"On top of that," she continued, "the whole council will likely get tossed in the clink as soon as we tell our tale, so they’ll find it hard to arrange assassinations. The government on New Earth will go berserk at what’s been happening behind their backs… especially the murder of Uclod’s grandmother. The top echelons of the Technocracy have never cared how the fleet handles its own people, but when admirals start killing civilians — even disreputable civilians like Yulai Unorr — every politician in human space will howl for blood."
"They might get it," Nimbus said. "Blood running in the streets. If the civilian government tries to crack down on the Admiralty, the admirals may crack back. Next thing you know, there’s a civil war."
Festina shook her head. "If our statements get out into public broadcast, the admirals’ own people will turn against them. That’s the problem with hiring opportunist scum to do your dirty work; they won’t stick by you when the wind turns. A few admirals may hole up in their mansions with squadrons of hired goons, but the police can deal with that. There’s absolutely no chance the navy itself will stick by the council once the truth gets out — honest folks in the fleet will be outraged, and dishonest ones will leap at the chance to eliminate the people above them."
"Then we must disseminate the truth immediately," I said. "Let us broadcast our messages right now."
Festina glanced at Uclod again. Lajoolie had dropped to her knees, the better to hug her little orange husband. They looked most ridiculous like that, the woman so big and the man so small; yet I thought how comforting it must be to have someone who did not mind looking ridiculous when you needed to be held.
"Uclod is a key witness," Festina said softly. "We’ll give him a few more minutes. Anyway, we can’t do much till the captain makes arrangements with some news agency. Then," she continued, "we’ll put a whole lot of nails in the Admiralty’s coffin."
"I am excellent at using a hammer," I said.
14: WHEREIN I PREPARE FOR FAME
The Insides Of Aliens
As we waited for Uclod to recover his composure, I inquired about this race who would be handling our broadcast: the Cashlings of Jalmut. I confess I was not truly interested in them, but I did not wish to brood any more about Death so I needed something to occupy my mind.
The moment I asked, Dr. Havel rushed to locate a picture of the Cashling species. He did not succeed immediately… or rather, he did succeed, but the first images he found were anatomical diagrams wherein the skin was omitted, in order to reveal internal organs.
I can tell you a Cashling has many internal organs indeed. Cashlings are, in fact, distributed creatures, which means they have more than one of almost everything. They do not, for example, have a single heart: they have several small hearts spread throughout their bodies, and the number varies with age. Babies begin with five working hearts, but develop additional ones as life goes on; by the time they reach puberty, they have twenty hearts pumping day and night, which makes them most energetic and a trial to their parents. From this circulatory peak, the hearts begin to shut down again, an average of one ceasing to beat every seven and a half years. When the last heart stops, so does the Cashling.
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."