David Brin - Infinity's Shore

Bubbles burst past Lark’s breathing tube as he choked back a guffaw. Ling glanced his way, conveying agreement with a shake of her head. The second half of the message was more serious.

OTHER POSSIBILITY: OFFER JOPHUR WHAT THEY WANT.

BUY OUR FREEDOM!

Lark scanned the crowded statues, where many human faces wore expressions of desperation. He could not help feeling moved as they pleaded for their lives. In a way it’s not their fault. Their ancestors made a stupid deal on their behalf just as mine did. People must have been both crazed and gullible in those days, right after Earthlings first met Galactic culture.

It took effort to harden his heart, but Lark knew he must.

Again, Rann tried for the big writing tablet, but Ling wrote fiercely.

WHAT CAN YOU OFFER US, IN RETURN?

On seeing her message, Lark and Rann both stared at her. But Ling seemed unaware that her words carried a personal as well as general meaning. They turned again, giving the prisoners a chance to read and react to Ling’s demand. While sweeping the slow circle, Lark glanced toward her, but living goggles made direct eye contact impossible. Her rewq-mediated aura conveyed grim resolve.

Lark expected to find the captives in turmoil, upset by Ling’s implied secession. Then he realized. They only see us when our backs are turned. They may not even know it’s Rann and Ling out here, after all!

WHATEVER WE HAVE.

That was the frank answer, arrayed in shining letters.

Ling’s next message was as straight to the point.

RO-KENN RELEASED QHEUEN AND HOON PLAGUES.

MAYBE OTHERS.

CURE THEM, OR ROT.

At this resumed accusation, Rann nearly exploded. Strangled anger echoed in his pharynx, escaping as bubbles that Lark feared might carry his curses all the way to the far surface of the lake. The starman tried to grab the message board, briefly struggling with Ling. But when Lark made slashing motions across his throat, Rann glanced back as Jeni approached from the ship’s curved flank, brandishing her deadly bow, accompanied by two strong young qheuens.

Rann’s shoulders slumped. He went through the next turning time sweep mechanically. Lark heard a low, grating sound, and knew the big Danik was grinding his teeth.

Lark expected protestations of innocence from the imprisoned starfarers, and sure enough, when they next looked, the signboard proclaimed—

PLAGUES? WE KNOW NOTHING OF SUCH.

But Ling was adamant to a degree that clearly surprised Rann. Using forceful language, she told the captives — her former friends and comrades — to answer truthfully next time, or be abandoned to their fate.

That brought grudging admission, at last.

RO-KENN HAD OPTIONS,

HIS CHOICE TO USE SUCH MEANS.

GET US OUT.

WE CAN PROVIDE CURES.

Lark stared at the woman next to him, awed by the blazing intensity of her rewq aura. Till that moment, she must have held a slim hope that it was all a mistake … that Lark’s indictment of her Rothen gods had a flaw in it somewhere. That there was some alternative explanation.

Now every complicating what-if vanished. The flame of her anger made Rann’s seem like a pale thing.

While both Daniks fumed, each for different reasons, Lark took the wax board, wiped it, and wrote a reply.

PREPARE CURES AT ONCE.

BUT THERE IS MORE.

WE MUST HAVE ONE MORE THING.

It made sense that the Jophur used this weird weapon — pouring chemically synthesized time-stuff over their enemies. It suited their racial genius for manipulating organic materials. But in their contempt, the master rings had forgotten something.

They have cousins on Jijo, who are loyal to the Six.

True, local traekis lacked ambitious natures, and were unschooled in advanced Galactic science. Regardless, a team of talented local pharmacists had analyzed the substance — a viscous, quasi-living tissue — by taste alone. Without understanding its arcane temporal effects, they managed to secrete a counteragent from their gifted glands.

Unfortunately, it was no simple matter of applying the formula, then rubbing away the golden cocoon surrounding the Rothen ship. For one thing, the antidote was miscible with water. Applying it under a lake presented problems.

But there was a possible way. At Dooden Mesa, they found that the old mulc spider’s preservation beads could be pushed against the golden wall and made to merge with it, flowing into the barrier like stones sinking in soft clay.

Lark had more beads brought from the ancient treasure hoard of the being Dwer called One-of-a-Kind. Agile, five-clawed blues pushed several egg-shaped objects against the section of wall he indicated, opposite the hatch. These beads had been hollowed out and turned into bottles, stoppered at one end with plugs of traeki wax. Within each could be seen machines and other relics of the Buyur era, gleaming like insects caught in amber. Only now those relics seemed to float inside, sloshing in a frothy foam.

At first there were few visible results to the qheuens’ effort. The water resonated with bumps and clanks, but no merging occurred. Lark scribbled a command.

EVERYBODY DON’T LOOK!

Ling nodded vigorously. When earlier experiments were performed at the devastated g’Kek settlement, there had not been observers on the inside. No living ones, that is. Here, the scene was being watched, in a weird alternating manner, by people on both sides of the enclosure. Perhaps the unsymmetrical quantum effects meant that nothing would happen while people observed.

It took a while to make those within the ship understand that they should turn around, as well. But soon all the Rothen and humans on both sides swiveled away. Young qheuens pushed blindly, with vision cupolas drawn inside their horny shells. This has got to be the strangest way to get anything done, Lark thought, staring across a suffocated landscape, once the Festival Glade of the Commons of Six Races. All his life, teachers and leaders said if you want a job to go well, pay attention to what you are doing. But this reversed way of acting — where inattention was a virtue — reminded him how some Nihanese mystics in the Vale practiced “Zen arts” such as archery while blindfolded, cultivating detachment and readiness for the Path of Redemption.

Again he glanced at Ling, the star-voyaging biologist. Her aura still seethed, though now in cooler shades. She’s declared an end to her old allegiance. Does she have a new one yet? Other than revenge, that is? He wished they could go somewhere private — and dry — to talk, without the guarded gamesmanship of their earlier conversations. But Lark wasn’t sure she’d want the same thing. Just because his allegations had proved right, that did not mean she should bless him for smashing her childhood idols.

After counting a long interval, Ling nodded and they turned around again.

Rann grunted satisfaction, and Lark felt his heart race.

The beads had penetrated most of the way into the glowing cage! Hardworking blues bubbled satisfaction, then hurried toward the boo grove, fetching air from their makeshift snorkel.

Lark wrote a message to those inside the Rothen airlock.

EVERYBODY CLEAR OUT

BUT 2 SMALL HUMANS.

WEAR AIR SUPPLY.

BRING CURES!

When next he and his companions turned back toward the lock, it was nearly empty. Two women stood on the other side. Petite, though even through their swim-coverings he saw well-developed figures — buxom and wasp-waisted. Clearly, they must have taken advantage of the same cosmetic biosculpting that had made Ling, and the late Besh, so striking. It’s a different universe out there, where you can design yourself like a god.

Lark swam to where the tip of a mulc capsule protruded from the Jophur barrier. Most of the bead lay deep inside. At its far end the makeshift bottle’s hole was plugged by a thick wax seal.