Ascending - James Alan Gardner [64]
“And yet,” Nimbus said pensively, “Las Fuentes maintain that embassy.”
“I’ll bet they want to keep an eye on us savages,” Uclod answered. “We lesser species may not be smart enough to contribute to these guys’ lofty existence, but there are probably ways we could screw them up. If we suddenly invented a way to mutate ourselves into the same kind of goo, Las Fuentes would damned sure want to know. Overnight, we’d change from harmless yahoos into direct competitors.”
“That’s one obvious explanation,” Festina agreed, “but it’s never smart to assume aliens think the way we do. Maybe there’s no such thing as ‘competition’once you reach a certain stage of development. Maybe it’s nothing but sweetness and light: one big happy melting pot of cosmic love.”
We all stared at her.
“Hey,” she said, “it was a joke.”
Plans Within Plans
“So what’ve we got?” Uclod said. “The Pollisand spends most of his time badgering people about being idiots. But four years ago he broke with his usual modus operandi: he showed up on Melaquin, and instead of asking Oar why she jumped out a window, he simply patched her up.”
“Is that unusual for him?” Nimbus asked Festina. “Providing medical aid in a crisis?”
“He’s never done anything like it,” she replied, “and he’s been present at plenty of crises. I don’t think he’s ever showed up at a lethal accident—he seems to avoid fatalities. But he’s watched plenty of people crippled or bleeding, and he’s never tried to help a single one.”
“All right,” Uclod said, “so the Pollisand broke his pattern for Oar. We’ve also got the Shaddill getting upset when they find out Oar’s not dead. They say someone’s interfered with their plan. Obviously, the person who interfered was the Pollisand; he’s the one who took Oar away and brought her back to life. Do you think the Pollisand did that deliberately to screw the Shaddill?”
“Who knows?” Festina answered…but I thought I did know. The Pollisand told me he wanted to wipe the Shaddill off the face of the universe; if ministering to my health was a way to foil some Shaddill-ish scheme, he would gladly do so.
“I believe,” I said, “that he helped me as a means of frustrating the Shaddill…though I do not know what role I play in all this.”
Festina was looking in my direction, but her gaze was distant. “If the Shaddill thought you had died,” she said, “and they still came to Melaquin…they might have been interested in your corpse.” A light sparked in her eyes. “And why did they show up when they did? They must have known the navy was on its way to clean up evidence. Either the Shad-dill wanted to examine your body before the navy took it away…”
“Or,” Uclod finished her thought, “they wanted to remove missy’s body so the navy couldn’t check it out.”
Festina nodded. “Both possibilities suggest there’s something special about you, Oar. Something that sets you apart from the rest of your people.”
“Of course. I am more clever and beautiful.”
Festina gave me a look. “It would be nice to find something even more distinctive.”
“They thought she was dead,” Lajoolie said softly. “That’s quite a distinction in itself.” She looked at me with her mild eyes. “Isn’t it almost impossible for your people to die? You don’t age, you don’t get sick, you can’t drown or suffocate…short of falling off an eighty-story building, not much can hurt you. And if the Shaddill wanted a glass cadaver for some purpose, they couldn’t just kill one of your people; the League would never let them get away with outright murder.”
Uclod smiled at Lajoolie. “My darling wife has put her finger on a fascinating possibility. If the