Transcendence

Of Darya Lang and J’merlia there was no sign. Tally hoped they were all right. So far as he could tell, the treatment he had received was not intended to kill or maim — at once. But there was plenty of time for that.

And he could think of a variety of unpleasant ways that it might happen.

One of them was right in front of him. At first sight the space between Tally and the raised center of the room was a lumpy floor, an uneven carpet of pale apricot. But it was moving. The inside of the chamber was a sea of tiny heads, snapping with sharp beaks at anything in sight. Miniature tentacles writhed, tangling each with its neighbor.

They were in an underwater Zardalu breeding ground. A rapid scan counted more than ten thousand young — up from a total of fourteen just a few months earlier. Zardalu bred fast.

He was recording full details of the scene for possible future use by others when the Zardalu lifted him and Dulcimer and carried them effortlessly forward, on through the sea of waving orange tentacles. The little Zardalu made no attempt to get out of the way. They stood their ground and snapped aggressively at the base of the adult Zardalu as it passed. In return, the infants were swatted casually out of the way by leg-thick tentacles, with a force that sent them flying for many meters.

Tally and Dulcimer were dropped before a hulking Zardalu squatted on the waist-high parapet of the i

It looked familiar. He took a closer look at the Zardalu itself. Surprise! He recognized the creature. To most people, those massive midnight-blue torsos, bulging heads, and cruel beaks might have made all Zardalu identical, but Tally’s storage and recall functions were of inhuman accuracy and precision.

And now, at last, that “wasted” effort of language learning back on Miranda could pay off.

“May I speak?” Tally employed the pattern of clicks and whistles that he had learned from Kallik. “This may sound odd, but I know you.”

The Zardalu behind Tally at once smacked him flat to the slimy floor and muttered a warning growl, while the big one in front writhed and wriggled like a tangle of pythons.

“You speak.” The king-size Zardalu leaned forward, producing the whistling utterances with the slitted mouth below its vicious beak. “You speak in the old tongue of total submission. But that tongue is to be spoken by slaves only when commanded. The penalty for other use by slaves is death.”

“I am not a slave. I speak when I choose.”

“That is impossible. Slaves must speak the slave tongue, while only submissive beings may speak it. The penalty for other beings who speak the slave tongue is death. Do you accept total slavery? If not, the young are ready. They have large appetites.”

There was a nice logical problem here on the question of nonslaves who chose to use the slave tongue, but Tally resisted the temptation to digress. The Zardalu in front of him was reaching down with a powerful tentacle. Flat in the slime next to Tally, Dulcimer was gibbering in terror. The Chism Polypheme could not understand anything that was being said, but he could see the vertical slit of a mouth, and above it the up-curved sinister beak, opening and closing and big enough to bite a human — or a Polypheme! — in two.

“Let’s just agree that I can speak, and defer the slave question,” Tally said. “The main thing is, I know you.”

“That is impossible. You dare to lie? The penalty for lying is death.”

An awful lot of things in the Zardalu world seemed to require the death penalty. “It’s not impossible.” Tally lifted his head again, only to be pushed back down into the slime by the junior Zardalu behind him. “You were in the fight on Serenity, the big Builder construct. In fact, you were the one who grabbed hold of me and pulled me to bits.”

That stopped the questing tentacle, a few inches from Tally’s left arm. “I was in battle, true. And I caught one of your kind. But I killed it.”

“No, you didn’t. That was me. You pulled my arms off, remember, first this one, then this one.” Tally held up his intact arms. “Then you pulled my legs off. And then you threw me away to smash me against the corridor wall. The top of my skull broke off, and the impact just about popped my brain out. Then that loose piece of my skull was crushed flat — but now I think of it, one of your companions did that, not you.”

The tentacle withdrew. When Tally raised his head again, nothing pushed him back down.

The big Zardalu was leaning close. “You survived such drastic dismemberment?”

“Of course I did.” Tally stood up and wiggled his fingers. “See? Everything as good as new.”

“But the agony… and with your refusal to accept slave status, you risk it again. You would dare such pain a second time?”

“Well, that’s a bit of a sore point with me. My kind doesn’t feel pain, you see. But I can’t help feeling that there are times when it would be better for my body if I did. Hey! Put me down.”

Tentacles were reaching out and down. Tally was lifted in one pair, Dulcimer in another. The big Zardalu turned and dropped the two of them over the waist-high parapet. They fell eight feet and landed with a squelch in a smelly heap that sank beneath their weight.

“You will wait here until we return.” A bulbous head peered over the edge of the parapet. A pair of huge cerulean blue eyes stared down at them. “You will be unharmed, at least until I and my companions decide your fate. If you attempt to leave, the penalty is death.”

The midnight-blue head withdrew. Tally tried to stand up and reach the rim of the pit, but it was impossible to keep his balance. They had been dropped onto a mass of sea creatures, fish and squid and wriggling sea cucumbers and anemones. There was just enough water in the pit to keep everything alive.

“Dulcimer, you’re a lot taller than I am when you’re full-length. Can you stretch up to the edge?”

“But the Zardalu…” The great master eye stared fearfully at E.C. Tally.

“They left. They’ve gone for a consultation to decide what to do with us.” Tally gave Dulcimer a summary of the whole conversation. “Strange, wasn’t it,” he concluded, “how their attitude changed all of a sudden?”

“Are you sure that they have gone?”

“If we could just reach the edge, you could see for yourself.”

“Wait one moment.” Dulcimer coiled his spiral downward, squatting in among the writhing fish. He suddenly straightened like a released spring and soared fifteen feet into the air, rotating as he flew.

“You are right,” he said as he splashed back down. “The chamber is empty.”

“Then, jump right out this time, and reach over to help me. We have to look for a way to escape.”

“But we know the way out. It is underwater. We will surely drown, or be caught again.”

“There must be another way in and out.”

“How do you know?”

“Logic requires it. The air in here is fresh, so there has to be circulation with the outside atmosphere. Go on, Dulcimer, jump out of this pit.”

The Polypheme was cowering again. “I am not sure that your plan is wise. They will not harm us if we accept slave status. But they said that if we try to escape, they will surely kill us. Why not agree to be slaves? An opportunity to escape safely will probably come along in three or four hundred years, maybe less. Meanwhile—”

“Maybe you’re right. But I’m going to do my best to get out of here.” Tally stared down and poked with his foot at a hideous blue crustacean with spiny legs. “I’d have more faith in the word of the Zardalu if they hadn’t left us here in their larder—”