I had never seen a creature vomit a ball of glowing gold. The ball was not solid, but a tight clot of mist about the size of my head. Its consistency was highly reminiscent of Nimbus (who of course was a product of Shaddill engineering). The mist floated upward to hover above the black beetle’s head… whereupon a voice sounded clearly from the gleaming fog.
"Greetings yourself," the voice said in English. The sound was identical to Festina’s own voice; and it is most disconcerting to hear what seems like your Faithful Sidekick speaking from a ball of fog perched atop an alien bug. Clearly, the voice had to be a simulation… and when I thought about it, if I were creating a golden mist-ball to communicate with others, I might construct the ball to imitate the other person’s voice as closely as possible. This would not only ensure the mist-ball’s speech was pitched at a frequency the other person could hear, but it would also make one’s words sound agreeably dulcet to the listener. If I were designing a speaking mist, I might also make it float above my head, so people would hear the mist’s voice coming from my direction… but the whole idea was still most icky, and if I were an alien, I would not employ fog as an intermediary for communication. Especially not fog that resided in my stomach when it was not needed.
"I am Immu," the black beetle’s fog-voice said. "This is my mate, Esticus."
The brown beetle (Esticus) clacked all four mandible attachments twice. This was probably a gesture of polite acknowledgment, though to my eyes it looked most fearsome. "So you are spouses?" I asked.
"Yes," said Immu.[14]
[l4] — Of course, it was Immu’s fog-ball speaking, but I assumed the beetle was transmitting its thoughts to the mist in some way, whereupon the mist provided an appropriate English translation.
"Are you the husband or the wife?"
Immu did not answer; the two beetles just stared with their goggly eyes. Perhaps they were offended by my inability to recognize which was male and which female. Since neither of the creatures possessed obvious gender characteristics, I decided to regard Immu as the wife: she was the one who took a leadership role, and besides, she sounded like Festina.
"Are you Shaddill," I asked, "or Fuentes?"
"We’ve been called both names," Immu answered, "but it’s not how we speak of ourselves."
The other one, Esticus, sighed. It was a soft sigh that breathed out another glowing ball of mist. Even before the mist could drift into position above Esticus’s head, the fog murmured, "We are not Shaddill or Fuentes. We are Tahpo." I blinked in surprise, and for two reasons. First, the voice that emanated from Esticus’s fog-ball sounded suspiciously familiar: it was my own! It did not sound exactly like the tones I customarily hear in my head, but I have been told one’s voice never sounds the same in one’s own ears as it does to other persons. Furthermore, it made sense that if Immu imitated Festina, Esticus would mimic me. Even so, I did not like the idea of an alien who spoke with my voice; it was most sinisterly creepy, like the first step in acquiring an evil twin.
The other reason I reacted in surprise was because in my language (and therefore in Shaddill-speak too), Tahpo means "the last"… or perhaps a better translation would be "the dregs." Whatever Esticus meant by the word, Immu disapproved — she nudged him warningly with her hip. Perhaps she did not intend for us to see her action, but she hit Esticus hard enough to make him flinch.
If Festina noticed, she did not comment. Instead, she told the aliens, "We’re honored to make your acquaintance, but the circumstances are unfortunate. Why did you capture our ship? What do you want from us? If we’ve inadvertently offended you in some way…" She glanced in my direction, as if I might have been the one who provoked the Shaddill into reprehensible deeds… which was most unfair, because the Shaddill had started misbehaving first. "If there’s any kind of problem," Festina said, "let’s discuss it and resolve things amicably."
Immu made a raspy sound in her throat. I did not know if this was a growl of anger, the Shaddill form of laughter, or simply a clearing of phlegm. "Admiral Ramos," Immu’s fogball said, "we know your reputation — our substitutes for Admirals Rhee and Macleod kept us apprised of all activities in the Outward Fleet. We know you are an intelligent creature; you must realize you have seen too much for us to consider releasing you. This room, for instance."
She gestured toward the fountain, pointing a claw toward the mini-chili. The small yellow fruit had completely disappeared; now, there was only a mush of jelly. "We don’t know how you found your way here so unerringly," Immu said, "but it’s a pity we didn’t notice until you had already reached the fountain. Quite possibly, you’ve seen additional secrets on our ship: secrets we can’t let you share with the outside world."
"Then keep us here, but let everyone else go — everyone in the crusade and Royal Hemlock. They haven’t seen any of this."
"They still know too much," Immu replied. "For example, they know FTL fields can be hyper-charged by entering a star." The mist above her head reshaped itself slightly — a tiny bit of fog broke off from the main gold ball and circled for a bit before plunging back inside. I realized this was intended to suggest Starbiter looping about the sun before she finally entered the fire… and I was most envious the Shaddill mist-clouds could not only perform English translations but provide delightful visual effects.
Even as the fog was pretending to be Starbiter and the sun, its voice continued to speak. "This information is something we sought to keep secret. We replaced high officials in every culture we uplifted — like your Admirals Rhee and Macleod — and had them pass laws to prevent disclosure. For example, all starship computers in the Technocracy must be programmed to stay well clear of suns… supposedly as a safety precaution."
"So," said Festina, "if someone ever wanted to get near a star, the ship’s computer just wouldn’t let it happen. Simple, but elegant."
"And yet," I said, "Starbiter flew into the sun. She was reluctant to do so, but she obeyed me." The fog above Immu’s head flared brightly and made a harsh fizzing sound. I do not think the noise was intended to be speech — it sounded as if Immu was transmitting such angry thoughts to the cloud, the translation nanites had caught fire. In a moment, however, the fizzing spittered into silence and the cloud muttered, "We never should have given the Divians living starships."
"It was part of their culture," Esticus said softly. "It was what they were used to. They would have been most suspicious of ships made from inorganic parts."
"I know," Immu snapped, her cloud threatening to fizz again. "We still shouldn’t have taken the risk." She turned back to Festina and me. "The moment we gave the first Zaretts to the Divians, we surrendered control. You don’t build Zaretts, you breed them; and in the breeding process, random factors inevitably creep in. The first Zaretts we made would never go close to a sun; we designed them to have an absolute phobia against it. But in every subsequent generation, a few individuals weren’t quite as afraid as their parents. Inhibitions just don’t breed true, especially when they’re groundless. By now, half the Zaretts alive can be bullied into entering a star if you scream at them loud enough. Fortunately for us, no one ever tried it persistently."
"Until I came along," I said proudly.
Immu did not answer… but her translation mist gave another angry fizz.
"Why did you do it?" Festina asked the Shaddill. "Why create this elaborate lie about the limitations of FTL fields?"
"To slow you down," Esticus said. "To disrupt your species’ development. And to make sure our own vessel was always much faster than the craft of lesser races."