Ascending - James Alan Gardner [137]
“Yes,” Nimbus told me, “by keeping your people childlike, the Shaddill eliminated you as a threat and made you all the more endearing: a society filled with happy healthy kids, rather than the usual messiness of a civilization run by adults. When your brains get to the critical point of Grow up or shut down…you’re designed just to go to sleep.”
“Not much better than dying,” Uclod growled.
“But,” Nimbus replied, “less distressing as the Shaddill look down from the sky. That cute little boy they watched three hundred years ago…he’s not dead, he’s just at a slumber party with his friends. Perhaps the Shaddill could give him a stimulant so he’d get up for a while, walk around, show off the sweet little mannerisms that made his creators feel so fond. Then away they’d go again until the next time they felt like visiting the kids for a few hours.”
“Bloody hell,” Festina whispered. “Very neat…and despicable.” She gave my shoulder a squeeze. “If all this is true…”
I waited to hear how she would finish the sentence. But what could she say? If all this is true, poor Oar, poor you! It is too bad you face a malfunctioning brain because your creators wanted you lovable but helpless. We too find you lovable, and are charmed by your naïve innocence; we will be very most sad when you finally fall to the ground and do not get up.
In the end, all Festina could do was give my shoulder another squeeze.
My Vow
I looked around at my companions—their somber faces, their eyes shifting away from me as if I were already some walking dead umushu whose gaze they could not meet—and for one brief moment, I nearly lost heart. These were my only friends in the universe, and they believed I was doomed: a wind-up toy to amuse foul aliens, and now I was running down. They thought of me as a frivolous child who did not understand the world, a person who had not grown up and could not grow up. For one brief moment, a great sorrow washed over my soul, as I feared they were correct.
Perhaps I was not a glorious heroine, destined for grandeur.
Perhaps I was just a silly girl-child who had filled her own head with nonsense—deluded herself into thinking she was special.
For I had to admit, my brain was getting Tired. It had been that way for the past four years. Recent events had temporarily stirred me from my stupor…but over and over again, I had almost slipped back to nothingness. How long before I reached the point of no return?
If the Pollisand was telling the truth, I could still be cured—provided I embraced his cause to “wipe the Shaddill off the face of the galaxy.” When he first made his proposition, I had glibly answered, Yes, I shall help; but I had understood so little of who and what the Shaddill were. Even now…even now, there were only conjectures. I did not know. But if all those conjectures were correct…
…I wished to do more than just punch the Shaddill in the nose. I wished to keep punching and punching until they said they were sorry, and even then, I did not think I would stop. I truly wished to hurt them, not because I wanted to win favor with the Pollisand, but because it was what such villains deserved.
After all, working with the Pollisand might not save me—why should I trust an alien to keep his word? The universe was full of betrayal. And what would it mean to be cured? Who would I become? A tedious plodding grown-up? A stodgy sighing person who did not fall down from Tiredness but who went around three-quarters Tired all day, pretending that because her feet were moving, her brain must still be alive?
Nimbus suggested I must become adult or become nothing; I did not know which option I feared more. But whatever happened to me, I swore I would not succumb to oblivion