Changing Vision (45 page)

A new and uncomfortable thought.
Had my web-kin chosen their favored forms because they enjoyed those more than others? Or had they spent more time in those forms and so begun to change in their very natures? No Ersh-memory, helpful or otherwise, bubbled up cooperatively to reassure me with an answer.

*We are ready, Fem Tilesen,* clicked one of the Seconds—his personal attention a continuing mark of the Matriarch’s favor.

I’d been trying to check my companions for implants, but gave up. It was impossible as long as they kept milling around. *Do any of your Herd have a vocalizing implant?* I clicked, using the fingersnap they’d provided. It was conceivable I was the only other being on Iftsen Secondus at the moment fluent in their speech. I didn’t want to leave them without at least one Ganthor who could communicate in comspeak.

*My predecessor at the Matriarch’s Left.* Left wasn’t the term he used, just its meaning; the term itself referred to an archaic weapon, somewhat like a battleax, wielded by the Matriarch as a practical symbol of her authority. The other Second would refer to himself as her Right; again, a term referring to a weapon—one with serrated edges able to penetrate a Ganthor’s hide. It symbolized her right to their lives and her responsibility for them.

I tugged at his huge, bristle-coated arm until he followed me a little distance from the others. Mucus streamed from his nostrils as he tried in vain to read my intentions. A handsome, not-too-scarred individual. Now that I paid closer attention, he did appear young for his position in the Herd, although he bulked at least twenty-five percent over most of the others. *This may be important,* I clicked. *What happened to your predecessor?* As he lowered his snout in threat, I added quickly: *I mean no offense. This is a matter of Herd safety.*

There was no higher priority for a Ganthor, though he was likely well-enough versed in the ways of other species
to suspect I was using it as a ploy to gain his attention. *Explain.* His foot moved as though he had to stop it stamping.

*If there was anything—unusual—about your predecessor’s death, or if he died while the Herd was employed by Logan, I would see it as a deliberate attempt to reduce your Matriarch’s ability to communicate with others.*

*!!* with a whole body shudder that rattled his bandoliers and holstered weapons. This caught the attention of every Ganthor within earshot. I could see snouts wriggling as they picked up on the emotional state of the Second.

*Answer.* This click came from the Matriarch, who must have kept her ears directed our way after all. As I’d thought, a perceptive individual.

*Left was lost to the Herd during an accident as we boarded Logan’s transport. A failure within the air lock system.*

I didn’t need scent to know what rippled through the Herd’s consciousness at that moment. It was as well they didn’t know Logan’s present location or I’d never get their cooperation.

And I was counting on it.

KEARN looked worriedly down the corridor. Sas was huddled over the stateroom’s locking mechanism, looking every bit the burglar if, in Kearn’s opinion, acting anything but.
For a security officer with his expertise, you’d think he could break into a room without rousing the dead
, Kearn fumed to himself.

Port Authority on Upperside had not been helpful—not in the least. They seemed to think some scuffle planetside was more important than Kearn’s urgent request to examine the quarters of any Human named Mitchell who’d boarded the shipcity within the last week. They’d almost physically removed them from the office.

Kearn would have filed an immediate complaint, but one of the officials had followed them out, slipping them a list of addresses. Kearn planned to combine his complaint with a report against the being for accepting a bribe, the instant he was off this sordid excuse for a station.

Their problems had only begun. Who’d have thought there would be fourteen Humans with some version of Mitchell in their name staying on Upperside? Sas had hissed in disgust.

But he’d agreed
, Kearn reminded himself.
They couldn’t trust anyone on the ship—not with Lefebvre and Timri against him. They had no one but each other.

And one clue. That the infamous and dangerous Paul Ragem, the Traitor, was somewhere on Upperside. Port Authority had laughed at his demand they halt downward
shuttle traffic and quarantine ships already in dock. This Festival, coupled with some other nonsense about the Feneden and Iftsen, took precedence over his investigation.
Investigation! Hah!

Kearn wiped his sweaty palms against his pant legs. They’d dressed as tourists to avoid alarming Ragem; Kearn deplored the necessity, convinced the shapeless, soft clothing robbed him of any remaining presence. He should have stayed in uniform. Then they might have taken him seriously. “Aren’t you done yet?” he asked the Modoren. “What’s taking so long? You’ve had enough practice.” This was the fifth door they’d tried. All the other cabins had been empty except for the furnishings supplied by Upperside.

A suspicious being
, Kearn thought,
might believe Ragem had rented multiple rooms under his alias to confuse pursuit.
He didn’t like the idea that logically followed: that Ragem knew he was being chased and probably wouldn’t use any of those rooms.

“Ashtst!” This satisfied sound from Sas, as the door swung open, coincided perfectly with a shouted “Stop!”

Kearn whirled to find the previously empty corridor now filled by Port Authority in full riot gear, running toward them. He took a couple of steps back from Sas, attempting to look horrified. “Stop!” he echoed loudly. “What do you think you are doing?”

Sas, with the agility of his kind, had already leaped up, lips curled back from his formidable natural armament. He snarled and spat, but the curses didn’t render as much more than crackling through the implant in his furred throat. Kearn took the meaning, and backed away even more as Port Authority surrounded them both.

“What is the meaning of this?” he shouted, shaking his arm from the grip of a guardsman. “Don’t you know who I am?” Kearn regretted the lack of uniform more than ever.

“Why, yes, sir. We do,” came the surprising answer.

“Y-you do?” Then Kearn’s blood turned to ice in his
veins as he stared past the dozen or so who’d trapped him to the ring of curious onlookers beyond.

A tall, dark-haired,
familiar
Human sketched a mocking salute before fading into the crowd.

Ragem!

Kearn felt his heart almost stop and his eyes bulge as he tried to look everywhere at once.

Where Ragem was, the Esen Monster was sure to come.

I MISSED Paul. I missed the Herd.
Let’s face it
, I told myself dolefully,
there were definite reasons why almost all intelligent species were social.
Even the Web had been communal—albeit a deliberate evolution rather than innate. The Human saying: misery loves company, came to mind, but I dismissed it.
I wasn’t miserable. I was Esen the diplomat. Esen the daring!

I couldn’t help but add to my list:
Esen who hoped she knew what she was doing.

I checked the groundcar settings again, needlessly, but compelled by some inner restlessness to constantly verify my location. My Feneden-self appeared instinctively wary of being lost. As this was a sensible concern on a strange planet, I approved.

Not that I could get lost here
, I thought, admiring the immense shadows cast by the overarching leaves, each larger than my vehicle. It might be day-dim, but I’d know my way along this road in the dead of night. My own memories of Brakistem and the shore of the lovely, dark Bridklestet were as vivid as if I’d just lived the moments. Away from the changes wrought by the Iftsen, the landscape seemed reassuringly eternal.

Maybe that’s where the loneliness came from—remembering.
I’d come with Lesy twice, Ansky once, Mixs three times. Skalet never, since she’d been uncomfortable in a culture that valued disorderly behavior. I hadn’t come with
Ersh either, but that was a different matter. Ersh traveled, but always alone and in secret—a caution so much a part of her that none of us found it curious, and only I had to endure. I literally matured in Ersh’s shadow, knowing at any moment, on any world, if I made a mistake, she’d most likely be somewhere close enough to know.
As if
, I now believed,
she’d sensed from the beginning I was like her
, and could hide certain memories from the others when we shared flesh. So she’d been forced to keep her eye, or whatever, on me as much as possible.

Her subterfuge had
, I remembered, rather fondly,
led to my early conviction that no matter how I tried, Ersh could read my most secret misdeeds right out of my mass, so I might as well confess immediately.
It had taken me until my third century to discover her method and know for sure I could have a private self.
As long as Ersh wasn’t watching.

I sighed, feeling not so much grief as a distinct longing for the days when there was someone older and wiser to catch my mistakes.
You never know what you’ll miss most
, I thought.

The road wound around small hills, echoing the passage taken by the streams of not-quite water. Those gleamed, unshadowed by foliage. Then again, life at the active interface between Iftsen Secondus’ atmosphere and any exposed solvent required adaptations to keep one’s body parts from becoming part of the reactions. The skin bits the Iftsen shed everywhere they went made perfect sense here—as well as forming the basis of a not-inconsiderable food web.

All of which would be much more enjoyable if I wasn’t sending the groundcar careening around each lazy corner at its maximum speed. The meandering Iftsen road didn’t have a shuttle to catch.
Hopefully, I still did.

Paul should have my message by now
, I estimated, proud of this mature and thoughtful gesture on my part. Don’t worry, was the gist of it. Of course, there was as much chance of Paul not worrying as there was of my making sense of the fragmented and diffuse images picked up by the oculars on my head.

I’d tried using my hands to push the squirming cilia out of the way. It hadn’t made any difference I could detect.

What should make a difference was my arrival at the shuttle. I had thought very carefully this time and hadn’t found any reason why this shouldn’t work. After all, I reassured myself, Logan had wanted to meet a Feneden.

He didn’t have to know I wasn’t one.

I made the last turn, relieved to see the plain and ugly lines of a Tly personal transport shuttle caught among the dappled shadows, then alarmed to notice the shoreline mere steps beyond it. The shoreline had undoubtedly been much farther away when they’d landed the craft here. The Bridklestet might be shallow, but it had tides nonetheless. I hurried to pull the groundcar alongside the shuttle.

So far, so good. The Black Watch
was unlikely to be in orbit. The Iftsen might ignore starships landing on their world, but, unlike Minas XII’s, Upperside’s Port Authority took traffic control quite seriously. So this shuttle was the only way I could find the
’Watch
and the repulsive Logan.
Who
, I said to myself quite cheerfully,
was a being definitely both able and motivated to find the Iftsens’ planet-killing weapon
, especially when accompanied by his new ally—an ally who had a reasonably accurate idea of where, in the sunward asteroid belt, the Iftsen had hidden their ultimate defense.

What I could do about the weapon once we found it was something I intended to leave up to Skalet’s ample memories of such devices.
As for what I could do about Logan?
I smiled with anticipation.

I keyed open the groundcar’s roof and sat looking around, exhibiting a reasonable amount of caution. Logan had to be watching this area. He would have expected a ’digger full of Ganthor to bring me; a ’digger full of surprised and displeased Ganthor once they realized they were about to be left behind on Iftsen Secondus by their employer. So what had he planned? To talk them into heading back to the shipcity and buying tickets home? That didn’t seem Logan’s style.

There had to be a trap.
Reluctantly, I laid Skalet-memories of less honorable tactics over my Feneden-perceptions of this peaceful setting. As I did, the Bridklestet lapped a little closer to the landing gear, a gentle background hiss as her acidic waters etched the salt-crusted shoreline.
Deception on all sides
, I thought, gazing along the lines of froth repeating the curve of shore in both directions.

I shut down the groundcar, listening. Other than its fading hiss, and a faint susurration as hundreds of huge leaves slowly twisted to steal more of the cloud-filtered light from the neighbors, all was quiet. Too quiet. There should have been cranes whistling like giddy lunatics in the distance. At the very least, once the machine had stilled, the air should have hummed with the ever-present droning of griffids—tiny herbivores who lived out their lives attached to a single leaf until it died and fell to the ground, giving them the opportunity to lay their eggs at the tree base before scampering up to fasten on a fresh feeding ground.

The griffids were here. I could see dozens hanging above me, their bodies suspended from feeding appendages drilled into the massive ribs of the leaf, rows of beady eyes fixed on me. Their bladders were collapsed within their lower limbs as they held their breath, becoming as inconspicuous as possible. Something had scared them, recently and badly.

My hands had difficulty with the door latch, trembling in a reflex I did my best to ignore. Although I didn’t see anything I could identify as alarming, this form was strangely on edge, as though something was hiding behind me, ready to spring.

If being Feneden wasn’t an essential part of my plan, by now I’d have gladly cycled into just about anything else. Even my Ket-self had been steadier,
which was
, I thought,
saying a lot.