Ascending - James Alan Gardner [10]
He paused and his face grew more somber. “Now, toots, I gotta warn you: this could get pretty ugly. Those buggers on the High Council are vicious bags of shit—that’s damned obvious from reading York’s files—and if they decide murdering you will solve more problems than it creates, they’ll hire some dirt-wad to shatter your glass caboose.”
“Hah! I am not the type of glass that shatters into cabooses. If any dirt-wads try, I shall make them very sorry.”
Uclod scowled. “You gotta take this serious, missy. Bad people will want you dead. And no matter how unbreakable you think you are, those navy shits can dream up something to put you in a coffin. Blow you up, crush you under a dozen steam-hammers, then dump whatever’s left in an acid bath. If you treat this like a game, you’ll die…and maybe take other folks with you. Me and my family, for instance.” He peered sharply into my eyes. “If I let you come to New Earth, are you going to be smart? Because if you aren’t, to hell with you. I’m taking enough risks already, and I don’t need someone who’s just a liability. For all I care, you can go straight back to that tower and let your brain rot to tapioca.”
I attempted to return his gaze with righteous indignation—I truly did my best. But I will tell you a thing: there are times I am not so strong as I want to be. When humans or other aliens tell me, “Oar, you must behave the way we say,” I am not always wholly defiant. I am, after all, perfectly able to conform with Conventional Rules Of Propriety; under the tutelage of human Explorers, I learned Earthling modes of conduct as quickly as I learned the Earthling language.
But I am not an Earthling. I do not wish to be one. I do not wish to be mistaken for one. As the last of my kind, I refuse to betray my species by submitting to alien dictates. When I am strong, I therefore comport myself in a defiant fashion of my own choosing.
At that moment, however, I was not strong. If Uclod went away, perhaps no one would ever come to my planet again—except navy persons endeavoring to eradicate evidence of humans on my world, and I knew better than to approach them. I would end up forever alone…and in time, I might go back to the Tower of Ancestors, and I might lie down, and I might not get up.
“I know this is not a game,” I mumbled to the little man. “I know there is much at stake. Much. I will not act crazed and irresponsible.”
Uclod stared into my eyes a moment longer, then nodded. “This way,” he said. “The spaceship is down here.”
The Jacket
He started along one of the streets leading off the square. I threw away the Explorer jacket I had been holding and followed him a few steps…then went back and picked up the jacket again. It was damp and smelly and pierced with insect nibbles; but I knew certain people in the Technocracy thought you were stupid and disgusting if you Walked Around All Day With Your Bare Ass Hanging Out.
I am not such a one as cares about surly people’s opinions; but as I have said, at that particular moment I was not possessed with great strength of spirit. And perhaps, I thought, there were important Science reasons why one had to wear clothes on other planets. Perhaps there were dangerous cosmic rays or poisonous atmospheric substances, so one had to don jackets to protect oneself from peril.
Wearing clothes might not be a cowardly concession to the small-minded prejudice of hateful persons. It might be a sensible precaution.
Yes.
Clutching the jacket, I took a deep breath. Then I hurried along behind Uclod, following his tracks through the light sheen of melting snow.
3
WHEREIN I AM SWALLOWED BY A LARGE CREATURE
The Diversity Of Spaceships
The spaceship was three blocks away, still well within the snow zone. Uclod had set it down in a wide intersection where two streets met; there was not so much landing room as if he had chosen the central square, but I suppose he had not wished to disturb the Explorer evidence back there.
Uclod’s vessel was nothing like the spaceship