Ascending - James Alan Gardner [35]
“Why did you not say so?” I reached out and laid my arm across the alien’s back in a comradely manner. “Of course I shall help you defeat the Shaddill…especially if you fix my Tired Brain too. You should have known I would say yes if you put it like that.”
“I did know,” the Pollisand said in a soft voice totally unlike his previous obnoxious tone.
Suddenly, I realized I could feel my arm lying on the Pollisand’s hide…and as soon as I realized that, I could feel the ground beneath my feet too. A hot stinking wind blew around me, and the crimson flowers brushing my legs felt scratchy against my calves. Nearby, little Starbiter yelped in fright and bounced fearfully toward me, leaping high at the last and jumping straight into my arms. I caught her and held her; when she pressed her gooey body against my chest, I felt her warm trembling stickiness.
The Pollisand turned toward me and the fire of his deep-buried eyes blazed hotter than all the lava pools around us. A wave of scorching heat struck me square in the face, a blistering slap so fierce I feared my cheeks would melt…and suddenly, I had the terrifying suspicion this was all real, that the Pollisand had truly transported me across untold light-years to this lava world, and shrunk Starbiter to the size of a puppy, and kept me from feeling the boiling temperatures so I would believe it was only an illusion…
Then everything went black: black with lonely stars. My body was back in its former position, seated rigidly upright. When I looked around, all I saw was Starbiter’s stringy physique, returned to its normal size: big enough that she could hold me in a tiny corner of her lungs, instead of being cradled in my arms.
One might think it had all been a dream; but my face still burned as if it had been shoved into searing flame.
4 Although I had never seen a living rhinoceros, the teaching machines in my village had shown me many excellent pictures of them. Also elephants. And kangaroos. And many other creatures who did not make their homes in my part of the world but had endearing qualities such as being eaten by their mates or spitting lethal venoms.
8
WHEREIN I CANNOT FIND A GOOD PLACE TO BE
Back To The Mundane
A few minutes later, someone groaned beside me. “Uclod?” I whispered. “Pollisand?”
A voice muttered garbled words. I did not recognize the language, nor did I recognize the voice—it was too deep for Uclod, too guttural for the Pollisand. “Lajoolie?” I whispered. Perhaps this growling baritone was what she sounded like when not putting on her false soprano. I strongly hoped that was the explanation, because I did not want to deal with another unknown visitor. “Lajoolie, is that you?”
“Unh…unh…” Unfocused moans came out in the same baritone. Then the voice forced itself to a higher pitch: “What happened? What did you do to me?”
It was Lajoolie—past her initial grogginess, and now remembering to feign more missish tones. More missish questions too: when she said, “What did you do to me?” she did not sound like someone who truly believed I had worked some devilish trick on her. I got the feeling she spoke as she thought a certain type of woman would; a flighty helpless woman, not a woman whose body was covered with more muscles than a dead squirrel has flies. Clearly, Lajoolie possessed a confused self-image I would have to investigate when I had the time…but for now, I was simply happy not to be alone anymore.
“There was a terrible stick-thing,” I told her. “What you called a Shaddill ship. It shot you with a Diabolical Weapon Ray, leaving me to effect an escape single-handed. Which I did most proficiently. Since then, I have flown through the sun and defeated the human navy, not to mention meeting…”
I stopped myself. Perhaps it would not be so prudent to disclose my encounter with the Pollisand. Someone like Lajoolie (or even worse, Uclod) might chide me most scathingly for entering into a poorly defined pact with a powerful alien