David Brin - Heaven's Reach

But if the Tymbrimi couldn’t hide out as sooners, it wasn’t too late for their beloved clients. The tytlal were still largely unknown. Still close to their animal roots. A small gene pool might be partly devolved and safely cached on far-off Jijo. It all made eerie sense. Including the notion of a race within a race — a band of un-devolved noor, hidden among them. Guardians, keeping twin black eyes open for danger … or opportunity.

Watching Mudfoot, I recalled stories told by Dwer Koolhan — during his brief time aboard this ship, when Streaker hid beneath Jijo’s sea — about how this wild animal kept snooping and meddling, following Dwer across half a continent. Ever mysterious, infuriating, and unhelpful. The behavior seemed to combine noorish recklessness with an attention span worthy of a hoon.

Intelligent irony now seemed to dominate Mudfoot’s snub-nosed, carnivorous face while he scanned my most recent lines of prose — the very musings about tytlal nature that lay just above. His black-pelted form coiled tightly, in an expression that I mistook for studious interest. I could almost imagine mute noorish whimsy transforming into eloquent speech — witty commentary perhaps, or else a brutal putdown of my dense composition style.

Then, with an abrupt display of unleashed energy, Mudfoot leaped into the crowd of floating words, flailing left and right with agile forepaws, slashing sentences to ribbons, knocking whole paragraphs awry before Streaker’s artificial g-field yanked him to a crouched landing on the metal deck. At once, he swiveled with a hunter’s delighted yowl and readied another pounce.

“Don’t save those changes!” I shouted at the autoscribe with unaccustomed haste. “Make all text intangible!”

My command made Mudfoot’s second leap less satisfying. Robbed of semisolidity, the words of my journal were now mere visual holograms, unaffected by physical touch. His second assault slashed uselessly while he passed through ghostly symbols, barking with disappointment.

Moments later, though, Mudfoot perched once more on my right shoulder, as Huphu glared at him lazily from the left. Both of them preened for a while, then began rubbing my throat, begging for an umble.

“You don’t fool me for a dura,” I muttered. But there seemed little else to do except repair the damage, finish up this journal entry, and then give them what they wanted.

I was doing that — singing for two noor and a herd of mesmerized glaver — when the Niss Machine barged in with a message.

I still have no idea why the snide robotic mind keeps interrupting this way, without preamble or greeting, despite my complaints that it grates against a hoon’s nature. And the tornado of spinning, twisted lines somehow hurts my eyes. Ifni, it’s hard enough getting used to the idea of talking computers, even though I used to read about them in classics by Nagata and Ecklar. Can it be that the Niss has some sort of family relationship with Mudfoot? A connection via the Tymbrimi, would be my guess. You can tell by their disdain for courtesy and knack for putting people off balance.

“I bring a message from the bridge crew,” announced the whirling shape. “Although I see little good coming out of it, they want to see one or two of your charges up there. You must bring the creatures along at once. A crew member is already coming to replace you here.”

Gently putting Huphu down on the metal deck, I gathered Mudfoot in a carrying hold, comfortably cradling him in the crook of one arm, so he could not writhe free. He seemed content, but I was taking no chances. The last thing I needed was for him to dash off in some random direction on our way to the bridge, wreaking havoc in the galley, or hiding in some storeroom till Streaker was blasted to smithereens.

“Won’t you tell me what it’s all about?” I asked.

The abstract lines appeared to shrug.

“For some reason, Dr. Baskin and Sage Sara Koolhan seem to think the beast may speak up, at an opportune moment, helping us deal with potentially hostile aliens.”

I umbled a deep, rolling laugh.

“Well they got hopes! This Ifni-slucking tytlal is gonna talk when it wants to, and the universe can go to hell till then, for all it cares.”

The lines twisted tighter than ever.

“I am not referring to the tytlal, Alvin. Please put the little rascal down and pay attention.”

“But …” I shook my head, human style, confused. “Then, who …?”

The Niss hologram bent toward the far wall, making an effort to point.

“You are requested to bring up one or two of those.”

I stared at a crowd of goggle-eyed cretins. Mewling, nosing through their own revolting feces … “blessed” with sacred forgetfulness, immune to worry.

So this hurried journal entry ends on a note of blank surprise.

They want me to bring glavers to the bridge.

HE STUMBLED DOWN TWISTY, INTESTINELIKE corridors, fleeing almost randomly through the vast ship, pausing occasionally to rest his head against a squishy bulkhead and sob. Cloying Jophur scentomeres mingled with his own stench of self-disgust and grief.

I should have stayed with her.

Lark’s unwashed body, still sticky with juices from that dreadful nursery, kept moving despite fatigue and hunger, driven on by occasional sounds of pursuit. But his mind seemed mired, with all its fine edges dulled by regret. Repeatedly, he tried to rouse from this depression and come up with a way to fight back.

You’ve got to think. Ling is counting on you!

In fact, Lark wasn’t even sure where to go looking for his lover. His mental image of the Polkjhy was a blur of tangled passages linking odd-shaped chambers, more chaotic than the hivelike innards of a qheuen dam. Anyway, suppose he did find his way back to the prison section, the vault where he and Ling had made their getaway just a few days ago. By now the place would be triply guarded. By Jophur ring stacks, robots, and the tall human renegade.

Rann will be expecting me. He knows exactly what I’m thinking … that I want to go charging to her rescue.

Alas, Lark was no man of action like his brother, Dwer. The odds paralyzed him. He was too good at envisioning drawbacks and potential flaws in each tentative plan.

As long as I’m free, Ling can still hope. I have no right to throw that away by rushing into a trap. First priority has to be a place where I can rest … maybe find something to eat … then come up with a plan.

Using the purple ring as a universal passkey, Lark inspected various rooms along his meandering path, hoping to find a tool or information he could use against the enemy. Some compartments were empty. Others were occupied by Jophur crew, but these paid little heed to the distraction of an opening or closing door. Like their traeki cousins on Jijo, Jophur tended to be task-focused, reacting slowly to interruptions.

Only once did Lark fail to duck out of sight in time.

He was poking through a laboratory filled with coiled, transparent glassy tubes that flickered and hissed with roiling vapors. Abruptly Lark found his path blocked by a massive ring stack. It had just turned away from an instrument console, and all sensor toruses were active.

Flatulent smoke bursts vented from the Jophur’s peak, indignant to spy an intruding human. Fatty toruses flickered with shadowy patterns of light and dark, expressing surprised rage.

If he had paused to think, Lark would never have had the courage to lunge toward that intimidating mass, thrusting his only weapon past a dozen reaching tentacles. Tendrils converged to surround him, slapping his shoulders.

Master rings make Jophur ambitious and decisive, thought a bookish corner of his mind. But thank Ifni they’re like traeki in other ways. Their sluggish nerves were never tested by carnivores on a savannah.