Halfway to the main body of the Lightfoot – now not worthy of that name – Fabian discovers that, of course, the plateau ecosystem is not a monoculture, because something has come to investigate.
It moves swiftly, certainly in contrast with the starfish. It comes into view from the cliff edge, having scaled the side, or perhaps arisen from its roost there. It is . . . Fabian has no ready comparison. It has a globular body and a number of limbs which appear pneumatic, so that it progresses in lurching fits, the limbs at its rear inflating and thrusting it forwards, then a pause as it works out where it has gone, then another sudden charge. The starfish things are reacting to it, their limbs curling up with painful slowness, hiding their photosynthetic vulnerables from what is apparently a predator.
Fabian has frozen; now he is dragged on as the tracked drone continues its progress. The predator obviously registers their movement – Fabian is unsure if it sees, exactly – and flails over, its limbs plunging rigid-flaccid-rigid-flaccid to bounce and jar it towards them. It is a fair match for Fabian in size, which is to say its body is smaller than a human head, and the greatest span of its limbs, fully extended, would be about a metre and a half. Fabian does the only thing he can think of and gives the alien monster a full-on threat display, limbs raised high to make himself as big as he can be, palps quivering as he dances back and forth.
The alien thing comes to a sudden slapping halt, and Fabian sees that there are whorls and pits studded about its body that presumably serve as sense organs. It waves some half-tumescent tentacles at him uncertainly – this space-suited arachnid visitor from another world. He pitches himself even higher, almost toppling over with his tiny ferocity, and miraculously the thing seems to get the message and shrugs off somewhat sullenly to go and molest one of the ruptured starfish.
When they get to the airlock of the Lightfoot and Viola begins the complex logistics of preserving quarantine whilst getting everyone safe and inside, Fabian glances back and sees half a dozen of the rubbery things feeding on those starfish that have not curled in on themselves in time, and also an entirely different beast, as much like an ambulatory pineapple as anything. None of them pay any attention to their visitors from the sky.
Zaine safely handed off, Fabian decides to take better stock of their surroundings, because the Lightfoot is plainly not going anywhere soon. He keeps loose tabs via comms on the situation inside. Zaine has been unsuited and placed in a sealed section with Artifabian, which is now coordinating with some of Kern’s attention to treat her injuries as best it can, whilst steadfastly refusing or unable to link to its mother computer.
Kern’s own resources are diverted elsewhere. Presumably she does not have the energy or focus to try and hack the robot and bring it back into the fold, and so must let it continue to patter about, lost in its own cover identity as a male Portiid.
Fabian scuttles around the crashed ship’s edge, stepping fastidiously over great spools of unstrung hull material. The ground rises sharply on the side away from the cliff edge. He is thinking about caves, and perhaps large things that might live in caves. The terrain that way is very rugged, thrown up into blocks and jags by some hopefully-distant volcanism. Or perhaps not volcanism . . . Fabian tries to adjust to what he is looking at, but then Kern has an announcement.
I have a long-range comms contact.
With the octopuses? Viola demands, because the locals have demonstrated a wide range of possible responses and coming over to finish the job is certainly in the running.
I have drones still in orbit. I have configured one as a receiver and relay station. I will be able to send out a signal that can reach the Voyager, Kern states, with more animation than before, drawing back her scattered resources from their many errands. Also: I have established contact with the station.
We do not want contact with the station, Viola decides emphatically.
We do, Kern says forcefully. I have made contact with Meshner.
Fabian twitches at the thought, because he is not sure that there is a ‘Meshner’ left to make contact with, but there might be something wearing his face up there, and the idea is almost as upsetting to him as it would be to a Human. He gathers himself to give everyone the benefit of his sure-to-be-disregarded opinion, then his limbs go still and he stares, finally processing what he is looking at.
Portiids, like Humans, are very good at finding patterns, even when there are none to be found. As a scientist, Fabian has tried to train himself out of such behaviour, which is less the mother of inspiration than of false positives. It has taken him too long, therefore, to accept that what he is seeing is no freak of geology, after all.
Moments later Fabian gets through the airlock and bursts into the crew chamber, unsuited, legs flying in a blur as he tries to get his news out.
Outside, upslope, there! his feet stammer to Viola; and then, with more control, There is a city.
4.
Helena and Portia have been returned to their cell, but without any sense of a decision being arrived at amongst their captors. More anthropomorphism. She had looked for a comprehensible narrative in the patterns of their skins and motions; a sense that their parliament was moving, through that visible debate, to some manner of rational conclusion. But then she realized that even Humans, even Portiids, might not present such an ordered picture in their decision-making. Even a single individual might not. What is a decision, after all? Helena knows the research better than most: there are Portiid scientists who say that the mind is like an ant’s nest, individual neurons, like ant workers, weighing in on either side of any given issue until a tipping point is reached and the brain, or the colony, thinks, I have made a decision and here (post facto) are my rational reasons. Looked at in such a light, this civilization of the octopus is perhaps not so different to her own, save that instead of the self-deceit of Human/Portiid determinism, they are comfortable with their own malleability.
Too neat, too pithy, for physically malleable beings? And again the anthropomorphism; in the end she cannot escape it, part of what makes her Human. She wonders if their hosts view their angular prisoners with, what, cephalopodomorphism? And pity them their lack of expression, maybe? And now Helena is honest enough to know that her mind is just spinning wheels to nowhere.
The octopus prisoner apparently fared better than they, or worse, for its adjoining chamber is vacant. Or is it just hiding there, camouflaged beyond my ability to see?
Almost comically soon, before either of them have done more than start to doff their suits, they are being invited to move again. The same bubble, the same pipes, but now they end up in a far smaller chamber, air-filled and equipped with a recognizable Old Empire terminal, save that it is plainly newly-minted and somewhat cobbled together, as though the octopuses have tried earnestly to replicate a thing known only from old records. There are things like chairs, too, in that they have the right general shape but are impossible to sit on without a constant fight for balance. There is . . .
There is a picture emblazoned on one wall. It is desperately trying to be an illustration of a human, for a human. Possibly it is intended to be Disra Senkovi, a positive human role model acting as the bridge between two very different species. A long-gone art critic might describe the end result as Cubist, as though the creator was trying to show the man from multiple sides and at multiple times, all in one still image.