Let's Read Animorphs! The Whole Series! Ch-ch-ch-chaaanges

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Traxus IV: Sep 11, 2001; it's our time now
let's get this shit started

Epicurius posted:

And then Equatorial High Crystal blew apart.

Holy poo poo :stare:

# ? Aug 26, 2022 04:15

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# ? May 25, 2024 03:21

kiminewt: Feb 1, 2022

Epicurius posted:

This time it sprayed a cloud of flechettes. Small, so small they could barely be seen with the naked eye, millions of tiny shredding metal hooks. The sound was like a volcano blowing. The flechettes sprayed for five seconds, no more, but at the end of that time every unshielded Ketran was torn apart. The entire crystal might have been dipped in blood.

Oof. Forgot this part, a much more brutal image than I remembered.

# ? Aug 26, 2022 06:02

OctaviusBeaver: Apr 30, 2009; Say what now?

It has been 5 0 books since our last genocide

# ? Aug 26, 2022 15:28

Mazerunner: Apr 22, 2010; Good Hunter, what... what is this post?

the use of flechettes makes me think of the howlers; also howlers considered it all a game, paralleling Toomin being a gamer, but I dunno

# ? Aug 26, 2022 23:12

Epicurius: Apr 10, 2010; College Slice

Chapter 8

quote:

�Aguella!� I flapped to her. She was conscious, but barely.

�Dock you fools! Dock now!� a voice yelled. Jicklet. �We�re powering up!�

I heard the low whine of the engines warming. I grabbed Aguella as well as I could; her wings were beating but weakly. I grabbed her and steered her, hauled her to the nearest dock. The dock we�d just finished installing. I pressed her back against it.

�Clamp on! Listen to me: Clamp on!�

She nodded, eyes wild, wandering. I saw her chest tighten. She was docked. Now it was my turn. The nearest open dock was fifty feet away.

The alien had spotted us. At first we must have looked like a part of the home crystal. But now he could see that we were still flying, that we were self-contained. And yet he was in no hurry. Why should he be? We�d been unable to resist. We were helpless.

The alien ship drifted lazily around, bringing its dagger tip to bear on us. With numb fingers I fumbled to the dock, twisted, lined up, and the alien fired.
The beam this time. Deadly accurate. It hit us on center.

But the force field had been raised by someone thinking more clearly than I. The red beam glowed and a disc of bright light appeared at the limits of the force field.

The alien sheered off. I was on the ship�s uninet now, hooked in, able to watch the readouts from the engines. At ninetyfive percent of power they could be engaged. We were at sixtyfive percent.

Everyone I knew was dead. My sire and dam, dead. Inidar was dead. Wormer, dead. I looked down and saw her, my home, a bright glint still falling away. How long to fall three hundred miles?

How long till it hit the lava fields, crumpled, and was burned out of existence?

The alien ship hovered close. It seemed curious. Interested. Like a scientist studying some new microbe under a lens.

Then a small craft, a boxier, winged version of the main ship, dropped from its belly. It hovered then flew close, probing toward us, feeling for the force field. It stopped. Engine readout at eighty percent.

The small craft nosed forward, very slowly. It pressed against the force field, pushed at it. The field held. Engines at eighty-four percent. I could see a single shape, a form through a transparent window at the front of the little ship. He was no more than twenty yards away. I could see him, he could see me. It had become intimate now, personal.

The small craft began to glow, as if it were heated from the inside. It glowed brighter and brighter till the light hurt my eyes.

�It�s going to get through,� I said.

We had nothing. No weapons. I understood weapons in the abstract, what gamer doesn�t?

Besides, we knew that Generational ships were always tightly armed. But we ourselves had none. Never had.

The nose of the ship pushed through the force field. It was slow going. It was absorbing and deflecting the force field and it was slow going, but it was faster than the rising blue bar and numbers of the engine readout. It would be in before we could escape. Once a hole was opened, the cloud of
flechettes.

Nothing. No weapon. Hand tools. The scrapers and scorers I�d been using for �

Scoring. Score and break!

It was absurd. A losing move. The kind of stupid move that would leave other gamers gasping with laughter.

The only move I had.

I undocked. I flew to a naked spar point. It was sharp, undulled by the usual safety knob. How much weight could I carry? I should know how much a section of spar end would weigh, I should know, but I didn�t, and no time now.

I guessed. Six feet. I could carry that much. I hovered by the spar end and fumbled, nearly dropped my scoring knife. I began to cut a ring around the foot-thick crystal. Cut. Cut. Don�t worry about retaining the splinters now.

The score came full around. I flitted back and launched straight into the spar. It broke clean. Clean enough. Not a professional cut, but it would do.

I wrapped my arms around it and took the weight. Not so much weight, I could lift it. But it was awkward, hard to turn around.

I tucked it under my arm on one side, got a slight supporting purchase with one talon, and beat wing.

I flew straight for the small craft. Faster, fast as I could fly, reckless, no time to worry about it now, no time to wonder how I would survive impact.

As if in slow motion the face in the window turned. It had only two eyes, both forwardlooking. Blue. Almost pretty. The blue eyes watched me, and then widened. What alien emotion? Fear? Derision? Amazement?

The light was blinding, barely could keep my eyes open, nothing but those blue eyes staring.

I struck. The point of the spar sliced into sheet metal, penetrated a foot, then stopped. I yanked it back. It came free.

I dropped, took the full weight, and this time stabbed upward directly beneath the alien crewman. Again the spear point stopped hard.

But now the glow was dying away. The electric buzz of energy fields was weakening.

Height, you fool, use gravity, a voice in my head shrieked. Of course!

I beat wing to gain altitude. Up, up, the blue eyes followed me, still, it seemed to me, more curious than malevolent.

Up twenty feet. Now! I plunged. My wings hammered the air and I dropped, spear point down.

The spear struck the alien craft just above the cockpit. The crystal penetrated. There was no explosion. Nothing dramatic. But as I released the spar and let momentum carry me down past the window, I saw that the alien was staring with no expression at all.

The spar point had penetrated the cockpit, and penetrated his large head.

At that moment, with the alien ship half in and half out of the MCQ3�s force field, our engines at last kicked in.
F
or a giddy, terrifying moment the entire universe collapsed around me. And a moment later I was floating without sensation of speed through the blank white nothingness of Zero-space.

The alien small craft was with us still. The alien I had destroyed still stared with beautiful blue eyes.

There's something sad that Toomin, who, in his games avoids killing, ends up having to kill the first alien he meets.

Chapter 9

quote:

We emerged almost immediately from Zero-space. Only one of the vessel�s Wise Ones had been aboard at the time of the attack. He appeared via uninet. I had met him very briefly. His current chosen name was Farsight. It was a name appropriate to his role. A Wise One�s name.

�It is clear that Ket is under attack from an alien species of unknown origin. We are calculating a return trajectory and hope to place this vessel at the disposal of some other home crystal. Perhaps we can be of some assistance, though without weapons ��

Farsight�s quills drooped and he lowered his eyes. He was very old. I hoped he was very wise. I wanted to believe he was. But he seemed unaware of the fact that we had an alien craft in tow.

Nonessential crew did not memm a Wise One. It wasn�t done. Especially not in the midst of a crisis. But I was too jangled to be very concerned with social niceties.

I keyed up a waiting memm. He could ignore it if he chose.

I was gratified (and encouraged) to see that Farsight responded by immediately opening a channel. His head jerked up and he seemed to be staring right at me.

�It�s still with us?�

�Yes, Wise One,� I replied. �It�s trapped within our force field. Or half in and half out.�

It was not encouraging to realize that the people in charge had no real idea what had happened down here by engine three. Had no idea that the force field had been compromised. The MCQ3 had been caught more unprepared than I�d imagined.

I memmed a very brief description of what had happened.

The reaction was immediate. There was a flurry of wings and half a dozen people zoomed past me, vectoring toward the alien ship. Lackofa was one of them.

He paused and yelled, �Well, come on, hero. You killed him.�

It was a typical backhanded slap/stroke from Lackofa. But it stung more than it soothed. I had killed. It was the second of the Five Laws: Take no sentient life. Second in importance only to: Lift for all.

I glanced back at Aguella. She was alive. But in no condition to join me. A long period of dockage, that�s what she needed. She�d be fine. She�d be fine.
Had to be fine. Her survival had become vital to me. She had to live. No one else had. I undocked and flew to catch up with Lackofa. Jicklet was with him. Seven of us flitted before the nose of the craft, nervous, jumpy, unsure of how to proceed.

�It�s a container,� someone said. �Everything that matters will be within. We need to get inside.� Of course the word �inside� filled us each with dread, though we had surely just survived worse than mere enclosure.

�The sheet metal�s pretty thin,� Jicklet said. �If it wasn�t then the spar tip wouldn�t have penetrated. But see? There are wires and other sorts of primitive conduit running through the skin. I can peel the metal easily enough. The wiring will take a bit longer if we�re to save what�s here. And if you want me to open the hatch, well, I�d first have to trace each wire.�

She waited for an answer. For orders. It occurred to me that no one had any clear sense of who, if anyone, was in charge.

Finally Lackofa said, �Preserve the function of the alien ship. But hurry. Get us an opening.�

Jicklet went to work, and two of the others zipped in to help her. They were experienced techs,

Lackofa and I and the remaining members of our strange rescue party were not.

Lackofa looked more worried than I�ve ever seen him. Me, I didn�t need any help feeling grim.

The memory of my home falling away trailing a mist of Ketran blood behind it was still fresh. Would always be.

I could see the alien too well now. His lidless eyes were darkening. As if some deeper blue pigment were seeping into the iris. His head was bulbous, large by our standards. He had no wings. He had a beak for a mouth, a sharp, downturned thing that gave him a sad, disappointed expression. A number of long, thin, multiple-jointed arms hung limp. His skin was a green so dark it might almost have been black. The long crystal spear entered his head from directly above.

�Capasin,� Lackofa said in answer to my unspoken query. �I guess our mission of peace is canceled.�

�What do we do now?� I asked.

�You tell me, gamer.�

Jicklet wiped her face. A nicked conduit had sprayed her with some pressurized fluid. She had closed it up. �That�s as much as we can do. There are main structural supports back of this. If we cut those we�ll never get her closed up again.�

There was a squarish hole, lined with sharp curls of steel and jumbled wiring. A hole big enough for one of us to enter through - once the spar had been removed.

�Let�s pull the spar out,� Lackofa said quietly.

It was gruesome work. When we lifted the spear stuck and the alien corpse began to rise through the hole. Lackofa and one of the techs put their pods against the alien�s soft, yielding skull, and we pulled all at once. There was a sucking sound and the spear came away. The body fell in a heap on the deck of his ship.

Two of the techs flew the spar away for disposal. No one was going to suggest reattaching it. Not a killing weapon. No one looked at me. No one said anything, but no one looked at me, either.

�We need to see whether we can fly this thing,� Lackofa said. He licked his lips. He wasn�t volunteering. Neither was Jicklet.

It wasn�t hard to understand: An enclosed space was bad enough. An enclosed space occupied by a corpse was still worse. Dead bodies were not meant to be kept around. They fell away from their docks to burn up on the surface below. Anything else was hideous and perverted.

And yet I had a relationship with this dead alien. He was mine in some indefinable way.

�I�ll do it,� I whispered.

�You don�t have to,� Lackofa said kindly. But his eyes said different: If not you, gamer, then who?

�You�ll have to help hand me in and out,� I said. I looked pleadingly at Lackofa and Jicklet. �You�ll get me out?�

Jicklet put her hand on my arm. �If I have to slice the ship up like a fresh bat, we�ll get you out.�

I took a couple of deep breaths. No time to waste. Farsight would be anxiously waiting our report. He wanted - we all wanted - to get back to Ket.

�Look for weaponry,� Lackofa said.

I nodded. I�d look for weaponry. If I could fight down my urge to panic and lacerate my wings in an enclosure rage.

I landed on the ship. I folded my wings tightly. Do it in one quick drop, Toomin. All at once. I stepped off, fell through the hole, and landed with one pod on blood-slicked floor and the other on a pair of the alien�s arms.

I fell over, prostrate on the deck, my face inches from the Capasin�s now-opaque eyes. The scream was in my throat before I could think.

I screamed, panic, all around me, closed in! No sky! No sky!

�Close your eyes!� Lackofa yelled. �Toomin, shut your eyes. Don�t look!�

His own fear-edged voice scared me more. But I closed my eyes. Squeezed them shut. And my wings stayed tight

I breathed hard, then softer, forcing myself to be calm, calm.

Slowly open one eye, Toomin. No, look away from the Capasin. Up. Look up at the hole, look up at the open hole and beyond at the star field. A night sky. Not my night sky, but a sky just the same.Sky. Okay, I can do this. I can.

I opened my other eyes. I climbed erect, shaky, but not panicky. But it took real effort to tear my longing gaze away from the safe square above me, to look away from the sky and the faces of my companions.

The cockpit of the ship was small by any standard. And it was made smaller still by the instrumentation that seemed at first to be a randomly assembled pile of black boxes with glowing green lights.

It reminded me of nothing so much as our own emergency backup systems. Primitive systems made of metals, using electrons rather than photons to carry data. And all designed to be manipulated by touch rather than memm.

It was crude. How could it be so crude? The larger version of this ship had murdered my home crystal in less than five minutes. How could this ship be so laughably backward? It was an insult, an outrage.

�You need to hurry, Toomin.�

�Yes.�

�Are you okay?�

�Yes. Yes. I just � it�s not right. I mean, they�re � Why would they ��

�Toomin, this isn�t the time.�

�They killed everyone!�

�I know, Toomin. But we don�t have time right now. Don�t think about that. Focus. It�s � it�s a game, Toomin. It�s a game and you�re Ellimist. Analyze. Don�t feel, it�s just a game.�

Yes. That�s what it was. A sim, not real. There had been no dagger-sharp ship. No pale red beam. No tornado of flechettes. A game. A problem.

I shook myself, loosened my painfully tight-gripped wings. There were controls. Physical fly by wire controls. Some would run the ship. Some would be for simple maintenance and environmental functions. Then there would be the weapons.

What could that symbol mean? Was it ship�s altitude? Probably. At least to my own Ketran sensibilities. Yaw. Roll. Altitude. Air speed? And beside those � yes, yes, those had to be flight controls. Thrust. Reverse thrust. Microthrusters.

Okay, then those long things, those jointed sticks, those were the weapons controls. It would require skill to fly and fight the ship simultaneously. Could I at least fly it?

Not well. But yes. Maybe. Maybe as well as a flightless alien, anyway. What did a surface creature understand of flight after all?

�Ellimist?� Lackofa prodded gently but insistently.

I took a deep breath. My next words would seal my fate, perhaps all our fates. �You can report to Farsight I can bring this ship within our field. And fly her when we get home.�

�It has weapons?�

�Yes. I don�t know what they do. But yes.�

�They kill, that�s what they do,� Lackofa said grimly. �And it may be that�s what we need.�

I mean, this is a whole species of pacifists, and now....

# ? Aug 27, 2022 03:23

Comrade Blyatlov: Aug 4, 2007; should have picked four fingers

I'm further along in the book, and goddamn does it go some weird and wonderful places.

Father has to be one of the most interesting concepts I can think of. A world-spanning brain-net that captures lifeforms and hunts for companionship? Amazing stuff.

# ? Aug 27, 2022 03:28

Zore: Sep 21, 2010; willfully illiterate, aggressively miserable sourpuss whose sole raison d�etre is to put other people down for liking the wrong things

And here's the core of the Ellimist revealed, an absolute refusal to die no matter how many taboos he needs to break or fears he needs to conquer. You put Toomin in a corner and he will absolutely shank you.

# ? Aug 27, 2022 03:46

CidGregor: Sep 27, 2009; TG: if i were you i would just take that fucking devilbeast out behind the woodshed and blow its head off

This book is so weird. I never read it as a kid, and reading it now in this thread it barely feels like an Animorphs book. It feels like some weird cross between Ready Player One and Avatar (james cameron, not airbender). I haven't the foggiest idea what's going to happen or where this ends up and that's a feeling I haven't had while reading Animorphs in years.

# ? Aug 27, 2022 04:23

Acebuckeye13: Nov 2, 2010; Ultra Carp

Animorphs is at its best when it's combining insane sci-fi, gritty war drama, and teenage shenanigans, and this book is a great mix of all three.

# ? Aug 27, 2022 06:50

Vandar: Sep 14, 2007; Isn't That Right, Chairman?

I honestly think this might be the best book in the entire series.

# ? Aug 27, 2022 07:35

Capfalcon: Apr 6, 2012; No Boots on the Ground,
Puny Mortals!

Vandar posted:

I honestly think this might be the best book in the entire series.

I still put Visser about it, but it's already better than I remember, so we'll see if that holds out.

Zore posted:

And here's the core of the Ellimist revealed, an absolute refusal to die no matter how many taboos he needs to break or fears he needs to conquer. You put Toomin in a corner and he will absolutely shank you.

I'd say he has a human level of refusing to die, but we may have met our match.

# ? Aug 27, 2022 12:13

freebooter: Jul 7, 2009

I always loved this book but reading it again really helps me understand (sort of) why. It gives you this crazy fun beautiful world, this genuinely creative alien world of floating crystals and a society of aliens built around them, in the space of like five or six short chapters, and gives you a classic YA story of this kid who's unexpectedly picked for a deep space mission - and then it loving brutally blows it apart. (The description of the weapon that sounds "like a volcano blowing" I distinctly remember, 20 years later.) It's great misdirection. You assume the story is going to kick into gear once they depart the home planet on a voyage, but nope, you just get T-boned by A Very Animorphs Genocide.

And it's so brutal and unexpected that it really puts you right there in Toomin's headspace. You want the exploration ship to break free, you want him to wriggle into that cockpit, you want these nerdy engineers and techs to step up to the plate and somehow save their society, and when Lackofa says that maybe weapons are what they need - drat right they do.

Comrade Blyatlov posted:

I'm further along in the book, and goddamn does it go some weird and wonderful places.

Father has to be one of the most interesting concepts I can think of. A world-spanning brain-net that captures lifeforms and hunts for companionship? Amazing stuff.

I haven't actually seen/read it, but I always thought this was cribbed from Solaris?

# ? Aug 27, 2022 14:16

SonicRulez: Aug 6, 2013; GOTTA GO FIST

Still catching up little by little. And this?

quote:

Elfangor was my friend as well as my prince. I�ll believe he broke the rules. I�ll never believe he did wrong.>

This set me up to get my heart absolutely broken.

EDIT: I'm just broadly enamored with Book 18. Ax's narration. The overall message and themes in the book. I've been moved by it.

SonicRulez fucked around with this message at 00:10 on Aug 28, 2022

# ? Aug 27, 2022 17:34

Epicurius: Apr 10, 2010; College Slice

Chapter 10

quote:

I was not in touch. No memms. And no time for instructions beyond those passed on from Lackofa. He shuttled to dock, quickly explained what we�d learned to Farsight, then raced back to instruct me.

�We�re jumping back through Z-space. We think from this short distance we can hit reentry pretty accurately. The Wise One�s orders are that you and I take control of this alien vessel and carry out any defensive actions possible.�

�You and I? You mean � you understand we�d have to be sealed in.�

�Yes,� Lackofa said flatly. �Yes. Jicklet will seal us in.�

I felt sick at the thought. But not as sick as Lackofa. He was oozing mones. Fear. The smell of it triggered my own panic reflex and I had to struggle to maintain my shaky control.

The Illamans travel for years at a time locked in their rectangular spacecraft. But Illamans are surface dwellers, used to taking shelter in constructions. For a Ketran the very idea of being enclosed is horrible.

Jicklet grabbed Lackofa�s arm. �Can you do this? I�ll take your place. You�re a biologist, I�m a tech. It�s not a job for a biologist.�

Lackofa looked for one drawn-out moment like he might grab at the safety hammock she was offering. But he shook his head no, unable to speak, but signaling no, he would do this himself. He would endure what no Ketran could endure.

�Like you told me, Lackofa, close your eyes,� I said to him. �Close your eyes. I�ll help you down.�

He had nothing to say, no wisecrack or wry observation. He was beyond that. And now I found that helping him with his fear helped me with my own.

I lowered him down gently to stand beside me. He was as stiff as a length of conduit

I kept talking to him, reassuring him as Jicklet and her fellows worked to seal us in. No sky. No sky at all. Just keep talking to Lackofa, I told myself, just keep talking, don�t want him to panic, no panic, no panic.

I realized my own eyes were squeezed shut. I opened them a slit and looked out through the window. What kind of sub-Ketran beast could tolerate this? Peering at the sky through a false transparency? Locked inside a steel box? The Capasins must be animals. No sentient could live like this.

Not fair, not accurate, of course; both the Illamans and the Generationals endured captivity and were sentient. But I wasn�t in the mood to be reasonable. I wasn�t in the mood to do anything but scream.

�Are you okay?� Lackofa asked me. He had pried open one eye.

�No, are you?�

�No.�

�Come on. I�ll show you what I�ve figured out.�

�Do we have a name for this death crate?�

�Crate. That�s good enough,� I muttered. I considered which control stick would be easiest for Lackofa to manage. �Here. Put one hand here. This controls thrust. Forward is more, back is less, twist left I think means reverse thrust.�

He nodded. His quills were slowly draining their pink and the stench of terror mones was fading. He was scared but no longer near panic.

Through the window I saw the sky turn white. We had reentered Zero-space. In a few short minutes �

Lackofa looked away from the controls and down to the dead alien. �I was right. Probably Capasin,� he said. Then he actually touched the head, turned it to one side, peered at it thoughtfully, and drew out a small instrument pouch. He was a biologist - an exobiologist, for that matter. I guess touching dead aliens was easy for him. Probably even comforting.

All at once the white sky was black again, black and star-filled. I could not see Ket. Had the navigator failed? Did we even have a navigator aboard? I was ready to ask Lackofa, when we rotated and all at once my home world rose into view, huge, close. The familiar red rivers and gray-green morasses, the brown-scarred deserts and puffy, pale green clouds, all lovely beyond enduring. It was a stab to the heart.

My world had been assaulted. I let the rage flow freely. It drove out the fear, a little at least.

The MCQ3 swooped down and down, into the edge of atmosphere. The force field glowed red as we slowed to atmospheric speeds. We were returning to our old station, looking for the home we all knew was gone.

Nothing. The sky was empty. The sky that should have been filled with the Equatorial High Crystal and all the tens of thousands of beating wings and happy faces and � all of it gone, leaving a soul-hollowing emptiness in the sky.

The ship turned away, reluctantly it seemed to me, though of course a crystal, even the EmCee, has no life, no emotion.

We raced along at supersonic speeds toward an intercept with our sister, Equatorial High Crystal Two. We slowed in anticipation and found nothing but empty sky.

Another vector, another slow realization that where a thriving crystal should be was nothing but empty sky.

Around the planet. Station after station. Orbit after orbit. Race, then slow. Search an empty sky. Accept the unacceptable with mounting horror.

Twelve crystals gone. How many lives lost? Was anyone alive? Was anyone left alive anywhere?

We hit a cloud bank, a three-day bank where our recent dance partner, Polar Orbit High Crystal, should be. Maybe the cloud bank had hidden them, saved them.

We eased our way forward. I knew every eye was straining, searching. Surely if they knew of the alien attack the Polars would kill momentum and stay within the cloud.

We emerged into an oasis of sky. One of those wonderful clear holes that the bigger cloud banks sometimes develop. Polar Orbit High was there. It was moving as fast as it could, every wing beating, racing to cross the oasis and find shelter in the far towering cliff of clouds. But the airfoil was more a concept than a reality, and the Polars moved no faster than any crystal could. The Capasin ship was two hundred yards above. Watching. Waiting.

�Why don�t they attack?� I demanded. �Why do they wait?�

�Some creatures enjoy the hunt,� Lackofa said with professional dispassion. �Some take pleasure from the kill.�

Just do your slaughter, I raged impotently. Was it funny to them? Were the filthy aliens laughing as they watched the frail-winged creatures trying to move their home away at a fuzzball�s pace?

Suddenly the Crate�s sensors came alive. Farsight had lowered the force field and the Crate�s sensors, liberated, were picking up data from the surrounding environment.

It was our signal. Our signal to � to do what, exactly?

I swallowed stale air and said, �Lackofa. Thrust.�

�What?�

�Thrust. Fifty percent.�

The result nearly crumpled us both. The Crate kicked forward. The dead alien rolled onto his belly. We blew away from the EmCee and shot toward Polar Orbit High Crystal.

My turn. I worked the controls with my two hands and very quickly discovered that my guesses about their function had been wrong. We arced downward at an airspeed just below supersonic.

�Pull up!�

�I know!� I yelled.

I twisted the stick and with a death shudder the Crate bottomed out, took the gees, and blew skyward again. I trimmed and we were aimed for the Capasin ship, still going way too fast.

No. I was thinking like a Ketran, not a Capasin. Engines not wings. A box, not a body. More speed, not less.

�Increase to seventy-percent thrust.�

�Are you crazy?�

�DO IT!�

Faster! Up and up and was I right about the weapons controls? Was I going to annihilate my own ship or, worse yet, hit the poor, fleeing Polars?

I squeezed a finger around a protruding ring.

The beam drew a perfect line through the air and hit the Capasin ship. There was a small explosion on the steel surface twenty feet back from the dagger�s point.

I twisted and bellied the Crate out to zoom along the spine of the Capasin ship.

A shameful part of my mind thought, Now, this is a game!

This whole thing must be so alien for the two of them....claustrophobic pacifists, forced to get inside an alien ship and kill.

Chapter 11

quote:

It was a game. Like nothing I�d ever played. But it helped to think of it as a game. Don�t think of it as lives, actual lives. It�s only a game. When it�s all over Inidar and I will laugh and � Only Inidar was dead, wasn�t he? And everyone � everyone.

I took my momentum and held it through a turn, making unchecked leeway that carried me a mile before I could engage thrust again. The leeway was a surprise. Not like winged flight.

I zoomed back, but the Capasin ship wasn�t going to give me another free move. It was turning to meet us. Its much more powerful beam would soon be trained on us.

And yet, in this game perhaps the edge went to the smaller target? No way to know. I was guessing. Intuiting. Large, slow ship with powerful beam versus small, more maneuverable ship with a stinger. Who wins that game?

I fired. Missed!

�Take your time, aim carefully,� I said.

�Do what?� Lackofa cried, hands clutching, blue-knuckled at the controls.

�Reverse thrust! Now!�

The alien body slammed into the back of my pods. But I kept my eyes on the window and saw the pale beam lance harmlessly by. I had made them miss!

Okay, then. That was the game. If my edge was maneuverability, I�d better maneuver.

The Capasins were surface dwellers, had to be. They flew their ships like surface dwellers, more in two dimensions than three.

�Up thrust. Twist it right and � yeah, like that!�

The Crate moved straight up, breaking free of the Capasin ship�s plane. I tilted the nose of the Crate down and fired. A hit!

An engine. I�d hit an engine. Sizzling sparks and burning gases blowtorched from the hole. The engine pod blew apart. The Capasin ship spun, wild, out of control.

�They�re disabled!� Lackofa cried triumphantly

I fired again. Not thinking. Not intellectualizing the decision, just knowing. I fired and the beam missed.

�What are you doing? She�s disabled,� Lackofa said.

Careful aim this time. I fired and held the ring down. The Capasin ship blew apart, a thousand small fragments.

�Now she�s disabled,� I whispered.

I glanced and saw Lackofa�s horrified stare. I couldn�t share it. It wasn�t coldness on my part, I just knew the game and he didn�t. The Capasins could have fired again and killed us. They could have fired flechettes at the crystal. �The only win is a kill,� I said. �That�s the game. It�s their game. They didn�t disable the home crystal, they annihilated it. Their game, their rules.�

Lackofa made no answer. We returned to the MCQ3 and parked the Crate within a flutter of the main perch. We had to confer with Farsight. I suggested Lackofa go.

�No. No, Ellimist, you. If I get out of this box I�ll never get back in. I can rest here, keep my eyes closed. Or maybe look at this alien. You go. Besides, you�re the gamer.�

I didn�t argue. He was right. He could be of some use examining the Capasin. I found the hatch and the release. Sky! I moved with deliberate slowness to exit the death trap. If I allowed myself to feel panic then like Lackofa, I�d never come back.

Once outside I saw that the Polars had killed momentum and were nearly stopped. They were maintaining station and half a dozen of their people were racing toward the EmCee. I beat wing and reached the main perch minutes ahead of them. Farsight would want my report first before having to cope with the no-doubt-panicked Polars.

The Wise One was resting in a hammock. He looked a bit orange. Sick or just old? Either way it was disturbing to see our only leader being supported in a hammock with never a stir from his tired wings. He was surrounded by advisers, maybe a dozen, all looking scared or confused or sly.

An officious female Pink I�d never met cut me off. �Go away. Farsight is busy.�

�I am Azure Level, Seven Spar, Extension -�

�There is no Azure Level. Not anymore,� she snapped. �Go away. Don�t you know what�s going on?�

�I�m the one who just blew up the Capasin ship,� I said, not in any mood to have some midlevel pull rank on me.

Her eyes narrowed. Her expression went from stony dismissal to clever anticipation, �You�re Toomin?�

Lackofa must have given them my chosen name. She grabbed me and nearly shoved me through the press of hovering advisers. All at once I was eyes-to-eyes with Farsight. I tried not to look at the hammock netting.

The Pink, whose name was Tatchilla, introduced me in quick, almost brutal, terms. And she stayed close. I had the feeling I had just become her prot�g�. Even her property. Deep worms, were there really people who could think of ambition at a time like this?

Farsight fixed his gloomy eyes on me. �What do you know?�

An admirably appropriate question. �Lackofa believes they are Capasin. We can fly the Crate - the small ship of theirs - and we can fight her. But if we encounter more of their ships the odds do not favor Lackofa and me.�

�More ships?� Tatchilla shrilled. �What do you mean more ships? Why should there be more ships?�

I was unsure. I was operating on instinct. I knew there were more ships, I knew it. But could I convince them?

�They play � I mean that they fight slowly. They take their time. They enjoy the process.� I was on the verge of explaining that they were very much like a species called Endrids from the game. The Endrids, too, derived pleasure from the act of killing prey. But bringing the game into this would not help my credibility.

�The number of home crystals that are missing, presumed destroyed, the leisurely, way the Capasins play � I assumed there are several more ships,� I said, sounding unconvincing even to myself.

This was not good news. Tatchilla denounced the idea. She was no longer standing beside me claiming me as her own. �The issue is not this juvie gamer�s fantasies, the issue is where we should take the EmCee. We need to find a new home crystal and claim protected status.� Just then the Polars arrived in a rush of wings and breathless questions.

�What is happening? That alien ship chased us as though preparing to attack!�

Farsight held up one feeble hand to cut them off. �Who speaks for you?�

�I am called Jardbrass,� one of them said. �I will speak. This ship is within our rightful station. This is no Dance By. You are welcome here, but you will submit to our democratic authority.�

�What?� someone guffawed. �We just saved your lives and you want to assert the primacy of your experimental system?�

�Saved our lives? We have no proof that the alien ship was -�

�You were running away,� Tatchilla snapped. �Don�t be a skimmer. You weren�t flogging the wind for that cloud bank because you thought the aliens had come to trade metals.�

Farsight said, �We have so far counted twelve home crystals known to be destroyed or at least missing, far from their presumed stations.�

That made Jardbrass gulp. But he was not prepared to go beyond his particular concern. �Just the same, this ship and the attached alien box are within our jurisdiction. You will submit to our elected council, or you may move off.�

It was unbelievable. Tatchilla came back with some obscure legal point. One of the Polars cited a long-ago precedent. And in a flash the entire perch echoed with the sound of wrangling.

People are what they are. They have their limits, I guess. I was trying to be philosophical, but it was getting hard. I was acutely aware of the fact that Lackofa was boxed up in the Crate, sweating and deep-breathing. And that Aguella was docked, wounded, no doubt feeling abandoned.

Deep worms, shut up, I said silently. Only when I saw the shocked stares and heard the sudden silence did I realize I�d said it out loud.

People are what they are, and when you're in a crisis situation, one way to handle that is to pretend everything is normal.

# ? Aug 28, 2022 02:02

Tree Bucket: Apr 1, 2016; R.I.P.idura leucophrys

Haha, that last line is great.

Are there any other authors doing decent space opera these days? I've an itch that needs scratching.

# ? Aug 28, 2022 02:45

Epicurius: Apr 10, 2010; College Slice

Tree Bucket posted:

Are there any other authors doing decent space opera these days? I've an itch that needs scratching.

John Scalzi is pretty good, and so is Ann Leckie.

# ? Aug 28, 2022 02:56

nine-gear crow: Aug 10, 2013

Tree Bucket posted:

Haha, that last line is great.

Are there any other authors doing decent space opera these days? I've an itch that needs scratching.

Epicurius posted:

John Scalzi is pretty good, and so is Ann Leckie.

The Expanse books by the author duo who make up James SA Corey (Daniel Abraham and Ty Franck) are also really good choices too.

# ? Aug 28, 2022 03:19

Mazerunner: Apr 22, 2010; Good Hunter, what... what is this post?

Tree Bucket posted:

Haha, that last line is great.

Are there any other authors doing decent space opera these days? I've an itch that needs scratching.

Honestly, some of the lore stories and such from Destiny. Several of which were written by Seth Dickinson, who's a goon.

some examples:

https://www.ishtar-collective.net/categories/books-of-sorrow honestly kind of similar to Ellimist Chronicles, in the form of alien children on a weird rear end world getting unbelievable power

https://www.ishtar-collective.net/categories/book-marasenna ...also cut from the same mold, but human children this time

https://www.ishtar-collective.net/categories/book-last-days-on-kraken-mare just a neat sci-fi short story about a far-future human colony facing the apocalypse

# ? Aug 28, 2022 03:45

Capfalcon: Apr 6, 2012; No Boots on the Ground,
Puny Mortals!

Very gamers rise up moment from Toomin. But really, pulling "well we don't KNOW they meant US harm" is naive to the point of delusion.

# ? Aug 28, 2022 03:53

Strategic Tea: Sep 1, 2012

You know I never thought of Books of Sorrow being like Emillist, but by god it is!

Footage recovered from archaeological site 2638, wreckage of spacecraft 'Crate':

quote:

A shameful part of my mind thought, Now, this is a game!

# ? Aug 28, 2022 10:00

freebooter: Jul 7, 2009

SonicRulez posted:

EDIT: I'm just broadly enamored with Book 18. Ax's narration. The overall message and themes in the book. I've been moved by it.

I was probably waxing lyrical about it at the time anyway but I still think 18 is probably my favourite book of the main series.

Even this scant few chapters into Ellimist, though, and it reconfirms that it's the best of the Chronicles books. I admire what Visser does in tying itself into the main story, but this one is just really, really fascinating and gripping in equal measure.

# ? Aug 28, 2022 10:56

Epicurius: Apr 10, 2010; College Slice

Only one chapter today, because this is the end of the book section, "First Life" Tomorrow, we start "Second Life"

Chapter 12

quote:

Too late to take it back. And anyway, I didn�t want to take it back. Squabbling wasn�t going to win the game.

�There are more Capasin ships,� I said. �They�re here to exterminate us. They�ll be back. You need to conceal your home crystal in the clouds for as long as you can. And start building weapons.�

�Who � what are you?� Jardbrass demanded.

I started to answer, but a new voice interrupted. �He�s the only one who is playing the game.� It was Menno. How had I missed those oversized wings?

�This is not a game,� Jardbrass said in a freezing voice intended to silence the uppity youngsters.

�Yes, it is,� Menno insisted, completely unintimidated. �It is a game, and the Capasins think it�s a game, and if we don�t play - we lose. It�s why they�ve come. They�ve come to play. They�ve come at our invitation.�

Jardbrass started to speak. But no words came. He collapsed all at once. The hard set of his face, his determined expression, all dissolved. �Twelve crystals?� he whispered pitifully. �It cannot be.�

�What does he mean �at our invitation�?� Farsight asked Menno directly.

Menno didn�t answer. He smiled at me, a haunted shadow of the cocky gamer I�d met at the Dance By. I knew what he meant. I knew what they had done. �They�ve found a way to wave broadcast,� I said. �But it must have been fairly recently. How could wave broadcasts have traveled so far offworld
and reached the Capasins?�

�We linked to a Zero-space transponder,� Menno said proudly. �We�re a century ahead of you Equatorials, you know. We can punch a signal through the background radiation. And we can bounce it through Z-space. In ten years we�d have had a full airfoil crystal and been the hub of a global
uninet. And soon thereafter we could have linked directly to the Generationals and the Illamans on their home worlds. It would have been a revolution!�

�What signals did you bounce through Z-space, Polar?� I asked.

�Can�t you guess, my Equatorial friend? Simple mathematical formulas at first, for the earliest tests. But we had to see whether the system could handle heavy data traffic.�

�Mother Sky, you broadcast games! You bounced games through Z-space.�

�Yes. Brilliant, wasn�t it?� Menno sneered. �Except for the slight, small fact, that some species don�t know the difference between games and reality. These aliens are here to exterminate us because they�ve seen our games and believe them to be real. They think we make toys of other species: That
we interfere with their development with utter indifference to the results. They aren�t here to do evil. They�re here to annihilate what they believe to be a race of murderers.�

This horrifying news was still ringing in the stunned silence when someone cried, �Look!�

Every head turned.

Two Capasin ships emerged from the clouds. I didn�t wait for orders; I beat wing to the Crate.

I slid down through the hatch and barreled into Lackofa. �They�re -� I panted.

�I saw them!�

�Fifty percent thrust!�

I grabbed the controls as we shot away from the Emcee. Which target? Left or right? Left was closest to the Polar Orbit High. Stop them first, then -

A beam of light sliced the nub of a wing from the Polar. A chunk of new crystal fell, dragging thirty or more Ketrans down with it. Who had fired? Behind us! On top of us!

I spun the Crate, let momentum carry us skimming beneath the belly of the ship, and fired right up into it. At the same moment the other two Capasin ships blazed with flechettes. The tiny shrapnel caught the Polars from two sides. Maybe someone lived through that. But not enough to provide even a
semblance of lift

It was my home all over again. Only this time no desperate wings fought gravity. This time the docked males and females, juvies and oldsters, were all nothing more than ballast. Dead weight.

Polar Orbit High Crystal fell like an unstrung corpse. Simply fell from the sky.

The Capasin ship above us veered off, having now seen the peril that we represented. Too late to matter. Polar Orbit High was gone. And it was three Capasin ships against the EmCee�s force field and the Crate�s pitiful weapons.

No winning move. Nothing left but to fly away. Retreat. A valid strategy; I had seen many a species retreat from an attack, regroup, renumber, resurge.
Fly away.

�Reverse thrust,� I said.

Lackofa didn�t respond.

�Its the only move, Lackofa. The Crate. We have to save it. It�s the only weapon we have. Our only chance.�

�They�ll kill everyone. Everyone, won�t they? Every crystal, one by one.�

�Not us,� I said harshly. �Not if we run. Lackofa, we�re it. We�re all we have now. All of the Ketran race. Now reverse thrust. Do it.�

The Capasin ships didn�t bother to pursue us as the EmCee and we two in the Crate blew toward space. High above our lost, doomed planet we rendezvoused with the EmCee and were accepted back inside the force field.

It was the end of Ket. And, although there were still seventy-two Ketrans alive at that moment, it was also the end of my race.

While there are still Ketrans alive, I'm adding them to my list of genocides. Like Toomin says, it's the end of his race.

# ? Aug 29, 2022 01:29

Zore: Sep 21, 2010; willfully illiterate, aggressively miserable sourpuss whose sole raison d�etre is to put other people down for liking the wrong things

I forgot how smug Menno was even to the end when he was pointing out how he and the Polars were responsible for the complete genocide of his people.

Also totally forgot it was because of violent video games being broadcast and not standard Dark Forest stuff.

# ? Aug 29, 2022 01:44

Level Seven: Feb 14, 2013; Wubba dubba dubba
that blew.; Megamarm

I'm thinking about Kaiba's plan of sending duel monsters cards into space to teach intelligent life how to duel only to end up with Yubel returning corrupted by a space devil. The Ketrans got a bit more genocided than Duel Academy did but it's a similar feeling to that.

# ? Aug 29, 2022 02:08

Capfalcon: Apr 6, 2012; No Boots on the Ground,
Puny Mortals!

Executed for Gaming Crimes.

Harsh, but fair.

But seriously, when I first read it, it did make me think a bit more about the next game of Civilization I played.

# ? Aug 29, 2022 03:42

Ceebees: Nov 2, 2011; I'm intentionally being as verbose as possible in negotiations for my own amusement.

Capfalcon posted:

But seriously, when I first read it, it did make me think a bit more about the next game of Civilization I played.

This was one of the better episodes of Stargate: Atlantis

# ? Aug 29, 2022 05:11

Fuschia tude: Dec 26, 2004; THUNDERDOME LOSER 2019

Zore posted:

I forgot how smug Menno was even to the end when he was pointing out how he and the Polars were responsible for the complete genocide of his people.

Also totally forgot it was because of violent video games being broadcast and not standard Dark Forest stuff.

I feel like Menno made way too much of an assumption there. (Possibly an error by the authors; they don't seem like super techies.) I wouldn't trust anyone even from my own species and culture would be able to decode a real-time stream of data and turn it into some kind of viewable video format, at least not without a lot of training on the software and video file formats involved, on top of all the software engineering and general technological baseline knowledge they would need. An alien species from a completely different biochemical legacy, working purely from a radio stream, converting not into sound but to some video format for a computer system that might not even be based on binary? Not a chance.

# ? Aug 29, 2022 07:11

Zore: Sep 21, 2010; willfully illiterate, aggressively miserable sourpuss whose sole raison d�etre is to put other people down for liking the wrong things

Fuschia tude posted:

I feel like Menno made way too much of an assumption there. (Possibly an error by the authors; they don't seem like super techies.) I wouldn't trust anyone even from my own species and culture would be able to decode a real-time stream of data and turn it into some kind of viewable video format, at least not without a lot of training on the software and video file formats involved, on top of all the software engineering and general technological baseline knowledge they would need. An alien species from a completely different biochemical legacy, working purely from a radio stream, converting not into sound but to some video format for a computer system that might not even be based on binary? Not a chance.

Realistically they're throwing it in for thematic relevance here more than hard science. The story works better if the game that defines and created the 'Ellimist' is also responsible for the destruction of his people, and the book is short enough that we got a bunch of exposition crammed into Menno at the end there.

If you want a more Watsonian explanation, they might have sent some physical media literally replaying it on some kind of screen or hologram which is why Menno is so sure of the reason. :v:

Presumably as some sort of weird Polar power play.

# ? Aug 29, 2022 07:29

Remalle: Feb 12, 2020

fitting that an entire civilization is destroyed because aliens caught their Twitch broadcasts

# ? Aug 29, 2022 08:02

Roadie: Jun 30, 2013

Re: format talk, they already had trade relationships with aliens at that point, so maybe they put it in exactingly precise Galactic ISO/IEC 14496-12 just so they could be more smug about it.

# ? Aug 29, 2022 08:24

Pwnstar: Dec 9, 2007; Who wants some waffles?

Capfalcon posted:

Executed for Gaming Crimes.

Harsh, but fair.

But seriously, when I first read it, it did make me think a bit more about the next game of Civilization I played.

Toomin taking out a space fighter with a spear is big Civ vibes.

# ? Aug 29, 2022 09:23

Tree Bucket: Apr 1, 2016; R.I.P.idura leucophrys

Pwnstar posted:

Toomin taking out a space fighter with a spear is big Civ vibes.

Fantastic!! Great catch.
They even call it the "Crate," don't they- applying a dull name for an ordinary container to a cutting edge-weapon of war, just like "tank."
Toomin spends the whole first chapter playing Civ, then kills a tank/crate as a spearman...

# ? Aug 29, 2022 09:51

Comrade Blyatlov: Aug 4, 2007; should have picked four fingers

No he got a free unit in a crate

# ? Aug 29, 2022 09:53

Strategic Tea: Sep 1, 2012

loving lootboxes

# ? Aug 29, 2022 11:08

freebooter: Jul 7, 2009

Zore posted:

I forgot how smug Menno was even to the end when he was pointing out how he and the Polars were responsible for the complete genocide of his people.

True gamer attitude

Fuschia tude posted:

I feel like Menno made way too much of an assumption there. (Possibly an error by the authors; they don't seem like super techies.) I wouldn't trust anyone even from my own species and culture would be able to decode a real-time stream of data and turn it into some kind of viewable video format, at least not without a lot of training on the software and video file formats involved, on top of all the software engineering and general technological baseline knowledge they would need. An alien species from a completely different biochemical legacy, working purely from a radio stream, converting not into sound but to some video format for a computer system that might not even be based on binary? Not a chance.

Probably don't want to pull at this thread in a Star Trek esque soft sci-fi YA series where e.g. the aliens all breathe oxygen and can always communicate across species divides very easily. (Come to think of it, are the poor Taxxons the only ones we never get to see speak for themselves?)

Tree Bucket posted:

Fantastic!! Great catch.
They even call it the "Crate," don't they- applying a dull name for an ordinary container to a cutting edge-weapon of war, just like "tank."
Toomin spends the whole first chapter playing Civ, then kills a tank/crate as a spearman...

Fun (though possibly apocryphal) fact, the "tank" got its name from WWI secrecy around the development, wanting the Germans to think it was just a new design of water tank

# ? Aug 29, 2022 12:43

Cythereal: Nov 8, 2009; I love the potoo,
and the potoo loves you.

Oh hey, it's Pixels but less masturbating to 80s nostalgia.

# ? Aug 29, 2022 14:22

Epicurius: Apr 10, 2010; College Slice

Cythereal posted:

Oh hey, it's Pixels but less masturbating to 80s nostalgia.

If Pixels ended with the human race being wiped out except for a bunch of people in an experimental spacecraft, sure.....

# ? Aug 29, 2022 14:36

Cythereal: Nov 8, 2009; I love the potoo,
and the potoo loves you.

Epicurius posted:

If Pixels ended with the human race being wiped out except for a bunch of people in an experimental spacecraft, sure.....

You never saw the original short film, I see.

# ? Aug 29, 2022 19:12

Epicurius: Apr 10, 2010; College Slice

Second Life

Chapter 13

quote:

�Commander, the system appears to have six true planets and nine moons. Two of the moons -both orbiting the second planet - may be habitable. None of the planets.�

I nodded. �We�ll go take a look. Fields at full power, passive sensors to maximum range, active sensors off, fighters to alert status two.�

My words became actions. The ship�s defensive force field shimmered, distorting my view of the system�s sun and the stars beyond. A probe extruded through the field to gather every bit of electronic data available. Our active sensors, what we called the �pingers,� were shut down: They could alert possible enemies to our presence. And far down in the waist of the ship three wing-tied pilots slid into the snug cockpits of heavily armed fighters, and keyed up engine and weapons power.

Nine more pilots remained at ready station, prepared to go hostile in less than three minutes.

It was the seventy-ninth time we had entered a system and carried out our search for a home. The days and years of excitement were longsince past. It was a routine now. It was what we did. Hope and disappointment and all the rest of the emotional baggage had slowly drained away, failure after bitter failure.

We had learned to expect nothing. We�d learned to discount every encouraging datum and to believe every ill omen. Seventy-nine systems in sixty-three years. And that was only the systems worth investigation. How many other systems had we visited solely for the purpose of mining mineral-rich asteroids, or to accumulate hydrogen?

It was what we did. It was who we were now. The Ket: less than a hundred wanderers in search of a new home.

We had encountered several sentient species. Some space-faring, most not. Some pitied us. Some attacked us. But we�d learned to defend ourselves in these last sixty-three years. We began with the Capasin Crate, copying its weapons. Then came improvements, innovations.

The MCQ3 had mutated over the years to become the Searcher, and the Searcher was a very different ship. A close examination would still reveal the original crystal formation at the heart of her, but most of what had been added was dull titanium and mineral-polymer composites. The original Zspace engines had long since been replaced, and new, fast sub-Z engines had been added as well.

Two stubby wings gave us an airfoil for penetrating atmosphere. And the weapons arrays beneath each wing, and the even dozen stubby black fighters, earned us the respect of potential foes.

�Fields up, Commander,� Menno reported.

�We�ll try the blue one first,� I said. I saw Aguella smile. I had been the commander since Farsight died, some fifty years ago. But I still resisted referring to every planet or moon by its proper sequential designation.

Aguella was docked, eyes closed to focus on the sensor readout. Her wings beat slowly, regularly. Pointlessly, too, since no one in more than six decades had beat wing for lift.

And yet, we were still Ketran. We still wanted to fly.

�The blue one it is, Commander,� Menno confirmed.

Menno was my second-in-command, the sub-commander. It was a compromise. We had come very close to civil war at one point. Menno and the fugitive Polars and some of the dazed, confused refugees we�d saved from a shattered Tropical Midrange Low had banded together to demand a democratic form of government aboard the Searcher. Of course it was more about resisting Equatorial dominance than anything else.

Democracy was not possible on a ship in hostile space. But compromise was. The compromise was Menno. He held second dock. And he did his job very well, though he and I would never be friends.

It had become very personal. For Menno it was just another game he had to win at all costs. I didn�t deceive myself: he was playing that game still. And if he ever took my place he would have no votes: He would command.

We slipped into high orbit above the blue moon.

�It�s water,� Aguella said. Her tone showed only the slightest trace of disappointment. We had learned that planets with a large amount of water never provided the updrafts, or the atmospheric pressures we needed to sustain our crystal-based civilization.

Just that quickly the blue moon became useless to us. It was not a great surprise. I suppressed a disappointed sigh. The people looked to me. I had to set an example. My youth was long since gone and I carried too many responsibilities to be self-indulgent.

�Navigator, lay an intercept course for the white one,� I ordered.

�Wait!�

It was Aguella. I glanced at her and saw intense focus on her face. I keyed up the sensor displays; Menno did the same. But whatever she had seen, neither of us spotted it.

I memmed her. �What is it?�

She broke out two displays and highlighted them for the benefit of Menno and me. When this still failed to move me, she said impatiently, �There�s something moving floating. In the water, through the water. Beneath the surface. See the light? There, on the dark side. A light pattern, highly refracted, of course.�

�What�s the other display?� Menno asked.

�Water current. See? The � the thing, whatever it is, is moving against the current. And it�s putting off light.�

�A large fish with chemically produced light?� I suggested. �We�ve seen that before.�

�Probably,� Aguella agreed. �But maybe not. I can�t say anything for sure but I had the impression, nothing more than an impression, that I was seeing a complex structure.�

�Crystalline?� Menno asked, disapproving.

�I don�t know,� Aguella snapped. �Not without using active sensors.�

�Too dangerous. Too much risk for what possible reward?� Menno argued. �Are you suggesting we should light up this ship on the off chance that someone, somewhere down there is living some watery mockery of our own long-dead lives? We don�t breathe water, Aguella. We don�t fly in water. This is all just pointless obsession with the past.�

The last remark was guaranteed to outrage Aguella. And it was intended to provoke me. I quickly memmed Aguella to stay silent.

In my mildest voice I said, �This ship�s mission remains clearly defined, Menno.�

�Yes, to wander the galaxy in search of what we now know to be the rarest of all environments,� he shot back. �We�ve adapted in a dozen ways, but never in this. We have enclosed fighters, and we�ve learned to live with that. We�ve long since dropped even the pretense of flying for lift. But we refuse to accept the obvious: There will never be another Ket. No more home crystals. Dozens of planets and what do we find, again and again? Surface dwellers. Surface dwellers. Nothing but surface dwellers.�

�We are of the skies!� Aguella erupted. �We do not crawl. We do not walk. We are born to a life in the skies!�

�We�re dying for that myth. No one has juvies anymore. We�re dying out as a race, all for some vision of a world that no longer exists.�

That last was a shard meant for Aguella and me. We were a declared couple, but we�d never sired. It had become an unwritten rule of our strange, cutoff, castaway civilization that we would bring no new lives into being till we had a home.

�That�s enough,� I said, calling a halt to the dissension before it spread to the other crew. �This ship has a mission. Menno, we�ll take a look at this subaqueous phenomenon of Aguella�s. No, not with active sensors. We�ll take Jicklet�s new Explorer. It�s time we tested her.�

�I�ll take the search team of course,� Menno said with just the faint hint of a smirk. He knew I didn�t trust him in command of the Searcher. He was letting me know that he knew how I felt.

�Actually, I�ll command the search team. It�s been some time since I made planetfall. Menno, you�ll assume temporary command here. Aguella, you�re with me. Memm to Lackofa and Jicklet to join us. And memm Third Officer Deeved to take sensor station here.�

Menno nodded. I had called his bluff. I�d demonstrated that I was sufficiently confident to leave him in charge. At least as long as I brought Deeved to the perch as well. Deeved was third officer, a Tropical. He was no ally of mine, but he despised Menno. Menno wouldn�t get away with anything while Deeved was around.

I hated the atmosphere of suspicion and mistrust, but I�d adapted. It was why command was now centered in this perch where we could all see each other in real space: Any of our functions could have been carried out from dock, through the ship�s uninet. But in a world where betrayal was a real possibility it was reassuring to be able to stay globes to globes. I needed to see Menno. And I enjoyed seeing Aguella.

I flew down-ship with Aguella close beside m Lackofa met us halfway to the Explorer.

�You�re leaving Menno in charge, Ellimist? Are you crazy? He�ll turn this ship around and head back to his little Utopia.�

Lackofa steadfastly refused to either treat me with the deference due to an official Wise One, or the obedience due a commander, or for that matter the basic respect due to any fellow Ketran. I valued him all the more.

He had grown cranky over the years. Crankier even than when he�d been a lowly third biologist.

He was the ship�s chief scientist.

�I have Deeved watching him. And anyway, the crew is loyal.�

Lackofa said, �Don�t count too much on loyalty, Ellimist. It�s a weak force.�

He was not being merely facetious. He was serious. Did he know something?

I wanted to press him for information, but Lackofa was trusted by every faction. He was trusted precisely because it was known that he would never violate a confidence or become an informer.

And yet he was sending me a clear signal. Most likely he was exaggerating. Most likely.

So, time has passed, and now the mission of the surviving Ketrans have changed into finding a new home. And the Ketrans have changed too. These aren't the idealists of the last section, delighting in the sky, reaching out and taking their first steps off world. They've become hardened, factionalized, with nobody trusting anybody else.

Chapter 14

quote:

Too late to turn back now without showing unacceptable weakness. No choice but to go forward and count on a divided, faction-riven crew and what Lackofa called the weak force of loyalty.

The Explorer was a new ship whose design reflected lessons learned in previous encounters with alien craft. Jicklet and her people had been at work on her for five years. The basic materials had been drawn from asteroids and from occasional planetfalls. Jicklet had something of an empire now: a large yet cramped complex of shops, foundries, fuelers, hangers, and repair cradles. Ugly crystal and metal structures formed a clunky, asymmetrical ring around the ship, below the fighter stations and above the engines.

Jicklet handled the engines, the weapons and the small craft. If there was anyone with more power than the commander, it was Head Tech Jicklet. But in her at least, loyalty was not a weak force.I had toured the Explorer in its various stages of construction and presided at a ceremony of launching. I was familiar with the ship, but it had rested, unused, in its cradle for the last year.

Jicklet was practically vibrating with anticipation.

�Head Tech, I hate to call on you at such short notice. You know, you�re welcome to send one of your subs along if you�re otherwise occupied.�

A joke, of course. No power in the galaxy could have kept her from flying the Explorer�s first mission.

�I think I can make the time,� Jicklet said dryly. �May I ask the mission?�

�That watery moon down there. We want to take a look below the surface without using active sensors.�

�The Explorer will handle it,� she said confidently.

It was a pretty craft, a nice melding of Ketran sensibilities and alien pragmatism. A crate, but largely transparent, with flat-crys panels buttressed by force fields. She was not Z-space capable, designed for O and A: Orbit and Atmosphere. There were swooped wings and massive ion propulsion engines at the back. She was fast, versatile, and heavily armed with our own improved version of the Capasin beam weapon, as well as a number of fire-and-forget explosive homers.

So many weapons. So much killing power.

I put on an approving smile for Jicklet�s benefit, but she�d seen my doubts.

�We�ve come a long way through a dangerous galaxy,� she said.

�A long way,� I agreed. We had lost our world because the Capasins thought we were aggressors when we were not. What was the moral of that story? That we should be prepared for violence at every turn? Right or wrong, that was the lesson we had learned. We would never be unprepared again.

And yet, here we were displaying our readiness for mayhem in every curve of our ship. Were we setting ourselves up for another, even more complete annihilation?

No time for all that. I needed to clear my mind of possible betrayal and possible wrong impressions. Focus on the mission at hand.

�Let�s see what your toy can do, Jicklet.�

We went aboard and docked. We were enclosed but able to see stars in every direction but down. A compromise. Just what Menno had in mind for our race: adaptation. If no planet matched our needs, maybe we should match ourselves to the planet. We had the genetic manipulation techniques to do it in a few generations. We oldsters would live out our lives as pitiful, flightless Ketrans. But our juvies would be born without wings, with sturdier builds, stronger bones, true feet instead of pods, and no docking talons at all.

Was Menno right?

No. Not while I was commander.

The Explorer released its hold on the Searcher and Jicklet lit the engines. The g forces accumulated but the internal force fields supported our weight, even kept the blood from pooling in our extremities.

We raced for the blue moon and used the thin atmosphere for braking. We had to shed nearly all of our speed before we could safely enter the water. The Explorer skimmed at subsonic speeds, just ten feet above the glass-smooth sea.

�Any particular target?� Jicklet asked Aguella.

�Ahead nine miles. That should bring us to an intercept with the phenomenon I observed.�

We crossed the day-night line and Jicklet killed the last of our speed. The ship sliced the water in a shallow angle.

There was an immediate sensation of claustrophobia. One cannot be raised on a floating airborne crystal, spend decades in a ship surrounded by a billion miles of open space, and then feel entirely calm about being plunged into the enveloping sea.

The water closed in all around us, dark, soon nearly opaque. Then, Jicklet keyed the lights and I gasped. A school of thousands of brilliant yellow eels, myriad bars of shimmering light, flew past us, around us.

�Phosphorescence,� Lackofa commented. �That may be all you saw, Aguella: a school of eels.�

�But beautiful eels,� I remarked.

The yellow swarm passed us by and now, no longer blinded by them, I saw wonders of light and motion everywhere. A fish nearly the size of the Explorer with gaping mouth and feathery fins, all bright with neon reds and blues; a creature that looked like an airfoil trailing a tangle of purple tentacles; a flight of seven or eight fish, long, dangerous-looking, brightest pink; and below us a forest of very long tentacles, so long they disappeared down out of sight.

A blur of movement!

The Explorer rocked, tilted sharply, and with a deep, groaning sound, stopped.

�Something has us, Commander!� Jicklet yelled.

She was more concerned than I. It was �her� ship, after all, and she treasured every square inch of it.

�All external lights up. Active sensors on. Weapons to full ready. Jicklet: We�ll give it a jolt of current through the hull if need be.�

�Ready, Commander,� Jicklet replied.

The external lights doubled in brilliance. The water was wonderfully clear but we were still in planetary night and the lights failed to show the full extent of the tendrils or whatever it was that had us wrapped securely. The eels and fish still swam serenely by.

�Sensor readouts coming in,� Aguella said. �Life-form. Carbon-based.� She frowned.

�What?� I asked.

�The creature that has us appears to be quite large. Unless I�m getting false readings I show a continuous nervous-electrical system extending out to the limits of the sensors. This thing extends beyond the horizon. In every direction!�

I did a quick mental calculation; the circumference of the moon, distance to horizon �

�It has to be a sensor glitch,� I said. �Nothing is that big.�

�We�re moving,� Lackofa pointed out quite dispassionately.

I had already felt the motion. We were being drawn lower

�Okay. Shock the hull,� I ordered.

The lights dimmed as power was diverted into the hull�s metallic components. Anything in contact with us would receive a severe jolt.

�It still has us,� Lackofa pointed out unnecessarily.

�Understood,� I said. �Beam to minimum power. Wide pattern.� I was still calm. I regretted having to take harsher measures. Most likely this life-form was sub-sentient, simply a creature following its instincts. But the ship came first.

�Fire.�

The beam fired. The water absorbed most of the energy, particularly at this setting, but the creature would still feel searing, intense heat.

The water steamed and boiled around us.

�Cease fire. Report.�

�It still has us,� Lackofa said. �A creature this large may not even have pain receptors in an area this small. It may not feel us.�

I nodded. �We�ll have to cut our way out. Beam to tight focus. Mid-power. Jicklet, give us a sweep below the hull. We�ll slice the tentacles off. As soon as we�re free you�d better take us back to atmosphere.�

�Understood. �

The beam fired, a lance of light inscribing a brilliant circle beneath us.

The Explorer shuddered as the tentacles fell away. The ship began to rise.

�Something close!� Aguella yelled.

�Commander!� Jicklet cried.

The monster slammed us head on. I was knocked off my dock. My talons were wrenched and bleeding. Aguella and Jicklet were still docked but Lackofa was down, out cold. Huge! A flash of monstrous mouth, wide enough to swallow the ship in a single bite.

�Beam to maximum. Fire!�

The vast mouth was lit red. An explosion rocked the fish, its insides, superheated, had blown apart, ripping it open.

Wham!

Wham!

I staggered up. My face was wet with my own blood now.

Wham!

Lights. Blinded. Trying to think, trying to form the order.

�Missiles! Fire!�

No answer.

Wham!

Hammer blows, one after another. The force field maintained hull integrity, but we were bugs inside a bean pod being slammed again and again.

Lights gone. No sound. Silence. I lay broken and battered. Head swirling.

Water rushing in. How? The fields should have �

Something touching me. My face. Touching me, wrapping itself around me and �

Unfortunately, this planet is more dangerous than they thought.

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