Beholder's Eye Read online

  I'd never had so much to share. Their feeding seemed to go on for hours. So, by the end, there was very little of me left. For a time, I sensed extinction and wavered, wondering if this was Ersh's judgment.

  Then the command came. Feed. I found the strength to form a mouth of my own somehow, but not to move. Feed. Substance in my mouth. I bit down and ripped a piece free, chewed. Ersh-taste. Ersh-memory. I felt myself grow, enlarged my mouth, ate faster. Ansky-taste, now Skalet. One after another, my kin gave me their mass in exchange for mine, the transfer precise and totally satisfying.

  At some point, they left me. I huddled, alone on the rock, to assimilate what I had been given. It takes a while to weave the threads of five other memories, to take living pieces of five other lives and work them into your own. I struggled to detach information from personality, to hold what was Esen intact and free of the influence of those others, respectfully shedding what I dared not keep as moisture to the air, each evaporating droplet a spark of cold on my surface. Ersh, as Senior Assimilator, had always fed from them first, then given all to me presorted. I supposed, having got myself into so much trouble, Ersh felt I'd grown beyond such pampering.

  I wasn't in a hurry anyway. I knew what the others were assimilating in turn. My memories of Kraos. And my adventures with the Humans.

  * * *

  2: Planet Day

  « ^ »

  KRAOS. My first mission. I had been so proud, so sure of myself. Too sure, as things turned out.

  Ersh's warnings, which I in my wisdom ignored, were all variations on the same theme: "It's different on your own, Youngest." Different? Of course it would be, I'd said to myself. I'd at last be free of their advice, their decisions, and, most importantly, their belief that as youngest, I was least.

  Or did Ersh think I was a fool? I knew how essential it would be to maintain shape on Kraos—to think and be what I appeared. Or did she (and the others) simply expect me to fail? Well, I was confident enough for all the Web. Especially when I learned the camouflage best suited to my mission was the canidlike Lanivarian, my birth shape. It would be no real test of my skill to cycle and hold shape, if that was all I had to be. I suspected Ersh had chosen my assignment in order to give me that advantage—implying I'd need all the help I could get.

  Unfortunately, Ersh was right. I hated that.

  My rude awakening had come the instant the clouds overhead consumed the shuttle, leaving me alone on the Kraosian mountaintop. I'd panicked, releasing my shape integrity so quickly it was a wonder Skalet didn't pick up the heat signature from orbit. I'd quivered and oozed in web-form, tasting the alien wind as it tried to coat me with dust.

  My next coherent act was to lodge myself out of sight. Exposing web-form to alien eyes was forbidden. This wasn't difficult, given Skalet's choice of my drop-off site. There was a small, hard-to-find cave nearby for me to hide in, though Skalet had expected me to use it to hold any artifacts I decided to collect.

  In the cave's womblike darkness, I argued, pleaded, begged, and threatened myself—to no avail. Every few hours, I would gather my nerve, sacrifice mass into the needed energy, summon form-memory, and cycle into Lanivarian form. I'd set my paws on the path out of the cave, ready to take the road down to the city where the subjects of my work waited.

  And I'd revert to web-form in a blaze of exothermic energy. The cave was soon black with soot.

  I had nightmares about a curious Kraosian peering in at me. Forget the potential for disaster inherent in my virtually exploding at the beginning of any conversation; I had to worry about the result if the poor creature survived and witnessed my resulting cycle into web-form. Kraos was an untouched world, without even literature to hint at the possibility of extrakraosian life. I could start some.

  But Skalet wouldn't be back for another ten planet years. How long could I stay locked up by my own stage fright?

  My Lanivarian form began to fray at the thought; I cycled back to web-form just in time to stave off another cataclysm.

  I recalled Ersh's advice when I had left her. If I couldn't sustain my form, she'd said—the mere suggestion of which I'd found offensive at the time—go back to basics and retrain myself. Really going back wasn't an option for the next ten solar orbits. I settled in my cave to relearn from my own memories.

  The teardrop web-form is the original, root-shape of my kind. Changing shape—cycling—to match our molecular structure to that of our surroundings is an instinctive response to danger. Fortunately, this instinct is so far back in the Web's past that it happens only rarely. As Youngest, I could testify that it is very humiliating to have one's edges trying to match a curtain or floor under stress.

  Harnessing this instinct to cycle from one form to another involves learning fine control. Acquiring this control, I'd found, has less to do with being taught than it has to do with being tormented by one's peers. It is like humanoid children who taunt one another to see who can hold their breath longest.

  I, of course, am not and have never been a child. I may be Recent, but then, that's our way.

  I had a mother. Sort of. When Ansky answered the howls of masculine nature on Lanivar, some five standard centuries ago, she was simply indulging her risky predilection for romance. Fortunately for the inhabitable planets of this galaxy, genetic combinations that result in offspring of Web stock occur perhaps once a millennium—if that. The rest of Ansky's follies lived out normal ephemeral lives as perfectly normal specimens of their father's species.

  Ansky herself had the dubious pleasure of innumerable flings, far too many of which ended in a pregnancy which locked her in a steadily enlarging and uncomfortable form for its duration. Not a pretty picture. Still, Ansky enjoyed this vicarious lifestyle enough to succumb on a fairly regular schedule, with one such occasion leading to my arrival. Her surprise for Ersh. But that's another tale.

  Oh, yes. Breath holding. Well, imagine you have accepted the challenge and drawn in the biggest breath you can possibly hold. This is like the moment when a fragment of web-mass is converted to energy and spread throughout the web-form, deforming and altering molecular structure to match memory.

  At first, the urge to laugh it all out immediately seems irresistible. But you hold on, feeling like you'll burst well before your rival.

  Then, as you begin to feel in control, your confidence rises. Nothing to it. You wink at your friends, pleased by the growing respect on their faces.

  Seconds drag past, slowing as they go. You hold on. Your ears feel pressure. Nothing painful, but you have to consciously control the urge to breath out, to empty your heavy lungs, and fill them again. Your throat feels swollen, as if the air trying to escape has somehow concentrated itself there, at the gateway. This is how it feels when web-form struggles to release energy, to allow bent, twisted molecules to return to normal.

  Still you hold. But it's hard.

  The difficulty passes. After a while, you wonder if you've forgotten how to breathe. Your thick head seems to have lightened. Things appear clear to your eyes, yet farther away. You could do this forever. Success is at hand.

  Your friends are shaking you. You can't hear their voices over your heart's rhythm, an ocean in your ears. You realize that you are dying, killing yourself, yet the willpower to survive seems lost.

  Somehow, a whimper of air slips through your nostrils. It signals the explosion as your abused lungs throw out the stale dead air. You can hardly finish breathing out before every muscle of your body strains to suck in life, fresh air pouring down your throat like a cool drink in summer. Web-form reestablishes itself, radiating energy in wavelengths perceived as relief.

  Another, calmer breath, and you grin at your anxious friends. "No problem."

  Converting web-mass to energy is a pointless sacrifice unless harnessed to form-memory and used. Cycling is the easy part. Maintaining a different shape confines energy, like the air held in lungs. The pain of it is primal, but then so is the fear of failure. I grew up on stories of Recents exploding
rather than losing form before granted leave to cycle.

  Although totally accurate memory is my kind's pride and curse, I had my doubts about exploding Recents. I'd never caused anything more traumatic to my surroundings than the odd thermal crater. The trick was to know your limits and push beyond them each time. My first shape change lasted mere seconds, just long enough to experience triumph. Relaxing back to web-form, I felt the loss of mass as an imbalance, a not-unpleasant hunger that proved what I was.

  By my second century, I had mastered the techniques necessary to hold an alien form for several minutes, with little or no discomfort. Frustratingly, my Elders in the Web seemed able to exist indefinitely in any form they chose. Some rarely appeared in web-form at all, finding life more convenient in a shape with hands, tentacles, or other digits to handle the local technology.

  Driven by their amused contempt (or worse, their "it will come to you" attitude), I gradually learned a finer control of the energy holding my changed body together. There were ways to reduce the strain, some as simple as holding body temperature above species norm, especially on cold nights, draining tiny amounts of excess energy. Another hundred years of practice, and I was rarely driven from form until I was ready.

  It was about this time in my life, having worked and suffered for such a worthy goal, that I discovered my omnipotent Elders were actually cycling in closets or when they thought I wasn't around in order to encourage my efforts.

  By my fourth century, I'd perfected my art. I could slip in and out of any remembered form and hold it indefinitely. And Ersh, Senior Assimilator of the Web, grudgingly admitted that though I was Most Recent (and she hoped I would stay that way, with Ansky under her watchful eye), I was now qualified to serve the Web. I could have a job.

  And so I was on Kraos to do my duty to my Web—to obtain molecular samples of the intelligent species on this world and memorize all matters of its behavior and culture. When my task was done, the information would be assimilated by my Web, adding a new species to our shared memory. Ersh would at last be proud of me.

  Given I could pull myself, literally, back together.

  Hunger was what finally cured my fright. Each attempt to cycle had, of course, cost me mass. The only way to replace that mass was to assimilate other living matter into web-mass.

  A wind-bent shrub grew conveniently into the front of my hiding place. I thinned myself, coating the branches and leaves I could reach easily, and coaxed the plant molecules to reform into more of me.

  It was when I used up the last remaining vegetation around the cave that I suddenly realized I was out of options.

  I could ignore this particular hunger, as long as I didn't need to cycle into a form of equivalent size. Which was the problem.

  The Lanivarian form so necessary to my work on Kraos was my birth form. I knew instinctively when my web-mass was equivalent to it—or when I was too small for that particular change. Given the mass I'd expend to cycle again, I was much too close to the limit I needed to keep. If I couldn't hold the Lanivarian form in my next attempt, I would be forced to abandon that shape until I could locate and convert more living mass somewhere on this mountain.

  I did have the choice of staying in web-form—a choice that included hiding in this cave for the next planet decade, or risk breaking the Web's first and inviolate Rule: never expose the true form to aliens. I shuddered. Ersh would have a lot to say about that.

  I cycled, gripped form memory more tightly than I ever had before, and found myself panting after a few minutes, panting, but whole.

  I stretched one hand out of the darkness to sample the sunlight outside the cave. Warmth, no more. Still, this limited form had excellent scent and vision. I took a tentative step forward, then another. The air was cool and fresh in my lungs. So far, so good.

  Now for my disguise. I carefully curled the fingers of both hands, exposing their broad padded knuckles. Every second of stability in this form gave me more confidence. I can do this, I thought. I realized, belatedly, that Ersh had not doubted me. I had doubted myself.

  I dropped forward, my long front arms easily matching my legs for length. Lanivarians reserved this posture for distance running and the odd theatrical event. I swung my jaw upward and laughed at the wind as it carried news of the unsuspecting city below. An actor I would be.

  * * *

  3: Market Morning

  « ^ »

  I'D licked the problem of holding form. And six hundred days later, I'd accomplished the first half of my task: deciphering the molecular structure of the Kraosians. I'd scrounged hair and nail clippings from several hundred different individuals simply by hanging around the rear of barbershops for a couple of months. That information was safely chewed, swallowed, and incorporated into my biochemical memory. I was a success.

  I spat out a flea.

  The tricky bit was learning what Kraosians did with their biochemistry. Ersh was right, again. Formal training just hadn't prepared me for Kraos.

  "Welcome! Come! Come Here!" the shrill singsong from somewhere over my head was immediately smothered by a multitude of others, each attempting to broadcast its greeting to shoppers first—or at least loudest. You'd have to be deaf to sleep past dawn within earshot of Suddmusal's Marketplace.

  Or be comfortably tucked under a thick pile of fabric scraps, which blocked sound as effectively as it kept away the evening's damp. Worming my head through the stiff layers, I peered up at the fading stars. Definitely morning. I'd overslept.

  Not the first time either, I thought with a twinge of conscience. I turned the twinge into a stretch, trying to pull the kinks out of my spine. Ah, that was better. A little rotation on the left hip eased another tight spot.

  A long but worthwhile night, I consoled myself, working free of my warm nest. More dry bits of information discovered and carefully remembered—duty first, everything carefully shunted to the memory core I would share with my Web.

  I briefly closed my eyes to better recall last night, easily summoning the images of overlapping circles of streetlight and torch, pavement glistening with dew, figures moving from shadow to puddled light, ramshackle booths unfolding like midnight blossoms. The only sounds had been the occasional muffled word or the snick of a clip to its ring. Even the ongoing game of cheat inches from your neighbors' space had seemed choreographed for my entertainment.

  Daydreaming again—the path to a short and inglorious life. Embarrassed, I opened my eyes and began to pay proper attention to my surroundings.

  The market was as loud in the brightening daylight as it had been silent at night. Unmindful of the barrage of voices, shoppers struggled good-naturedly with each other to reach the merchant of their choice. Everyone knew the pavement would be bare again in another hour or so, every booth collapsed and swept into its cart as if the market was evaporated daily by the punishing heat of this season. Kraosians were nothing if not sensible folk about weather.

  I surveyed today's edition of the market, its confusion already well in place. Scents ranging from delicious to rancid forced their way into my nostrils and stuck on my tongue. "Welcome! Come! Come here!" shrilled that voice again. I flattened my ears against the noise, but it was of little use.

  I was surrounded by singers.

  The Kraosian version of tourists loved Suddmusal's market—more precisely, they loved its singers. Every booth, regardless of its size or the value of its goods, boasted a living signpost—a hired singer perched precariously atop a makeshift pole; this pole typically a vital support for the booth itself. In the predawn coolness, it was rather charming to listen to the first, fresh voices caroling out their wares: a soprano from the plumbing dealer gateward, a warbling tenor from the pottery shop closer at hand.

  Unfortunately, volume was more valuable than tune when singers were rubbing elbows. Once the market was packed, both voices and tempers quickly wore thin. The woman clinging to the pole above me mercifully stopped for a moment, but it was only to swirl water in her mouth from the fla
sk hanging round her neck. She spat accurately at her nearest neighbor, then began to shriek again. "Welcome—"

  I launched myself away from the fabric dealer, seeking the safest route among the dust swirls kicked up by heavy feet, dodging through a forest of wool-clad legs. Course, I wasn't the only one down here.

  From my chosen vantage point, a meter or so from the ground, the market had a second set of visitors: small, shelled, and multilegged, or larger and sinuous on four legs such as I. I counted and cataloged each automatically, for myself taking special note of the occasional groomed and perfumed beasts. The well-fed pets which accompanied their Kraosian masters and mistresses to market were unpleasantly eager to sink their teeth into the haunches of freer creatures.

  Finding a temporary haven beneath the bed of a cart, I sprawled out and amused myself briefly by pulling a mat of spiny seeds from between my longest toes. It was a precise procedure: teeth had to be placed just so, then a gentle squeeze and sharp tug. I chewed the tasteless lump thoughtfully before spitting it out.

  I was definitely living my appearance. I permitted myself a grin. Old Ersh would probably have cycled before sinking her teeth into my last meal of fish bones followed by fruit rinds furred with mold. "All in a day's work for those in the field," I dared to mimic her didactic tones to myself. "Field observers must be inconspicuous." I'd learned for myself that being inconspicuous usually translated as uncomfortable and bored.

  I stretched again, pulling the last knots out of rangy muscles and feeling lazy pleasure in the suppleness of my spine. A quick glance up at the too-bright sky. I really was late for work. I spent a moment yawning, then flicked my mind into alertness. I was, after all, a professional.

  Well, not quite, but I would be one day. I would succeed here and then—well, anything was possible then. I knew this was pride, or at least ambition, and therefore highly improper. However, no one here cared, and I certainly wasn't about to worry.