Lark
DEEP WITHIN THE JOPHUR BATTLESHIP, THINGS had changed yet again.
The last time Lark visited the Polkjhy’s Life Core, the place resembled a dense but orderly forest grove — a farm in three dimensions — featuring lush green rows and columns of vegetation neatly organized on metal scaffolding to purify the great vessel’s air and water, serving the Jophur crew efficiently, like any other machine.
Now it was a tangle of riotous growth, a jungle where plants and autotrophs from myriad worlds had broken out of their assigned places, curling round the disappearing latticework, intermingling in a bedlam of anarchic biogenesis.
Amid the profuse growth, he glimpsed skittering little things — animals of varied types that surely had not been here before. Did they escape from some onboard lab-menagerie, amid the crash and confusion of battle? Or did caretaker computers deliberately thaw and release them from storage, in some vain effort to regain control over a miniature ecosystem that grew more complex and wild with each passing midura? Moving deeper, he even spied little scavenger organisms that looked like individual Jophur rings, writhing and twisting as they made their way along branches, seeking rotten matter to consume. Their pale colors expressed innocence and simplicity of purpose. None appeared eager to seek sophistication, or to gather sapiency by combining into stacks.
Lark found the Life Core’s new look an improvement. He came from a world where nature was allowed to find its own equilibrium — a complex balance, invariably messy, that worked better than any plan. Even when many participants of a planetary biosphere were foes, preying on each other with tooth and claw, the overall result wound up looking like cooperation, giving each individual and species a role to play, helping the whole system thrive.
Kind of like our own little group of strange allies, he thought, pondering the curious expedition that had made its way to the heart of the Jophur warship. We may not trust each other, but lacking any other choice, we work together.
Pushing through the rank overgrowth, he paused near a vine that hung heavy with ripe clamber-peaches, popular on more oxy-worlds than anyone could count. Lark plucked one and brought it to his mouth, but then had to wait for rippling layers of membrane to creep out of the way, until there was room enough to take a good bite out of the fruit. Red juice sprayed around his tongue and between several teeth, dribbling down his chin, assailing taste buds with pleasure. Greedily, he consumed several more. It was Lark’s first decent meal in days.
The passenger — a modified Zang globule that spread its bulk across his body like a cumbersome second skin — seemed to catch some of Lark’s complaint. A tendril presented itself before his left eye, and a vacuole opened inside that gelatinous mass. Tiny subdeputy blobs popped forth, performing a microscopic drama, communicating in the Zang manner, by simulation.
Lark shook his head.
“No, I’m not ungrateful. I realize you’ve been feeding me from your own body mass, so we could get this far. But forgive me if I prefer something that doesn’t stink of rotten eggs, for a change!”
He was fairly sure that his actual words — sonic vibrations in the air — had no meaning to the alien. That type of language, abstract and structured, was as foreign to such bubble-beings as the notion of walking around on stilt-limbs, stiffened by rigid bones. Lark’s best guess was that the creature/entity tracked his eye movements instead, somehow gleaning import from which little speck or simulated blob he chose unconsciously to look at, in which order. The result was a crude form of telepathy, unlike any he had ever heard or read about.
Subdeputies whirled some more, inside their vacuole-theater.
“Yeah, okay,” he answered. “I know. Gotta keep moving. There isn’t much time.”
A rustling commotion disturbed the dense foliage just ahead. Lark reached warily for his best weapon, the purple ring which sprayed message chemicals on command, sometimes overcoming Jophur guards or battle-drones. Although its effectiveness had declined, the tricky little torus still reduced the number of times they had to fight, making possible this journey deep behind enemy lines.
A bulky form pushed through the jungle. Wide at the bottom and tapered on top, it had the ominous shape of a Jophur.
Or a traeki, Lark reminded himself, crouching amid shadows. Even when the figure drew near enough to identify by its stained contours, he still wasn’t sure which word should apply. The composite being had once been Asx, a beloved traeki sage, then became haughty Ewasx of the Jophur. Now it would answer to neither name. Ripples coursed up and down its waxy pyramid of greasy donuts, while segments vied and debated among themselves. Inside that fatty tower, new arrangements were being worked out, with the Master Ring no longer in complete control.
Quite possibly — at any moment — the issue might be decided in favor of resuming loyalty to Polkjhy’s captain-leader, or reporting Lark’s presence to the embattled crew. But not yet. Meanwhile, there continued a strange, tentative partnership of Zang, human, and ring stack. A loose coalition of collective beings. Lark decided to call the confused creature “X”—at least till it made up its minds.
Waves of shadow and color flashed briefly, while the stack whistled breathy Galactic Six from its oration peak.
“I/we/I managed to accomplish the intended feat — accessing a terminal at the agronomist’s workstation. (The agronomist erself was elsewhere, having been reassigned to combat roles during the emergency.) My/our appointed task of discovering news — this proved possible to achieve.”
“Yes?” Lark took a step forward. “Did you learn where they took Ling?”
He had hoped to find her in the Life Core, near the nest where they had been happy — all too briefly.
The composite creature twitched and shuddered. Across its corrugated, waxy flesh there crawled dozens of small rings, crimson in color, feeding on its secretions. To the Polkjhy crew, those innocuous-looking toroids were carriers of a plague, more horrid than the Zang infestation.
“Of the remaining humans — Ling and Rann — there are no recent reports. As to their last known position, I/we narrowed it down to a quadrant of the ship … one that became cut off twenty miduras ago, when fresh incursions of Zang-like entities apparently penetrated the hull.”
News of hydrogen-breathing reinforcements did not affect Lark’s passenger as expected. The globule-entity quivered, indicating a strong desire to avoid contact with the newcomers until they could be viewed from a safe distance.
So, Lark thought. There are factions, nations, races … or whatever … among hydros, too. Like us, they fear their own relatives more than the truly alien. I guess that shouldn’t surprise me.
During their long, circuitous journey from the nursery chamber, all three odd allies had stopped to watch images on terminal screens, broadcast by the Jophur crew to keep their soldiers informed of what was going on outside. While X tried to describe a white dwarf star and explain what was known about transcendent life, the Zang seemed upset. What disturbed it was mounting evidence that hydro-and oxy-orders eventually merged, blending together in a steep mixing bowl of gravitational tides. Apparently, Lark’s passenger found the news unnerving.
You are in way over your depth, just like me, aren’t you? he asked the Zang at one point. It took several tries to get the question across — he was still learning this quirky mode of conversation. But eventually, after trembling violently for a while, it calmed down and meekly indicated assent.
Even hydro-entities must have trouble dealing with their gods. It seemed to be a law of nature.
“But you have Ling’s last coordinates?” he asked X.
“Indeed. It should be possible to approach that sector … if we dare.”
Lark nodded. Somehow he must persuade his companions that the risk was worthwhile. “And the other matter you were going to look into?”
The pile of greasy toroids flashed a series of shadows — flickering patterns-of-regret that seemed so deeply Jijoan that the creature felt more like Asx than ever. In speaking, it switched to GalSeven.
“Alas, the news is dire from your perspective … and perhaps ours/mine. During this ship’s long journey, from the ill-fated retirement habitat to this indrawing of transcendent races, there were several moments when the Polkjhy got a fix on local star groups, ascertained its position, and managed to fire off message capsules. Of these
