Ascending - James Alan Gardner [18]
The previous chamber had been completely empty except for glowing wall-fungus. This new room, however, had Mysterious Protrusions jutting from the floor, the ceiling, and the single round wall that encircled the place. The floor protrusions were obviously chairs…provided one did not mind sitting on great ugly lumps that appeared to be bone and cartilage upholstered with half-dried jellyfish. Normally, I would not be distressed by such jellyfish—at least they were transparent, which is why I could see the chair’s bony frame underneath—but their shriveled outer surfaces were starting to flake off, while the inner parts retained enough of their juices to wobble with shivery abandon. When you sat on them, I suspected they might squirm like things alive.
As for other protrusions in the room, I had no idea what they were. For example, above each chair hung long cords dangling from the roof: cords that resembled the intestines of a groundhog after it has been partly consumed by a coyote. This is not the sort of thing I would suspend from my ceiling, especially not above where people might sit; the intestines would sweep back and forth across a person’s hair with agitating gooeyness. If this is what amused Uclod and Lajoolie, I would not enjoy their company…but then, I would not enjoy remaining on Melaquin either—especially if navy humans arrived with the intention of eradicating evidence of Explorer habitation.
After all, I was such evidence myself: a firsthand witness to everything that happened. Wicked navy persons could not murder me on sight or the League of Peoples would never let them leave Melaquin. However, there was no League law against abducting me to parts unknown: to isolated parts unknown, where one would be devoid of sufficient stimulation to keep one’s brain from becoming Tired.
I turned sharply back to Uclod and Lajoolie. “Hurry now. Let us leave before malicious Earthlings arrive.”
Appropriate Restraints
“Right you are, missy.” Uclod finished detaching himself from his wife (or rather she let him go when she saw I was ready to pry him loose myself). “Find yourself a chair,” he said, moving to a seat of his own. He chose a place in front of the largest collection of bulges swelling from Starbiter’s wall. Lajoolie fairly ran to the position on his left…and since the chairs were arranged like a circle of toadstools all facing the wall, I took the seat on Uclod’s right.
No sooner had I settled down than a number of leathery tendrils sprouted from the chair and wrapped about my person. Some sprang from the seat and belted across my thighs, while others snaked from the chair-back to tie down my arms and torso. It happened so quickly, I did not have time to fight…and one good heave of my muscles proved the straps too sturdy to break.
Instead, I turned toward Uclod, intending to demand he release me; but he too was tethered to his seat with bindings like mine, as was his wife. Somehow they had contrived to keep their arms free, but that was all: they were well and truly webbed in.
Neither of them looked concerned at such confinement, not even the fainthearted Lajoolie. Therefore this must be standard operating procedure for spaceships—nothing at all to fret over.
When I recovered from my initial surprise, I remembered flying with Festina in an aeroplane. Aeroplanes also have straps, used as safety devices to prevent Calamitous Injuries during flight. That made me feel better about the tendrils clutched around my body. After a moment, I decided it would not be so bad if the restraints were even tighter in certain locations; but I could not see how to cinch them up myself, and Uclod