David Brin - Infinity's Shore

But whenever some large lake seemed about to pass below the bulging gasbag, another hard gusset blew in, pushing him at an inftiriating angle, back over jagged rocks and trees. Frustration only heightened his thirst.

If this keeps up, I’ll be so dehydrated that I’d dive for a little puddle.

Blade soon realized how far he had come. As the last light of day vanished from the tallest peaks, he spied a cleft in the mountains that any Sixer would recognize — the pass leading to Festival Glade, where each year the Commons of Six Races gathered to celebrate — and mourn — another year of exile. For some time after the sun was gone, Loocen’s bright crescent kept him company, illuminating the foothills. Blade expected the surface to draw closer as he was pushed northeast, but the simpleminded urrish altimeter somehow sensed changing ground levels and reacted with another jet of flame, preventing the balloon from meeting the valley floor.

Then Loocen sank as well, abandoning him to a world of shadows. The mountains became little more than black bites, torn out of the starry heavens. It left Blade all alone with his imagination, speculating how the Jophur were going to deal with him.

Would there be a flash of cold flame, as he had seen darting from the belly of the cruel corvette that devastated Ovoom Town? Would they rip him to bits with scalpels of sound? Or were he and the balloon destined for vaporization upon making contact with some defensive force field? The kind of barrier often described in garish Earthling novels?

Worst of all, he pictured a “tractor beam,” seizing and dragging him down to torment in some Jophur-designed hell.

The cord — should I pull it now? he wondered. Lest our foes learn the secret of hot-air balloons?

Qheuens never used to laugh before coming to Jijo. But somehow the blue variety picked up the habit, infuriating their Gray Queens, even before hoons and humans could be blamed as bad influences. Blade’s legs now contracted, quivering as a calliope of whistles escaped his breathing vents.

Right! We mustn’t allow this “technology” to fall into the wrong hands … or rings. Why, the Jophur might make balloons of their own, to use against us!

The upland canyons answered with faint repetitions of his laughter — echoes that cheered him up a little, as if there were an audience for his imminent parting from the universe. No qheuen likes to die alone, Blade thought, tightening his grip on the cord that would send him plunging to Jijo’s dark embrace. I only hope someone finds enough shell fragments to dross.…

At that moment, a faint glimmer made him pause. It came from dead ahead, farther up the narrowing valley, below the mountain pass. Blade tried focusing his visor, but again had to curse the poor vision his race inherited from ancient times. He peered at the pale shine.

Could it be …?

The soft rays reminded him of starlight, glancing off water, making him hold off yanking the cable for a few duras. If it was an alpine lake, he might have just a little time to estimate the distance, include his rate of drift, and guess the right moment to pull. With my luck, it will turn out to be a mulc spider’s acid pit. At least that would take care of the mulching problem.

The glimmer drew nearer, but its outline seemed strangely smooth, unlike a natural body of water. Its profile was oval, and the reflections had a convex quality that—

Ifni and the ancestors! Blade cursed in surprised dismay. It is the Jophur ship!

He stared in blank awe at the size of the globular thing.

So huge, I thought it was part of the landscape.

Worse, he measured his course and heading.

Soon, I’ll be right on top of it.

If anything, the wind stiffened from behind, accelerating his approach.

At once, Blade had an idea. One that changed his mind about the cruelty of fate.

This is better, he decided. It will be like that novel I read last winter, by that pre-contact human, Vonnegut. The book ended with the hero making a bold, personal gesture toward God.

The point seemed apropos then, and even more so now. When faced with casual extinction by an omnipotent force, sometimes the only option left to a poor mortal is to go out with defiance.

That proved remarkably feasible. Qheuen mouth parts served many functions, including sexual. So Blade made a virtue of his exposed posture, and got ready to present himself to the enemy in the most deliberately offensive manner possible.

Look THIS up in your Galactic Library! he thought, waving his sensor feelers suggestively. Perhaps, before he was vaporized, the Jophur would call up reference data dealing with starfaring qheuens, and realize the extent of his insolence. Blade hoped his life would count for at least that much. To be killed in anger, not as an afterthought.

Waves of tingling sensation coursed his feelers, and Blade wondered if danger was provoking some perverted version of the mating urge. Well, after all, here I am, veering toward a big, armored, dominant entity with my privates bared.

Log Biter would not approve of the comparison, I suppose.

As the wind pushed him toward the battleship — a thing so huge it rivaled nearby mountains — all sight of it vanished beneath the forward edge of his chitin carapace. It would be out of sight during final approach, an irony Blade did not find amusing.

Then, to his great surprise, there rushed into sight the very thing he had been longing for — a lake. A large one, dammed up behind the great cruiser, drowning the Festival Glade under hectares of cool snowmelt.

If they don’t shoot me down, he could not help speculating. If they fail to notice me, I might yet reach…

But how could they not spy this approaching gasbag? Surely they must already have him pinned by star-god instruments.

Sure enough, the tingling of Blade’s exposed feelers multiplied in rapid waves, as if they were being stroked — then stung — by a host of squirming shock worms. Not a sexual stirring, though. Instead the sensation triggered foraging instincts, causing his diamond-tipped incisors to snap reflexively, as if grabbing through mud at armored prey.

The feelers pick up magnetic and electric vibrations from hidden muck crawlers, he recalled.

Electromagnetic … I’m being scanned!

Each time he panted breath through a leg vent, another dura passed. The lake swelled, and he knew the ship must be almost directly below by now. What were they waiting for?

Then a new thought occurred to Blade.

I’m being scanned … but can they see me?

If only he had studied more science at the Tarek Town academy. Although grays tended to be better at abstractions — the reason why they took real names — Blade knew he should have insisted on taking that basic physics course.

Lets see. In human novels, they speak of “radar”… radio waves sent out to bounce off distant objects, giving away the location of intruders, for instance.

But you only get a good echo if it’s something radio will bounce off. Metal, or some other hard stuff.

Blade quickly pulled his teeth back in. Otherwise, his bottom was his softest part, featuring multifaceted planes that might deflect incoming rays in random directions. The gasbag, he figured, must seem hardly more dense than a rain cloud!

Now, if only the urrish altimeter would wait awhile longer before adjusting the balloon’s height, shooting hot flame with a roar to fill the night …

The tingling peaked … then started to diminish. Moments later, coolness stroked Blade’s underside and he sensed the allure of water below. Tentative relief came accompanied by worry, for cold air would increase his rate of sink.

Now? Shall I pull the cord, before the flames turn on and give me away?

Water beckoned. Blade yearned to wash the dust from his vent pores. Yet he held back. Even if his sudden plummet from the sky didn’t draw attention, he would land in the worst lake on Jijo, deep inside the Jophur defense perimeter, presumably patrolled by all sorts of hunter machines. Perhaps the robots had missed him till now because the possibility of floating qheuens had never been programmed into them. But a swimming qheuen most certainly was.