The Complete LaNague

  "That’s just about all we’d need to get it back to the mothership and hooked up to another unit."

  ("He’s quite afraid, Steve,") Pard said as Dalt began to disconnect the globe. ("By the way, I’ve figured out that little litany we just heard: The sacred objects that are daily put in ‘communion with the sun’ are solar batteries. Half are charged one day, half the next. That’s how he keeps himself going.")

  Dalt had just finished stoppering the globe’s exchange ports when the Duke and his retinue arrived in a noisy, disorganized clatter.

  "Racso!" the Duke cried on sight of him. "So you’ve betrayed us after all!"

  "I’m sorry," Dalt said, "but this belongs to someone else."

  Anthon lunged to the front. "Treacherous scum! And I called you friend!" As the youth’s hand reached for his sword hilt, Dalt raised the globe.

  "Stay your hand, Anthon! If any of you try to bar my way, I’ll smash this globe and your godling with it!" The Duke blanched and laid a restraining hand on his son’s shoulder. "I didn’t come here with the idea of stealing something from you, but steal it I must. I regret the necessity."

  Dalt wasn’t lying. He felt, justifiably, that he had betrayed a trust and it didn’t sit well with him, but he kept reminding himself that the brain belonged to SW and he was only returning it to them.

  ("I hope your threat holds them,") Pard said. ("If they consider the possibilities, they’ll realize that if they jump you, they’ll lose their godling; but if they let you go, they lose it anyway.")

  At that moment Anthon voiced this same conclusion, but still his father restrained him. "Let him take the godling, my son. It has aided us with its wisdom, the least we can do is guarantee it safe passage."

  Dalt grabbed one of the retainers. "You run ahead and ready me a horse – a good one!" He watched him go, then slowly followed the passage back to the dining area. The Duke and his group remained behind in the alcove.

  "I wonder what kind of plot they’re hatching against me now," Dalt whispered. "Imagine! All the time I spent here never guessing they were telepaths!"

  ("They’re not, Steve.")

  "Then how do they communicate with this thing?" he said, glancing at the globe under his arm.

  ("The brain is an exceptionally strong sender and receiver, that’s the secret. These folk are no more telepathic than anyone else.")

  Dalt was relieved to find the horse waiting and the gate open. The larger of Kwashi’s two moons was well above the horizon and Dalt took the most direct route to his hidden shuttlecraft.

  ("Just a minute, Steve,") Pard said as Dalt dismounted near the ship’s hiding place. ("We seem to have a moral dilemma on our hands.")

  "What’s that?" Pard had been silent during the entire trip.

  ("I’ve been talking to the brain and I think it’s become a little more than just a piloting device.")

  "Possibly. It crashed, discovered it was telepathic, and tried to make the best of the situation. We’re returning it. What’s the dilemma?"

  ("It didn’t crash. It sounded the alarm to get rid of the technician and brought the ship down on purpose. And it doesn’t want to go back.")

  "Well, it hasn’t got much choice in the matter. It was made by SW and that’s where it’s going."

  ("Steve, it’s pleading with us!")

  "Pleading?"

  ("Yes. Look, you’re still thinking of this thing as a bunch of neurons put together to pilot a ship, but it’s developed into something more than that. It’s now a being, and a thinking, reasoning, volitional one at that! It’s no longer a biomechanism, it’s an intelligent creature!")

  "So you’re a philosopher now, is that it?"

  ("Tell me, Steve. What’s Barre going to do when he gets his hands on it?")

  Dalt didn’t want to answer that one.

  ("He’s no doubt going to dissect it, isn’t he?")

  "He might not… not after he learns it’s intelligent."

  ("Then let’s suppose Barre doesn’t dissect him – I mean it… no, I mean him. Never mind. If Barre allows it to live, the rest of its life will be spent as an experimental subject. Is that right? Are we justified in delivering it up for that?")

  Dalt didn’t answer.

  ("It’s not causing any harm. As a matter of fact, it may well help put Kwashi on a quicker road back to civilization. It wants no power. It memorized the ship’s library before it crashed and it was extremely happy down there in that alcove, doling out information about fertilizers and crop rotation and so forth and having its batteries charged every day.")

  "I’m touched," Dalt muttered sarcastically.

  ("Joke if you will, but I don’t take this lightly.")

  "Do you have to be so self-righteous?"

  ("I’ll say no more. You can leave the globe here and the brain will be able to telepathically contact the keep and they’ll come out and get it.")

  "And what do I tell Clarkson?"

  ("Simply tell him the truth, up to the final act, and then say that the globe was smashed at the keep when they tried to jump you and you barely escaped with your life.")

  "That may kill the brain project, you know. Retrieval of the brain is vital to its continuance."

  ("That may be so, but it’s a risk we’ll have to take. If, however, your report states that the brain we were after had developed a consciousness and self-preservation tendencies, a lot of academic interest will surely be generated and research will go on, one way or the other.")

  Much to his dismay, Dalt found himself agreeing with Pard, teetering on the brink of gently placing the globe in the grass and walking away, saying to hell with SW.

  ("It’s still pleading with us, Steve. Like a child.")

  "All right, dammit!"

  Cursing himself for a sucker and a softy, Dalt walked a safe distance from the shuttlecraft and put down the globe.

  "But there’s a few things we’ve got to do before we leave here."

  ("Like what?")

  "Like filling in our little friend here on some of the basics of feudal culture, something that I’m sure was not contained in his ship’s library."

  ("He’ll learn from experience.")

  "That’s what I’m afraid of. Without a clear understanding of Kwashi’s feudalism, his aid to Bendelema might well unbalance the whole social structure. An overly prosperous duchy is either overcome by jealous, greedy neighbors, or it uses its prosperity to build an army and pursue a plan of conquest. Either course could prove fatal to the brain and further hinder Kwashi’s chances for social and technological rehabilitation."

  ("So what’s your plan?")

  "A simple one: You’ll take all I know about Kwashi and feudalism and feed it to the brain. And you can stress the necessity of finding a means for wider dissemination of its knowledge, such as telepathically dropping bits of information into the heads of passing merchants, minstrels, and vagabonds. If this prosperity can be spread out over a wide area, there’ll be less chance of social upheaval. All of Kwashi will benefit in the long run."

  Pard complied and began the feeding process. The brain had a voracious appetite for information and the process was soon completed. As Dalt rose to his feet, he heard a rustling in the bushes. Looking up, he saw Anthon striding toward him with a bared sword.

  "I’ve decided to return the godling," Dalt stammered lamely.

  Anthon stopped. "I don’t want the filthy thing! As a matter of fact, I intend to smash it as soon as I finish with you!"

  A look of hatred filled his eyes, the look of a young man who has discovered that his friend and admired instructor is a treacherous thief.

  "But the godling has seen to it that no one in Bendelema will ever again go hungry!" Dalt said. "Why destroy it?"

  "Because it has also seen to it that no one in the court of Bendelema will ever look up to me as Duke!"

  "They look up to your father. Why not you in your turn?"

  "They look up to my father out of habit!" he snarled. "But it is the godling
who is the source of authority in Bendelema! And when my father is gone, I shall be nothing but a puppet."

  Dalt now understood Anthon’s moodiness: The brain threatened his position.

  "So you followed me not in spite of my threat to smash the godling but because of it!"

  Anthon nodded and began advancing again. "I also had a score to settle with you, Racso! I couldn’t allow you to betray my trust and the trust of my father and go unpunished!"

  With the last word he aimed a vicious chop at Dalt, who ducked, spun, and dodged out of the way. He had not been wearing his sword when he left his room back at the keep, and consequently did not have it with him now. But he had the dagger.

  Anthon laughed at the sight of the tiny blade. "Think you can stop me with that?"

  If you only knew! Dalt thought. He didn’t want to use the blaster, however. He understood Anthon’s feelings. If there were only some way he could stun him and make his escape.

  Anthon attacked ferociously now and Dalt was forced to back-peddle. His foot caught on a stone and as he fell he instinctively threw his free hand out for balance. The ensuing events seemed to occur in slow motion. He felt a jarring, crushing, cutting, agonizing pain in his left wrist and saw Anthon’s blade bite through it. The hand flew off as if with a life of its own, and a pulsing stream of red shot into the air. Dalt’s right hand, too, seemed to take on a life of its own as it reversed the dagger, pointed the butt of the hilt at Anthon, and pressed the hidden stud. An energy bolt, blinding in the darkness, struck him in the chest and he went down without a sound.

  Dalt grabbed his forearm. "My hand!" he screamed in agony and horror.

  ("Give me control!") Pard said urgently.

  "My hand!" was all Dalt could say.

  ("Give me control!")

  Dalt was jolted by this. He relaxed for a second and suddenly found himself an observer in his own body. His right hand dropped the dagger and cupped itself firmly over the bleeding stump, the thumb and fingers digging into the flesh of his forearm, searching for pressure points on the arteries.

  His legs straightened as he rose to his feet and calmly walked toward the concealed shuttlecraft. His elbows parted the bushes and jabbed the plate that operated the door to the outer lock.

  ("I’m glad you didn’t lock this up yesterday,") Pard said as the port swung open

  He kept a first-aid emergency kit inside for situations such as this. The pinky of his right hand was spared from its pressure duty to flip open the lid of the kit and then a container of stat-gel. The right hand suddenly released its grasp and, amid a splatter of blood, the stump of his left arm was forcefully shoved into the gel and held there.

  ("That should stop the bleeding.")

  The gel had an immediate clotting effect on any blood that came into contact with it. The thrombus formed would be firm and tough.

  Rising, Dalt discovered that his body was his own again. He stumbled outside, weak and disoriented.

  "You saved my life, Pard," he mumbled finally. "When I looked at that stump with the blood shooting out, I couldn’t move."

  ("I saved our life, Steve.")

  He walked over to where Anthon lay with a smoking hole where his chest had been.

  "I wished to avoid that. It wasn’t really fair, you know. He only had a sword… ."

  Dalt was not quite himself yet. The events of the last minute had not yet been absorbed.

  ("Fair, hell! What does ‘fair’ mean when someone’s trying to kill you?")

  But Dalt didn’t seem to hear. He began searching the ground.

  "My hand! Where’s my hand? If we bring it back maybe they can replace it!"

  ("Not a chance, Steve. Necrosis will be in full swing by the time we get to the mothership.")

  Dalt sat down. The situation was finally sinking in. "Oh, well," he said resignedly. "They’re doing wonderful things with prosthetics these days."

  ("Prosthetics?We’ll grow a new one.)

  Dalt paused before answering. "A new hand?"

  ("Of course.You’ve still got deposits of omnipotential mesenchymal cells here and there in your body. I’ll just have them transported to the stump, and with me guiding the process there’ll be no problem to rebuilding the hand. It’s really too bad you humans have no conscious control over the physiology of your bodies. With the proper direction, the human body is capable of almost anything.")

  "You mean I’ll have my hand back? Good as new?"

  ("Good as new. But at the moment I suggest we get into the ship and depart. The brain has called the Duke and it might be a good thing if we weren’t here when he arrived.")

  "You know," Dalt said as he entered the shuttlecraft and let the port swing to a close behind him, "with you watching over my body, I could live to a ripe old age."

  ("All I have to do is keep up with the degenerative changes and you’ll live forever.")

  Dalt stopped in midstride. "Forever?"

  ("Of course. The old natives of this planet knew it when they made up that warning for their children: ‘Of every thousand struck down, nine hundred and ninety-nine will die.’ The obvious conclusion is that the thousandth victim will not die.")

  "Ever?"

  ("Well, there’s not much I can do if you catch an energy bolt in the chest like Anthon back there. But otherwise, you won’t die of old age – I’ll see to that. You won’t even get old, for that matter.")

  The immensity of what Pard was saying suddenly struck Dalt with full force. "In other words," he breathed, "I’m immortal."

  ("I’d prefer a different pronoun: We are immortal.")

  "I don’t believe it."

  ("I don’t care what you believe. I’m going to keep you alive for a long, long time, Steve, because while you live, I live, and I’ve grown very fond of living.")

  Dalt did not move, did not reply.

  ("Well, what are you waiting for? There’s a whole galaxy of worlds out there just waiting to be seen and experienced and I’m getting damn sick of this one!")

  Dalt smiled. "What’s the hurry?"

  There was a pause, then: ("You’ve got a point there, Steve. There’s really no hurry at all. We’ve got all the time in the world. Literally.")

  To Fill the Sea and Air

 

  During the period in question there were two items on the interstellar market for which supply could never equal demand. The intricate, gossamer carvings of the Vanek were one, valued because they were so subtly alien and yet so appreciable on human terms. The other was filet of chispen, a seafood delicacy with gourmet appeal all across Occupied Space. The flavor… how does one describe a unique gustatorial experience, or the mild euphoria that attends consumption of sixty grams or more of the filet?

  Enough to say that it was in high demand in those days. And the supply rested completely on the efforts of the individual chispen fishers on Gelk. Many a large interstellar corporation pressed to bring modern methods to the tiny planet for a more efficient harvesting of the fish, but the ruling council of Gelk forbade the intrusion of outside interests. There was a huge profit to be made and the council members intended to see that the bulk of it went into their own pockets.

  from Stars for Sale:

  An Economic History of Occupied Space

  by Emmerz Fent

  Imagine the sea, smooth slate gray in predawn under a low drifting carapace of cloud. Imagine two high, impenetrable walls parallel on that sea, separat­ed by ten times the height of a tall man, each stretching away to the horizon. Imagine a force-seven gale trapped between those walls and careening toward you, beating the sea below it to a furious lather as it comes.

  Now… remove the walls and remove the wind. Leave the onrushing corridor of turbulent water. That was what Albie saw as he stood in the first boat.

  The chispies were running. The game was on.

  Albie gauged it to be a small school, probably a spur off a bigger run to the east. Good. He didn’t want to hit a big run just yet. There were new
men on the nets who needed blooding, and a small school like the one approaching was perfect.

  He signaled to his men at their posts around the net, warning them to brace for the hit. Out toward the sun stood a long dark hull, bristling amidships with monitoring equipment. Albie knew he was being watched but couldn’t guess why. He didn’t recognize the design and closed his right eye to get a better look with his left. The doctors had told him not to do that. If he had to favor one of his eyes, let it be the artificial one. But he couldn’t get used to it – everything always looked grainy, despite the fact that it was the best money could buy. At least he could see. And if he ever decided on a plastic repair of the ragged scar running across his right eyebrow and orbit, only old friends would know that a chispie wing had ruined that eye. And, of course, Albie would know.

  He bore the chispies no animosity, though. No Ahab syndrome for Albie. He was glad to be alive, glad to lose an eye instead of his head. There were no prosthetic heads around.

  Most of the experienced men on the nets wore scars or were missing bits of ears or fingers. It was part of the game. If they didn’t want to play, they could stand on shore and let the chispies swim by unmolested. That way they’d never get hurt. Nor would they get those exorbitant prices people all over Occupied Space were willing to pay for filet of chispen.

  Turning away from the dark skulking hull, Albie trained both eyes on the chispies. He leaned on the wheel and felt the old tingling in his nerve ends as the school approached. The middle of his sixth decade was passing, the last four of them spent on this sea as a chispen fisher… and still the same old thrill when he saw them coming.

  He was shorter than most of the men he employed; stronger, too. His compact, muscular body was a bit flabbier now than usual, but he’d be back to fighting trim before the season was much older. Standing straight out from his cheeks, chin, and scalp was a knotty mane of white and silver shot through with streaks of black. He had a broad, flat nose, and the skin of his face, what little could be seen, showed the ravages of his profession. Years of long exposure to light from a star not meant to shine on human skin, light refracted down through the atmosphere and reflected up from the water, had left his dark brown skin with a texture similar to the soles of a barefoot reefclimber, and lined it to an extent that he appeared to have fallen asleep under the needle of a crazed tattooist with a penchant for black ink and a compulsion for cross-hatching. Eyes of a startling gray shone out from his face like beacons in the night.