Convergent Series (58 page)

Signs of human frailty in Hans Rebka? Darya did not know if she approved of that or not. She sat down on a white box with a fine snowflake pattern on its sides. The top was slightly warm to the touch. It gave a fraction of an inch under her weight, just enough to make it comfortable.

Maybe it was not weakness in Rebka at all.
When you don't know what to do, do nothing.
One might think that would be her philosophy, the research worker who had lived in her study for twenty years. But instead she felt a huge urge to
do something
—anything. It was Rebka, the born troubleshooter who had lived through a hundred close scrapes, who could sit and relax.

Darya accepted a lump of cool yellow fruit.
Eat.
She ate. She found it slightly astringent, with a granular texture that encouraged hard chewing. No aftereffects. Rebka was right about that, too. They surely would not have been brought all this way only to be poisoned or left to starve. Except—what right did they have to make any assumptions about alien thought processes, when everything that had happened since they arrived at Gargantua had been a total mystery?

She accepted three more pieces of unfamiliar food. Still her stomach was making no objections, but she wished that what they were eating could be warmed. She felt chilled. Shivering, she set her suit at a higher level of opacity. She was ready to ask for more fruit when she noticed that Rebka was sitting up straighter on his seat and staring around him. She followed his look and saw nothing.

"What is it?"

He shook his head. "I don't know. Only . . ." He was focusing his attention on the far side of the room. "Feel it? It's not my imagination. A draft—and getting stronger."

A
cold
draft. Darya realized that she had been feeling it for a while, without knowing what it was. There were chilly breezes blowing past them, ruffling his hair and tugging gently at her suit.

"What's causing it?" But Darya knew the answer, even as Hans was shaking his head in bewilderment. She could see a swirling pattern forming on the far side of the room. A rotating cylinder of air had darkened there, streaked horizontally like muddy water on glass. It formed a vortex column that ran from floor to ceiling. She stood up and grabbed Rebka's arm.

"Hans. We have to get out of here and back to the other chamber—it's getting stronger."

The circulation pattern created by the vortex was becoming powerful enough to generate a minor gale, driving around the whole inside of the room. Who could say how fierce it would get? If it continued to strengthen, she and Hans would be swept off their feet.

He was nodding, not trying to speak over the scream of wind. Holding on to each other, they fought their way back to the shelter of the doorway. Rebka turned in the entrance.

"Wait for a second before we go through." He had to shout in her ear to be heard. "It's still getting stronger. But it's
closing
—look."

The spinning cylinder of air was drawing in on itself . From a width of five meters, it tightened as they watched to become no wider than a man's outstretched arms. Its heart became an oily, soft-edged black, so dark and dense that the wall of the chamber could not be seen through it. The scream of wind in the room grew to a new intensity, hurting Darya's ears.

She backed farther into the doorway. The force of the wind was terrifying. The vortex loomed darker, more and more dangerous. She reached out to pull Rebka back—he was leaning into the room, even while gusts tore at his hair and buffeted his body. Her fingers grabbed the back of his suit. The wail of rushing air rose higher and higher.

She tugged. Rebka fell off balance backward. She bumped into the closed door.

In that same instant, everything stopped. The wind dropped, the sounds faded.

There was a moment of total silence in the chamber; and then, in that uncanny stillness, there came a soft pop no louder than a cork being removed from a bottle. The vortex changed in color to a blood-red, and began to fade.

Another moment, and the silence was broken more substantially. Out of the thinning heart of the spinning column staggered a form. A
human
form.

It was Louis Nenda. He was greenish yellow in complexion, stripped to the waist, and cursing loudly and horribly.

The little black satchel that he always carried with him flapped against his bare chest. Two steps behind him, creeping along miserably with all six limbs to the ground, came the giant blind figure of Atvar H'sial.

Back on Quake they had been enemies. Nenda and Atvar H'sial had tried to kill Darya Lang and Hans Rebka, and Rebka, at least, would have been happy to return the compliment.

Thirty thousand light-years made quite a difference. They greeted each other like long-lost brothers and sisters.

"But where in hell
are
we?" Nenda asked when his nausea had eased enough to allow any form of speech beyond swearing.

"A long way from home," Rebka said.

"Ratballs, I know
that
. But where?"

As they exchanged information—what little of it they had—Darya learned that her own journey here had been a pleasure trip compared with what had happened to the two new arrivals.

"Stop an' go," Nenda said. "Go an' stop, all the way." He belched loudly. "Jerkin' around, turned ass-over-teacup, right way up one minute and wrong way up the next. Went on forever. I'd've puked fifty times, if I'd had anything in my guts." He was silent for a few moments. "At says it was just as bad for her. And yet you come so easy. There must be more than one way to get here. We traveled steerage class and got the rough one."

"But the fast one, too," Rebka said. "By the look of it, you and Atvar H'sial left Glister days after us. We thought we were only on the way for a few minutes, but it could have been a lot more—we don't know how long we were stuck in nowhere, between transitions."

"Well, I thought we were on the way for
weeks
." Nenda belched again. "Gar. That's better. Thirty thousand light-years, you said? Long way from home. Let that be a lesson to you, At. Greed don't pay."

"Can she understand you?" Darya had been staring at the pitted and nodulated area of Nenda's bare chest, watching it quiver and pulse as Nenda spoke.

"Sure. At least, whenever I use the augment she can. I speak the words at the same time, usually, because that way it's easier to know what I want to say. But At picks it all up. Watch. You hear me, At?"

The blind white head nodded.

"See. You ought to have an augment put in, too, so you can chat with At an' the other Cecropians." He stared at Darya's chest. "Mind you, I'd hate to see them nice boobs messed up."

Any sympathy that Darya might have had for the Karelian human evaporated. "If I were you, Louis Nenda, I'd save my breath to plead with the judge. You have formal charges waiting for you, as soon as we get back to the spiral arm. Councilor Graves already filed them."

"Charges for what? I didn't do a thing."

"Your ship fired at us." Rebka said. "You tried to destroy the
Summer Dreamboat
after Summertide."

"I did?" Nenda's face was blandly innocent. "You sure it was me, Captain, and not three other guys? I never even heard of no
Summer Dreamboat
. I don't remember firing at anything. Doesn't sound like the sort of thing I'd do at all. Do you think we fired at a ship, At?" He paused. The Cecropian did not move. "No way. See, she agrees with me."

"She's as guilty as you are!"

"You mean as innocent."

Rebka's face had lost its usual pallor. "Damn you, I don't think I'll even wait until we get back home. I can file charges on you right here, just as well as Graves can." He took a step closer to Nenda.

The other man did not move. "So you're feeling mad. Big deal. Go on, try to arrest me—and tell me where you'll lock me up. Maybe you'll shut me away with your girlfriend here. I'd like that. So would she." He grinned admiringly at Darya. "How about it, sweetie? You'll have more fun with me than you've ever had with him."

"If you're trying to change the subject, it won't work." Rebka moved until he and Nenda were eyeball to eyeball. "Do you really want to see if I can arrest you? Try a few more cracks like that."

Nenda turned to Darya and gave her a wink. "See how mad he gets, when anybody else tries for a piece?"

He had been watching Rebka out of the corner of his eye, and he batted away the hand that grabbed for his wrist. Then the two men were standing with arms braced, glaring at each other.

Darya could not believe it. She had never seen Rebka lose his temper before—and Louis Nenda had never been anything but cool and cynical. What was doing it to them? Tension? Fatigue?

No. She could see their expressions. They were trying each other out, testing to see which rooster was top of the dunghill.

So that was how people behaved on the primitive outworlds. Everyone would think she was making this up if she told them all about it back on Sentinel Gate.

The two men were still standing with arms locked. Darya reached over and tugged at Rebka's right hand. "Stop it!" she shouted at them. "Both of you. You're acting like wild beasts."

They ignored her, but Atvar H'sial reached out with two jointed forelimbs, grabbed each man around the waist in one clawed paw, and lifted them high in the air. She pulled them effortlessly away from each other. After a second or two she allowed their feet to touch the ground, but she still held them far apart.

The blind head turned toward Darya, while the proboscis unfurled and produced a soft hissing sound.

"I know," Darya said. "They
are
like animals, aren't they? Hold them for a minute or two longer." She spread her arms wide, as though pushing the men farther apart. Atvar H'sial might not understand her words, but she surely could take her meaning.

Darya went to stand between them. "Listen to me, you two. I don't know which of you is more stupid, but you can have your idiocy contest later. I want to say just one word to you." She paused, waiting until they turned their attention fully to her. "Zardalu! D'you hear me?
Zardalu.
"

"Huh?" Louis Nenda's hands had still been reaching out toward Rebka. They dropped to his sides. "What are you talking about?"

Darya gestured at the doorway behind her. "In there. Fourteen Zardalu."

"Crap! There's not been a Zardalu in the spiral arm for thousands of years. They're extinct."

"You're not in the spiral arm anymore, boy. You're thirty thousand light-years out of the plane of the galaxy. And back in that room there's fourteen stasis tanks, with a Zardalu in each one.
Alive.
"

"I don't believe it. Nobody's ever seen a Zardalu, not even a stuffed or a mummified one." Nenda turned to Hans Rebka. "You hear her? She trying to make a joke?"

"No joke." Rebka straightened his suit, where Nenda had pulled it half off his shoulders. "She's telling the truth. They're in stasis tanks, but I don't know how long that will last. The stasis was beginning to end when we saw them."

"You mean you stood there and picked a fight with me, when there's
Zardalu
waking up in there? And you call
me
dumb! You have to be crazy."

"What do you mean,
I
picked a fight!"

Darya stepped between them again. "You're both crazy, and you're both to blame. Are you going to start over? Because if you are, I hope Atvar H'sial understands enough to crack your heads together and knock some sense into you."

"She does. She will." Nenda stared at the closed door. Suddenly he was his old calm self. "Zardalu. I don't know what you're smoking, but maybe we better get in there. I'll tell At what's been happening. She's like me, though—she won't really believe it until she takes a peek for herself."

He turned to Atvar H'sial. "You're not gonna like this, At." The gray pheromone nodules on his chest pulsed in unison with his human speech. "These two jokers say there's
Zardalu
in there. You heard me. Fourteen of 'em, in stasis but alive and gettin' ready to trot. I know, I know."

The Cecropian had squatted back onto her hindmost limbs, furled the antennas above her head, and tucked her proboscis into its pleated holder.

"She don't like to hear that," Nenda said. "She says a Cecropian ain't afraid of anything in the universe, but Zardalu images are part of her race memory. A bad part. Nobody knows why."

Hans Rebka was sliding open the first of the two doors. "Let's hope she doesn't find out. I'd suggest that you and Atvar H'sial hang back a bit—just in case."

He opened the second door. Darya held her breath, then released it with a sigh of relief. The great pentagonal cylinders lay exactly as they had left them, silent and closed.

"All right." Hans Rebka moved forward. "You wanted proof, here it is. Take a look in there."

Rebka walked cautiously to the transparent port in the end of the stasis tank and peered in through it. After a few seconds he gave a long sigh.

"I know," Rebka said softly. "Impressive, eh? And scary, too. We have to find a way to turn that stasis field back on, before they wake up and try to get out."

But Louis Nenda was shaking his head. "I don't know what game you're playing,
Captain
Rebka and
Professor
Lang. I just know it's a stupid one."

He stepped away from the long casket.

"There's thirteen more to look at, but I'll bet money they're all like this one." He turned to face Darya. "It's
empty
, sweetheart. Empty as a Ditron's brainbox. What do you have to say about
that
?"

Distribution:
Never having achieved an independent spaceflight capability, Ditrons are found in large numbers only on their native world (
Ditrona
, officially Luris III, Cecropia Federation, Sector Five). Transported Ditron colonies can also be found on the neighboring worlds of Prinal (Luris II) and Ivergne (Luris V). In the early days of the Cecropian expansion, Ditrons were taken to the other stellar systems, but generally they did not thrive there. Diet deficiencies were blamed at the time, but more recent analyses make it clear that psychological dependencies were as much a factor. Ditrons, at the third stage of their life cycle, fail to survive if the group size dwindles below twenty.
 

Physical Characteristics:
It is necessary to consider separately the three stages of the Ditron life cycle, conventionally designated as S-1, S-2, and S-3. The Ditrons are unique among known intelligent species in that their highest mental levels are achieved not in their most mature form, but rather in their premature and premating (S-2) stage.
 

The larval form (S-1) is born live, in a litter of no less than five and no more than thirteen offspring. The newborn Ditron masses less than one kilogram, but it has full mobility and is able to eat at once. It is near-blind, possesses sevenfold radial symmetry, is asexual, herbivorous, and lacks measurable intelligence.
 

S-1 lasts for one Ditron summer season (three-fourths of a standard year) at the end of which time a body mass of twenty-five kilos has been achieved and metamorphosis begins. S-1 moves below ground, as a flat, pale-yellow disk about one meter in diameter. It emerges in the spring as S-2, a slender, dark-orange, many-legged carnivore with bilateral symmetry and a fierce appetite. An S-2 Ditron will prey on anything except its own S-1 and S-3 forms. It possesses no known language, but from its behavior patterns it is judged to be of undeniable intelligence. Consideration of the S-2 Ditron first led to that species' assignment as an intelligent form.
 

In this life stage the Ditron is solitary, energetic, and antisocial. Attempts to export S-2 Ditrons to other worlds have all failed, not because the organism dies but because it never ceases to feed voraciously, to attack its captors at every opportunity, and to try to escape. A confined S-2 will solve within minutes a maze that will hold most humans or Cecropians for an hour or more.
 

S-2 lasts for fourteen years, during all of which time the Ditron grows constantly. At the end of this period it masses twelve tons and is fifteen meters long. No more formidable predator exists in the spiral arm (archaeological workers on Luris II have discovered an ancestral form of the Ditron S-2 that was almost twice the S-2's present size, and apparently just as voracious; it probably, however, lacked intelligence).
 

The transition to S-3 arrives suddenly, and apparently without warning to the S-2 itself. It is conjectured that the first sign of a change to S-3 state is a substantial fall in Ditron S-2 intelligence, and a sudden urge for clustering. The formerly antisocial creature seeks out and protects the cocoon clusters of other changing S-2's. Up to a hundred Ditrons tunnel deep into sites by soft riverbanks, where each spins its own protective cocoon. New arrivals protect the site from predators, before themselves beginning to tunnel. Metamorphosis takes place over a two-year period. Emerging S-3's have dwindled to a body mass of less than one ton. The material of the residual cocoon is a valuable prize, for anyone able to thwart the guardianship offered by the protective S-2's.
 

The form of the S-3 is a large-headed upright biped, brownish-red in color, two-eyed, and with bilateral symmetry. Its alert appearance and large brainbox persuaded early explorers of Luris III that the S-3 must be a more intelligent and certainly more friendly form than its S-2 progenitor.
 

Unfortunately, the head of the S-3 is employed mainly as a resonance cavity. It enables the creature to produce mating calls that can be heard over large distances, but the skull contains mostly air. The brain itself is little more than the couple of hundred grams of material required to allow an S-3 to find a mate, to copulate, and to bring forth the S-1 larval form.
 

The attempt to use Ditrons as a slave species has been made many times, because the S-3 is undeniably docile and tractable and enjoys company; but the main result has been frustration to the Ditron owners. Only the Cecropians continue to cultivate S-3 slaves, either as pets or for purposes that remain obscure.
 

History:
Ditrons possess no written or oral history. Paleontological research shows that these beings have changed little in form, though considerably in size, over the past three million years.
 

Culture:
None. S-1 and S-3 Ditrons are mindless. S-2 Ditrons, undeniably intelligent, build no structures, use no tools, wear no clothing, and keep no records. All attempts at communication with S-2's have been ignored.

 

—From the
Universal Species Catalog
(Subclass: Sapients).