Ascending - James Alan Gardner [134]
“It doesn’t feel…” I caught my breath. “It does not feel wonderful or valuable—to know that all your life, you have been someone else’s creature. One could easily become downhearted, Festina.”
She gave me a squeeze…which became more of a shake as she said, “Stay with us, Oar, come on, stay with us. If you stay awake, you may get to punch a Shaddill in the nose.”
“Oh. That might be pleasant.”
I forced myself to stand straighter. Festina did not release me; she propped herself under my arm and gripped my back to make sure I did not fall. “This is only a temporary weakness,” she told the others. “Oar just needs food.”
“Temporary my ass,” Uclod replied. “She keeps going blank on us. Lajoolie told me she conked out for a full hour on Hemlock…and I’ve caught her drifting off a couple other times too. Not to mention she was a zombie for four whole years before I showed up on Melaquin.” He turned to me. “I hate to say it, missy, but your brain is turning to toffee.”
“It isn’t!” I cried. “It isn’t!” Lajoolie flinched; otherwise, I would not even have noticed my slip of the tongue. Two contractions in a row. Suddenly blazing with anger, I pushed myself away from Festina and said, “I am perfectly fine. I am, in fact, quite splendid. Now cease your foolish insinuations, for it is high time we found the enemy.”
I strode majestically toward the open door…but not before I caught a look passing between Festina and Uclod. One might think she would be reproving him for making me so furious; but in fact, her lips mouthed the words, “Thank you”—as if he had done something praiseworthy instead of driving me into a rage. And the little man actually winked back at her.
There is no understanding aliens at all.
Burrows
The door led into a corridor that was nothing like a proper ship corridor—just a dirt-lined tunnel, as must be dug by rabbits or gophers if the animals were almost the size of a real person. I say “almost the size” because the tunnel roof was not quite my height; I had to duck slightly, which did not improve my mood. Aarhus too was forced to stoop, and poor Lajoolie needed to bend most uncomfortably. I expected the short people to boast that they had no trouble at all…but Festina was too polite, and Uclod too busy fussing with his wife, trying to think of ways to make movement easier for the big woman. (“Would it help if…suppose I…maybe you could…” None of this improved things in the least, but perhaps Lajoolie found his efforts endearing.)
Nimbus, of course, floated down the middle without difficulty. As we started forward, the cloud man told Festina, “You realize this tunnel is just a mock-up? I sent a few of my cells to check the wall; it’s a type of artificial dirt sprayed over a base of solid steel-plast.”
“Doesn’t surprise me,” Festina replied. “It looks like the Shaddill evolved from burrowing creatures. All this soil must make them feel comfortable.”
“Then they are giant space gophers?” I asked.
“Gophers aren’t the only animals who burrow,” Festina said. “Rabbits…worms…beetles…snakes…and those are just terrestrial species. I could list thousands of even stranger burrowers from other planets.”
“Do you know what Las Fuentes looked like?” Uclod asked. “Before they changed into purple blobs.”
Festina shook her head. “They cleaned their worlds meticulously before they abandoned their settlements—made a determined effort to eliminate any direct clues about themselves. Oh sure, they overlooked a few odds and ends: a small number of tools that were probably designed for four-fingered hands…broken furniture that suggests they always lay down rather than sitting, so they were probably jointed differently than we are. No bodies, though; not a single bone. Shows how advanced their technology was if they could make such a clean sweep. Also shows Las Fuentes didn’t want us to know what they looked like.”
“Just what you’d expect of burrowing creatures,” Aarhus said. “Obsessively secretive.”
“It is not obsessive,” I told him, “it is simply good sense. One must always take pains to go