Infinity's Shore

DELAY MERELY INCREASES OUR WRATH. IT AUGMENTS THE HARM WE SHALL DO TO YOUR TERRAN COUSINS, AND THE OTHER SOONERS WHO DWELL ILLICITLY ON FORBIDDEN LAND.…

Gillian thought of Alvin, Huck, and Ur-ronn, listening in a nearby dry cabin — and Pincer-Tip, who represented them on the bridge, darting to and fro with flicks of his red claws.

We already drew hell down on the locals, when the Rothen somehow tracked us to Jijo. There must be a way to spare them further punishment on our account.

Soon it will be time to end this.

Gillian turned back to Tsh’t. “How much longer before it’s our turn?”

The lieutenant communed with the tactics-and-movement officer.

“We’ll slip in to shore between the fourth and fifth decoys … about eight hours from now.”

Gillian glanced at Pincer, his reddish carapace covered with oxy-water bubbles, the qheuen visor spinning madly, taking in everything with the avidness of adolescence. The local youths should be glad about what was about to happen. And so will Dwer Koolhan. I hope this pleases him … though it’s not quite what he wanted.

Gillian admitted to herself she would miss the young man who reminded her so much of Tom.

“All right, then,” she told Tsh’t. “Let’s take the kids home.”

Lark

TOGETHER, THEY PROVED ONLY HALF-BLIND, STUMBLING down the musty corridors of a vast alien ship filled with hostile beings. Ling knew more than he did about starships, but Lark was the one who kept them from getting completely lost.

For one thing, there were few symbols on the walls, so their knowledge of several Galactic dialects proved almost useless. Instead, each closed aperture or intersection seemed to project its own, unique smell, effective at short range. As a Jijoan, Lark could sniff some of these and dimly grasp the simplest pheromone indicators — about as well as a bright human four-year-old might read street signs in a metropolis.

One bitter tang reminded him of the scent worn by traeki proctors at Gathering Festival, when they had to break up a fight or subdue a belligerent drunk.

SECURITY, the odor seemed to say. He steered Ling around that hallway.

She had a goal, however, which was one up on him. With his head full of fragrant miasmas, Lark gladly left the destination up to her. No doubt any path they chose would eventually lead to the same place — their old prison cell.

Three more times, they encountered solitary Jophur. But puffs from the purple ring caused them to be ignored. Doors continued sliding open on command. The gift from Asx was incredible. A little too good, in fact.

I can’t believe this trick will work for long, he thought as they hurried deeper into the battleship’s heart. Asx probably expected us to need it for a midura or so, just till we made it outside. Once the crew was alerted about escaped prisoners, the ruse must surely fail. The Jophur would use countermeasures, wouldn’t they?

Then he realized.

Maybe there’s been no alert. The Jophur may assume we already fled the ship!

Perhaps.

Still, each encounter with a gleaming ring stack in some dank passage left him feeling eerie. Lark had lived among traeki all his life, but till this moment he never grasped how different their consciousness must be. How strange for a sapient being to look right at you and not see, simply because you gave off the right safeconduct aroma.…

At the next intersection, he sniffed all three corridor branches carefully, and found the indicator Ling wanted — a simple scent that meant LIFE. He pointed, and she nodded.

“As I thought. The layout isn’t too different from a type-seventy cargo ship. They keep it at the center.”

“Keep what at the center?” Lark asked, but she was already hurrying ahead. Two human fugitives, bearing their only tools — she cradling the wounded red traeki ring, while he carried the purple one.

When the next door opened, Ling stepped back briefly from a glare. The place was more brightly lit than the normal dim corridors. The air smelled better, too. Less cloying with meanings he could not comprehend. Lark’s first impression was of a large chamber, filled with color.

“As I hoped,” Ling said, nodding. “The layout’s standard. We may actually have a chance.”

“A chance for what?”

She turned back to look into the vault, which Lark now saw to be quite vast, filled with a maze of crisscrossing support beams … all of them draped with varied types of vegetation.

“A chance to survive,” she answered, and took his hand, drawing him inside.

A jungle surrounded them, neatly organized and regimented. Tier after tier of shelves and platforms preceded from view, serviced by machines moving slowly along tracks. Arrayed on this vast network there flourished a riot of living forms, broad leaves and hanging vines, creepers and glistening tubers. Water dripped along some of the twisted green cables, and the two of them rushea to the nearest trickle, lapping eagerly.

Now Lark understood the meaning of the aroma symbol that had led them here.