Convergence
Convergence
It was a sobering thought: to
contemplate a whole world, with all its diverse environments and its swarming life-forms.
And then to reflect that you were apparently the only one of those myriad forms who
sweated-or needed to.
Louis Nenda wiped his forehead with a
fuzzy piece of cloth, and as a second thought mopped his bare chest and his dripping
armpits. Although it wasn't yet noon in Genizee's forty-two-hour day, the temperature had
to be around a hundred. Humid, hot, and horrible, like the inside of a steam boiler. Nenda
looked up, seeking the disk of Genizee's orange-yellow sun. He couldn't see it. The
annular singularities that shielded the planet were strong today. Louis saw nothing more
than a swirl of colors, shifting in patterns that defeated the eye's attempt to track
them.
A whistling grunt brought his attention
back to more mundane concerns. Half a dozen Zardalu were dragging a ten-meter cylinder
along the flat sandy shore for his inspection. No sign of discomfort in them. The
midnight-blue bodies of the land-cephalopods, protected by their waxy outer leather,
seemed impervious to either heat or cold.
The Zardalu paused respectfully, half a
dozen paces from Louis Nenda, and bent to touch their broad heads to the beach.
"The Great Silent One found this in
one of the interior tunnels."
Nenda stared down at the prone figures
stretching their tentacles six meters and more along the beach. The leading Zardalu was
using the clicks and whistles of the old language, the ancient Zardalu Communion slave
talk. It lacked a decent technical vocabulary, but Louis was willing to put up with that.
The master-slave relationship was all that mattered.
"She told you to bring it here?"
"The Great Silent One indicated that
to us. I am sorry, Master, but we are still unable to understand the Great Silent One's
speech."
"Atvar H'sial's not easy to
understand. Maybe you'll catch on one day, when you get a bit smarter."
Louis prayed, not for the first time, that
this particular day would be a long time coming. If the Zardalu ever really caught on . .
.
"Do you think, Master, that this
might be the missing component?"
"Could be. Have to study it before I
can be sure. Leave it here. Now get back inside, and help the Great Silent One."
"Yes, Master. Let us pray that this
is indeed the necessary component. For all our sakes."
Nenda watched them as they retreated
toward one of the holes that led to the interior. They weren't groveling as much as usual.
And that last crack hadn't sounded quite as subservient as it should. "For all our
sakes." Maybe it was his imagination, but it sounded more like a threat than a
prayer.
Even so, he was glad to see them go. Those
huge beaks were big enough to bite him in half. The great tentacles could tear a human
limb from limb. Louis had seen it done.
And some day soon, he might see it done
again. Or feel it.
How long had it been? He squinted up again
toward the invisible sun. Nearly two months. He and Atvar H'sial had stalled the Zardalu
for all that time, pretending that they had the know-how to take the Indulgence out to
space and away from Genizee. When the Zardalu found out that Nenda and Atvar H'sial were
as trapped on the planet as they were, it would all be over.
It wasn't the ship; he was sure of that.
The Indulgence was perfectly spaceworthy. It was those damned annular singularities, the
eye-twisting glow that he was peering at now, and the Builder Constructs that controlled
them. They made space off-limits to anything that started up from the surface of Genizee.
How long before the Zardalu latched on to the fact that Louis was as helpless as they
were?
Louis went across to the cylinder that
they had dumped on the beach, and sat down on one end of it. He inspected it, bending over
with his head tucked down between his knees to examine its hollow inside. An old piece of
air circulation ducting, by the look of it. About as able to fly into space as Louis
himself.
The sweat was trickling down his inverted
face and into his eyes. Louis straightened up and mopped again with the sodden cloth. The
sea, a hundred yards away across the beach, was cool and tempting. Louis would have been
in for a dip hours ago, if he hadn't long since learned of the fanged horrors that swam
beneath the calm surface. They made the Zardalu seem tame.
He might as well head for the tunnel
system and see how Atvar H'sial was doing. It would be dark there, and clammy, but it
would be cooler.
Louis eased his way off the air duct and
stood for a moment in thought. Something felt a little bit different. What was it? Maybe
sitting with his head down had made him dizzy. It sure wasn't any improvement in the
weather. It was hotter than ever. Even the top of his skull felt as though it was burning
up.
He put up a hand to rub at his dark matted
hair. He was burning up. His hair felt hot. Maybe he was getting sick. That would be just
what he needed, to catch some alien planet's bug, out in the ass-end of nowhere, where the
native drugs and painkillers didn't work unless you happened to have a beak and blue
tentacles.
Louis removed his hand from his head. As
he did so he caught a flicker of movement on the ground in front of him. He stared,
blinked, and stared again. He was seeing something there: something that could not be. He
was seeing a shadow.
His own shadow. Louis spun around and
stared up. The unshielded sun was visible, bright and glaring. For the first time since he
and Atvar H'sial set foot on Genizee, the swirling light of the annular singularities had
vanished.
Louis gazed directly at the marigold sun
for at least two seconds-long enough so that when he stopped he saw nothing but dark,
pulsing circles. Even before they faded, he was running.
He had to get to the interior tunnels. He
had to find Atvar H'sial, and bring her to the surface before any of the Zardalu saw what
had happened and realized its possible significance.
The sun's after-images blinded him to what
lay ahead. Close to the entrance of the tunnel he ran full tilt into a springy surface
that bounced him away onto the sand. Nenda heard a deep grunt. Three jointed limbs reached
down and raised him effortlessly to his feet.
"Louis Nenda, save your energy for
the future." The pheromonal message diffused across to him from Atvar H'sial, with a
subtext of concern and warning. "I fear we have troubles ahead."
The giant Cecropian set him gently onto
the sand. The creature towering over Nenda inclined her white, eyeless head, with its pair
of yellow open horns below two six-foot fan-like antennas. Beneath the head was a short
neck banded in scarlet-and-white ruffles, leading to the dark-red segments of the
underbody. The whole effect, propped up on six jointed bristly limbs, was the stuff of
nightmares.
But not to Louis Nenda. He did not give
the Cecropian's anatomy a second thought. He had seen too many aliens to go by
appearances. "Trouble? What kind?" Nenda's pheromonal augment went into action,
even though he was too winded to speak.
"The interior of Genizee is changing,
in ways that I cannot explain." The pheromonal language of the Cecropian, unlike the
slave talk of the Zardalu Communion, possessed degrees of subtlety and shading denied to
even the richest of human tongues. Atvar H'sial's speech included images of collapsing
walls, closing tunnels, and vanishing chambers, deep within the planet. "If this
continues, our pretence of the need for interior exploration will be destroyed. The
Zardalu will demand that we demonstrate to them the powers that we have so long claimed,
and take them to space."
"It's not just the inside that's
changing." Nenda pointed upward, knowing that the pleated resonator on Atvar H'sial's
chin was bathing him with ultrasonic pulses, and the yellow horns were using the return
signal to provide a detailed image. The Cecropian could "see" Louis's gesture
perfectly well-but what she could not see was the vanishing of the annular singularities,
and the emergence of the naked sun. No Cecropian could sense light, or other
electromagnetic radiation shorter than thermal wavelengths.
"Up there, At," Nenda continued.
"The singularities have gone. They just vanished, a couple of minutes ago."
"Why?"
"Damned if I know. Or care. But we've
got to get over to the Indulgence, and take her up."
"And if we are returned once more to
the surface, as we were before?"
"Then we're in deep stuff. But we're
in that anyway if the interior tunnels are closing."
"Everywhere. As far as my signals
could penetrate, the interior constructions of Genizee are vanishing. It is as though the
work of the Builders there never existed."
While Atvar H'sial was still speaking, she
acted. Without asking for approval from Louis Nenda, she picked him up and curled him
tightly in a pair of forelimbs. She went springing away across the surface in long
graceful bounds, her vestigial wing cases wide open behind her. Louis had his breath
knocked out of him at every leap, but he did not complain. A Cecropian in full flight was
much faster than any human.
* * *
The Indulgence lay midway between a
twisted thicket of gigantic moss plants and five jutting towers of sandstone that formed
homes for the senior Zardalu. Nenda rubbed his aching ribs as Atvar H'sial placed him on
the ground-Didn't she realize her own strength?-and glanced across at the towers. At this
time of day most of the Zardalu should be working in the ocean or the interior tunnels.
Just his luck, if today they had decided to take a vacation.
At least the Indulgence was intact. But
the ship was useless, as it had been for the past two months. Nenda had checked the
engines every day. They were in perfect condition, with ample power. There was just one
problem: they refused to carry the ship up from the surface of the planet. Something-the
annular singularities themselves, or more likely the Builder Constructs who controlled
them-had inhibited every attempt at take- off.
"Quickly, Louis Nenda. This is no
time for introspection."
It hadn't been more than two seconds since
Atvar H'sial dropped him on the ground with his chest half crushed.
"Get off my back, At. Gimme time to
breathe." Nenda swung the hatch open. "If the engines don't work this time,
it'll be the last shot of introspection we'll ever get."
The lift-off sequence had been waiting in
the computer for two months. The navigation system was primed and ready. Louis was in the
pilot's seat two seconds after the hatch opened. Unfortunately, the power build-up of the
Indulgence's engines took a minimum of three minutes, and it was far from silent.
Three minutes. Three minutes of sitting,
staring at the screens, wondering when the first head of midnight blue would peer
curiously out of one of the towers, or lift from the calm sea.
"What do we do if the engines don't
work this time, At?" Was that the curling end of a long tentacle, or just a ripple on
the blue water?
"We will chastise the Zardalu,
blaming them for the inadequacy of their assistance to us in refurbishing the ship."
"Right. Lots of luck." It was a
tentacle. And now a head had broken the surface. The Zardalu were swimming rapidly for
shore, four of them, and now half a dozen more. They must have felt the vibrations, and
known that they came from the engines of the Indulgence.
Still over a minute to go. Was it time to
send Atvar H'sial to man the ship's weapons system? Maybe they could swing it one more
time; persuade the Zardalu that another day or two was all it would need to give them
access to space. But that persuasion would have to be done outside the ship, without
weapons. . . .
"Has it occurred to you, Louis Nenda,
that if we do achieve orbit, and depart Genizee, we will once again be leaving
empty-handed?" Atvar H'sial was crouched by his side, her echo-location vision
useless to see what was happening outside the ship. "We did not have the foresight to
stock the Indulgence with samples of Builder technology. We do not even have Zardalu
trophies. I blame myself for a major lack of foresight."
Thirty seconds to go. The ship was
vibrating all over as power build-up hit sixty percent. Zardalu were boiling up out of the
water and whipping themselves along the shore toward the ship. The nearest was less than
forty yards away. Others were appearing from the sandstone towers. And Atvar H'sial was
bemoaning the lack of mementoes!
Nenda gripped the controls, a lot harder
than necessary. "At, you can have my share of trophies, every one of 'em. I'll be
glad to get out of here with my ass and hat. Hold on tight. I'm going for a premature
lift."
The nearest Zardalu was reaching out long
tentacles toward the ship. Power was less than seventy-five percent, below the nominal
minimum. The Indulgence shuddered at Nenda's lift-off command and rose three feet off the
ground. It hovered for a moment before sliding lazily sideways and down to the soft earth.
Too soon!
Forty seconds were recommended between
engine power pulses. Nenda managed to wait for a quarter of that, until he heard something
slap at the hatch and begin to turn the handle. He gritted his teeth and hit the lift-off
sequence again.
The Indulgence shivered and began a
wobbling, drunken ascent. Nenda watched the ground as it drifted past on the viewscreens.
They were at six feet-ten feet-still within reach of questing tentacles. The shoreline was
approaching. The ship was crabbing sideways, slowly lifting. Engine power was nearing
eighty percent.
"We're going to make it, At. We're
lifting, and nothing aloft is stopping us." Nenda glanced at a viewing screen.
"Hold on, though. We got a problem. There's a whole line of Zardalu, right at the
edge of the beach. We might be low enough for them to grab us."
"What are they doing?"
Nenda stared hard. He didn't speak the
Zardalu slave tongue all that well, and the body language was even harder to read. But the
splayed lower tentacles and the upper two raised high above every Zardalu head, together
with the wide-open gaping beaks, were an easy signal.
"You won't believe this, At. But
they're cheering."
"As they should be. For are we not
demonstrating to them that, as promised, we are able to leave the surface of Genizee and
go to space?"
"Yeah. But they won't cheer so loud
when they find out we're not coming back. They were relying on us to get them off the
planet and back into the Spiral Arm. They're going to be mad as hell."
"Perhaps so." The ship was
rising steadily, and the waving Zardalu were no more than blue dots on the grey-brown
beach. Atvar H'sial settled into a more comfortable position at Nenda's side. "But
they ought to be most grateful."
"Huh?" The Indulgence was moving
faster, above the thick haze of Genizee's lower atmosphere. Louis gave the Cecropian
beside him only a fraction of his attention. Already he was beginning to worry about the
next step. They might be off the planet, but they were still deep within the convoluted
spacetime of the Torvil Anfract.
"I assert, they should be
grateful." The pheromonal message carried with it an overtone of sleepy satisfaction.
There was no hint that half a minute earlier Atvar H'sial had been facing possible death.
"Think about it, Louis. We have been very good to them. We did not exterminate them,
although the very name of Zardalu strikes terror through the whole Spiral Arm. We did not
kill or mutilate them, although that is their own habit with slaves. We have not taken
their most prized possessions-a short-sighted omission on my part, I admit, and one for
which I take full responsibility. And we have even left them their planet."
"You're all heart, At."
"In Zardalu terms, we have been
Masters both kind and generous." Atvar H'sial settled lower on the cabin floor.
"However, we have done one other thing for the Zardalu, which pleases me less. We
have demonstrated that the road to space from Genizee is now open."
"No thanks to us that the
singularities went away. That just happened. Maybe they'll come back." Nenda caught
another drift of pheromones, with an unmistakable molecular message. "Hey, you better
not be falling asleep back there. This isn't the time for it. We're still in the middle of
the Anfract. Suppose it's changing, too? The flight plan we made before may not take us
out."
"We escaped from Genizee." The
Cecropian was closing the twin yellow horns, turning off her echo-location receivers. The
six-foot antennas on top of her head were furling their delicate fan-like receptors.
"I have no doubt that you will find a way to take us out of the Torvil Anfract. Wake
me when we are clear. Then I will compute a trajectory to take us to the
Have-It-All."
"Don't try to get off the hook by
talking about my ship." Nenda turned to glare at Atvar H'sial's body, with the six
jointed legs housed comfortably along its sides. "You need to stay awake and alert.
If I don't handle the exit from the Anfract just right, it could kill you."
"But not without also killing
you." The Cecropian's thin proboscis curled down, to tuck away into the pouch at the
bottom of her pleated chin. "You should be gratified, Louis," she said sleepily,
"pleased that I have such confidence in you. And confidence, of course, in your
finely-developed sense of self-preservation."
Copyright © 1997 by Charles Sheffield