Ascending

19: WHEREIN I ENCOUNTER MORE ALIENS; AND THEY ARE NOT NICE

The Drawbacks Of Photosynthesis

Moving through the corridors was a Buoyant Experience. At first, I thought this was simply the result of renewed health and purpose; but then I realized my step was lighter because I was lighter. Gravity aboard the ship had begun to diminish… and though I could not leap impossibly long distances, I certainly possessed more spring than usual. This was a most interesting experience, and it kept me amused (bounce, bounce, bounce!) all the way to the transport bay.

By the time we got to our destination, Festina had arrived too. This is an excellent trait in a Faithful Sidekick: anticipating where you will be and attending upon you. Of course, Festina feigned surprise to see me, and pretended she had merely come to await the people who had taken Hemlock in tow… but that is what she had to say, because an important navy admiral cannot admit she feels lost and lonely without her very best friend.

Uclod was in the transport bay too, which meant that he and Lajoolie found it necessary to have a tender reunion.

Their whisperings and touchings proved most vexatious, so I turned my back on them in a very pointed manner; but Festina, Aarhus, and Nimbus were no more amusing than the Divians, because Festina wanted to be told how Nimbus had induced baby Starbiter to cry for help. This led to much repetitious talk about outreach crusades and why it was not at all wrong for the cloud man to tickle his daughter… which was very quite boring, because I had heard it already.

My only recourse was to walk around the bay on my own, occasionally muttering in the hope someone would ask if I had achieved a brilliant insight. No one took notice at all, which made me annoyed and irritable… but just as I was about to berate them for their churlish lack of attention, the heat of my anger turned to spinning dizziness and I sat down hard on the floor.

Oof.

Living on light is a fine thing indeed, but it is not enough to sustain substantial activity. This explains why plants do not perform hand-springs. (That and the fact that plants have no hands.) I still carried an armload of glow-wands, but the energy they provided was not enough to keep me going if I persisted in moving about.

"Are you all right, Oar?" Festina called from somewhere behind me.

"I am fine," I said, forcing my voice to be strong. "I am simply…" For a moment, I could not think of a suitable excuse why I might have thumped down hard on the deck; but then I caught sight of the rainbow-colored hemlock tree painted on the wall not far from me. "I am simply contemplating the art," I said — because I did not want the others to treat me as a tottery invalid who could not participate in important activities.

"All right," Festina called. "You enjoy the art."

That is easy for her to say, I thought. The tree on the wall was not enjoyable in any way. For True Artistic Merit, a painting should have dried globs of pigment protruding from the surface so that viewers can pick off little bits and sniff what the paint smells like; at least that is what my sister and I concluded as we developed Our Own Personal Aesthetic with the ancient paintings on display in our home village. But the hemlock image in front of me was tediously two-dimensional, with no protruding bits at all. I was about to make an astute critical remark on this lack of texture, when I noticed the tree possessed a feature I had previously overlooked.

Two glowing red eyes burned dimly amidst the multicolored foliage… as if a certain headless creature was concealed behind the leaves.

Talking To The Painting

"Pollisand?" I whispered softly.

"Who else?" he replied. "The fucking Cheshire Cat?"

He was speaking in his normal raspy-sharp voice. I looked back quickly at the others, but they showed no sign of hearing him. Considering how loud he sounded in my ears, it seemed most strange they had not noticed.

"Nah," the Pollisand said, "your buddies aren’t in on this conversation. It’s just between you and me, sweetums."

"In other words, you are not really here. You are projecting sights and sounds into my mind again…" I stopped. "But I am not connected to Starbiter! How can you contact my brain when I am not linked to anything?"

"Hey," the Pollisand said, "didn’t I tell you I’m seventy-five trillion rungs above you on the evolutionary ladder? Why should I need a Zarett to do my projecting for me?"

"Hmm," I hmmed, thinking very hard. This Pollisand had a most irksome habit of not answering questions — he simply made it seem like he was responding, when he was really evading the subject. In this particular situation, it occurred to me he might be attempting to hide something most important indeed.

"Did you do something to me?" I asked in whispered outrage. "When you took me away and mended my bones, did you do more? Did you perhaps place a Scientific Device in my brain that allows you to link with me at anytime?"

"Ooo," said the Pollisand, "aren’t we clever! At least one of us is. Much cleverer than Dr. Havel. He didn’t find a thing. Then again, maybe there’s nothing to find."

The red eyes grew brighter and pushed out from the hemlock’s painted leaves. Attached to those eyes was the rest of the Pollisand’s body, moving outward too — then thickening from flat to fat and coming straight off the wall. If you have ever seen a large headless alien step out of a two-dimensional painting, this was exactly like that… only better, because it was happening to me.

Since I was still seated on the floor, his huge white body towered above my head. He looked very real as he yanked his rump free from the wall and flicked his short tail to brush flecks of paint off his hindquarters; but no one else in the room even glanced in our direction. This was indeed just a projected image, and my brain was the only one receiving the signal.

"What are you doing here?" I asked, still whispering. "Have you come to observe another dreadful mistake?"

"Hope not," he said. "But let’s see how you handle the Cashlings."

"So you will watch whether we anger them?"

"Of course I’ll watch. I’m always watching."

He gave a full-body shake, and stray bits of paint showered off him onto the floor. They also showered onto my legs, which I had tucked in front of me. Glaring at him, I wiped the tiny flakes of green and red and black off my previously clean thighs. Meanwhile, the Pollisand eased his bulk past me until he stood between me and the other people in the room; only I was in a position to see his eyes, glowing deep in his chest cavity.

Suddenly, the eyes burst into white-hot flame, such as when a forest fire strikes some bone-dry deposit of leaves and pine pitch. The flash of that light flared down upon me, so blinding I shut my eyes… but I could feel the radiance pouring through my body with great invigorating intensity. In less than a second, I was sizzling — the same sort of sizzle one experiences after a full week of basking in the brilliance of an Ancestral Tower.

The heat faded quickly. When I opened my eyes, the Pollisand was back to normal, only a dim crimson glow shining from his neckhole. He reached out a foot and patted me lightly on the cheek. "You’re such a skinny girl," he said with a strange feigned accent, "don’t you know you gotta eat? And not just cotton candy," he added, waving his foot at the glow-wands I still carried with me. "Those things got no nutrition — they’re ninety percent visible light, capiche? They go right through you, and where’s the good of that? A pretty girl oughta put meat on her bones. X-rays, gamma rays, microwaves: the high-energy stuff. Or maybe (such a radical thought!), you might try solid food once in a while. Okay, so a stranger’s cooking can’t match your mamma’s lasagna; you still gotta get some nourishment or you’ll shrivel down to a stick. How you gonna bump off the Shaddill if you keep starving yourself? I’m not always gonna be free to bring you take-out."

He finally paused for breath. Then he asked, "Feeling better now, bright-eyes?"

"Yes," I told him. "However, if this is all just a fiction projected into my brain, how can it affect me as if I was bathed in real light?"

"Oops," said the Pollisand, "look at the time. Gotta go, bambina. Ciao!"

With that, he simply vanished — not in a fancy way, but disappearing as abruptly as a light being turned off. His exit did not make the slightest sound.

I stared at the place where he had been. All those flecks of paint he shook onto the floor were gone, vanished like snow in a bonfire. When I looked at the tree on the wall, no red eyes stared back; there was just flat uninteresting paint.

"Hmph," I said to myself. As always, the Pollisand had proved himself an infuriating visitor… but I felt much better, no longer woozy.

Perhaps he was not quite the utter asshole he pretended to be.

Or perhaps he was simply preserving me for something worse later on.

The Advantages Of Immersing Oneself In Mindless Entertainment

Dumping my now-unnecessary glow-wands onto the floor, I rose to my feet and was halfway across the room when Nimbus said, "Listen!" Everyone went instantly silent; in the stillness, I could hear thumping noises to my right.

When I turned in that direction, I saw a heavy metal door embedded in the wall — the entry to the manual airlock. I had not noticed it before in the dim glow-wand light because it was painted the same flat white as the rest of the transport bay… as if someone wished to pretend the door was not even there. Perhaps the navy preferred to downplay the necessity for their ships to contain an emergency entrance.

"Okay," Festina murmured. "It’s showtime. Everybody on your best behavior."

Quickly I retrieved my Explorer jacket from Lajoolie and slipped it on — one must endeavor to look official when alien guests arrive. As I was fastening the front flaps, Uclod said, "Hey, here’s a wild thought: do any of us speak Cashling?"

"No need," Festina replied. "Cashlings spend every waking hour amusing themselves with entertainment bought from other species: Mandasar out-of-shell fantasies, Unity mask dances, human VR chips, the works. Makes Cashlings very cosmopolitan and knowledgeable about alien races. I guarantee whoever comes out of that airlock will speak colloquial English and understand mainstream human body language… as well as knowing the proper form of address for a Fasskister hetman, how to initiate a Greenstrider sex act, and which knife to use in a Myriapod auto-da-fe."

"Second knife from the left," Aarhus said. "The one with three black barbs and the engraving of the Horsehead Nebula."

We all stared at him.

"Hey," said Aarhus, "I have hidden depths."

Two Cashlings And Their Spacesuits

With another thump, the door opened. Two gawky figures stood on the other side, both wearing spacesuits of eye-watering flamboyance. One suit was a swirl of red and white stripes, the stripes spiraling down from top to toe and daubed with bright blue curlicues that might be letters in some alien alphabet. The decorations were just as thick around the helmet as anywhere else: if the helmet had a see-out visor, I could not discern where it was. The entire outfit seemed opaque.

The other suit was equally opaque and visorless, but sported an aggressive frost green background, with all manner of clashing violet images painted on top — animals and houses and fruit and farm implements… all of which might have been completely different objects than I believed, because with aliens, an item that appears to be a nice juicy peach may turn out to be your host’s nephew in temporary chrysalis form, so it is best not to be too hasty at the supper table.[11]

[11] — Or so I have been told by human Explorers. Explorers are extremely prone to lecturing on the Diverse Facets Of Alien Life… and then telling most entertaining stories ("This did not happen to me but to a friend") of instances when an Explorer did dare to eat a peach.

The figures wearing these suits were of course Cashlings; and they had assumed their walking configuration, with long long legs and almost no torso at all. You might think they would look ridiculous, as if their pants were hiked up to their armpits… but in fact, they had a sinister air that made me most queasy. They were all limbs and dangly, like giant spiders who had reared up to human height. Even their garish colors and ornamentation were not as clownish as one might expect — not when most of the light in the room came from the glow-wands I had left in the far corner. The lanky faceless Cashlings stood poised half in shadow, reminding one of flashy-hued snakes about to strike.

When they quitted the airlock chamber, the motion was fluid and fast: two steps and they both had reached us, more speedy than a human could run, though it appeared they were not exerting themselves. The swiftness of their approach was enough to make Lajoolie gasp and back away, tugging Uclod with her. Nimbus retreated too, curling more tightly around his child. Festina and Aarhus did not flinch, but I could see it cost them an effort — they clenched their jaws and silently held their ground as the Cashlings loomed in toward them, shoving their eyeless heads close to my friends’ faces.

Angry at these bullying tactics, I thrust myself forward and declaimed in a loud voice, "Greetings!"

The two Cashlings turned their blank rainbow helmets in my direction.

"I am a sentient citizen of the League of Peoples," I told them. "I beg your Hospitality."

For a moment, there was nothing but silence. Festina’s face looked aghast, as if I had made a hideous mistake speaking the League of Peoples’ words. It struck me belatedly there must have been a reason why she did not proclaim the speech herself; perhaps these Cashling ones took offense at rote recitations. But there was nothing to do except maintain my poise — stand straight with dignity, attempting to project cool confidence. The Cashlings remained motionless for another long moment… then broke into peals of laughter.

First Impressions

It was not true laughter as came naturally to my own race and humans — it was more an imitation, a mimicry from beings who knew the sound of laughter but not the sense. Festina had said these creatures were familiar with human ways from watching entertainment shows… but one had to ask how much entertainment they actually derived if they could put no genuine feeling into their ha-ha’s.

One also had to ask why they chose to respond to the League of Peoples’ greeting with guffaws… and insincere-sounding guffaws at that. But it would be imprudent to punch them in the nose for being discourteous; I did not even chide them as crazed and foolish ones under the influence of inappropriate chemicals in their brains. No, no — I was exercising diplomacy. Therefore, I simply glared at them with distaste, waiting for them to cease their nonsensical noise.

When they did stop laughing, they did not taper off; the laughs died abruptly, as if someone had grabbed the two Cashlings by their throats and squeezed very hard, then knocked their eyeless heads together with a resounding bang. (But that did not happen, because I was being Diplomatic.)

"Greetings yourself," said the red-and-white striped one. Though it spoke Earthling words, its voice was nonhuman: not just one tone but many, as if a dozen people were softly murmuring the phrase in unison. I recalled the pictures I had seen of Cashlings, with a multitude of mouths spread over their bodies.

Clearly, this Cashling could speak out of several mouths at once… and perhaps it had to do that in order to be heard, for its multiple lungs were all much smaller than a real person’s. No single mouth had enough air power to achieve acceptable audibility; the only way to produce sufficient volume was to make one’s mouths speak together.

The red-and-white Cashling had not finished talking. With a single step, it crossed the space between us and thrust its head close to mine. "You are so… so…" It made a whooshing sound that might have been a sigh or a word in its own language. One hand lifted toward my face; I thought it was going to touch my cheek, but suddenly it seized the front of my jacket and ripped the coat open wide. "What are you?" it cried, bending down to press its helmet between my wallabies, as if it were staring straight into my chest. "Apart from being the ugliest alien I’ve ever seen."

Before I could respond in a fitting manner, Festina threw her arm around me in a gesture that no doubt appeared companionable… while serving the purpose of restraining me from committing a Spontaneous Act Of Diplomacy on someone’s intrusive face. "Oar’s ancestors were human," Festina told the Cashling. "But her race was redesigned several thousand years ago."

"As some sort of punishment?" the frost green one asked.

"No," I said. "As a gift."

The other one was still peering into me, as if it could actually discern something within my glass anatomy. Perhaps it could; Festina had said these Cashling ones could see far into the infrared and ultraviolet, and I have been told I am not transparent on those wavelengths. The red-and-white creature with its face against my chest might be watching my lungs breathe and my heart beat… which was outrageously impudent, since I could not see those things myself. "What are you looking at?" I snapped, stepping back and haughtily fastening my coat again.

"I was looking at you," the red-and-white Cashling said. Once more it stepped in close, but this time it leaned to one side and thrust its helmet within a hair’s breadth of my ear. I had the uncomfortable feeling it was staring straight into my brain; and that made me feel most soiled, for all my parts are supposed to be invisible, and I did not want some hideous alien implying I was actually opaque.

"Most fascinating," the Cashling said, one whispery voice at my ear, while more voices murmured the same words up and down its body. "I always thought humans were the ugliest creatures in the galaxy, but at least they have some charms." It lifted its head and turned toward Festina, who was still quietly holding me back from delivering a lesson in manners. "You, for example," the Cashling said. "Lovely purple splotch on your face. Blazingly conspicuous. Are you splotchy all over?"

This time, it was I who had to prevent an outburst of Extreme Diplomatic Behavior.

The Giving Of Names

"Perhaps," said Nimbus, gliding forward with dispatch, "we should begin by introducing ourselves. I am—"

"A vassal species," the striped Cashling interrupted. "Who doesn’t know his place. If I ever need to know your name… well, I’ll cut out all my hearts and immerse myself in acid before I sink that low, so the problem will never arise. As for the rest of you — my human name is Lord Ryan Ellisander Petrovaka LaSalle, and this is my wife, the Lady Belinda Astragoth Umbatti Carew."

"Those sound like Earth names," I whispered to Festina.

"They are," she replied, with a wary glance at the aliens. "Cashlings have a fondness for acquiring names and titles from other cultures. Sometimes through legitimate purchase, sometimes through… different means."

Festina gave me a pointed look, as if I could guess what these "different means" were. I suppose she wished to imply theft or some other manner of crime… but I could not imagine how one went about stealing a name. Names are not the type of thing one can stealthily remove from another person’s room. Then again, these aliens enslaved hapless victims of space accidents; perhaps they had devised a Science technique for expunging a slave’s name from his or her brain so the Cashling could acquire the name instead. If so, it was a fearsome violation of personal identity… and something this pair of aliens must have done frequently if they had acquired such lengthy appellations as Lord Ryan Ellisander Petrovaka LaSalle and Lady Belinda Astragoth Umbatti Carew.

"And of course," the frost-green Lady Belinda added, "we have different names for interacting with different races. Human names for handling humans, Divian names for dealing with Divians…"

"By the way," the striped Lord Ryan said to Uclod and Lajoolie, "my name is Proctor-General Rysanimar C. V. Erinoun and my wife is Detective-Sergeant Bellurif Y. J. Klashownie."

Uclod opened his eyes wide and mouthed the phrase Detective-Sergeant. Perhaps he was scoffingly dubious… or perhaps, as a criminal, he was disconcerted to encounter someone who claimed a connection with the constabulary. Then again, he might simply have been impressed by anyone who could pilfer the very name from a detective-sergeant.

"Which brings us to you," the lady Cashling said, turning in my direction. "What sort of names do your people use?"

I stared back at her. "If you are Belinda to humans and Bellurif to Divians, on my planet you might be called Bell. A bell is a metal object that makes a melodious sound."

"I know what a bell is, you idiot." Only half her usual voices spoke the words — the rest of her mouths hissed angrily, as if I had demeaned her intelligence. "And what sort of honorifics do you use? Princess Bell? Queen Bell? Saint Bell?"

"None of those," I said. "You would just be Bell. A bell is a metal object that makes a melodious sound… when struck."

Festina placed her foot heavily on my toe in a Gesture Of Admonishment.

"So," said the stripy male Cashling, "I suppose my name would have to be Rye."

"Yes. Rye is a type of grain that can be made into a beverage."

"A good beverage?"

"Opinions differ," Festina said. "Now, if you’d like us to introduce ourselves—" "No," Lady Bell interrupted. "You’re slaves. You have no names. You may think you do, but we’ll soon wipe that out of you."

"Before you do anything irreversible," said Festina, "we’d like to talk to your prophet about ransom."

"Would you really?" Lord Rye asked. "Then go ahead. I’m the prophet."

Vexatious Bickering

Lady Bell whirled on him. "No," she snapped. Many of her mouths made sharp under-hisses. "Today I’m the prophet."

"You’re mistaken, darling." The word "darling" was stressed most oddly; as with the Cashlings’ attempt at laughter, I got the impression Lord Rye was endeavoring to imitate something he did not understand. "You were the prophet yesterday. At that rally on Jalmut."

"That was two days ago, darling. Therefore you were prophet yesterday, and it’s my turn again."

"But I didn’t do anything prophetic yesterday — we spent the whole day just getting free of Jalmut airspace. Darling."

"That’s not my fault, darling darling. You had plenty of time to do holy work. You could have whipped up a sacred revelation."

"One doesn’t whip up revelations," Lord Rye said with many supplementary hisses. "They’re supposed to come naturally. And they haven’t of late." He made a whining noise. "I think I have prophet’s block."

"Then I definitely should be prophet today." The lady turned to us all, sweeping her hands outward in a gracious gesture. "My friends — by which I mean, my worthless alien chattel — I am the Exalted Prophet Bell. Just a moment."

She reached to the neck of her spacesuit, slipped some sort of latch, and removed her helmet. Underneath she looked exactly like her suit… which is to say, frost green dappled with violet bits. The bits were not clean-edged pictures like the ones on her clothes, but they were similar in size and color. Either the woman had tattooed herself to match her suit, or the suit had been decorated with little images that were chosen to be close matches for the natural spottles on the lady’s skin.

She had no discernible eyes, nose, or mouth… or rather, she had numerous pocks and indentations all over her head which probably served as the usual facial organs, but when a creature has dozens of small eyes instead of two normalsized ones, it is just not the same at all. How, for example, can one tell where the person is looking? And how can one read emotional expressions when the alien’s face cannot smile, pout or frown? Perhaps that is why the Cashlings always moved with extravagant gestures, waving their hands and bobbing their bodies — with no facial features to convey emotion, they were forced to act everything out.

"That’s better," Bell said as mouths all over her face sucked at the Hemlock’s air. "Now you wished to discuss ransom? I’m amenable. Your Outward Fleet has notoriously deep pockets."

"We don’t need to bring the Admiralty into this," Festina replied. "I can pay all our ransoms with property I have ready to hand."

"Property?" Bell repeated. "You have no property, slave. The ship is ours. Its equipment is ours. Even your clothes are ours… although Miss See-Through Savage can keep her flea-bitten jacket. Dis gust ing."

"I was thinking of a different sort of property," Festina told her. "Intellectual property."

"Oh merde," said Lord Rye, with many mouths sighing. "You aren’t going to offer us military secrets, are you?" By now, he too had removed his helmet; unsurprisingly, his head was striped red-and-white like his suit. "Some crusade thirty years ago accepted military secrets as a ransom, then couldn’t sell them to anyone. Nobody cared."

"Don’t be ridiculous, darling," Lady Bell told him, "that’s a complete myth. A legend. Probably started by the Outward Fleet itself to discourage espionage." She turned back to Festina. "What kind of military secrets are we talking about? Access codes? Crypto algorithms? Names of spies in Cashling space?"

"I didn’t say I was offering military secrets," Festina replied.

"Then what are you offering?"

"Military secrets. But not the kind you think. These secrets are fat, wet, and juicy. The kind a news agency would pay millions for. And it’s all yours if you’ll let us go."

Festina began the story of Alexander York and his expose. Since I had heard this tale before, I did not pay attention; instead, I looked for something in the transport bay I might find amusing. There was very little there — I could not spot the Pollisand hiding in tree paintings, and the rest of the room was bare… except for the people, of course: Festina, the Cashlings, Aarhus, Uclod, Lajoolie… and Nimbus.

The cloud man was floating some distance away from the rest of our party. He had clearly been offended by Rye dismissing Zaretts as a vassal race; therefore, Nimbus had withdrawn, hovering like a storm cloud against the rear wall of the chamber. As his sibling-in-Shaddillhood, I did not like to see him upset… and anyway, it was tedious listening to Festina speak of things I already knew, so I sidled away from the group and went to offer Nimbus some sisterly consolation.

Umushu

"Hello," I said softly. "How are you feeling?"

Since he did not have eyes, Nimbus could not glare in bitter remonstrance; but the shudder that went through his mist conveyed a similar response. "Why should you care about the feelings of a vassal race?"

"Do not blame me for an alien’s words." Lowering my voice, I added, "In my opinion, these prophets are arrogant and hurtful. Are all Cashlings like that?"

"They’re all fools," Nimbus answered in a fierce whisper. "Dangerous ones."

I looked back at the Cashlings’ spindly bodies; they had shown they could move most quickly, but they did not look strong enough to punch with any great effect. "How are they dangerous?" I asked.

A tendril of his mist swirled toward me, brushing my cheek like tingly dust. "They’re umushu," the tendril whispered softly into my ear.

"What is that?" I whispered back.

"A fictional monster from Divian folklore. A corpse whose spirit has departed but who doesn’t fall down. Going through the motions of life, but no longer truly conscious."

"Lord Rye and Lady Bell are zombies?" I asked with delectable horror.

"Not real ones… but they might as well be." The dusty tendril of his being still hovered close to my ear, brushing lightly against my skin. "There’s something missing in Cashlings: some important spark has burnt out. Admiral Ramos told you they waste most of their lives with entertainment, bought from other species; and they spend the rest of their time on crusades, which are just another form of hollow amusement. Crusades don’t really mean anything to them — it’s just that their ancestors organized crusades, so the current generation does too. Do you think those prophets genuinely have anything to say about life?"

"No… but how does that make them dangerous?"

Nimbus did not answer right away. Finally he said, "Think about people on your planet, Oar — the ones with Tired Brains. Suppose that instead of lying dormant in towers, they actually moved around. Suppose they had parties, they traveled to other cities, they pretended to practice spiritual devotions… but their brains were still Tired. It was all just sleepwalking. They never built or manufactured anything, they never did anything new, they never dreamed of change; they simply lived in automated habitats filled with machines that did the bothersome work of keeping everyone alive. Wouldn’t that be a form of hell?"

I did not answer immediately. The conditions Nimbus described were perilously close to the reality of my world not just the state of my ancestors, but my own state through much of my life: creating nothing, and living by the grace of machines. "It would be most suffocating to the soul," I said at last. "But I do not see how it could be dangerous to other persons."

"It’s dangerous," Nimbus whispered, "it’s terrifyingly dangerous. Because after seeing the Cashlings, everyone else wants to be that way too."

The Resentment Of Vassals

"Everyone would wish to be Cashlings?" I whispered. "How can that be? They are awful."

"Other species agree with you," Nimbus replied, his whisper most gloomy. "They despise the Cashlings… then try to live exactly like them."

"That is nonsense!"

"Yes, it is. But nevertheless, it’s happening. Believe me, I know — belonging to a vassal race teaches you a lot about your masters."

"But you work for Uclod, not Cashlings."

His mist fluttered. "Do you know how old I am?"

"No."

"Over two hundred Terran years. I’ve worked for all the local races."

I stared at him. "You are two hundred years old? That is quite most astonishing."

"Why?" the cloud man asked. "You and I are Shaddill technology; you’re virtually immortal, so why shouldn’t I be? In fact, I should be more immortal than you — the Shaddill created your race 4,500 years ago, while my race is less than a thousand. If the Shaddill continued to make scientific advances all that time, my design is 3,500 years more sophisticated than yours."

"Oh foo!" I exclaimed in outrage. Then I remembered we were supposed to be whispering and glanced around guiltily to see if anyone else had heard me. The other people in the transport bay showed no signs of noticing — the room was large, and we were quite some distance removed. Besides, everyone was still listening intently to Festina speak of Alexander York… though mostly they were listening to the Cashlings ask irrelevant questions about the whole business. Festina could only utter a few words at a time before Bell and Rye interrupted with more pointless quibbles.

I turned back to Nimbus and whispered sharply, "You are not more advanced than I!"

"Maybe not," he agreed. "I’m only a vassal race."

"Do not pretend to be pitiable. I do not see anyone persecuting you."

"Apart from the fact that I’m owned? That I’m a slave? That I’m sent to impregnate females I’ve never met before, I stay long enough to deliver the baby and get a bit attached to it, then off I go to some new master fifty lightyears away, never to see my mates or children again? You don’t call that persecution?"

I stared at him… or perhaps I was staring at the infant Starbiter clutched tight in his belly. Perhaps it was not coincidence that he carried the child as a pregnant woman does — not in his hands but in the center of his being, at his body’s core. "Very well," I whispered, "it is persecution. Your species is callously mistreated… though I shall not call you a vassal race, for I do not think of you that way."

"Everyone else does," he said, "and that’s how I know about Cashlings. Not to mention it’s how I know that all other sentient races are hell-bent on becoming Cashlings."

"Explain," I said.

And he did.

Coveting Folly

Though the majority of Zarett ships were owned by Divians, a number had been sold to alien races as well. More precisely, Divian breeders sold female Zaretts to non-Divians; they then leased male Zaretts (at high cost) to the aliens whenever paternalish services were required.

Therefore, as Nimbus said, he had spent his life drifting from one stud position to another, only staying long enough to mate with a Zarett female, help with the birth, and attend the first months of motherhood. Such a forced impermanence saddened him deeply; but it had also given him a unique chance to observe alien species at their most unguarded. Most of the time, the aliens did not know they were being watched — male Zaretts were microscopic eyes and ears hiding in a starship’s walls, watching their "masters" at work and play.

Very much play. Very little work. Especially in alien species who had been Scientific for a long long time.

Nimbus spoke of diverse alien races — Earthlings and Divians and Cashlings and several other species whose names did not stick in my mind — but they all had two qualities in common. First, they had been "uplifted" by the Shaddill: approached in their native star systems, given new homes elsewhere in the galaxy, and presented with sophisticated Science Gifts as a welcome to the League of Peoples. Second, ever since their uplift, these species had all grown more decadent, temperamental, and culturally sterile… particularly those uplifted for the longest period.

As a simple example, one could compare Cashlings with humans. Cashlings had been uplifted four thousand years ago; with humans, it was only four hundred. You therefore might expect the Cashlings to be more sophisticated in the ways of technology, having had so much longer to develop… but in fact, the Cashlings were not superior at all. Partly, this was because Cashling civilization had lost all interest in Scientific Research. In addition, whatever advanced knowledge they did once possess they had speedily bartered to Homo sapiens in exchange for VR adventures, situation comedy broadcasts, and glossy picture books.

The Cashlings had sold their technology to other alien races as well — which meant every species now possessed the know-how to build self-repairing cities that could satisfy the physical requirements of inhabitants without those inhabitants needing to work. ( Much like our cities on Melaquin, I thought.) And gradually, such places were being constructed by other species, humans and Divians and all.

Most of these other species declaimed loudly they were not imitating the despised Cashlings but simply exploiting Cashling technology… yet little by little, these races declined into lifestyles indistinguishable from the Cashling mode. Idle entertainment. The pursuit of faddish excuses for profundity. A deadened inner emptiness, reinforced by a self-righteous conviction there was no more worthwhile way to live — not that they felt satisfied with their own way of life, but they held an unquestioned certainty that no one possessed anything better.

So the diverse races of the galaxy were drifting toward the feckless ways of the Cashlings. Was this not the case with the human navy? Filled with venal admirals like Alexander York and puffed-up captains like Prope, not to mention foolish but inept saboteurs like Zuni. As for Divians, what could one say about the villainous marriage brokers who threatened to kill Lajoolie’s family if she did not perfectly satisfy Uclod? Wicked, arrogant, and self-centered.

Of course, Lajoolie herself was not so bad. Neither was Uclod… nor Festina… nor perhaps Sergeant Aarhus and various other persons I had met…

When I voiced this objection, Nimbus said it merely demonstrated that Earthlings and Divians had notprogressed so far into decadence as other species. Their races had only been uplifted for a few centuries; though decline was definitely creeping in, it had not yet infected everyone. Given a few more generations, however, Earthlings and Divians were headed for the same ghastly foolishness as Cashlings.

And apparently, Cashlings were very foolish indeed. Nimbus told me of numerous Cashling misdeeds he had observed over the years while riding in female Zaretts: Cashlings neglecting to pack sufficient hydrocarbons for long voyages… never bothering to calculate an optimal flight path, but simply aiming toward the apparent position of one’s destination… forgetting the difference between internal and external gravity, and consequently landing their spaceships upside-down…

I giggled at that, but Nimbus said it was Not Funny, Oar, It Was Tragic. At one time, the Cashlings had been a great people — intelligent, sensitive, and thoughtful. They had created some of the greatest visual art in the galaxy; they had cared passionately about color and form and meaning. But that was long ago and those artworks were gone: sold off to pay for foolish games and amusements from other species. Soon there would be nothing left… and no one could tell what the Cashlings would do with themselves when they could no longer squander their ancient heritage to pay for short-term diversions.

"Perhaps," I suggested, "they will rouse themselves from fruitless indulgence and embark upon lives of industry."

Nimbus’s mist swirled a moment. "No, Oar. They’re no longer capable." He paused. "A lot of non-Cashling planets have Cashling communities: outreach crusades travel all over the galaxy, leaving bored drop-outs on every planet they pass. If someone doesn’t take care of those Cashlings, they simply languish and die; they’re too accustomed to having everything done by machines. That includes machines to rear their children — if a baby comes along, a Cashling mother has no idea how to raise an infant and no desire to learn. As a result, there’ve been lots of Cashling children raised by foster parents from different races… and those kids are just as useless as other Cashlings, no matter what their adoptive families do. Petulant. Disdainful. Negligible attention span. Unable to function, unwilling to be taught." Nimbus made a sighing sound. "Even children brought up with no knowledge of Cashling ways still grow up to be Cashlings. Every last one of them. Nature completely defeating nurture."

"But why is that odd?" I asked. "Rabbit babies grow up to be rabbits. Wolf babies grow up to be wolves. All creatures have instincts, and instincts cannot be erased."

"But Cashling instincts have been erased," Nimbus whispered intensely. "That’s the point, Oar, that’s the whole point. Cashlings haven’t always been useless. Before they were uplifted, they had a thriving ambitious culture. If nothing else, they certainly possessed the instinct to raise their own children. Now they don’t. None of them. Too flighty and easily bored. The only ones with the tiniest bit of initiative are the prophets, and you can see what they’re like."

His misty hand wafted dismissively in the direction of Lord Rye and Lady Bell. "It’s not surprising that affluence leads some people to indolence, but there should be others who buck the trend. Cunning schemers who want everybody else under their thumb, or strong-willed crusaders who fight to change the world. Cashling history has had plenty of striking individuals, both good and bad… but not in the past few millennia. No conquerors, no heroes, no devils, no saints." He paused. "The only way to explain such a universal absence is some crucial degeneration in the Cashling genome: a dominant mutation that’s made them all peevish and ineffectual."

"In other words," I said, "some dire calamity has afflicted them with Tired Brains."

"Exactly. And the same thing is happening to other species. Fasskisters, for example the greatest mastersof nanotech in our sector, but these days they hardly work at all. Oh, they still take jobs if they find the assignment amusing (and if the price is right); but they haven’t initiated anything themselves for quite some time. They don’t dream up projects on their own. It’s as if they’re incapable of imagining what they might do: they need an outside commission to kick them into activity."

When the cloud man used the word "kick," I could not help picturing the way I needed to kick elderly persons on Melaquin in order to elicit any response. Hesitantly I asked, "What do young people think of this, Nimbus? The young Fasskisters and Cashlings. Do they ever look around and say, Why are things not better? What is wrong with us that we cannot accomplish great deeds? Why do we waste hours and days and years on activities we know achieve nothing? How can we stop being broken?"

The cloud man’s mist floated close to me, becoming fog all around my eyes. I had the feeling he had actually surrounded me, wrapped himself about my body, enfolding me until I too looked like a creature of mist. "Of course they ask such questions," he whispered. "Once in a while. When they can force themselves to concentrate. Out in the depths of space, lightyears away from anything, I’ve watched Cashlings weep over who they are… who they aren’t… what their race has become. That’s how prophets are born: a moment of clarity, the desire to transform themselves and the universe.

"But," he continued, "it never lasts. They can’t make it last. They’re damaged, Oar — even if they experience a flash of profundity, they can’t sustain it, they can’t use it, they can’t preserve the desire to change. I’ve watched them; they can’t become anything else, not even with other species to learn from. They simply lack the capacity. The Cashlings are lost, and other races are following them into the darkness. On their best days, they long to be truly alive… but they’re physically incapable of pushing themselves past the emptiness." He paused. "You can’t imagine their heartbreak when they realize they can’t make it work."

"I believe I can imagine it," I said. My eyes had gone misty… and the mist was not cloud.