Ascending - James Alan Gardner [31]
I myself would not enjoy that type of tunnel vision; but then, we must not expect aliens to see things our way.
Introductions
“So,” the beast said, “let’s deal with formalities.” He took a deep breath, then rattled off quickly, “Greetings-I-am-asentient-citizen-of-the-League-of-Peoples-I-beg-your-Hospitality-what-a-load-of-horseshit.”
“Oh yes,” I replied. “Me too. Except for the horseshit.”
I was vexed I had not been the first to speak the required phrase. As official communications officer, I should have been faster; but this creature had deliberately distracted me with ostentatious spectacle, so that was my excuse.
“And it’s time to introduce myself,” the creature said. “I’m called the Pollisand. Does that ring any bells?”
Searching my memory, I could not recall hearing the name; but suddenly I remembered my conversation with the woman in the Tower of Ancestors. She claimed I had been visited by a big white thing like some animal, except without a head. “Your name is unfamiliar,” I said, “but you came to me on Melaquin, after I fell.”
“Give the glass lady a transparent cigar!” the Pollisand cried. “I brought you back from the dead.”
“You did not! I am not such a creature as can die.”
“Oh, you can die, cheri,” the Pollisand said. “You are more than capable of that little feat. The only reason your species doesn’t kick the bucket more often is because you’re a bunch of preindustrial hayseeds—so damned Paleolithic, you’ve never invented weapons more lethal than pointy sticks. As if those could pierce your hard glass heinies!
“But,” he went on, “you’ve left your world behind now, sweetums. You’ve entered the hostile high-tech universe, and there’s many a method to make you a corpse. Monofilament garrotes that can saw through your jugular. Hypersonic pistols to shatter your glass guts. Plain old dynamite or plastique. And that’s not to mention alien microbes or toxins—you may be immune to the diseases and poisons on Melaquin, but I guarantee you weren’t built to handle every damned biochemical compound in the galaxy. Bump against the wrong kind of leaf, and you might keel over like a pole-axed steer.”
I looked down at the flowers brushing my legs. It would be most cowardly to back away from them, and anyhow they were unreal mental projections; so I stayed where I was. “Perhaps it is true I now have a heightened risk of decease,” I said, “but it is most unlikely you came just to warn me of such dangers. What do you want?”
Before he could answer—or at least before he did answer—a patch of scarlet flowers rustled behind me. I turned quickly, expecting attack; all this time, the Pollisand might have been a devious villain whose only goal was to provide distraction while a confederate stole up on me from behind. After being forced to flee from the stick-ship and the human navy, it was pleasant to have the prospect of a solid enemy I could punch in the nose…but when a creature leapt from concealment, I was dismayed to see it had no nose.
It was a round gray ball the size of my own head; and as it sped toward me, I recognized its texture: gray strings on white goo. Furthermore, the creature was not attacking so much as bouncing—a small gray animal jumping up and down with excitement, scrambling around my ankles as it made happy little cheeps. It seemed to take pleasure from hopping against my calves, rebounding back, and skipping around to try the same thing at a new angle.
“Is this what it appears to be?” I asked the Pollisand.
“Yes ma’am,” he answered, “that’s the one and only Star-biter.”
“The real Starbiter is much larger.”
“Clearly, she thinks of herself as smaller. I’m not creating her image, she is. In fact, I didn’t expect her to show up at all; but since I’m using her to project bumpf into your brain, she must have decided to get in on the act. And this is how she sees herself.”
The Pollisand tilted his neckhole downward as if he wanted to look more closely at the little Star-bouncer. She must have noticed the red glowing eyes in his chest cavity, and found them a source of allure;