David Brin - Infinity's Shore

“Hey, this is a mulc swamp! We’re walkin’ right into a spider!”

Dwer nodded, acknowledging Rety’s comment without words. If she wanted to leave, she knew the way back.

Spiders were common enough on the Slope. Youngsters went exploring through mulc dens, though you risked getting acid burns if you weren’t careful. Now and then, some village child died of a foolish mistake while venturing too deep, yet the attraction held. High-quality Buyur relics were often found where vine beasts slowly etched the remains of bygone days.

Folk legends flourished about the creatures, whose bodies were made up by the vines themselves. Some described them talking to rare members of the Six, though Dwer had never met anyone else who admitted that it happened to them. He especially never heard of another mulc spider like One-of-a-Kind, who actively lured living prey into its web, sealing “unique” treasures away in coffins of hardening jell.

You met that one? The mad spider of the heights?

You actually shared thoughts with it? And escaped?

How exceptionally interesting.

Your mind patterns are very clear for an ephemeral

That is rare, as mayflies go.…

How singular you are.

Yes, that was the way One-of-a-Kind used to speak to him. This creature was consistent. Or else Dwer’s imagination was.

The words returned, carrying a note of pique.

You flatter yourself to think you could imagine an entity as sublime as myself! Though I admit, you are intriguing, for a transitory being.

So you need verification of my objective reality? How might I prove myself?

Rather than answer directly, Dwer kept his thoughts reserved. Languidly, he contemplated that it would be interesting to see the vines in front of him move.

As if at your command? An amusing concept.

But why not?

Come back in just five days. In that brief time, you will find all of them shifted to new locales!

Dwer chuckled contemptuously, under his breath.

Not quickly enough, my wanton friend? You have seen a mulc being move faster?

Ah, but that one was crazed, driven mad by isolation, high altitude, and a diet of psidrenched stone. It grew unwholesomely obsessed with mortality and the nature of time. Surely you do not expect such undignified haste from me?

Like One-of-a-Kind, this spider could somehow tap Dwer’s human memory, using it to make better sentences — more articulate speech — than he ever managed on his own. But Dwer knew better than to bandy words. Instead, he willed himself to turn around.

Wait! You intrigue me. The conversations our kind share among ourselves are so languid. Torpid, you might say, featuring endless comparisons of the varied dross we eat. The slow-talk grows ever more tedious as we age…

Tell me, are you from one of the frantic races who have lately settled down to a skittering life beyond the mountains? The ones who talk and talk, but almost never build?

Behind Dwer, Rety murmured, “What’s goin’ on!” But he only motioned for her to follow him away from the mulc cords.

All right! On a whim, I’ll do it. I shall move for you!

I’ll move as I have not done in ages.

Watch me, small flickering life-form. Watch this!

Dwer glanced back, and saw several vines tremble. The tremors strengthened, dura after dura, tightening and releasing till several of the largest bunched in a knotty tangle. More duras passed … then one loop popped up out of the water, rising high, dripping like some amphibious being, emerging from its watery home.

It was confirmation, not only of the spider’s mental reality, but of Dwer’s own sane perception. Yet he quashed all sense of acknowledgment or relief. Rather, Dwer let a feeling of disappointment flow across his surface thoughts.

A fresh shoot of lesser boo moves that much, in the course of a day’s growth, he pondered, without bothering to project the thought at the spider.

You compare me to boo?

Boo?

Insolent bug! It is you who are a figment of my imagination! You may be nothing but an undigested bit of concrete, or a piece of bad steel, perturbing my dreams.…

No, wait! Don’t leave yet. I sense there is something that would convince you.

Tell me what it is. Tell me what would make you acknowledge me, and talk awhile.

Dwer felt an impulse to speak directly. To make his wishes known in the form of a request. But no. His experience with One-of-a-Kind had taught him. That mulc beast might have been mad, but it clearly shared some properties of personality with its kind.

Dwer knew the game to play was “hard to get.” So he let his idea leak out in the form of a fantasy … a daydream. When Rety tried to interrupt again, he made a slashing motion for quiet while he went on picturing what a spider might do to convince him it was real. The sort of thing Dwer would find impressive.

The mulc being’s next message seemed intrigued.

Truly?

And why not?

The new dross to which you refer already had me concerned. Those great heaps of refined metal and volatile organic poisons — I have not dealt with such purified essences in a very long time.

Now you worry that the dross might fly away again, to pollute some part of Jijo beyond reach of any mulc being? You fear it may never be properly disposed of?

Then worry no more, my responsible little ephemeral! It will be taken care of.

Just leave it to me.

Alvin

I WAS RIGHT! THE PHUVNTHUS ARE EARTHLINGS! I haven’t figured out the little amphibians yet, but the big six-legged creatures? They are dolphins. Just like the ones in King of the Sea or The Shining Shore … only these talk and drive spaceships! How uttergloss.

And there are humans.

Sky humans!

Well, a couple of them, anyway.

I met the woman in charge — Gillian is her name. Among other things, she said some nice words about my journal. In fact, if they ever succeed in getting away from here, and returning to Earth, she promises to find an agent for me and get it published.

Imagine that. I can’t wait to tell Huck.

There’s just one favor Gillian wants in return.

Ewasx

OH, HOW THEY PREVARICATE!

Is this what it means to take the Downward Path?

Sometimes a citizen race decides to change course, rejecting the destiny mapped out for it by patron and clan. The Civilization of the Five Galaxies allows several traditional avenues of appeal, but if all other measures fail, one shelter remains available to all — the road that leads back, from starfaring sapience to animal nature. The route to a second chance. To start over again with a new patron guiding your way.

This much I/we can understand. But must that path have an intermediate phase, between citizen and dumb beast? A phase in which the half-devolved species becomes lawyers?

Their envoys stand before us now, citing points of Galactic law that were handed down in sacred lore. Especially verbose is the g’Kek emissary. Yes, My rings, you identify this g’Kek as Vubben — a “friend and colleague” from your days as Asx the traeki. Oh, how that sage-among-sooners nimbly contorts logic, contending that his folk are not responsible for the debt his kind owes our clan, by rule of vendetta. A debt of extinction.

The senior Priest-Stack aboard our ship insists we must listen to this nonsense, for form’s sake, before continuing our righteous vengeance. But most of the Polkjhy crew stacks side with our Captain-Leader, whose impatience-with-drivel steams with each throbbing pulse of an angry mulching core. Finally, the Captain-Leader transmits a termination signal to Me/us. To faithful Ewasx.

“ENOUGH!” I interrupt Vubben in loud tones of Oailie decisiveness. All four of his eyestalks quail in surprise at my harsh resonance.