Foord could not understand, afterwards, why the conversation was conducted in Smithson’s language. Initially he suspected it contained things She didn’t want them to hear. But in fact, as they found out later when the Bridge screen played back the recordings with translations added, it covered matters of which they were already well aware.
The simulation began by reciting Smithson’s original name, the one he’d had in his youth. This was a polysyllabic word the length of several paragraphs, enumerating his youthful achievements, both physical and intellectual. The word of his name was a mechanism which grew as he grew, some parts taken away and larger parts added, to show what he was and point to what he would become—how he might grow into his expanding future. And then, abruptly, it ended.
The simulation paused—it had only taken a few seconds, but the translation would last several minutes—and then recited Smithson’s present name, the one which would never grow any further, because now he had no future. It followed the polysyllabic structure of his earlier name, and ended with two syllables which the Commonwealth had humanised to their nearest pronounceable equivalent: Smithson.
Smithson was where his present name ended. After it, no further additions would ever be made. It was an Ember slang expression, most closely translated as Septic Knob.
Children and accomplishments were of overriding importance to Smithson’s people. They needed both, in massive amounts, for the strength and intelligence to beat off several predator species, any one of which would normally have become Emberra’s dominant lifeform. Males and females alike piled up their accomplishments, used by the outstanding ones as bargaining-chips in their drive to create, at the expense of lower achievers, more descendants to strengthen an already rapidly-strengthening gene pool. This compulsion, to achieve to procreate to achieve, was fundamental to the social organisation the Embers had developed on the plains. It pervaded all their institutions. They were an impossibility: dynamic, aspirational herbivores.
And Smithson, even among the other high achievers, was pre-eminent. His position on Emberra was almost that of Srahr on Sakhra. But it had all ended when he was diagnosed as a carrier of the incurable disease known colloquially—Ember humour was always cruel—as Septic Knob. As a carrier he would not suffer its horrific degenerative effects, which spread out from the sexual organs to engulf the body and mind; but his children would. So he killed them, and then—because, he said bitterly, they would have become vegetables anyway, and he was a vegetarian—he ate their remains, hoping he would become infected; but carriers were immune. So he turned away from his people and his accomplishments—irrelevant now, because no more females would ever mate with him—and was recruited by the Department.
“And is that,” Smithson said, reverting to Commonwealth, “all you came here to say? Everyone here knows it already.”
The simulation laughed. “It bought some time. For Her to make more like Kaang.”
“Only about one minute of their time,” said Smithson. “And She can’t make more like Kaang, that was a lie.”
“Of course it was. That’s why I’m here. To tell you a lie about it being a lie.”
“Oh, go fuck yourself.”
“You tried that, too. Remember? You still couldn’t get infected.”
•
Later, Foord remembered to check the figure on the Bridge. It was empty and unmoving. Smithson’s dimensions and features had drained out of it; what remained was smaller, roughly humanoid, but blank.
“Getting ready for me, Commander,” Thahl said.
“Why did She leave you to last?”
“We’re in beam range, Commander,” Kaang said.
“Thank you. Hold this position. Cyr, start firing, please.”
Cyr had already started. Even before Kaang brought them to rest the beams were stabbing out, and even before they reached Her, Foord had seen something which made him shout in triumph. He had been watching the Bridge screen readouts, and it was clear She had made a mistake.
She had again diverted only minimal power to Her flickerfields, leaving them almost transparent and deploying them whole nanoseconds late. Cyr’s dark blue beams punched into them and almost through them; but not quite. They dissipated less than fifty feet from Her flank. Foord felt his shoulders drop—that had been their best chance, maybe their only one—but Cyr swore, loudly and sickeningly, and fired again. This time She diverted more power to the fields. They were transluscent now and they deployed earlier, but they were still below strength and the beams again almost penetrated them; and again, dissipated less than fifty feet from Her. Cyr screamed at the image on the Bridge screen, smashed a fist into her console, and fired again, and again. She was firing manually; automatic fire would have preserved intervals for the beams to power up, and Cyr would not tolerate any intervals, even if she overloaded the beams. She said so, out loud, staring wildly round the Bridge where they stared back at her; she explained it to them, in terms, but it came out of her only as a scream. Foord had never heard her scream before, not on the ship.
Only Kaang and the beams can hurt Her, Cyr explained, and She might already know what’s inside Kaang, so there might only be the beams, and the beams might only work now, when Her fields are underpowered, and Might Might Might the future isn’t fixed and I won’t, not Might but won’t, limp around in incontinence pants at ninety. She explained it to them, in terms, but it came out of her only as a scream, broken by fits of coughing when she tried to draw breath, but couldn’t.
Foord stared at her and thought, I’ve heard you be many things—spiteful, vicious, even merely unpleasant—but always in packets of words. You always choose words. I’ve never heard you like this. What’s happened to you?
“Cyr! That’s enough. Go back to automatic, you’ll overload the beams.”
She couldn’t speak. She shook her head No, and tried to form words, then pointed at the Bridge screen.
Words came. “Fuck yourself!” she spat. Literally spat; it was dribbling down her chin. Her mouth was like one of Smithson’s orifices.
“That’s enough. Put the beams on automatic. Now.”
She was still firing manually. The beams were still punching through the fields to within fifty feet of Her, but no further.
Cyr broke into more coughing. “Do you realise,” she managed to say, “how close I was?”
“And put your emotions on automatic too.”
Cyr glared at him, wiped the spit from her face and flung it in his direction—a gesture he chose to ignore, fortunately for both of them. Then she shrugged, and complied. The beams went back to automatic fire, and it settled into the usual pattern: their beams, and Her fields.
The beams continued on automatic, and She used their powering-up intervals to divert more power to the fields. As She did so, the cold white light on the Bridge started to diminish, and the unmoving blank figure diminished with it. It went from opaque to transluscent, as Her fields powered up from transluscent to opaque. The beams continued to fire, but got no closer. There was almost a co-operation in the way both ships settled into their usual stalemate.
This was part of what had incensed Cyr. She locked eyes with Foord.
“What’s happened to you?” he asked.
“You wanted Her more than anything,” she told him, “more than you wanted me, and I could have given Her to you, but you wanked it away.”
Foord had no answer. She’s like my own skin, he thought, even when she sickens me I can never cast her off. He turned to Smithson and asked “Are you all right?”