Ascending - James Alan Gardner [34]
“In other words,” I said, “you do not have a plan.”
“Well, I’ve got a few rough ideas. My greatest strength is improvising.”
One of the red eyes in his throat disappeared for a moment, then blazed back to life; I had an eerie feeling the Pollisand had just winked at me. “Seriously, kiddo,” he said, “I have plans upon plans upon plans, reaching all the way down to the end of time. I have agendas both social and temporal, I have schemes both simple and ornate; I create conspiracies and tear them apart; my name is a byword for foresight and I have honed the blade of strategy to a razor’s edge.”
“If you always talk this much,” I said, “it is a wonder you have time for planning at all.”
“Damn, but you’re a stick-in-the-mud,” he grumbled. “All right, I do have a plan, okay? It’s a good plan, aimed at a noble purpose…but there’s a teeny-tiny-eensy-weensy chance that at a particular point as events unfold you’ll die rather permanently. Under circumstances where I won’t be able to patch you up like the last time. And that’s where I run afoul of the League of Peoples: cuz if I have this foreknowledge, which I do, of a lethal danger, which there is, to a sentient creature, which you are—borderline sentient, but you’re still on the civilized side of the ledger—then I’m morally obliged to ask if it’s okay I might get you murdered. Basically, you have to agree you want to achieve the same lofty goal I do…at which point it ceases to be me putting your life at risk, but you accepting the risk yourself because you’re so doggone eager to do the right thing.”
“And what is this right thing I so recklessly wish to do?”
“Um. Well.” The Pollisand stubbed his toe bashfully into the dirt, a gesture no doubt intended to appear winningly ingenuous. “Do I really have to tell you? Couldn’t you just take my word, as a being seventy-five trillion rungs higher than you on the evolutionary ladder, that I’m honestly pursuing the greatest good for the greatest number?”
“I do not care about the greatest good for the greatest number,” I said. “Most people are poop-heads; I do not care about them at all. And I have no confidence you are as clever and advanced as you claim to be—all I have seen you do is simulate visions using Starbiter.”
The Zarett heard her name and began bouncing toward me…until she became distracted by a bug flying by, and bounced after it instead. I turned back to the Pollisand. “Zaretts do not seem so high on the evolutionary ladder. I have seen no evidence that you are either.”
“Ah,” the Pollisand said, “but perhaps my facade is an act. A truly advanced being might realize it’s best to approach lesser species in a nonthreatening way—as a ridiculous-looking creature who comes across as a pompous jerk barely able to keep his foot out of his mouth. It puts you at ease, doesn’t it, when you say, This Pollisand guy isn’t so scary; he’s not the swaggering staggering supergenius the rest of the universe thinks he is. You catch me making a few goofs, you throw my words back in my face, and after a while, you relax cuz you think I’m not smart enough to pull the wool over your eyes.”
If this was an attempt to disconcert me, it nearly worked. A vastly intelligent beast who controlled what I saw and heard might indeed present himself as a silly buffoon so as not to be taken too seriously. On the other hand, a silly buffoon might boast of himself as a vastly intelligent beast who was merely play-acting. Which was more likely?
“The most important point,” I said, “is that I wish to know the direction of your plan. What is your goal? What is your purpose?”
The Pollisand shuffled his feet. “All right. The part of the plan that concerns you—the immediate part of the plan—is related to the race you call the Shaddill.”
“Are you for them or against them?” I asked.
“I fervently want,” the