Ascending - James Alan Gardner [102]
The red-and-white Cashling had not finished talking. With a single step, it crossed the space between us and thrust its head close to mine. “You are so…so…” It made a whooshing sound that might have been a sigh or a word in its own language. One hand lifted toward my face; I thought it was going to touch my cheek, but suddenly it seized the front of my jacket and ripped the coat open wide. “What are you?” it cried, bending down to press its helmet between my wallabies, as if it were staring straight into my chest. “Apart from being the ugliest alien I’ve ever seen.”
Before I could respond in a fitting manner, Festina threw her arm around me in a gesture that no doubt appeared companionable…while serving the purpose of restraining me from committing a Spontaneous Act Of Diplomacy on someone’s intrusive face. “Oar’s ancestors were human,” Festina told the Cashling. “But her race was redesigned several thousand years ago.”
“As some sort of punishment?” the frost green one asked.
“No,” I said. “As a gift.”
The other one was still peering into me, as if it could actually discern something within my glass anatomy. Perhaps it could; Festina had said these Cashling ones could see far into the infrared and ultraviolet, and I have been told I am not transparent on those wavelengths. The red-and-white creature with its face against my chest might be watching my lungs breathe and my heart beat…which was outrageously impudent, since I could not see those things myself. “What are you looking at?” I snapped, stepping back and haughtily fastening my coat again.
“I was looking at you,” the red-and-white Cashling said. Once more it stepped in close, but this time it leaned to one side and thrust its helmet within a hair’s breadth of my ear. I had the uncomfortable feeling it was staring straight into my brain; and that made me feel most soiled, for all my parts are supposed to be invisible, and I did not want some hideous alien implying I was actually opaque.
“Most fascinating,” the Cashling said, one whispery voice at my ear, while more voices murmured the same words up and down its body. “I always thought humans were the ugliest creatures in the galaxy, but at least they have some charms.” It lifted its head and turned toward Festina, who was still quietly holding me back from delivering a lesson in manners. “You, for example,” the Cashling said. “Lovely purple splotch on your face. Blazingly conspicuous. Are you splotchy all over?”
This time, it was I who had to prevent an outburst of Extreme Diplomatic Behavior.
The Giving Of Names
“Perhaps,” said Nimbus, gliding forward with dispatch, “we should begin by introducing ourselves. I am—”
“A vassal species,” the striped Cashling interrupted. “Who doesn’t know his place. If I ever need to know your name…well, I’ll cut out all my hearts and immerse myself in acid before I sink that low, so the problem will never arise. As for the rest of you—my human name is Lord Ryan Ellisander Petrovaka LaSalle, and this is my wife, the Lady Belinda Astragoth Umbatti Carew.”
“Those sound like Earth names,” I whispered to Festina.
“They are,” she replied, with a wary glance at the aliens. “Cashlings have a fondness for acquiring names and titles from other cultures. Sometimes through legitimate purchase, sometimes through…different means.”
Festina gave me a pointed look, as if I could guess what these “different means” were. I suppose she wished to imply theft or some other manner of crime…but I could not imagine how one went about stealing a name. Names are not the type of thing one can stealthily remove from another person’s room. Then again, these aliens enslaved hapless victims of space accidents; perhaps they had devised a Science technique for expunging a slave’s name from his or her brain so the Cashling could acquire the name instead.