Ascending - James Alan Gardner [148]
He opened his eyes and looked over at his mate. “Immu always turned off the Blood Honey and let the fountain drain…but eventually, the basin would be full again and another of us would be gone. Until…”
Esticus’s voice trailed off.
“You are the only two left,” Festina said. “Aren’t you?”
“Yes,” Esticus whispered. “We are the greatest cowards of our race.”
He closed his eyes again. The two Shaddill stood there, huddled against each other in silence.
The Effects Of Blood Honey
They did not hold the pose long. Immu suddenly lifted her head and glared at us, her mandibles once more working furiously. “So!” she said. “Now you know how pathetic my mate and I are. No doubt you’ll have a good laugh about it…once you’re locked in our jail.”
“I would not enjoy imprisonment,” I told her. “That would be unfair treatment…and I am fed up with cruelty at your hands. You gave me a Tired Brain! You made all my people that way! And since you first appeared above Melaquin, you have hounded me unmercifully for no good reason.”
“There was a reason,” Esticus said. “I don’t know whether you’d consider it good…”
He turned toward Immu with what I suspect was a pleading expression. Immu made an unpleasant grunting noise, as if she really did not wish to explain; but gazing on Esticus’s face, she relented. “When we picked up the Rhee and Macleod robots from New Earth,” Immu said, “they told us a woman had died on Melaquin four years ago.” The fog cloud above Immu’s head reshaped into an arrow pointing in my direction. “Few among your people ever die…and we thought we could use your corpse.”
“What for?” I demanded.
“For an experiment. To see…” Immu glanced at the fountain, its basin now nearly full. “It’s been centuries since that was last turned on. Not since our final companion changed to the Soft Form. We don’t know if the Blood Honey is still potent.”
“Of course it is potent,” I chided. “You could discover that with a simple test.” I waved toward the basin. “I placed a mini-chili in the bowl…and behold, it has turned to jelly.”
“Jelly is only the first part of the transformation,” Immu replied. “The easy part—breaking down a cell’s exterior to expose the DNA inside. After that, there’s a second process to convert the DNA into…something else. Something that can hold a vastly expanded consciousness.”
“The process is complicated,” Esticus put in. “It has to maintain existing neural connections in the brain to preserve the original psyche, while adjusting selected portions of the genome in a particular sequence…” His voice cloud began to reshape itself into some sort of twisty ladder, then collapsed back into a ball. Esticus must have decided this particular visual effect was too much bother. He said with weak sheepishness, “It’s very complex.”
“How does Oar fit into this?” Festina asked.
“We wanted to put her body into the fountain,” Immu answered. “Using a living person would be too much of a risk; it’s been so long since the Blood Honey was tested, the League of Peoples might condemn us for endangering another sentient being. But there’d be no problem with a corpse. We’d put Oar in the fountain, then examine her afterward to see if her cells had undergone the desired transformation.” The alien glanced toward her husband. “Merely out of curiosity,” she said. “To see if the Blood Honey still worked.”
“Yes, just to see,” Esticus agreed, gazing back at her. “A way to pass the time.”
“But what good would Oar be?” Festina asked. “It sounds like the