Running from the Deity (4 page)

So many worlds circling so many distant suns. In his short life he’d already seen too many of them, and yet not enough. Or at least, he corrected himself, not the right ones.

So far this one seemed amenable, if not openly inviting. Unable to see anything that might have drawn Pip’s attention, he tried to reach out with his Talent, only to find that, as was too often the case, it had decided to shrink to an unperceiving blur in the back of his mind. Such lapses in his singular ability had become less and less common as he grew older, but they still struck him with alarming unpredictability.

Unable to perceive any emotions in his immediate environs save his own, he decided to carry out physiological experiments instead. Bending his knees, he executed another vertical leap. Due to the lower gravity here, he found that he could jump much higher than the terrestrial norm. Contrary to popular belief, bounding about in light gravity was not all pure exhilaration. He would have to watch his stride lest he put his feet down in awkward places they would automatically avoid on t-gravity-normal worlds. For example, if he did not gauge distance correctly, he might find himself accidentally leaping over a cliff—or into one. On the other hand, he would be able to cover longer distances on foot than was normal, and with less effort.

Not that he intended going for any long walks. He knew little enough of this world, could at present sense nothing of it, and the
Teacher
’s archive had been less than all-inclusive on the subject. He was, after all, embarked on a journey of some importance. Futile as that might seem, he was anxious both to be on his way and to avoid contravening any more of the Commonwealth restrictions that applied to a society like that of the Dwarra.

Glancing back, he studied the curving side of the sham dune. “Good job,” he told the ship. “I can’t detect any sign of artificiality even up close.”

“My work is invariably first-class,” the
Teacher
replied softly via a temporarily extruded external speaker disguised to look like a specimen of local vegetation. Its reply was a statement of fact. Artificial intelligences were immune to such weaknesses as false pride.

“How long?” Even as he posed the question, Flinx was aware that his usual impatience would do nothing to accelerate their departure.

“I told you. When it’s done. The ore here is of good quality and should be simple to process. While the amount of carbon locked in fossilized vegetation is located deeper, I will manage as necessary. Meanwhile, why don’t you try to relax?”

Flinx made a low sound. “Like on Jast?”

The ship sighed. That, it was programmed to do. “Like you are the first human to set foot on this world, a circumstance that is entirely probable. The climate is salubrious, the air devoid of pollutants natural or otherwise, and my sensors perceive nothing potentially dangerous in the immediate vicinity. While I would not advise going for a nude swim in the absence of additional information on the local water-dwelling life-forms, I see no harm in taking a short stroll. You have your minidrag with you, hand weapon, communicator, survival gear, and can walk for a considerable distance without traveling beyond range of my instrumentation. Why should you not enjoy your immediate surroundings? Are you not glad to be outside of myself?”

Pursing his lips, Flinx once more studied the dunes and shallow bay. “It’s been my unfortunate experience that during my many travels my immediate surroundings have a way of jumping up and biting me on the ass. But you’re right, as usual. A walk would be nice.” He inhaled again of the fresh, pleasantly scented alien atmosphere. Above him, Pip whirled in effortless circles, scanning their surroundings.

From beneath the
Teacher
rose the heavy, muffled sounds of machinery starting in motion. The ship would carry out the necessary mining of the sands on which it rested and was currently mimicking with a minimum of noise and disturbance. Long, tentacle-like manipulators would extend outward, away from the camouflaged vessel and beneath the surface, to collect the large volume of fossil carbon from which it would extract the other raw material it needed. Other devices would suck titanium sand into refining processors. Meanwhile, as there was nothing for him to do, and since he was already outside anyway, he decided he might as well follow the ship’s advice.

He had no compunction about starting off into the dunes. This close to the
Teacher,
it would warn him if it detected anything sizable in his immediate vicinity. Of course, it was often the case that the smaller an alien life-form, the more threatening it would turn out to be. He was not especially concerned. He had spent time on far more overtly dangerous worlds, among life-forms that made no attempt to disguise their lethality. As he climbed a low dune for a better view of his surroundings, he felt comparatively safe. No doubt this planet was home to dangerous creatures of one kind or another—but it was readily apparent from the little time he had already spent on its surface that this was, for example, no Pyrassis or Midworld.

As he strolled, with Pip circling overhead, he tried to get a better look at the small, scurrying things that were darting about among the dunes. There was not enough light, and he had not brought one from the ship. That lack would force him to turn around soon enough, he knew. Most importantly, as he felt his talent beginning to return to strength, he could not perceive any of the kind of complex emotional resonance that would indicate he might be in the physical presence of a higher intelligence such as the dominant local species. For just an instant on first emerging from the
Teacher,
he thought he might have picked up something emotive as well as alien. It had disappeared almost as soon as he had sensed it. Some mental illusion; a misperception on his part. He shook his head and smiled. No matter how increasingly proficient he grew in its use, his Talent could prove as erratic as ever.

On a Class IVb world, he knew, it was as incumbent on him to stay out of view and not reveal himself to the locals as it was for the
Teacher
. The mere sight of an obviously otherworldly being like himself could be dangerously disruptive to the local culture.

It was an effect, in fact, that he had had on others before.

CHAPTER

3

Ebbanai did not stop running until he reached home. The sight of the sturdy, domed structure standing foursquare and isolated in the first patch of tillable soil to shoulder its way between the dunes was a grateful reminder that he was not mad, and that he had not fallen into some loathsome, spirit-inspired nightmare. Beyond, barely discernible in the moonlight, other houses were just visible, spotted along the winding road that led to Metrel City.

As he raced down the last gentle slope, a wandering perermp crossing from cover to cover got snarled in Ebbanai’s two right front legs. Long, lean, half the net-caster’s body length, and built low to the ground, the slow-moving perermp found itself tangled up like some animate length of ship cable in the frantic Dwarra’s lower limbs. Four-legged Dwarra and multi-limbed herbivore found themselves tumbling over and over downhill as each sought frantically to extricate its entwined limbs from the other. As they rolled, Ebbanai strained his antennae toward those of the perermp, trying to indicate that he meant it no harm, but the twin protrusions of the lesser creature remained maddeningly out of reach.

Coming to rest at the base of the slope, more irritated than angry, Ebbanai relaxed the skin flaps that had been reflexively held close to his body so as not to become abraded or, worse, ripped away. Rising, he methodically unwrapped the clumsy creature from where it remained tangled around his legs. Its wide-spreading mouthparts were flat and fleshy, suitable only for munching on the soft, low-growing, moisture-laden vegetation that covered the dunes. Even so, it did its best to bite him, antennae flailing and meeping feebly as the net-caster flung it over the nearest hillock. Landing with a heavy thud, it promptly righted itself and scrambled off in search of the nearest hole large enough to admit its bruised, attenuated body.

Breathing hard, Ebbanai plunged down the entry path paved with flat, irregular stones he had laid with his own hands. He even forgot to extinguish the greeting light, leaving it to flicker away atop its post, wasting oil. This far from major arteries of commerce and the sins of town, it was not necessary to lock the front door. Everyone along the inland peninsular road knew one other.

Storra was waiting for him. On the nights when he went out with the net, she would stay up working at the loom located in the forepart of the house, utilizing her weaving to keep awake until he returned. The pungent aroma wafting from the kitchen smelled of jent leaf and koroil: she always prepared a late-night snack for him, knowing how hungry he would be after long, hard hours spent casting and pulling in the weighted net.

As he drew up sharply, his thin torso expanding and contracting with the exertion of the single, pleated lung within, she turned from her loom and eyed him up and down. While the piquant food simmering in the kitchen hinted of her concern for him, her tone did not. That was Storra: an unpredictable ongoing collision of the caring and the caustic.

“You’re home early,” she observed succinctly.

“I saw—I saw...!” His upper body sank down into its more flexible lower half. The nature and evolutionary design of the Dwarran spine prevented them from bending over very far. He fought to catch his breath.

Rising from her comfortable squatting position before the loom, she set aside the length of indigo-stained seashan she had been working into the half-finished carpet and glanced behind her mate.

“Not anything edible, it seems. I see net, but no feyln, no marrarra, not even a handful of soft-shelled tibordi.”

He started, looked suddenly embarrassed. He had forgotten to leave the still-damp net outside, on its drying rack.

Hurriedly, he retraced his steps and dumped it outside the front door, not even bothering to ensure it was properly folded. Her eyes contracted suspiciously when he, for the first time she could remember, threw the bolt that secured the door against the outside.

“You have not been working,” she accused him deliberately. “You have been off stargazing and sipping brew with those two no-goods Brrevemor and Drapp!”

“No, no,” he hastily corrected her. “I swear on my father’s heritage, I haven’t seen anyone else all night long!” Starting at the crest of his smooth skull, a perceptible shiver started southward, traveling the length of his body until his podal flaps were visibly quivering.

Her annoyance changed quickly to concern. “Are you ill, Ebbanai?”

“No, I’m not.” Coming closer, he extended all eight gripping flanges. “At least, I don’t think I am.”

Inclining his head forward, he extended the two fleshy antennae that protruded from its forepart. They made contact with those of his mate. The emotional charge that coursed through him and into her was strong enough to shock. Startled, she untwined her antennae from his as fast as if they had been greased, and drew back. This time her eyes were wide, having expanded considerably within their flexible sockets.

“Mersance!”
she exclaimed, her attitude toward him completely altered by the emotions he had conveyed. “What happened, mate-mine? What
did
you see out there?” Her characteristic sarcasm had now given way entirely to concern.

“I’m not sure. A miracle, or a bad dream, or maybe something else. Something impossible, that’s for certain.” Moving past her, he slumped into a collapsed crouch beside the entrance to the kitchen. When she acknowledged the gesture with one of her own, he entered. But though the night-stew she had boiled for him beckoned, he found he was too nervous to sup. Instead, he edged cautiously toward the single window to stare out into the night. Coming up behind him, she placed both sets of right flanges on his shoulder.

“I had set the thoralls and was casting the first net of the evening,” he told her without tearing his gaze away from the view, “when something came down out of the sky.”

Her expression was pinched. “Down out of the sky?”

His antennae wove patterns in the air. “I thought a fourth moon had appeared and was falling toward me. When it drew nearer I saw that it was not a moon, but a machine of some kind.” Seeing the look on her face, he hurried his explanation. “It touched down not far from the place where I ran and hid. Even as I was staring at it, it changed and became a line of large dunes. Then a hole appeared in the side of one of these new dunes. It was filled with light, from which a strange being emerged.” Though she was now looking at him with something less than concerned compassion, he resolutely soldiered on.

“This creature was unlike us, but not unrecognizably so. It stood upright, but had upper and lower limbs that did not properly divide. Though no taller than I, it was much broader. It had two absurdly small eyes, and skin as smooth as a sheet of fabric, and a thick cluster of red tendrils atop its head, though because of the distance and the darkness I could not tell if they were for feeding or had some other purpose.” His antennae bobbed significantly. “Certainly they were too numerous, too small, and too thin to serve for touching.

“The being was not alone. It was companioned by a small, brightly colored winged creature that seemed to respond to its mouth-noises. Or maybe to the gestures the larger creature made.” He shuddered again at the remembrance of that unnatural, monolithic arm and its multiple digits gesturing into the night sky.

“When it turned to look back at its dune-machine, I took the opportunity to run away. I didn’t stop running until I came through our portal.”

She stared at him for a long time, the stew simmering on the cookbin behind her. “Well,
something
certainly scared you.” Her antennae twitched expressively in his direction. “I felt the truth of that. The question is, what?”

He was breathing without effort now, if not necessarily more confidently. “I told you, Storra. It is just as I’ve told you.”

“Is it?” Two sets of gripping flaps were clasped together in front of her torso. “Who ever heard of such a thing? Falling machines that turn into dunes. Lumbering beings who have lost arms and legs and don’t even have Sensitives.” The pair protruding from her head rubbed against each other. “Would not any creature capable of mastering such marvels have to be of a high order of intelligence?”

“
Vyst,
certainly,” he agreed, wondering what she was getting at.

Her antennae thrust out straight toward him. “But without Sensitives, how could any being communicate its true feelings to another?”

In his fright, he had not thought of that. “I don’t know.”

“Of course you don’t,” she snapped as she turned toward the cookbin and picked up a ladle to fill a bowl for him. “Because it’s impossible.”

“I know what I saw.” In the face of her sarcasm, not to mention her logic, he remained adamant. Assuming a squat feeding position, he began to dine, sipping the steaming contents of the feeding bowl she handed him from one of its two supping spouts. “This is delicious. I’ve always said that you are expert at weaving more than just fabric.”

“Thank you, mate-mine. It is interesting to live with someone who is at once complimentary and crazy.”

He looked up from his energetic slurping. “This thing
happened
. The consequences remain.”

Her antennae flattened back against her smooth skull in a clear sign of disapproval. “
Something
happened. I suppose I should grant you that much.” Eyes flexed. “It’s true that things that happen require an explanation. Perhaps what you ‘saw’ and experienced has differed from what you believe.” When he did not reply, she squatted down opposite him. Her right pair of forearms brushed against his upper left arm.

“Ebbanai, one who goes out with the net, alone and at night, is subject to sights unfamiliar to those who farm the land, or work in town. Is it not possible that you fell and hit your head, and had a wild dream from which you awoke confused, hurt, and believing it to have been real?”

He paused with the spout touching the lower portion of his round mouth. “What could I have hit my head on except sand? The bay where I was casting is empty of rocks.”

She persisted. “Then if there was a rock buried in the sand, and you fell and struck it, and coming back to consciousness you believed there to be no rock, would that not only enhance the illusion of the experience?”

His antennae twisted and coiled like worms. “You are a good mate, Storra, and a good provider, but too often your words make a sickness in my head.”

“If not that,” she continued, “then could there not be some other explanation?” She stared at him out of wide, round eyes that were purple on silver. “Which is more reasonable? That you fell and hit your head and had a bad dream, or that you saw a giant machine descend from the sky, turn to sand, and spit out alien beings?”

Setting the now empty bowl aside, he looked up at her cautiously. When she wanted to, and given enough time, Storra could reduce a normally suave and articulate school instructor to a babbling idiot. “I’m tired, mate, and my head hurts.”

She erected triumphantly. “Just as I was suggesting!”

“Not from hitting any rocks!” he hastened to correct her. “Soon you’ll have me believing I’m a flying coretret that’s spent too long in embryo.” His expression brightened. “Come with me tomorrow and you can see for yourself. In daylight, it will be impossible to deny the reality of the thing!”

“It will certainly be impossible to deny some things.” She spoke irritably, gesturing toward the front half of the house. “I have work to do. And so, in case you’ve forgotten it, do you.”

“If you’re going to doubt me,” he pressed her, “you owe me the chance to prove you wrong.”

Her Sensitives twitched in annoyance. “What a waste of time! Searching for the source of a bad dream.” A pair of opposing flanges gestured. “If you’re not going to do proper work tomorrow, it would be better if you traveled into Metrel to see the physician Tesenveh. Perhaps he can help you better than I. Myself, I have only words with which to try and cure you.”

“Physicians are expensive.” He placed the empty bowl in the cleaning basin. Sensing the proximity of food scraps, the horde of minuscule pekcks that lived beneath emerged from their burrows and began to hungrily scour the ceramic bowl. When they had finished, they would retire swiftly to their nest to quietly await the next bounty from the sky.

Straightening, Ebbanai moved toward his mate until they were touching Sensitives as well as all four upper limbs. “You can feel my self like none other,” he told her softly but intently. “All I ask is that you spend a little of one morning with me. If I am wrong, if I imagined what I saw, I will perform a whole quarter’s worth of abasements.”

“You will, too,” she told him—but tenderly. Then she sighed and pulled away, her Sensitives unwinding from his. “The lunacy one has to endure for the sake of maintaining a relationship.”

“It is not lunacy,” he assured her. “It is a giant machine and an alien that dwells inside. Two aliens,” he corrected himself.

She made a spitting noise. “You came in here swollen with fear. Are you no longer afraid of what you think you saw?”

“Of course I am still afraid. But I will go back nonetheless.”

He did not add that he would do so because he was more afraid of her continuing disdain than anything he might encounter. Besides, nothing could be as menacing in the bright light of day as it was at night. And this time he would not be alone.

His matchless, strong-willed mate, he was certain, was spirited enough to stand up even to oddly jointed, thick-bodied aliens.

Flinx estimated each leap covered half a dozen meters. One such jump might not be considered exceptional by a good athlete. Making such leaps in rapid succession, one after another, was another matter entirely. The low gravity allowed him to cover considerable distances with far less effort than usual. Though he was firmly rooted to the ground, the exuberant bounds conveyed something of the feeling of flying. By combing a short run-up with a strong jump, he discovered he was also able to soar over obstacles that on a t-normal world would have forced him to scramble over them or find a way around.

For her part, Pip dipped and plunged through a succession of aerial acrobatics that would elsewhere have seen her dangerously close to crashing. Anyone watching them would have been hard-pressed to tell who was having the better time: man or minidrag.