Festina glared at me a moment, then broke into a grudging laugh. "All right, Oar, I see your point. I’ve been letting my human prejudices get in the way of figuring out how to treat an alien. And I should know better — I run around pretending to be a hard-headed Explorer, but you’re the one who’s unflinchingly practical."
"I am excellent at unflinching practicality," I told her. "I would also be excellent as an Explorer."
As evidence for this statement, I held up the coattails of my jacket. Perhaps there is more to being an Explorer than wearing black clothes, but I have never noticed anything else. And the jacket fit very well.
"You’re right," Festina said, "you would make a good Explorer. If nothing else, you’re bulletproof." She took a deep breath. "By the power vested in me as a duly appointed admiral of the Outward Fleet, I hereby grant you the rank of cadet in the Technocracy Explorer Corps. That is, if you accept the position."
"Of course I accept the position. I have been oppressed and exploited by so many Explorers, it is high time I was empowered to do the same to others. When do I receive my stun-pistol?"
"Uh, later," Festina replied. "Much later. It’s time we got back to the others."
So that is what we did.
The Compactification Of A Cloud
When we returned to Nimbus’s cabin, the cloud man had shrunk to a shadow of his former self… which is to say, he had compressed his little flying bits into a much tighter ball around the baby Starbiter. Father and child combined were now just the size of my fists pressed together; the outer Nimbus-y shell looked as hard and dense as quartz.
"Why is he like that?" I demanded. "What did you do?"
"Nothing," Captain Kapoor replied. "He just suddenly clumped down around the kid as solid as a rock. Maybe to protect his daughter from getting thrown in a bonfire." The frowzy captain gave me an accusatory glare.
"No one is getting thrown into a bonfire," Festina said. "If that’s what you’re worried about, Nimbus, you can let the little girl go."
We all stared at the rock, waiting for some response. Humans must have slower metabolisms than I, for they were still waiting patiently when I cried, "He is just doing this to vex me! He is acting obnoxiously as a blatant plea for attention!"
"Well, he’s got my attention," Festina said. "He looks like an egg."
She smiled to show she was joking, then knelt beside the chair that held both Nimbus and Starbiter. "Hey," she said to the condensed cloud man, "we won’t hurt your daughter, I promise. But we’d like her to send a distress call, if that’s physically possible. The call doesn’t have to be loud — the Cashlings on Jalmut have some of the best communications technology in our sector, so they’ll hear the tiniest peep."
Festina paused; there was no sign that Nimbus was listening. "You know our situation," she said, still using a soft persuasive voice. "At this second, the Shaddill are out of commission, and unfriendly elements of the navy are far away… so we’ve got a window of opportunity to call for help from someone else. If we leave it too long, though, the Shaddill might get themselves repaired; and you can be damned sure the Admiralty has already dispatched one of their dirty-trick ships to track us down. Then there’s the added complication that we’ll soon use up all of our oxygen. Baby Starbiter may not care, since she’s designed to survive in space, but the rest of us are air-breathing. Including you, Nimbus. Sooner or later, you’re going to get woozy… which means you’ll pass out when your daughter needs you most, unless we call for help now."
To me, this was excellent logic; but Nimbus remained stony in the face of Festina’s arguments. I wanted to poke him (quite gently, with a finger), but did not know how others would view such an action. Anyway, I doubted if prodding would have much effect — the cloud man appeared to be as unresponsive as granite. At last, Festina grimaced and stepped away from him.
"All right," she said, "we aren’t accomplishing much here. Captain, any ideas to propose?"
The captain man, Mr. Kapoor, ran a hand through his almost nonexistent hair. "Just to go through the motions," he said, "we should check ship’s stores, in case some spare parts didn’t get zapped. There’s a minuscule chance we can throw together a makeshift communicator — at least something good enough to send a public SOS."
"Very well," Festina told him, "let’s hope we’re lucky. And while you’re doing that, I’ll make a quick run around the ship and gather the rest of the crew. Where’s the best place for them to assemble? Down near the storerooms?"
Kapoor nodded. "That’s as good as any."
"Fine, Captain, carry on. Oh, and please send two people to Dr. Havel in the main computer room. He’s got a casualty who’ll need to be transported someplace safe."
"Aye-aye, Admiral."
The captain moved his hand in a manner reminiscent of a salute (provided one had a high capacity for reminiscing). As he and his collection of crew members moved off down the hallway, Festina turned to Uclod, Lajoolie, and me. "One of us should stay with Nimbus," she said. "To talk to him if he decides to come out of his shell."
"I shall do that," I said. As his somewhat-sister, it was my obligation to attend to the cloud man’s needs; and of course, to berate him for his churlish behavior as soon as non-family persons had departed the room.
"I’ll stay too," Lajoolie piped up hastily, speaking with uncharacteristic urgency. She must have believed I might do the cloud man an injury if left alone with him… which just goes to show what unjust suspicions arise when one conducts oneself in a Forthright Manner.
Festina turned to Uclod. "What about you? Do you want to stay here or come with me for a once-around-the-ship?"
The little man threw a glance at Lajoolie, then turned back to Festina. "I’ll go with you. Uncle Oh-God would rip off my ears if I let you go wandering with no one to watch your back."
He reached out quickly, grabbed Lajoolie’s hand, and gave it a quick squeeze. Then he and Festina vanished out the door, leaving the rest of us on our own.
17: WHEREIN I AM SWALLOWED BY DARKNESS
Alone In The Dark
If you have been paying attention — and for your sake, I hope you have, so when persons of High Social Standing accost you in the street, saying, "Have you read Oar’s book?" you will be able to answer, "Yes, especially the part where she and Lajoolie were left alone with Nimbus" — if you have been paying attention, you will realize our party had only possessed two glow-wands. One belonged to the captain, the other to my friend Festina; therefore, when the captain departed in one direction and Festina went the other, Lajoolie and I were left with a conspicuous absence of light. Also a conspicuous absence of food. I still had not eaten a bite in the past four years, and being in the dark always makes me famished. Quite literally. Especially an enclosed darkness without even the tiny sustenance of starshine. If I did not get food or light soon, I would lapse into the torpid state that befalls my species when deprived of the necessities of life. It had only happened to me once, when I drowned in a great river and remained stuporous under dark water until the current washed me ashore… but I did not enjoy the experience, and was keen not to repeat it.
Therefore, to conserve energy I settled myself onto the floor and attempted to relax every muscle. Lajoolie must have heard me moving, for she asked, "What are you doing?"
"Saving my strength," I said.
"For what?"
"To avoid enforced hibernation. I do not suppose you have any foodstuffs with you? It could even be opaque if that was all you had."