But hearts are not the only things Cashlings have in abundance — they also have numerous mouths. Some of these are attached to digestive systems, others to lungs, and still more to stibbek… long thin organs the size of one’s little finger, designed to test what gases are currently in the air and to induce metabolic changes in response. Apparently, the Cashlings evolved on a world with great atmospheric variability: volcanoes belching sulfur, algae producing unusual effluvia, and plants exuding poisonous vapors in order to kill passing animals and thereby fertilize the soil with corpses. To cope with this, Cashlings developed stibbek as little chemical factories, constantly tasting the wind for threats and producing hormones to counteract the danger.
"Marvelously complex, ha-ha," said Dr. Havel… and he began to enthuse about Chemicals again.
Hmph!
The Outsides Of Aliens
While the doctor prattled, I examined the skinless anatomy pictures of the Cashlings. In one diagram, the creature looked squat and rounded like a toad; but in another, it was stretched tall and thin, like a pole with a multi-eyed head on top; and in a third, the Cashling appeared almost humanoid, with two fat arms and two fatter legs, though the legs were long and the torso short, so the hips were only a hand’s breadth below the shoulders.
When I asked how there could be so much difference in one species, Festina explained their skeletal structure could shift into three distinct configurations. In the all-crouched-down position, most of the bones lay above the vital organs, shielding the body; it was a Defense Posture which made the Cashling much harder to injure than in other positions. The polelike configuration was nicknamed The Periscope — stretching twice as high as a human, the Cashling could raise its head above brush and other obstacles, in order to scan for danger or tasty things to eat. The drawback of both these arrangements was that the bones locked in place against each other, making it difficult for the Cashling to walk or even crawl. Therefore the third configuration, the high-waisted humanoid one, was most commonly used for everyday purposes. In this form, the Cashlings strutted about like Daddy Long-Legs, taking exaggerated strides that could cover distance quite speedily.
"Ha-ha, here we are," called Dr. Havel. He clicked a button that changed the examination table’s screen from the picture of me to a filmed panorama of several dozen Cashlings. They looked quite different with their skins on… for their skins were every color of the rainbow, plus many other colors no self-respecting rainbow would dare exhibit.
Bright violets. Florid reds. Piercing blues.
Some were a single solid hue, and always fiercely eye-catching: flashing gold, burnished silver, gleaming bronze. Others were mottled with high-contrast tones, like orange and blue, or yellow and black. A few had stripes like tigers, but in garish colors a true tiger would consider beneath its dignity. Then there were others with swirling circular patterns starting as colored rings around their heads and twirling all the way down their bodies to end in fussy little curlicues on their toes. Only one figure in the picture showed any restraint, a creature who seemed snow white; but when Festina noticed me looking at that one, she said, "He’s sure to be just as strongly colored as the rest, but in a frequency of light our eyes can’t see. Infrared or ultraviolet — Cashling eyes perceive the widest visible spectrum of any race we know."
"But these Cashling ones are so — foolish!" I said. "Hostile beings could see them from far far away."
Festina shrugged. "What hostile beings? Cashlings have tamed all the worlds they live on. No dangerous animals except in zoos… and of course, with the League of Peoples, no one has to worry about attacks from off-planet. Cashlings have no need to be circumspect, and they definitely don’t want to." She waved a hand at the garish picture. "Some primordial circuit in the Cashling brain is attracted to bright colors. Flashy is beautiful. Sexy. The same instinct as a lot of Terran birds. So for several dozen centuries, the most desirable mates have been the ones who look like a laser show. Over time, selective breeding, bioengineering, and cosmetic injections have made the whole damned populace fluorescent."
"But they are so ugly!" I said. "They are practically obscene."
"Don’t say that to their faces. Cashlings are stupendously vain; if you insult them, they may decide not to broadcast our story."
"Then I will charm them most graciously," I answered. "I am excellent at winning the hearts of aliens, even when they are thoroughly repugnant."
Festina looked at me a moment, then broke into a grin. "You do have the knack," she said. "Come on, let’s get ready for the broadcast."
A Temporary Nursery
We left Uclod and Lajoolie in the infirmary. They were talking to each other in low voices, Uclod sounding most trembly while Lajoolie spoke with soft calmness. The rest of us had no desire to interrupt such a conversation, and I for one was glad to get away. Each glance in their direction brought home the terrible reality of bereavement; and I did not wish to be reminded of that at all.
The place we went first was a room for Nimbus. He said he had nothing to contribute to our testimony against the High Council, and more importantly, he needed to minister unto baby Starbiter’s needs. Therefore Festina took him to a passenger cabin which was tiny and cramped and blemished with hideous blue paint on the walls, but which had a full-service synthesizer that would let Nimbus obtain food and other necessities for the child. We tarried a moment to make sure he was properly settled in, then left him to his fatherly work.
Departing through the cabin door, we were forced to pass through a gritty black dust cloud swirling silently in the corridor. Festina said the cloud was a swarm of fierce microscopic machines, cousins to the Analysis Nano back in sick bay but designed to keep watch on Nimbus. If any speck of the mist man tried to sneak away from his body, tiny robots in the black cloud would swoop in, grab hold of the speck, and carry it off. The robots had been programmed not to damage Nimbus’s component bits, for he was a sentient creature and therefore not to be killed… but apparently, the League of Peoples would not raise a fuss if all of Nimbus’s individual particles were dissipated like fine dust throughout the ship, thereby preventing them from working together and doing harm.
Festina told me additional sentinel robots lurked in the ventilation ducts of Nimbus’s cabin, and even in the plumbing and electrical outlets. This proved the cloud man was a closely watched prisoner, much less trusted than I… for I only had a single mook chaperoning me whereas Nimbus had billions. Hah!
My Mook
My mook was the sergeant, and he showed excellent taste — he left his two lesser mooks in the infirmary to watch Uclod and Lajoolie, but he went with me himself. That must be the chief reason to become sergeant: so you can assign yourself to monitor the most beautiful security risk.
The sergeant’s name was Aarhus. When he finally took off his helmet, he proved to be a bearded man with hair the color of stone… by which I mean the yellow type of stone, not the gray, white, red, or brown types of stone which are also quite common, so perhaps I should have said he had hair like a goldfinch, except it was not that color at all. It was exactly the color of a pebble my sister once found on the beach, and close to the color of certain leaves in autumn, but not the sort of leaves that turn scarlet. So this tells all you need to know about Aarhus, except that he was tall, and he occasionally said odd things which might have been jokes but one never knew for sure.