Ascending - James Alan Gardner [32]
Starbiter, The Cannonball
It is most amusing to see a haughty alien with a small energetic creature stuffed into his neck. Starbiter made happy squeaky sounds as if she were proud of her mischievous accomplishment; she wobbled back and forth inside the throat cavity, thudding against the sides and giggling each time she bounced off.
As for the Pollisand, he seemed frozen in astonishment: he did not move for a full count of five. Then with a great shudder, he raised his shoulders and filled his lungs full of air. His breath made tempestuous sucking sounds as he inhaled around the Zarett crammed down his throat; I could see his ribs expand wider and wider, until suddenly he blew out with all his strength.
Starbiter shot from his neckhole like a cannonball. She squealed something that sounded like “Wheeeeee!” as she flew in a perfect arc, hurtling far across the garden and landing precipitously in a patch of blood-flowers. For a moment, I worried she might be hurt; but almost as soon as she splashed down she bounced up again, making joyful peeps and whistles.
“Look,” I told the Pollisand. “She wants to do it again.”
“Tough titty,” he said. “Do you know what would happen if certain folks saw me with a Zarett down my maw? I’m supposed to retain my dignity, for Christ’s sake—some species worship me like unto a god. A fat lot of good it would do my reputation if people knew I’d been used as a basketball hoop.”
“Perhaps it would help your reputation. Perhaps you would not be considered an asshole if it were known you played cheerfully with others.”
“What do you mean, cheerfully? I’m not cheerful—I’ve got Zarett guck in my mouth.”
He made another loud hawking sound and spat out a blob of stringy gray and white. “Besides,” he continued, “I like people thinking I’m an asshole. Being an asshole is my life’s vocation; I’m a goddamned asshole professional. When other people act like assholes, they’re doing it on their own time, but me, it’s my job.”
“Is that why you have come then? Someone is paying you to annoy me? Because you are very most irritating indeed, and I do not wish to spend time with you unless you promptly explain what you want.”
The glowing eyes in his throat burned brighter. Before speaking, he glanced toward Starbiter; but the little Zarett had got herself distracted with the two-headed slugs that swam in the lava pools. It appeared she was bouncing on the vermin with great delight, splashing up fierce hissing splutters of magma each time she smacked the boiling surface. The heat did not bother her a bit…but then, she had already traveled through a sun, so how could she be harmed by mere molten minerals?
“All right,” the Pollisand said, turning back to me, “let’s talk business. I don’t often make deals with lesser species, but you’re in a unique position, even if you don’t know it.” The Pollisand’s eyes flared brightly. “Oar, my sweet, my sugar, my sucrose-based carbohydrate, suppose I had a way that your brain would never get Tired? Would that interest you? Hmm?”
Temptations
I stared at him speechless for several heartbeats. More out of reflex than conviction, I said, “My brain never will get Tired, you foolish beast. I am not such a one as succumbs to mind-numbing ennui.”
“Unlike your mother?” the Pollisand asked. “And the hundred generations before her? They all swore they wouldn’t turn into mental rutabagas, but now they’re cluttering up a thousand glass towers.”
He stomped his foot and suddenly the world changed. There was no garden, no lava, no scarlet-ash sky; we were back in Oarville with mute snow swirling through the air.
The Pollisand and I stood atop the Tower of Ancestors where I had suffered my great fall. Some distance off, near the edge of the roof, the small figure of Starbiter gave a surprised yelp, then bounced speedily toward us. Within seconds, she