Ascending

'It was only a metaphor, damn it!' The Pollisand squashed another patch of flowers, leaving his foot red with their jukes. 'I’m suggesting a simple agreement. An exchange of favors. My favor is to ensure your brain doesn’t go Tired.'

'And what do you wish in return?' 'I wish…' He took deep breath. 'I want… well, to put it in terms you’ll understand, I want you to tell the League of Peoples it’s okay if I accidentally get you killed.'

The Deal

'It is not okay if you get me killed! That is very much not okay at all!' I glared at him in outrage; he had red flower sap all over his foot and I hoped it would stain forever.

'Why isn’t it okay?' he demanded. 'Point one, you’ve already died once and I was the one who brought you back to life; you owe me big-time, lady. Point two, your brain’s almost curdled to gorgonzola, and when it goes, you’re as good as dead anyway. Point three, I’m so far above you on the ladder of sentience my IQ can only be measured with transfinite numbers, and I promise there’s only the teeniest-tiniest-eensiest-weensiest chance my plan will go wrong enough to get you killed.'

'Hmph,' I said. 'Tell me your plan and let me judge for myself.'

'Tell you my plan? I can’t tell you my plan. My plan is so complex, your brain doesn’t have the capacity to comprehend it. This entire universe doesn’t have the capacity to comprehend my plan — there aren’t enough quarks to encode the simplest overview. I’ve got fifty-five million backup universes grinding away at figuring out what I have to do next, and that’s just the underlying logic, not the user interface. No way I can tell you my plan.'

'In other words,' I said, 'you do not have a plan.'

'Well, I’ve got a few rough ideas. My greatest strength is improvising.'

One of the red eyes in his throat disappeared for a moment, then blazed back to life; I had an eerie feeling the Pollisand had just winked at me. 'Seriously, kiddo,' he said, 'I have plans upon plans upon plans, reaching all the way down to the end of time. I have agendas both social and temporal, I have schemes both simple and ornate; I create conspiracies and tear them apart; my name is a byword for foresight and I have honed the blade of strategy to a razor’s edge.'

'If you always talk this much,' I said, 'it is a wonder you have time for planning at all.'

'Damn, but you’re a stick-in-the-mud,' he grumbled. 'All right, I do have a plan, okay? It’s a good plan, aimed at a noble purpose… but there’s a teeny-tiny- eensy-weensy chance that at a particular point as events unfold you’ll die rather permanently. Under circumstances where I won’t be able to patch you up like the last time. And that’s where I run afoul of the League of Peoples: cuz if I have this foreknowledge, which I do, of a lethal danger, which there is, to a sentient creature, which you are — borderline sentient, but you’re still on the civilized side of the ledger — then I’m morally obliged to ask if it’s okay I might get you murdered. Basically, you have to agree you want to achieve the same lofty goal I do… at which point it ceases to be me putting your life at risk, but you accepting the risk yourself because you’re so doggone eager to do the right thing.'

'And what is this right thing I so recklessly wish to do?'

'Um. Well.' The Pollisand stubbed his toe bashfully into the dirt, a gesture no doubt intended to appear winningly ingenuous. 'Do I really have to tell you? Couldn’t you just take my word, as a being seventy-five trillion rungs higher than you on the evolutionary ladder, that I’m honestly pursuing the greatest good for the greatest number?'

'I do not care about the greatest good for the greatest number,' I said, 'Most people are poop-heads; I do not care about them at all. And I have no confidence you are as clever and advanced as you claim to be — all I have seen you do is simulate visions using Starbiter.'

The Zarett heard her name and began bouncing toward me… until she became distracted by a bug flying by, and bounced after it instead. I turned back to the Pollisand. 'Zaretts do not seem so high on the evolutionary ladder. I have seen no evidence that you are either.'

'Ah,' the Pollisand said, 'but perhaps my facade is an act. A truly advanced being might realize it’s best to approach lesser species in a non-threatening way — as a ridiculous-looking creature who comes across as a pompous jerk barely able to keep his foot out of his mouth. It puts you at ease, doesn’t it, when you say, This Pollisand guy isn’t so scary; he’s not the swaggering staggering super-genius the rest of the universe thinks he is. You catch me making a few goofs, you throw my words back in my face, and after a while, you relax cuz you think I’m not smart enough to pull the wool over your eyes.'

If this was an attempt to disconcert me, it nearly worked. A vastly intelligent beast who controlled what I saw and heard might indeed present himself as a silly buffoon so as not to be taken too seriously, On the other hand, a silly buffoon might boast of himself as a vastly intelligent beast who was merely play-acting. Which was more likely?

'The most important point,' I said, 'is that I wish to know the direction of your plan. What is your goal? What is your purpose?'

The Pollisand shuffled his feet, 'All right. The part of the plan that concerns you — the immediate part of the plan — is related to the race you call the Shaddill.'

'Are you for them or against them?' I asked.

'I fervently want,' the Pollisand said, 'to wipe them off the face of this galaxy. And your part in the plan will help accomplish that.'

'Why did you not say so?' I reached out and laid my arm across the alien’s back in a comradely manner. 'Of course I shall help you defeat the Shaddill… especially if you fix my Tired Brain too. You should have known I would say yes if you put it like that.'

'I did know,' the Pollisand said in a soft voice totally unlike his previous obnoxious tone.

Suddenly, I realized I could feel my arm lying on the Pollisand’s hide… and as soon as I realized that, I could feel the ground beneath my feet too. A hot stinking wind blew around me, and the crimson flowers brushing my legs felt scratchy against my calves. Nearby, little Starbiter yelped in fright and bounced fearfully toward me, leaping high at the last and jumping straight into my arms. I caught her and held her; when she pressed her gooey body against my chest, I felt her warm trembling stickiness.

The Pollisand turned toward me and the fire of his deep-buried eyes blazed hotter than all the lava pools around us. A wave of scorching heat struck me square in the face, a blistering slap so fierce I feared my cheeks would melt… and suddenly, I had the terrifying suspicion this was all real, that the Pollisand had truly transported me across untold lightyears to this lava world, and shrunk Starbiter to the size of apuppy, and kept me from feeling the boiling temperatures so I would believe it was only an illusion…

Then everything went black: black with lonely stars. My body was back in its former position, seated rigidly upright. When I looked around, all I saw was Starbiter’s stringy physique, returned to its normal size: big enough that she could hold me in a tiny corner of her lungs, instead of being cradled in my arms.

One might think it had all been a dream; but my face still burned as If it had been shoved into searing flame.

8: WHEREIN I CANNOT FIND A GOOD PLACE TO BE

Back To The Mundane

A few minutes later, someone groaned beside me. 'Uclod?' I whispered. Pollisand?'

A voice muttered garbled words. I did not recognize the language, nor did I recognize the voice — it was too deep for Uclod, too guttural for the Pollisand. 'Lajoolie?' I whispered. Perhaps this growling baritone was what she sounded like when not putting on her false soprano. I strongly hoped that was the explanation, because I did not want to deal with another unknown visitor. 'Lajoolie, is that you?'

'Unh… unh…' Unfocused moans came out in the same baritone. Then the voice forced itself to a higher pitch: 'What happened? What did you do to me?'

It was Lajoolie — past her initial grogginess, and now remembering to feign more missish tones. More missish questions too: when she said, 'What did you do to me?' she did not sound like someone who truly believed I had worked some devilish trick on her. I got the feeling she spoke as she thought a certain type of woman would; a flighty helpless woman, not a woman whose body was covered with more muscles than a dead squirrel has flies. Clearly, Lajoolie possessed a confused self-image I would have to investigate when I had the time… but for now, I was simply happy not to be alone anymore.

'There was a terrible stick-thing,' I told her, 'What you called a Shaddill ship. It shot you with a Diabolical Weapon Ray, leaving me to effect an escape single- handed. Which I did most proficiently. Since then, I have flown through the sun and defeated the human navy, not to mention meeting…'

I stopped myself. Perhaps it would not be so prudent to disclose my encounter with the Pollisand. Someone like Lajoolie (or even worse, Uclod) might chide me most scathingly for entering into a poorly defined pact with a powerful alien of dubious motives. Therefore I resolved not to speak of the Pollisand until I had time to ponder the ramifications on my own.

The Vexation Of Newlywed Sentiments

Off to my left, a noise went click. The next moment, something crawled up my face — the icky intestine covering my head. It had been in place so many hours, I had forgotten it was there. My vision went black for a moment, then returned; only now I was seeing with my own eyes, where Uclod sat slumped in his chair and Lajoolie was just straightening up from the bumpy controls in front of her seat. Obviously, she had pressed a release that withdrew the linkage attached to our heads… and had also disengaged the straps holding us to our chairs. I felt myself being freed as the straps slithered back into the chair’s jellyfish upholstery; and it was a good thing I was not such a one as stiffened from periods of inactivity, or I would now be a Solid Mass Of Discomfort.

The straps around Uclod unclasped too. He would have toppled onto his nose if Lajoolie had not leapt to catch him. In that instant, I could see she was extremely fast as well as strong — especially for one who had just lain unconscious many hours. She eased Uclod back into his seat and spent an inordinate amount of fuss arranging him: positioning his body just so, with his head propped up instead of lolling to one side, his hands folded neatly in his lap, and so on… whereas I might have started by checking his pulse to see if other actions were worth the effort It took at least a minute to convince myself Uclod was even breathing; but at last, when Lajoolie stopped fretting with him, I saw a definite rise and fall in his chest.

Once Lajoolie had composed her husband to her satisfaction, she seated herself on the floor at his feet and leaned against his legs. I believe she would have liked to lay her head on his knee or rest it in his lap — she was just the type to seek the most submissive posture available. However, she was too tall for either of those positions, so she contented herself with settling her arm across his thighs and huddling tight to his body. I watched her for a count of five, then said, 'Should we not try