Ascending

Explorers are like that — even in moments of tension, they feel compelled to take plant samples.

Overmany Coincidences

'So,' Aarhus said in pensive tones, 'this tree was a favorite of Las Fuentes… and it’s here on a Shaddill ship.'

'Makes you think, doesn’t it?' Festina took a few more steps down the trail, her gaze moving carefully over the jungle. 'A lot of these other plants look familiar too — things from the Agua rainforest. That vine… we called it monkey rope. And this thorn bush is madre sangrienta. Both came to Agua courtesy of Las Fuentes.' She stared at the madre bush a moment longer, then turned back to us. 'It would take a laboratory to prove these were the same species as the ones on my world; but at first glance, they seem identical.'

'Which means what?' Uclod asked.

Festina shrugged. 'Las Fuentes abandoned their holdings five thousand years ago. A few centuries later, the Shaddill made their first appearance when they removed Oar’s ancestors from Earth. Could be that in those missing years, Las Fuentes became the Shaddill.'

'But,' said I, 'Las Fuentes became horrible purple jelly.'

'That’s what the horrible purple jelly claimed,' Festina told me. 'It wouldn’t be the first time an alien told a lie.'

She started down the trail again. We followed glumly… and I for one made sure I did not step on the poison fruit.

How To Talk To Doors

It turns out that jackets catch on thorns and nettles. Jackets catch on such things all the time. Back on Melaquin, I had never bothered to give wide berth to these hazards, for my skin is impervious to prickly annoyances; now, however, I was constantly getting snagged on passing vegetation, to the point where I strongly considered taking off my jacket and flinging it into the bush. I suppressed this impulse only because Festina had inducted me into the Explorer Corps… and perhaps, if she saw me treating the uniform in cavalier fashion, she would think she had made a mistake. It would be very most sad if Festina said, 'Oar, you do not behave like a proper Explorer, so you cannot be one any longer.' Therefore, I continued to wear my jacket and simply yanked it loose whenever it got hooked on grabby undergrowth. Sometimes bits of cloth remained behind on the thorns, but it is not my fault if navy apparel suffers from shoddy manufacture.

Because of the snagging and yanking, moving through the jungle was almost as strenuous as running. It was not out-of-breath strenuous; but the constant exertion made my insides feel watery. Then my head went watery too — not a sudden dizziness but a growing sense of disconnection, as my feet kept walking but my mind drifted off. I found myself dreaming of the lovely brightness in my Tower of Ancestors: how peaceful it had been to lie empty for the past four years, without worrying about thorns, or awful Shaddills, or the many ways my life had never gone anywhere…

Muddled blankness crept up on me so stealthily I did not feel it: blankness from fatigue and insufficient food. Time passed in a blur, which is to say, in a discontinuous jump… because the next thing I knew, I was leaning in great exhaustion against a dirt-encrusted wall, with my cheek and nose pressed into the grimy surface.

I turned my head blearily and saw Lajoolie staring at me with fearful concern; the others, however, had focused their attention on a door in the wall a few paces away from me. This door was the metal kind that slides open and shut. At the moment, it was closed… and there was no obvious mechanism for opening it. No doorknob, no latch, no button, no dial.

'We could bash it down,' Uclod suggested. He turned to Lajoolie. 'You wouldn’t mind doing that, would you, sweetheart?'

Lajoolie gave me a plaintive look, suggesting she would mind very much: I do not think she wanted to use her great strength ever again. Her face overflowed with relief when Festina said, 'No bashing if we can help it. For one thing, it’ll make noise. For another, the door might have defense mechanisms — alarms or maybe stunners.'

'So what do we do instead?' Uclod asked.

Festina ran her hands over the door’s surface, obviously groping for unusual features. As she did, she told the rest of us, 'Look around nearby. Maybe there’s a hidden switch.'

'Or maybe it can only be opened from the other side,' Uclod said. 'Maybe it’s voice-activated and you have to know the password.'

'I realize that,' Festina answered testily. 'But let’s check for other alternatives.'

So they checked, looking under bushes, digging in the dirt and fingering the blank wall as if it might conceal some secret access mechanism. Their earnest activity soon maddened me; still propped against the wall, I cried out in my own language, 'Open up, you foolish door!'

The door slid silently open.

How To Talk To Me

Festina’s mouth gaped wide and she stared at me. 'What did you say?'

'I told it to open.'

'In what language?'

'My own… which I now suspect is actually the Shaddill tongue. And do not shout at me for not telling you sooner; I am very upset the Shaddill indoctrinated my people to speak their villainous language, and perhaps I am also in a weakened state physically and emotionally, so if you scold me, Festina, I shall cry.'

She came forward and wrapped her arms around me. I leaned into the embrace… and unlike the time when she hugged me in the Hemlock’s transport bay, I did not feel self-conscious at all. To tell the truth, I was too tired to feel much of anything; but it was comforting and agreeable to be held, not to mention that it helped me stay on my feet.

Festina whispered, 'Do you really speak Shaddill?'

'I believe I do.'

'Under the circumstances, that’s a wonderful thing. It gives us a valuable edge.'

'It doesn’t feel…' I caught my breath. 'It does not feel wonderful or valuable to know that all your life, you have been someone else’s creature. One could easily become downhearted, Festina.'

She gave me a squeeze… which became more of a shake as she said, 'Stay with us, Oar, come on, stay with us. If you stay awake, you may get to punch a Shaddill in the nose.'

'Oh. That might be pleasant.'

I forced myself to stand straighter. Festina did not release me; she propped herself under my arm and gripped my back to make sure I did not fall. 'This is only a temporary weakness,' she told the others. 'Oar just needs food.'

'Temporary my ass,' Uclod replied. 'She keeps going blank on us. Lajoolie told me she conked out for a full hour on Hemlock… and I’ve caught her drifting off a couple other times too. Not to mention she was a zombie for four whole years before I showed up on Melaquin.' He turned to me. 'I hate to say it, missy, but your brain is turning to toffee.'

'It isn’t!' I cried. 'It isn’t!' Lajoolie flinched; otherwise, I would not even have noticed my slip of the tongue. Two contractions in a row. Suddenly blazing with anger I pushed myself away from Festina and said, 'I am perfectly fine. I am, in fact, quite splendid. Now cease your foolish insinuations, for it is high time we found the enemy.'

I strode majestically toward the open door… but not before I caught a look passing between Festina and Uclod. One might think she would be reproving him for making me so furious; but in fact, her lips mouthed the words, 'Thank you' — as if he had done something praiseworthy instead of driving me into a rage. And the little man actually winked back at her.

There is no understanding aliens at all.

Burrows

The door led into a corridor that was nothing like a proper ship corridor — just a dirt-lined tunnel, as must be dug by rabbits or gophers if the animals were almost the size of a real person. I say 'almost the size' because the tunnel roof was not quite my height; I had to duck slightly, which did not improve my mood. Aarhus too was forced to stoop, and poor Lajoolie needed to bend most uncomfortably. I expected the short people to boast that they had no trouble at all… but Festina was too polite, and Uclod too busy fussing with his wife, trying to think of ways to make movement easier for the big woman. ('Would it help if… suppose I… maybe you could…' None of this improved things in the least, but perhaps Lajoolie found his efforts endearing.)

Nimbus, of course, floated down the middle without difficulty. As we started forward, the cloud man told Festina, 'You realize this tunnel is just a mock-up? I sent a few of my cells to check the wall; it’s a type of artificial dirt sprayed over a base of solid steel-plast.'

'Doesn’t surprise me,' Festina replied. 'It looks like the Shaddill evolved from burrowing creatures. All this soil must make them feel comfortable.'

'Then they are giant space gophers?' I asked.

'Gophers aren’t the only animals who burrow,' Festina said. 'Rabbits… worms… beetles… snakes… and those are just terrestrial species. I could list thousands of even stranger burrowers from other planets.'

'Do you know what Las Fuentes looked like?' Uclod asked. 'Before they changed into purple blobs.'

Festina shook her head. 'They cleaned their worlds meticulously before they abandoned their settlements made a determined effort to eliminate any direct clues about themselves. Oh sure, they overlooked a few odds and ends: a small number of tools that were probably designed for four-fingered hands… broken furniture that suggests they always lay down rather than sitting, so they were probably jointed differently than we are. No bodies, though; not a single bone. Shows how advanced their technology was if they could make such a clean sweep. Also shows Las Fuentes didn’t want us to know what they looked like.'

'Just what you’d expect of burrowing creatures,' Aarhus said. 'Obsessively secretive.'

'It is not obsessive,' I told him, 'it is simply good sense. One must always take pains to go unnoticed, or one might be observed by persons of unknown provenance…'

I stopped. Festina was looking at me keenly. 'Your race is secretive, isn’t it? And you all live in hidden enclaves like that underground city.'

'Are you suggesting I am a Shaddill? That is very most rude of you, Festina. I may speak their language, but I am not such a creature