Ascending - James Alan Gardner [139]
And if that were possible…why did there have to be living Shaddill at all? Suppose the old race, Las Fuentes, had created this stick-ship and programmed it to operate on its own. The living Fuentes then turned themselves to jelly, leaving the ship to work unattended.
It would be very most irksome if we reached the stick-ship’s control center, only to find it filled with more bulks of anonymous machinery: artificial intelligences running the whole show. One cannot punch a computer in the nose.
On the other hand, one can kick loose a computer’s metal housing and rip out its wires, dancing upon its circuit boards and smashing anything that says FRAGILE, DO NOT STOMP. Even better, the League of Peoples would not consider me a bad person for doing so—if the League dealt with computers on a regular basis, they probably felt the urge to dance on circuit boards themselves. Perhaps they would appear before me in a pillar of fire and say, “Oar, most good and faithful servant, you have done exactly what we would have done ourselves, if only we had feet.” It would turn out the League people were giant space butterflies; they would give me a medal for heroic achievement, then seat me upon their backs and we would ride off for Glorious Adventures on the far side of the galaxy.
That is what was going through my head when I saw the Pollisand.
In Good Paintings, The Eyes Follow You; In Stick-Ships, You Follow The Eyes
We had come to a T junction and Festina was examining the dirt on the floor, trying to determine which way was used more often. Both left and right were quite trampled, indicating we had finally reached a major thoroughfare. While the others busied themselves debating which direction looked better, I kept watch for hostile elements…which is how I caught sight of familiar red eyes glowing in the darkness to my right.
The Pollisand was so far off in the shadows, I could not make out his body; but his eyes were unmistakable. They glowed for the briefest of moments, just long enough for me to recognize them. Then they winked out as if they had never been there.
“This way,” I said, pointing in the direction of the eyes. “That is the proper route.”
Festina looked up as if waiting for an explanation. I did not think she would be happy to learn I had seen the Pollisand again—Festina believed he was a Creature Of Ill Omen, and perhaps she would insist on going exactly the opposite way. Therefore, I said nothing. Eventually, she shrugged and muttered, “Why not? Right looks as good as left.”
So we moved in the direction I had seen the glowing eyes. I kept close watch on the ground as we walked, hoping to observe deep footprints from a rhinolike beast…but I saw nothing except packed-down soil. Perhaps all I had seen was an illusion inserted into my brain. Still, we pressed along the tunnel until we came to another intersection; and once again, I caught a fleeting glimpse of eyes down one of the passages.
“This way now,” I said pointing.
Of course, it was not so easy as that—Festina wished to examine the ground, and we had to pause as Aarhus made grooves to mark our way back. In the end, however, Festina agreed the direction I indicated was as good a choice as any, and we proceeded accordingly.
Several minutes passed in that manner. None of the others noticed the glowing eyes: they were only visible to me. Nevertheless, at each junction, the Pollisand marked a reasonable way forward, so the others were willing to follow my lead.
Once or twice, Festina peered at me with suspicion—she obviously wondered why I had started to make snap judgments at each cross-tunnel. By now, however, she must have become accustomed to me behaving in a manner too deep for humans to understand; and as my Faithful Sidekick, she chose not to question my will. She simply made sure the sergeant