Ascending - James Alan Gardner [61]
“Did the colony die?” Lajoolie asked softly.
“The colony did; the colonists didn’t. They sent out an SOS and got evacuated before they came down with terminal frostbite. Unlucky for them, they were picked up by a Cashling outreach crusade…which means nothing to you, Oar, but suffice it to say, the colonists became indentured servants for ten years to pay off the cost of their rescue. After a decade of grunt work and listening to Cashling sermons on Godly Greed, those people must have wished they’d frozen.”
Uclod wore a large frown. “You’re sure the reactors melted because of that technician?”
Festina nodded. “There was a thorough investigation. Why do you ask?”
“Because it’s awful damned convenient this Pollisand just happened to be in the right place at the right time.”
“Isn’t it though,” Festina agreed. “And since his first visit, he’s showed up in human space over and over again: always right after someone has made a disastrous mistake.”
She moved back to the table and reached toward the keypad…then withdrew her hand. “I’ve got pictures of other Pollisand sightings, but they aren’t pretty. He’s particularly drawn to the Explorer Corps. Whenever someone has body parts bitten off, gets impaled on a poisonous plant thorn, or steps in something that explodes, there’s a chance the Pollisand will appear out of nowhere and ask, Why did you think that was safe? Why didn’t you walk around? What was going through your head…besides that big wooden spike?”
Uclod snorted. “You’re sure he isn’t to blame for these so-called accidents?”
“No one’s sure of anything. But we’ve never found a shred of evidence that he sets up these scenarios himself. It’s always people going about their normal business, making their own catastrophic decisions.”
“Could he not have a Sinister Ray,” I said, “that compels one to commit foolish deeds?”
“Theories like that have been suggested,” Festina replied, “especially by the people caught acting like imbeciles. But investigations don’t bear it out; almost always, these folks have a history of similar stunts before the one that really cooks their goose. Coworkers are likely to say, It’s exactly the kind of stupidity we expect from that idiot…which begs the question why the idiot didn’t get fired long before, but incompetence is the norm in our beloved Technocracy.” She turned back toward the screen and scowled at the baggy-suited woman.
“So if the Pollisand doesn’t cause these accidents,” Uclod said, “how can he tell they’ll happen? You think he can see the future? He knows someone’s going to mess up, and gets a kick out of calling you a dope?”
“He doesn’t call people dopes,” Festina said. “I could play you recordings of his conversations with Explorers—Explorers who’ve just got themselves or their partners maimed through bonehead mistakes. Judging by the Pollisand’s tone of voice, he truly wants to know why they made such bad choices: like he’s trying to get some insight into the human decision-making process.”
“You mean he can tell in advance when someone’s going to flip the wrong switch,” Uclod said, “but he has no idea why? What is he, some sort of time traveler? When he hears that someone screwed the pooch, he goes back into the past so he can find out the details?”
“That’s one possible explanation,” Festina replied. “We’ve never got solid evidence of an alien practicing time travel…but the top echelons of the League do so many hard-to-believe things, why not that too?”
“You think the Pollisand belongs to the top echelons of the League?” Nimbus asked. The cloud man had clustered himself around