Sonia Lyris: Payback

He came to me, desperation twisting pale features on his young face, seeking from me a key.

That was not unusual, though it seemed to me that it had been a while since the last one had come to ask. How long I did not know, and did not try to remember.

I floated a half-turn in my chair and reached into the store of keys behind me, which even to my eyes flickered in and out of the universes in which I was planted. I pulled out one of many red, soft-skin boxes, and handed it to him.

The light that I produce on what passes for my skin flooded his skin and his light blond hair, making his paleness look ice-white. His pastel eyes glittered. In that moment, he looked for all the universe like the proverbial frozen child.

After a quick, doubting look at me, he opened the box. Inside was the key: a flat piece of crystal containing documentation and diagrams and directions. On it was all the technology he would need to address his people’s particular problem.

“This is it?”

“Yes.”

He disbelieved, of course. Most do. Something for nothing? Who would think it?

Me. I would.

He frowned. “And what do I give you in return?”

I had seen his reaction countless times. With something given back, the key wasn’t a gift. Or so he hoped. Then, maybe it wouldn’t be dangerous.

I could not stop myself. I laughed.

“Nothing. This is what you asked for. This is the solution to the plague that attacks your homeworld, which would in time take all the life on your planet.”

It did not seem possible, but his face paled further.

“Take it home,” I said. “Give it to your scientists. They’ll know what to do with it.”

“I—”

He stumbled over his words. I waited patiently.

“I’m grateful. I don’t know what to say.”

“Say whatever you like. Do whatever you like. Avail yourself of my guest quarters. Walk in the gardens. Or go home and with each few minutes save a hundred more lives.”

He inhaled sharply and stood. “I will go. But repayment—”

“No repayment. I do not accept such.”

“But surely—”

“No. I do not desire anything in return.”

He turned reluctantly, walked up the ramp to the door, which I opened for him. There he stopped and turned partway toward me, not looking at me, his pale features sharp, like carved ice. His voice was flat as he spoke. Flat and hard and resolved.

“We will repay you.”

Then he left.

The mechanical device squatted in front of me, two arms drawn up around it, fitting flush against the rest of its metallic cylindrical body, the other two limbs out, crab-like.

“I have a delivery,” it said.

I quested for the input jack, tasted the protocol, and flashed it a stream of bits, shortening our interaction to a fraction of a second, after which it left.

I quickly checked my storage area. This would set a bad precedent, I knew, but I hoped that accepting the many tons of platinum would cause me less trouble than refusing it. The device claimed it would not leave until the gift had been accepted, but I could change the device’s programming to take the delivery back if I wanted to.

And I did want to. But in times past, when I refused such gifts, my action eventually led to an attack on me and my home station. Messy to deal with and discouraging to others who might come to petition me. If I took their gift, perhaps they would leave me to continue as before.

What, I wondered, did they suppose I would do with even an ounce of these metals that they thought were so precious?

I sighed, or something like it, and had the stuff put into my storage area, where I suspected it would sit uselessly for many millennia.

They stood before me, two of them, their limbs all hard angles with small, sticky openings everywhere. With just a taste of the wine that was my continuum, I knew these to be specialized mouths. On their world, food life had wings and flew. These mouths kept them fed.

“We come to seek the Key Giver, the one told of in myth, sung of in song.”

In recent times, there had been more petitioners coming to me. They would say that they had heard of me through the songs that wound their way through galactic trading centers. The songs all came from the lighthaired race, who were becoming well-known for their efforts.

I was a bit surprised; I had thought that the ice-skinned folk would have forgotten me some time ago.

“Yes. And you have found me.”

The two who stood before me spoke together, each providing pieces of the sound that made up their words. The words tasted like a dozen other languages I’d heard over the ages, but it splashed into old corners with new colors.

“We have talk to make with the Key Giver.”

I gave them a smile they would understand.

“I am in time and space with you.”

They stood stiffly, minor scent changes from their mouths indicating that they were ill at ease.

“We come to see the One. The Key Giver. We must make talk with him.”

“Ah,” I said, as if only now understanding. “I make an image of your meaning in my mind. This—” I pointed at myself, “This is the one you seek. The One. The Key Giver.”

They simply stared at me.

It was often thus. Few races arise from the soup of life to travel between the stars without great struggle. What are they to think, then, when they find that there is no struggle at all needed to accomplish their goals?

Their expressions changed. They were willing to consider that my words might be truth.

“We are not pleased with you.”

“Are you not.”

“No. We object to what you do.”

I smiled again, a friendly smile.

“I make an image of your meaning in my mind, but it is unimportant to me.”

“Why do you do this?” one asked, breaking harmony with the other. The second stared at him, startled, terrified at the sudden loss of their harmony.

“What is it you ask or seek?”

Again the first shook his head, refusing my question and its implied offer. The second keened, and then the first with him, and together they fell back into step, their sounds and speech weaving together again.

“We come to show you the error of your ways. To show you that you must stop.”

“You waste your time, and mine, too. Speak of what you seek, and I will give you a key, if a key exists.”

Together they cried their outrage. “You must put all your keys away! Listen to us: you destroy commerce. You ruin rare resource planets. You cause intergalactic wars. You must stop.”

“This is what you seek? For me to stop?”

Their little mouths all widened.

“Do not tease us with your words. We respect you, Key Giver. Is there any starfaring world that does not tell stories of you and the wonders you give? Indeed, we ourselves thought you a myth. Then our enemies suddenly learned the rites to make space ships that our trackers could not find, and they began to destroy us. They say that this was your gift to them.”

“Yes. I gave them a key. They used it.”

“We could come asking a key to use against them, could we not?”

“Yes.”

“And it would be just as effective as theirs?”

“Yes.”

“And—you would give it to us?”

“Yes.”

They shook. The scent of fear mixed with frustrated anger wafted off them like waves of heat.

“We do not wish it. We do not wish you to give such gifts to anyone anymore. We believe it is not good for races such as we and our enemies to have such tools. These gifts of yours upset all balances. They give advantage where it is not earned.”