Shadow's End

  "Don't ask me," said Lutha. "If Snark is right, then the ones here are just … nannies. Caretakers. They fret over a sick or dying shaggy; they come and go, minding the young; but they don't or can't clear planets or transport humans. What we call a Ularian crisis, from our point of view, may be just nannies tidying up, from the Ularian point of view."

  "We've got three layers of beings already, and you're extrapolating another?" Leelson at his most supercilious.

  As usual, Lutha found his tone infuriating. "I'm extrapolating from what Saluez and Snark have told us and what we've found out, Leelson! We don't know for sure that the Rottens even know we're here, and neither they nor the shaggies have been proven capable of vanishment. Therefore, as Snark says, there's a chance that our local Rottens are not Ularians, or at least, not the 'ultimate Ularian.' Besides, Snark says she's seen … how many big Rottens all together?"

  Snark made a face. "A hundred, maybe. Mostly I just see the same ones, over and over, about thirty or forty of 'em."

  Lutha nodded grimly. "Millions of Kachis came through from Dinadh. Ninety-nine percent of them died in the brood struggle; there are still hundreds of thousands of them out there in the grid; but Snark has seen only about a hundred big Rottens. What happened to the rest of the previous generation? The ones that came through a hundred years ago. They must have gone somewhere. Where are they?"

  Puzzled silence until Snark broke it, saying:

  "There's the thing. You know. The thing that happened the night you got here. There's that."

  They shifted uncomfortably, each recalling the occurrence, the strangeness, the occulted stars, the dampened sound, the odd effects of air and light. Mitigan made a furious gesture of rejection, as though about to burst out in anger, but Leelson quelled him with a look. The ex-king smiled, very slightly, a mere quiver of lips that seemed to say, "Ah, yes, well, there was that." Snark and Lutha exchanged questioning looks, and Snark nodded firmly.

  "That wasn't nannies," she said. "That was a different thing, that was. And if that was it, the ultimate Ularian, we don't need to ask where IT is. Part of the time, anyhow, it's here."

  CHAPTER 11

  The question of whether the Rottens knew there were humans on Perdur Alas was answered during the early-morning hours when they woke choking in the dark. Gray dawn disclosed besiegers all around them. Portieres of tentacles encircled the rockfall, closing off every doorway to the outside world and most of the sunlight as well. While the others stayed miserably huddled near the stove, Mitigan and Snark went scrambling through the stones, trying to find an escape route. There was none. The tentacles were too closely spaced to get between, the tips resting on the ground preventing anyone's going under. The only option seemed to be to outwait them, though as the day wore on it was clear that time meant little or nothing to Rottens. Midmorning came and departed. Noon came, status quo. They forced themselves to drink, to rehydrate bodies depleted by the constant salivation. Eating was out of the question. Early afternoon came and went. Though the Rottens made no effort to infiltrate the rock pile, they seemed prepared to stay forever.

  All of them but Mitigan became increasingly worried about Saluez. She remained comatose; only her chest and belly moved; breath came and went almost inaudibly while her belly quivered and jabbed sharply beneath the blanket. How close to the time? Snark wanted to know, receiving shrugs as reply. It could be today, Lutha thought, or much later. Even if they knew when, it wouldn't help. No baby could nurse with this going on! And a dehydrated mother couldn't provide milk.

  When Jiacare said he was going to one of the peek holes to get a good look at the Rottens, Lutha offered to go with him, partly from curiosity, but mostly just to stop sitting, spitting, worrying about Saluez. Snark joined them, though Mitigan and Leelson sat immovably, each in his own drool corner.

  Lutha had thought the shaggies quite large enough—they were hundreds of times larger than the Kachis—but the Rottens were enormously bigger yet. They shared the same form, even to the bulgy, lumpy tentacles that looked as though they contained bones or hard chunks of something rather than being the sinuous flow of flesh one might expect. Lutha mentioned this to Snark.

  "It's a scleroprotein," Snark replied indistinctly. "It's got a lot of silicon in it, and I'm guessing it's the lining for the hydrogen ducts. I think the ducts fold up when the tentacles contract. Probably the gasbags contract, too, so the hydrogen can be pressurized to reduce buoyancy."

  "Weird," offered the ex-king.

  "Odd," Snark replied, shaking her head. "What's weird is their genetic pattern. Pieces of it are similar to a lot of creatures we have records of—"

  She stopped, her words arrested by a break in the thus-far-unchanging view through the crevice. Far to their right the curtain of tentacles was disturbed. A dozen of the lumpy lines thrashed in agitation and began reeling in as the shaggies did when they caught fish. The observers craned, trying to see what had caused the disturbance, seeing nothing at first but stones and bracken. Then came a flash of pale color.

  Lutha's throat knew before her brain did. She heard herself shouting, "Leely!"

  He was out there! Stark naked! Skipping along the line of tentacles, letting them run over his body, thrusting his hands into them. Damn Leelson! Damn him. He'd let her baby go!

  She turned blindly toward the exit, but Snark grabbed her in a devil's grip. "Look," Snark demanded. "Don't go running off. Look!"

  Unwillingly, Lutha turned her head toward the crevice. The tentacles Leely touched were withdrawing, reeling in quickly, more quickly than they'd seen even the shaggies do while fishing. The dangling appendages didn't grab at him as he skipped by; it was he who plunged in and out of the ropy curtain, moving right to left along the arc of tentacles, up the ridge.

  A few—four or five—of the Rottens didn't reel in when touched. Instead they dropped the touched tentacles, severing them near the body, then drew in all the others, sucking them in as though slurping noodles. This unlikely sight distracted Lutha just long enough that when she looked back to the left, Leely was over the ridge, out of sight.

  Once more she tried to get away, struggling with Snark.

  "Wait!" demanded Jiacare. "He's not hurt, and he's following the circle. He'll probably come around again."

  She stared outward with a feeling of sick impotence. The Rotten circle was at least four or five hundred paces across, fifteen hundred paces around or more. And Leely was moving in a skipping, sidling way, not in any hurry. It would take him a long time. She counted: One pace, two, three, four. If he moved as she counted …

  She lost her place twice and was up to eight hundred something, long past hope of seeing him, when he appeared as he had at first, far to the right, still skipping, still touching, though now there were very few tentacles within his reach.

  Only when Lutha saw he was safe did she look elsewhere, following Snark's jabbed finger toward the Rotten directly above. It was one of those that had withdrawn all its tentacles before being touched. The bottom surface was smooth, shiny, like the surface of a balloon. Colors flowed across it.

  "That's Diagonal Red," slavered Snark.

  None of them could have missed the pulsing scarlet blot, edged on one side with misty violet, on the other by deep wine and vivid yellow.

  Lutha wiped her mouth. "Do they all have individual patterns?"

  Snark nodded.

  "No two alike?"

  "Not that I've seen." Snark spat onto the dirt with an apologetic shrug. "I don't think we can see all of it."

  Despite the difficulty of talking, Lutha persisted.

  "Couldn't that be what Leelson sensed as a name? An individual pattern?"

  Snark shrugged, raised her eyebrows, mimed possible agreement, all the while choking and hawking.

  Lutha gave up. She would pursue the question later. For now, she'd assume each of them had an individual pattern that might extend beyond visible wavelengths, a pattern of which humans might see only a part. For all they knew, t
he terrible taste might be part of the creatures' titles!

  The one to the left of Diagonal Red was probably the one Snark called Four Green Spot. It, too, had drawn in its tentacles and was repeating its pattern. If their patterns were their names, then they were saying their names, over and over.

  Lutha tried it silently: "My name is———. My name is———." Why were they telling the humans? A nice point of linguistics! Under what circumstances do creatures announce their names?

  Perhaps when they want others to know they have names? Perhaps when they want others to know they are not bees or ants but beings? Or perhaps even to say that ants and bees are beings?

  Leely had returned to a point opposite the peek hole. Now he stood facing the rock pile, looking up, his bare little body mottled with chill.

  Not mottled. Colored. On his smooth chest and belly a patch of bright scarlet bloomed, bordered on one side in violet and on the other side by deep wine and yellow.

  The enormous being above him made a roaring sound, so thunderous and terrible that those who were watching cringed. Colors fled across its underside. Pictures of Rottens, pictures of Leely being grabbed, drawn in, his bones falling from the sky.

  And on Leely's belly, nothing but the colored pattern. No pictures.

  "Tell it back," cried Snark out the peek hole. "Oh, little boy, tell it back! Tell it you'll kill it dead!"

  But Leely made no pictures. Just the pattern, then another Rotten's

  pattern, then another's. Lutha pressed her face into her hands, not to see, oh, not to see. Leely had never made pictures that moved. To send a message, he would need motion, but his art was a static art.

  It wasn't even art, blared a voice in her mind. It's no more art than an echo is art. Or a reflection in a mirror. It's reproduction, not interpretation. Leelson's voice, too well remembered.

  "He can't," she said brokenly. "He can't answer it."

  "What's happening?" demanded Leelson from behind them.

  Lutha stood aside to let him see.

  "They're hurt!" exclaimed Leelson. "Or they're scared! By my lineage!"

  He plunged off among the stones with Lutha at his heels. They erupted into the open inside that monstrous, fleshy chimney where all the tentacles were raised, all the bellies smooth, all showing pictures of Leely dying, of Lutha being devoured, of Leelson's violent demise.

  Unaware they were doing so, they cringed at the sight. Farther up the hill, Leely stood unmoved, staring up at all the colors, waving his hands and singing, "Dananana, Dananana."

  Then the great circle fell apart. Rottens sluggishly sagged away toward the sea, pieces of themselves bulging, almost detaching, then being tugged back with lurching effort. These were the ones Leely had touched, now barely coherent as they hobbled awkwardly down the valley. Some barely made it past the beach; some went a little farther out before they fell and floated, amorphous balloons, black bulges against the bright sky and brighter sea. The shaggies took no notice as the Rottens moved out like sinking ships, wallowing out under their own erratic power, out and down, lower and lower, the waves breaking over them at last.

  Those few Rottens that had severed their tentacles moved in quite another direction, straight up, dwindling in distance, vanishing at the zenith …

  And beneath the watching humans, the world trembled, shivered, rang like a gigantic bell, the vibration dying away to leave them sprawled, deafened, only half-conscious.

  Silence, then. A long, disapproving silence.

  Who? What? They could not tell. Over the sea, the grid of shaggies remained quiet, all tentacles withdrawn. All around, the moor was soundless, no branch quivering in even the slightest breeze. No sea-bird cried. No fish splashed. They looked at one another, themselves silent, mouths open, eyes wide. Nothing.

  "Dananana." A fretful cry.

  Lutha staggered toward Leely where he spun on his bare feet, staring at the sky, still calling, "Dananana." His mouth pushed out, pouting. He had liked all those pretty colors. He had been having fun. Lutha watched him, possessed by a sudden and terrible disorientation. Who was he? What was he?

  And she stumbled to a halt, hand to mouth to muffle the sound she felt boiling from her throat. She knew what he was! She knew who he was!

  Snark stumbled past her, knife in hand, single-mindedly set on taking samples of dropped tentacles. Lutha saw her sawing away at the great, lumpy coils while beyond her Leely danced in and out of the furze, waving, giggling. Lutha didn't follow him. She was incapable of motion. After a few moments he tired of playing hide-and-seek by himself and came to put his hand in hers. She made herself close her hand, turning like an automaton to follow Snark as she rejoined the others.

  They approached Leelson where he stood leaning against a stone, the glasses at his eyes, searching the land around them.

  "What was that?" Leelson asked Snark. "That earthquake?"

  "Like what's happened before," she said softly. "Only closer. Angrier. Something here's not liking us much."

  Everything here didn't like them, Lutha thought. The whole world was arrayed against them, and with good reason.

  "How … how did Leely get out there?" she demanded, barely able to speak over her sick certainty.

  "I sent him," said Leelson with a level look. "And I would do the same again."

  It had not occurred to her that he would simply admit it.

  "He could have been killed," she said. "He could have been … " This was foolishness, and she knew it, but her tongue went on making words her heart did not believe!

  "I thought it unlikely," he replied.

  "You had no right—"

  "Saluez is in labor. She would have died had this siege continued. She may die regardless. And her child."

  Lutha opened her mouth, but nothing came out. He would have sent Leely out if there had been no Saluez. Saluez was only an excuse, but she was a good excuse, one Lutha could not argue now.

  "Dananana." Unhelpfully.

  "I'll go to her," Lutha said stiffly. Later she would deal with Leelson. When she had more time to tell him a terrible thing. When he had time to hear.

  "I'll go with you," said Snark, with a glance at the zenith, where the Rottens had vanished. "I guess they're gone! Who'll take this sample down and put it in the analyzer?"

  The ex-king took the packet from her and trudged off toward the camp.

  "Come on," she said, nudging Lutha. "I know a bit about baby taking."

  "I didn't know shadows—" Lutha murmured.

  "Before I was a shadow," she interrupted with an exasperated look. "When I was a street rat. Street rats get pregnant like real people. But they don't have responsible sponsors to sign for their babies. Who'd sign for a street rat's kid? So they can't go to a registered birther. They have 'em unofficial, like." She shook her head. "Street rats don't eat too good, they get beat on a lot. Sometimes they have a hard time! Let's hope Saluez won't."

  They scrambled back into the cavern, where Lutha harnessed Leely to his pillar once more, fastening the latches of the tether, making a sound she was surprised to hear coming from her own throat, half a snarl, half a moan.

  "What?" demanded Snark, turning a surprised face.

  Lutha pressed her eyes with her fingers, shutting down the frenzied, ugly thoughts that possessed her. "Not now," she said. "We have other things to do now."

  Besides, she told herself, trying to calm her frantic mind, the matter didn't concern Snark. It concerned Leelson. Leelson and Limia, and their damned posterity!

  Snark didn't pursue the matter, for one look at Saluez was enough to push other concerns aside. Saluez's labor was proceeding without her, so to speak. Her body heaved and pushed, but her mind had gone elsewhere.

  "Jiacare," said Snark. "She's filthy. So are we. We'll need some wash water."

  He picked up a bucket and went out. Snark knelt beside Saluez, a strange expression on her face. "Dinadhi," she said, as though to herself. "It's her first birth and she's Dinadhi."

 
"Of course she is," Lutha said impatiently.

  Snark nodded to herself, rubbing her forehead fretfully, then went across the cavern to busy herself among the emergency kits.

  "What are you doing?" Lutha asked.

  "Making a catch bucket."

  "What in … ?"

  Snark stopped, staring at the wall as though puzzled at Lutha's question. "Saluez is Dinadhi. My mother, she … said, have a catch bucket, with a lid."

  Lutha pursed her lips and forbid herself to say anything at all. Some cultures made quite a ceremony disposing of the placenta and umbilical cord, and perhaps it was for that reason that Snark had emptied the contents from a folding emergency kit, had resealed the sides and top, and was now cutting a narrow opening into it. Whatever Snark's reason, she needed help less than Saluez did.

  The floor beneath the unconscious woman was a sodden mess. Lutha dragged Saluez to a drier spot, removed her filthy robes—little filthier than Lutha's own—and covered her with clean blankets. While she was doing this the ex-king returned with a full bucket, put it near the stove, and departed with a nervous look in Saluez's direction.

  Lutha scrubbed her hands and arms, then bathed Saluez as best she could. Snark finished her self-imposed task and rejoined Lutha, bringing her "catch basket" with her: an emergency kit with a hand-sized opening surrounded by latches cannibalized from other kits.

  Snark set it down with a thump. "The lid," she said, adding a thick slab roughly cut from another kit.

  Lutha was muttering over the lack of medical equipment. Had it been oversight? Or had it been purposeful? Had those who sent the shadows to Perdur Alas not cared that they might be hurt or ill? Or had they simply not thought about it?

  Snark tapped her. "Stop fuming. There's antibiotics in the kits. We'll make do with those."

  Growling, Lutha went to fetch them while Snark dug out several of the unused overalls and ripped them up to make a dry bed between Saluez and the floor.

  "She's sucking that veil in every time she breathes," Snark said. "Let's get it off her."

  Lutha removed it and set it aside, turning back at Snark's exclamation.