Ascending - James Alan Gardner [117]
I pushed myself up to look at Bell too. Even though the Cashling woman had no face, it was clear she was most upset. In fact, Ms. Prophet was wheezing indignantly from a dozen orifices at once.
“This stupid ship!” Lady Bell said. “The most important day of my life, and wouldn’t you know, the communication system breaks down. We can’t raise a peep from Jalmut; no trans-light communications at all.”
As the human phrase goes, a chill went down my spine. In fact, it felt more as if the chill moved upward from my stomach to my shoulders and thence to my face, but perhaps chills behave non-traditionally in artificial gravity.
“Uh-oh,” muttered Uclod. “I hate to say it, missy,” he told Bell, “but it sounds like you’re getting jammed.”
“Jammed?” Aarhus repeated. “Oh crap.”
“Quick!” Festina said. “We need a long-range scan right now!”
“No, we don’t,” Nimbus answered quietly.
He waved a foggy arm, pointing behind our backs. We all whirled to look through the glass bulkhead.
There, looming across half the sky, was the stick-ship.
Big Bully
“Damn, that’s a big sucker,” Festina whispered.
The Shaddill had appeared alongside Royal Hemlock, a vast brown forest beside a single white tree. Every stick in the Shaddill ship seemed larger than the entire Hemlock: longer and wider, like oaks crowding in on a paper birch. There were hundreds, maybe thousands, of the brown sticks, one of which telescoped lazily toward the dwarfed navy vessel.
“What are the odds,” Uclod asked, “those bastards will just grab Hemlock and fly away?”
“They don’t want to fly away,” Festina said. “They want to capture everyone who knows too much. You. Oar. Anybody you might have talked to.”
“Which means the whole damned crusade.”
“Right. They want to nab every last ship.”
“How the hell will they do that?” Uclod asked. “We’ve got dozens of little ships. If we scatter in different directions—”
“They won’t let us,” Festina said. With sudden urgency, she rolled to her feet. “Lady Bell, is there any way to opaque this ship’s hull?”
“Why would I want to do that?” the lady asked.
A flash of blue brilliance burst upon us like lightning. For a moment, Festina’s face was reduced to pure black and white: white eyes, black pupils, white skin, black birthmark, white anger, black “I knew this would happen” expression. Then her body crumpled limply to the floor.
Everyone else was already lying down.
Another Ship Bites The Dust
I am such a one as thrives on bright light. I did not feel invigorated by this particular light, but I did not slump over unconscious either. Perhaps, as the Pollisand had joked, many types of light just pass right through my body. At any rate, I am not so weak as opaque persons, so it takes more than a garish flash to subdue me.
The others, alas, were unconscious…everyone but Nimbus, who still hovered mistlike above the unmoving bodies. It annoyed me that he too had remained awake; one enjoys being special, or at least more special than an entity made of fog. Nevertheless, I could guess why he had not succumbed: a creature consisting of tiny floaty bits might not be affected by Sinister Weapon Beams in the same manner as creatures made from meat…and of course he was nearly as transparent as I, not to mention he too had been designed by the Shaddill.
Perhaps we had both been constructed immune to Shaddill weaponry. If so, the stick-people were greatly foolish—if I were designing artificial beings, I would make them especially susceptible to my favorite weapons, so I could quell rebellions with dispatch. But then, the Shaddill were villains; and if I had learned anything from the fictional writings of my people, it was that Villains Always Make Mistakes.
“What shall we do now?” I whispered to Nimbus. “If the Shaddill think we are unconscious, this is an excellent time to take them by surprise.”
“Don’t be too hasty,” the cloud man replied. “They know you’re here, right? Catching you seems to be a priority for them. And they