanced Science things, farmers who could not face one more drought, women cornered by would-be rapists, teenagers whose parents could not understand True Love, get-rich-quick gamblers who were certain they could Make It Big if only they got a fresh start on a planet where the system did not work against you…all of them called or screamed or whispered to the Shaddill, and were swept off to a place of second chances.

The more people who left, the more chaos for those who stayed behind—and the more incentive for the hangers-on to get out too. Lajoolie said her own ancestors had lived in a large city on a tropical coast, a major port and shipment center. One summer ten years after the Shaddill arrived, a hurricane struck the city, killing or crippling many car-creatures and house-creatures. By the time the storm passed, half the populace had decided rebuilding would be too much trouble, so they disappeared into space. Within a week, eighty percent of the remainder had also flown away: the half-empty city was turning dangerous with gangs and looters, not to mention that hundreds of businesses were forced to close due to lack of customers.

Then, after all those people departed, there were not enough workers to unload the boats docked in the harbor. Far inland, other cities began to suffer because they did not receive shipments of food and imported goods. People of the inland cities also called on the Shaddill when the hardships grew too severe, making further breaks in the chain of production and supply.

For twenty years then, the Shaddill left their offer open: twenty years during which the old Divian economy collapsed. (Scientific civilizations are so spindly and weak, if you take away too many people, the whole system breaks down. Hah!) The homeworld became a dog-eat-dog ruin, abandoned by everyone except those who were too stubborn to leave or too fond of violence to accept the League’s law.

“So it seems,” said I, “the Shaddill were great villains who used divisive handouts to destroy your cultural infrastructure.”

“No, no,” Lajoolie protested, “they
helped
us. They
improved
us…not just by giving us Zaretts and all, but by weeding out the most vicious elements of our species. Those who left the homeworld were the peaceful, intelligent members of society—not perfect, of course, but we’re much better off, now that a big strain of brutality has been removed from our breeding pool.”

“But what will you do if an occasion arises when you
need
to be brutal?”

“That won’t happen,” Lajoolie said. “The League makes sure no one can hurt anyone else.”

“No. The League kills certain people under certain conditions; that is all they do. They still permit a great deal of hurting to take place: I can attest to that. You can attest to it too—where was the League when the Shaddill shot you with their weapon ray?”

She had no answer…perhaps because she was descended from people who had been insufficiently suspicious of gifts that were too good to be true. Mistrust did not come naturally to persons of her ancestry; I wondered if that was pure accident, or if the Shaddill had deliberately created a situation where people would breed for gullibility.

Hmm…

The Shaddill Spread More Bounty

At the end of twenty years, the Shaddill left the Divian homeworld, never to return. Presumably, they went to help other races on the verge of space travel—because according to Lajoolie, Cultural Improvement was the Shaddill’s chief occupation. In the same way they uplifted the Divians, the Shaddill had visited many other species throughout the galaxy…including
Homo sapiens
, which is how the human Technocracy got its start four hundred years ago.

My friend Festina had told me that story: how aliens visited Old Earth in the twenty-first century. And she claimed the same aliens had approached some portion of the human race one other time before, in a year she called 2000
B
.
C
. Way back then, the aliens scooped up humans and carried them off to the planet Melaquin…where those humans became my ancient ancestors. The gifts the Shaddill gave my forebears were pleasant underground cities that supplied all their needs, and virtual immortality for their children—which is to say, the children were engineered to be beautiful, clever creatures of indestructible glass.

Like me.

Beware Of Aliens Bearing Gifts

Lajoolie told me that “Shaddill” was a name invented by Divians, meaning “Our Mentors.” The Shaddill themselves never used any special title, preferring just to call themselves “citizens of the League of Peoples”—telling everyone they were good and noble envoys, bringing happy enlightenment to lesser species out of pure gracious generosity.

Hah
! I thought. These supposedly nice Shaddill shot us with a Sinister Unconsciousness Ray. They chased Starbiter most mercilessly. They had lied to the Divians about what a Zarett could do, and perhaps they had run from the human navy, like thieves fleeing the scene of a crime. Above all, they had placed a most terrible curse on my people…and our Ancestral Towers were full of the comatose results.

Of course, Tired Brains were supposed to be a lamentable accident due to unforeseen genetic complications. The more I heard about the Shaddill, however, the less I believed in their beneficence.

I said as much to Lajoolie. “These Shaddill are not so kindly as you think. They did you a great disservice.”

The big woman did not answer. She pensively chewed her Zarett meat.

“Did they not unbalance your homeworld?” I asked. “Did they not deliberately drive a wedge between those who stayed loyal to their planet and those who were cut off from their roots by leaving home? Why, for example, did the Shaddill only give YouthBoost to those who agreed to leave? Should they not give it to
all
Divians, so everyone could live a longer life? Is it not wicked to let many die young, if they could be saved?”

Lajoolie finally swallowed her mouthful. “Not according to the League of Peoples. The League doesn’t require you to take extraordinary measures to save a creature who’s reached the end of its span. The League’s version of sentience is all about your
own
actions—you’re forbidden to do something that would hasten another sentient’s demise, either through direct action or carelessness…but you aren’t obliged to lift a finger if someone’s dying for reasons unrelated to you.” She shrugged. “It can be a tricky call. Suppose right now I start choking on my food. Are you justified in letting me die because it’s my own fault for trying to eat and talk at the same time? Or do you deserve some blame because I wouldn’t be talking if you weren’t here?”

“It does not matter who is to blame. If you start to choke, I shall squeeze you hard about the middle to make you cough up the blockage. Civilized persons help one another.”

Lajoolie smiled. “Thank you…but that’s not required by League law. If you don’t cause my predicament, you don’t have to save me. Which is why the Shaddill weren’t obliged to offer YouthBoost to the people who stayed on our homeworld. It isn’t the Shaddill’s fault that Divians get old and die at a certain age; therefore the Shaddill didn’t have to give YouthBoost to anyone.”

“But they
did
give it to you. For unknown reasons of their own. Your ancestors were very foolish if no one asked,
Why are these aliens so generous?
”

“Of course they asked. The Shaddill only answered,
It’s our way
.” The big woman stared broodingly at her food. “A lot of people assumed the Shaddill simply believed in helping others. Religious altruism. Cynics preferred to think it was a status thing: the Shaddill made themselves feel important by tossing handouts to others.

“Of course,” Lajoolie continued, “there’s always the chance the Shaddill were motivated by thought processes too alien for us to understand. We Divians and humans spend so much time together, we forget we’re rarities in the universe: intelligent species who are physically, mentally, and socially similar. We have comparable biological needs, we share the same range of emotions…but most other races have much less in common. Aliens aren’t always motivated by desires we can comprehend.”

“I comprehend the Shaddill perfectly,” I said. “They are villainous tempters who enjoy disrupting the lives of others: the type of people who come from the sky, fill your head with talk of Wondrous Science, and make you think you are respected…then they toy with you and laugh behind your back that you are a foolish savage. The presents they give are not nearly so fine as you first believe. Either the gifts turn out to be mere trinkets, or they are secretly intended to make you weak and dependent.” My face had suddenly become hot, and my eyes all stinging and watery. “Even if such tempters are not outright villains, they still want you to change, to be like them. They want you ashamed of what you are, and afraid of saying the tiniest thing for fear it will prove you are ignorant.”

Lajoolie stared at me a long moment, then lowered her gaze. “You’re really talking about the Technocracy, aren’t you? I’ve read the report of what happened on Melaquin. What the Explorers did to you. But those were mere humans, one of whom went murderously insane. The Shaddill are very different: more highly evolved, and really, truly benevolent. They aren’t just well-meaning idiots who bungle their attempts to help; they’ve shown themselves to be decent, caring, nonexploitive—”

“We’ve got company!” The shout came from the wall, but the voice was Uclod’s. Apparently, Starbiter had ways for someone to project sounds through the tissues surrounding us. “Back to the bridge,” Uclod yelled, “on the double!”

Lajoolie threw her bowl onto the counter and was out the door in a split-second. She moved very fast; I could barely keep up with her as she bounded through the bronchial tubes. Without slowing, she called, “Husband, do you know who it is?”

“Shaddill,” the walls answered in Uclod’s voice. “Bloody bastards still want a piece of us.”

I tried to say, “I told you so.” But we were running so fast, the words came out as more gasps.

Pursuit

Back on the bridge, Uclod was strapped into his seat, with an icky pink intestine plastered over his face. It was not an appealing look—perhaps even
I
do not look so attractive wearing a major piece of bowel on my head—but I was beginning to get used to the constant presence of Starbiter’s internal organs. I did not even flinch as I threw myself into the jellyfish seat…but this time I lifted my arms high so they would not be trapped when the safety straps wrapped around me.

My strategy worked most excellently: the tendrils snaked up from the chair almost as soon as I touched down, weaving tight around my body but leaving my arms free. Then I had to lower my hands quickly as the intestine dropped from the ceiling—kissing the top of my head, then creeping down over my face with an itchy tickle. This time Starbiter did not have to test my vision or hearing: as soon as the hood was in place, I could see the star-speckled blackness of the void.

“Go to long-range scan,” Uclod’s disembodied voice said. I do not know if the instruction was aimed at Lajoolie or Starbiter; either way, the starry view jumped and shimmered for a moment. When it stabilized again, I realized I was viewing the world in the monochrome I had experienced before—seeing through the special devices for perceiving great distances.

Even with this new perspective, I had difficulty picking out the Shaddill vessel; there was so much sky to survey, all around us, above and below. No doubt the stick-ship was pursuing from our rear, but with nothing to see but unmoving stars, I had no sense of which direction we were heading. At last I discerned a bristly dust mote just visible against the bleak constellations—definitely the stick-ship, though Uclod must have had very good eyes to spot it at such a distance.

“It’s gaining on us,” he said. “Not quickly, but it’s definitely gaining.”

“Then we must go faster,” I told him. “Encourage Star-biter to put on more speed.”

“Missy,” he answered, “my sweet little girl is already ripping along ten times faster than any Zarett before her. It doesn’t seem to hurt her, but I’ll be damned if I risk her life trying to speed up.”

“She is a good and willing Zarett. She will try to go faster if you ask.”

“I’m not going to ask! There’s no reason to drive her till she drops. Even if the Shaddill catch us, they won’t kill us, will they? They’re afraid of the League, just like anyone else.”

“But they can lock us in prison forever! The League does not care about kidnapping or enslavement; they only object to murder.”

“I know,” Uclod said. “That’s why we’re running, toots.”

We were not running fast enough: little by little, the image of the stick-ship grew. That was all I saw—the background stars did not shift, and I had no sense of motion in my body. It felt as if we were standing still, while the Shad-dill approached us as slow as squinch-bugs.

This is not good at all,
I thought. It appeared as if the Pollisand’s teeny-tiny-eensy-weensy chance of disaster befalling me was not so minuscule as he implied. How long ago had I talked with him? Less than an hour. And already catastrophe clutched at my throat.

No wonder the Pollisand arrived when he did; and no wonder he so blithely promised to cure my Tired Brain. He must have known, even as we spoke, that the Shaddill were chasing us…and if he knew that, he must have guessed the Shaddill would commit horrid deeds on my person once they caught us. That is the whole reason Mr. Asshole Pollisand had tricked me into saying, “Oh no, the League should not hold
you
to blame if awful things transpire; I will assume responsibility myself.”

It seems I had been taken for a Sucker. Sometimes, even I can be a most grievous poop-head.

A Brilliant Idea

I desperately wanted to
do
something—to run on my own two feet, or throw stones at the incoming ship; but that was pure foolishness. We had no way to fight or intimidate the stick-people.

Unless…

“Uclod!” I called. “As official communications officer, I should like to broadcast a message.”

“What kind of message?” he asked.

“A loud one. Can you arrange for it to be heard at long distances?”

“Sure—Starbiter can broadcast in deep ether. God knows she’s brimming with enough power, we can probably cover fifteen cubic parsecs in a single burst.”

“Good. I want everyone to hear me.”

“We’ll hit all the public bands. Give me a second.”

I could hear soft noises nearby—Uclod working the Zarett’s controls. Then he murmured, “Okay, toots: you’re on the air. Can’t wait to hear you persuade the Shaddill to back off.”

But I had no intention of speaking to the evil stick-people. “Attention Technocracy navy!” I said. “Especially the foolish Captain Prope. Here we are. Come and get us!”

Silence. Seconds slipped by with no answer. Then Uclod let out his breath in a long sigh. “You think the Shaddill will run away if the human navy shows up?”

“Yes,” I answered, attempting humility despite the brilliance of my idea.

“Toots,” said Uclod, “you got two problems with that. First, the navy ships are way the hell back in the Melaquin system; we’re traveling light-years too fast for them to catch up with us. Until a few minutes ago, I didn’t think
any
ship could make the speed we’re going…but it seems a sun-charged Zarett can, and a Shaddill ship is even faster. The navy are goddamned snails in comparison. By the time they get here, we’ll be long gone—probably swallowed by the Shaddill ship. And that’s if the navy even heard us. The other problem with your tactic is that half a second into your broadcast, the Shaddill jammed our signal. The most anyone heard was a hiccup.”

“I did not hiccup!”

“Whatever you did, no one heard past the first two syllables. Granted, the navy was probably listening on all bands, hoping we’d break radio silence; good chance they caught the blip. They may even have got a location fix. But they’re just too far away, missy—we’ve been zipping along for hours at a speed they can’t possibly match. They’re out of the picture, and we’re on our own.”

Of course, the navy
could
speed up their ships…if they ventured into the sun and energized their FTL fields. But the insolent Captain Prope would never be brave enough to attempt such a stratagem—not when she believed going into the sun meant death.

Perhaps one of the other captains would try, but even that seemed unlikely. These fools had possessed starships for centuries, yet none had experimented with venturing into a star. No sense of curiosity…nor any other sense I could discern. Had no rich wastrel ever sent a ship into the sun just to see it burn? Had no crazed person ever tried to commit suicide by solar immolation? Humans had been driving star-ships for four hundred years; Divians had ridden Zaretts for a thousand. In all that time, had no one ever swooped close to a star? How could that possibly be?

But I had no answers; I only had the image of the stick-ship coming slowly toward us, like a tumbleweed blowing in from the horizon. It was still far off, no bigger than a bumblebee against the blackness; yet second by second, it grew perceptibly.

“Maybe I
should
ask Starbiter for more speed,” Uclod muttered nervously. “But what would be the point? The Shaddill are sure to have the edge on us, no matter how fast we go. If they gave us Zaretts for free, you can be damned sure they kept something better for themselves. Like handing your frumpy old
zigrim
to your kid brother, after you get a snappy new
lentz
.”

I did not know what those things were; but I had lived beneath the thumb of an older sister, and I understood the principle quite well. The Shaddill would not give away Zaretts unless they had something at least slightly superior. “Perhaps,” I said, “if we flew into another sun, we could charge Starbiter to even greater speeds.”

“We’re in open space now, toots—nowhere near a sun.” The little man grunted. “Nothing to do but keep going, and hope for a lucky break. Maybe the Shaddill will have a malfunction…or shut off their engines for a holy day of rest.”

“Is that likely?” I asked.

“No. But when my back is to the wall, I always like to pretend there’s a way to dodge the bullet. Maybe the Shad-dill captain will keel over from a heart attack and his crew will run away, thinking we have some fancy cardiac weapon.”

“Maybe,” Lajoolie murmured, “the captain will let us go because he falls in love with Oar.”

“I do not think that is funny,” I said.

Uclod tsked his tongue. “Don’t be such a party-pooper, missy—when you’re well and truly screwed, either you just sit pissing yourself or you invent some reason to hope. Maybe we’ll get sucked into a wormhole and pop out halfway across the universe.”

“Maybe,” said Lajoolie, “my talented husband will discover he has telekinetic powers that can hold the Shaddill at bay.”

“Maybe our enemies will get eaten by giant glass butterflies,” I said sharply. “This game is a waste of time! We should take evasive action.”

“We will,” Uclod said, “as soon as it’ll do us any good. When the Shaddill get close enough to grab us, we’ll stay out of their clutches as long as possible.” He laughed without humor. “It’s not like I want to get caught, missy…but we’re bare-ass in space with nowhere to hide for a few trillion klicks in any direction. We don’t have weapons, we don’t have friends, and we don’t have a lot of options. Run or surrender: pick one.”

“Hmmph,” I said. “I made a very bad choice when I decided to accompany you.”

“Do you think so?” Lajoolie asked. “On Melaquin, the Shaddill ship appeared right above your city. They recognized your name; they knew you were supposed to be dead. When they heard you were alive, they said someone had interfered with their plan. It sounds like they wanted to use you for something. Or at least use your corpse. If they’d landed and found you still breathing, what do you think they would do?”

I had not considered the situation in such a light…but Lajoolie was correct. It seemed quite plausible the Shaddill had been heading for Oarville to carry out some plan involving my dead body. Perhaps that explained why the Pollisand took me from the Tower of Ancestors and gave me medical attention after my fall: as the Shaddill’s enemy, he could somehow foil their plans by keeping me alive.

I should have asked about that. I should have asked him many questions. But he rudely terminated our conversation as soon as I agreed to his proposal, so I did not have time to inquire about topics of personal relevance. If the Pollisand returned now, I would ask how my life and/or death concerned the Shaddill…and why he was not helping us in our current predicament. The Pollisand had bragged of his superiority to other species, yet he was conspicuously absent now that the Shaddill were at close range.

As for the Shaddill themselves—if they had arrived on Melaquin and discovered I was not yet a corpse, would they have endeavored to make me one? I did not know…but however they reacted, I probably would not have enjoyed it. Perhaps it
was
better I had boarded Starbiter, rather than getting caught on the ground. At least I was still alive and free.

And perhaps the Shaddill captain would fall in love with me. It was high time
somebody
did.

Cat And Mouse…And Another Cat

We flew on. The stick-ship edged ever closer.

It was very most frustrating not to do anything. From the odd perspective of the far-seeing devices, we seemed to be sitting still, just waiting for our doom. But could we shoot at the enemy? No. Could we call for help? No. Could we even scream at our pursuers, cursing them with vile obscenities? Yes we could, but the Shaddill would not hear; they were jamming our broadcasts, so they would not receive any taunts I might transmit.

All I could do was glare at the alien ship, hoping if I hated them strongly enough, they would explode. This never works, but one must try it anyway—one feels it
ought
to work if your loathing is sufficiently sincere.

After several minutes of the enemy closing upon us, I decided the trick might lie in
not
looking at them. If I turned my eyes away and refused the tiniest glance in their direction, maybe the Shaddill would simply cease to exist. This was no more plausible than my previous plan, but I was weary of staring at sticks; so I aimed my gaze directly opposite, toward blank blackness and stars…only to find that the blackness was not completely blank.

Far off in the distance, I could see a small object—not like a star but a minuscule bone, a tiny knuckle from a baby mouse’s toe. I held my breath, not daring to speak for fear it would vanish…but it remained in sight as my heart pounded out a beat of ten. The distant object might even have grown by a hair. Another ten count, and I knew it
was
growing. I also knew what it was: a ship from the human navy, one of those long white batons I had last seen under the blaze of Melaquin’s sun.

Apparently, the four ships which had accosted us earlier were not the only ones sent to Melaquin. One more ship must have been dispatched hours behind its companions, on its way from New Earth to my planet. Since Starbiter was headed for New Earth now, we must be traveling in the same space lane…or at least close enough that the navy ship had heard our attempt at sending a message. They could have detected our “hiccup” and shifted to a course that would let them check the source of the broadcast.

“We are saved,” I announced.

“What do you mean?” Uclod asked.

“There is a navy baton-ship coming straight for us. The Shaddill will flee again, for they are terrible cowards…and since we are faster than human vessels, we can outrun the baton anytime we choose.”

“You’re a hell of an optimist.” But Uclod did not sound as gloomy as his words suggested—he too must have welcomed any prospect of eluding the stick-ship. Given a choice between our Shaddill pursuers and the Technocracy navy, who would not prefer the humans? Better the villain you know than the one you do not…and also I was smarter than humans, which allowed us more chance of escape.