Ascending - James Alan Gardner [160]
The Pollisand gave a soft chuckle. “I like you, Ramos; I like the way your paranoid mind works. But if I did foresee everything and set up Oar with a brain implant, I’d surely make certain the implant wouldn’t activate until a patch of her glassy-ass skin turned to goo. How else could I consolidate my position as the most annoying creature in the universe?” He turned to me. “I assure you this is necessary if you want to save your brain. A teeny-tiny-eensy-weensy bit of you has to become jelly.”
“All right,” I said, gritting my teeth. “If that is what I must do…”
“It is,” the Pollisand said. He went to the fountain and dipped his toe into the honey. Of course the toe did not turn purple—no doubt Mr. Foul Annoyance had such evolutionarily advanced skin, it did not succumb to the honey in the same way as lesser beings.
“Where do you want it?” he asked, walking back to me on three feet to keep his damp toe from touching anything. “Bottom of your foot so it’s hardly ever visible? The tail of your spine so it’s covered by your jacket? Atop one breast like a purple tattoo?”
I turned to Festina, thinking I might ask her advice…but as soon as I looked at her, I knew what it had to be.
I lifted my finger and pointed to my right cheek. The Pollisand moved before Festina could stop him.
EPILOGUE: BECAUSE I HAVE ALWAYS WISHED TO COMPOSE ONE
Dealing With Tedious Details
Being the captain of a huge alien starship is not so much fun as you might think, because there are many fearsome burdens. The greatest burden turns out to be one’s Faithful Sidekick, who is constantly worried one will speak carelessly to the ship’s computer and thereby Precipitate A Tragic Incident. Festina dictated to me exactly what commands I should give the stick-ship, and forced me to recite the instructions several times in English before allowing me to say the same in Shaddill-ese. Even then, she required me to think and think and think about the proper Shaddill-ese translation for each word; she would not let me speak until I had pretended to ponder for at least ten seconds over each instruction.
Of course, I did not really think about the translations that much—I was more concerned with contemplating the new appearance of my face (which reflected quite nicely in the fountain’s basin). The Pollisand had only brushed my cheek lightly with his toe, no more than a casual dab…yet he had created a precise duplicate of Festina’s birthmark in both size and shape. Immediately thereafter, he had produced a strip of clear plastic bandage which he slapped over the jelly smear to prevent it from slopping off my face. The bandage instantly bonded with my skin and is (supposedly) permanent.
Festina, of course, was anguished at the change in my features—she is a very nice person, but she has a Deep Psychological Fixation about her appearance which renders her a bit crazed. In her heart of hearts, she believes her birthmark makes her very very ugly…whereas she is actually ugly because she is opaque, and the birthmark has little effect, pro or con.
I hasten to point out that the jelly now composing my cheek, while undeniably purple, is a transparent purple; if I wiggle my fingers behind my head, you can see the movement quite easily, staring straight through my cheek and my brains and all. So the blob on my face is not a disfigurement, but merely a Colored Highlight that adds an extra-special accent of beauty. I am even more ravishing than ever…which I know is hard to believe, but after all this time listening to my story, you must surely realize I would never tell you falsehoods.
Nor will I tell you all the finicky arrangements we made in the next few minutes. Of course, we ordered the stick-ship to stop swallowing the little Cashling vessels, and to