The SongLuminant is amused. It’s because I’m pretty sure it knows I’m here. But the fish don’t.
So is there a point in getting rid of the fish? Will it change anything?
Well, fish fries are delicious.
Oh man, that’s so weird. Normally, Whirljack would chew me a new compost bin for making such a sick joke. Of course, we would never eat sentient beings, no matter how good they might taste batter-fried.
But WJ’s body is in some kind of stasis. He’s stuck inside, even though we’re outside.
Ailann saw the attack coming. He saw it two minutes in advance because Tara was nearby, and it was important. Really important. And so the best plan we could come up with on such short notice was to swap emanations, and hope that Whirljack could pull the scales over their little bulgy eyes while I ducked out.
It’s so quiet. Creepy quiet. I can’t hear anybody. They’re all locked inside of Whirljack by whatever the SongLuminants did to him. I’m completely alone, like Daniel was. Or Ari. I have to think for myself.
It’s all right. I can do it. I thought for myself when I first emanated, and I thought I’d have to kill Whirljack to keep control of the emanation forever. I thought the others wanted to kill me. I thought being by myself was the only way I could have Tara.
Basically, I thought for myself when I was delusional, ignorant, and made some really bad decisions. This is not fucking reassuring.
Ok, ok, what would Whirljack do in this situation?
Protect Tara. Duh.
That’s the point in getting rid of the fish. Those gun-harnesses they are wearing may look silly, but they pack erbium-ytterbium codoped xerbonium gas-glass double-phased lasers. Just like a fish, to have the latest technology in frying. Geez, we’re in a fucking habitation class atmo-grav zone. Just use a projectile weapon, you little fishy fuckers.
Of course, it doesn’t matter to me. It’s as easy to change xerbonium to lead as it is to change a lead bullet to marshmallow. Actually, marshmallow is more complicated.
All right, done. Now the question is how to neutralize the fish without tipping off the SongLuminant. Of course, if I’m right, the SongLuminant isn’t fooled. So why did it let me muck up the Floatfish guns?
It’s probably better not to think about it too much. I launch a flying tackle at the fish closest to me. It squirts out of my arms like a greased pig. But Tara’s response is instant. I’m pretty sure when she saw Whirljack had collapsed, she knew I was around somewhere. She’s been waiting for this, and has a warrior’s instincts.
Whomp. She kicks that sucker like a football, and it sails across the room, rebounding from the carved trim of the elaborate marquetry. “Ow,” it says, “owowow.” It’s got sort of a gurgly accent.
The second tries the guns, but they don’t work. It spews green gas from its float-bladder, sending it hurtling backwards across the room until it is hovering above Whirljack. “Stop,” it says. “The SongLuminants have put Phhhhhhhhhhhhhnnnv in telepathic contact with your Archon. Disrupting that contact could leave both of them in a vegetative state.”
“Fishy-dude,” I say, “I’m an effing tree. I’m always in a vegetative state, and what kind of ethnic slur is that anyway? Look, we’ve been through all kinds of bullshit with telepaths trained in interrogation and torture techniques. CenGov Telepaths. Ennead enforcers. If that didn’t hurt us, I doubt this will.” I’m bluffing – but not because I’m afraid of being hurt. I’m actually afraid of permanent damage to Phhhhhhhhhhhhhnnnv.
“Ow,” says number one. “Owowowowow. My scales are damaged!”
“Aw, geez,” I say, “I’m not as good at this as Ailann by a long shot, but I think I can help.” I put my hand on its side, trying to focus on the chemical composition. Hydroxyapatite, calcium carbonate and collagen, with only a little bit of weird rare mineral content from their native ocean. I can do this.
“What are you doing?” says Tara. “They’re our enemies. You’re not supposed to be helping them.”
“But he’s hurt, Tara.”
“Considering that the fate of your entire species hangs in the balance, you don’t seem to be treating this with the appropriate amount of seriousness,” says number two, belching a cloud of gas to indicate that he wasn’t taking it very seriously, either.
“What did you mean by that crack?” says Tara, with a bit of an edge to her voice. By “bit of an edge,” I’m thinking one of those particle splitters they have at research universities.
“I mean that the SongLuminants have a justified concern about a species that evolves to sentience in under a thousand years, starts to poke holes in spacetime, and randomly creates other sentient species. Don’t you think that’s a little dangerous?”
“It isn’t the entire species,” says Tara, “it’s only Ash. And he wouldn’t hurt an arthropod.”
“Wasn’t he single-handedly responsible for the genocide of the Microbials?”
“Well, yes, but they were only bugs. Single-cellular organisms grouped into a colony, I mean.”
“They were still sentient. A whole civilization wiped out. Have you no sympathy? Each one of those microbes had a mother and a father, just like you.”
I can tell from the occasional spumes of glowing green that the fish finds this conversation hilarious. Tara doesn’t. I notice her sidling over to the desk, where she’s concealed a Glock Photon X95-B ever since Sloane was killed defending her from Tenzain Merkht’s assassin over two decades ago.
“Actually, they didn’t. They reproduced asexually, through fission. And they attacked us. They wiped out entire planets. It isn’t like we didn’t try to negotiate. Ash went up there personally to offer peace.”
Tara doesn’t give a fish-fart about the ethics of destroying the bugs. She’s got another fish to fry – three of them. Which could get very ugly.
“Yeah,” I say, stepping towards the desk. I don’t want to get her into trouble, but I’ve got to stop her from doing something we’ll regret. I figure if I can get myself between her and the gun…“I remember that. Cuinn said something about wanting to form a partnership with them so that we could assimilate microbial life along with animals and plants in our empire, and then we could form spores and conquer the universe together.”
Tara shoots me a look. It isn’t the look of love. It’s a look that says clearly get out of my way asshole. “I don’t think that was the wisest thing to tell them,” she hisses.
The fish is spewing vapor like the Codradome Volcano on Volparnu. “I’ve never actually spoken to a plant before,” it says. “Are they all this delusional?”
All this time, the SongLuminant is just sitting there, not moving an iota. I don’t know what I’m supposed to do about it. I don’t know what I can do about it. I don’t know anything about it at all. It’s alien. I want to say that it’s the most alien thing I’ve ever seen, but on second thought, mammals are pretty alien. There weren’t any here on Dolparessa before the humans came, and they’re weirdly designed. I mean, why not do the efficient thing and have a seed-coat, or an egg yolk or something? Having big glands that hang there when they’re not in use, which is most of the time, it’s just not practical. It seems sometimes like their only purpose is to bounce and jiggle and get in the way, and furthermore, the feeding instinct is ridiculously strong because whenever I look at Tara’s, I have an urge to bury my face in them. Like now.
Then I realize that Tara’s tits are jiggling because she’s moving again, this time towards a different object on the edge of the desk. It’s a letter opener, another piece of junk among the endless scads of junk that got brought from Earth to show how rich and powerful and cultured Tara’s family was. It’s over a thousand years old and in perfect condition. Well, it would be, considering that no one has bothered to write letters in over a thousand years except for ceremonial occasions, like tanzaku, and then they don’t bother to seal them. So it’s basically useless for anything but gathering dust. It’s funny looking, too, maybe more alien than the SongLuminant. It’s composed of reconstituted lava rock and it’s made to look like it was carved, but it wasn’t, it was mass produced by pressing it into a mold, and it says “Welcome to Hawaii” in an ancient language on the back. The alien thing about it is the funny looking creature on the front which is supposedly some kind of god. Which brings me to the real reason Tara has it on her desk: it’s sharp. Supposedly, it’s a replica of a ceremonial dagger used in a sacrifice, but I suspect that’s not really true, just something made up by a Volparnian history professor. Which, as everybody knows, isn’t a professional who knows about Volparnian history, but rather someone who knows nothing about all the other kinds but does a lot of professing anyway.
It’s sharp, and when I move my eyes from Tara’s chest to her face, I can read the sharper thought written there: sushi-time.
And then I realize what I’m supposed to do about the SongLuminant: nothing. Because Whirljack is the one who knows what he’s doing, and so he’s dealing with it. I’m supposed to protect Tara, because that’s something even a screw-up like me can do. Duh.
And I got rid of the lasers, which means the fish can’t hurt Tara, and I don’t think the SongLuminant has even noticed she exists. Which boggles my mind because it’s hard for me to see anything but Tara, especially when I look at her chest. But more importantly, I figure I could get her out of here in an emergency if I had to. So there’s only one thing left to do: keep Tara’s temper from making the situation worse.
I smash my palm down on the tiki’s face, hoping that if it is an actual god, I didn’t disrespect it too much. Tara glares at me because this time she knows it’s no accident; I’m deliberately blocking her. And she’s furious. I want to sink through the floor. And for the first time, I really get it, down to the tips of my toenails, I get the priorities. Tara’s safety comes first, before making her happy. Even if she gets pissed off. I remember the time she left Patrick. He was devastated, but he did what he had to do. Yeah, I get it now. I shake my head, just a little.
And then I see in her eyes that she gets it too, and she turns away quickly, still angry, but doesn’t pull back when I place my hand gently upon her shoulder.