So I seated myself in the middle of the floor and squeezed my legs tight to my chest. I did not cry, not even a single tear; but I kept my eyes tight shut. My eyelids are a lovely silver, almost the only parts of my body that are opaque… and at that moment, with my face pressed against my knees, I did not wish to see anything.
(My legs act as distorting lenses. Sometimes, when I look through them, the world appears most strange and threatening indeed.)
One Does Not Expect Hauntings To Occur Inside Lungs
Something brushed my shoulder. I jerked in surprise — I had heard nobody approach. When I turned, I expected to see Uclod or Lajoolie, or perhaps some icky polyp protruding from the wall and trying to attach itself to me for unknown alien purposes.
I did not expect to see a ghost.
It was a thing made of mist, like the spooky patches of fog that form in hollows at sundown. Unlike out milky-white FTL field, this mist had no color: clear as a spray of water, and thin enough for me to see right through to the wall on the far side. But this was no random vapor wafting through Starbiter’s lungs like breath on a winter’s day; it had a vaguely human shape, with legs and arms and head. Nothing was distinct — the feet had no toes, the hands had no fingers, the face had no features at all — but this was definitely a coherent entity leaning over me. It had touched my shoulder with its barely substantial hand… and I could not help flinching, swatting the hand away.
My swat passed through the thing’s arm with no resistance: like sweeping my fingers through smoke. Though the mist looked like fog, it felt dry, and neither cold nor hot just a tiny bit gritty, like dust.
"Go away, ghost," I told it "Go haunt someone else." I waved my hand through its chest, trying to scatter it to bits. The particles of its body, droplets or ashes or soot, swirled on the wind of my movements, but did not fly apart. As soon as I stopped stirring up breeze, the thing drifted back to its original shape, a person leaning over me.
"Sad woman… sad woman…"
The words were a whisper, coming from the entity’s entire body: not just from its mouth area, but resonating completely from head to foot. "What is wrong, sad woman?" the creature whispered. "What hurts you?"
"Nothing hurts me," I answered. "But I am easily annoyed by intrusive beings of unknown origin. What are you?"
"The ship’s mate…"
"What?" I said in outrage. "I was forced to drive this ship myself when there was a high-ranking crew member aboard? Were you incapacitated by the stick-ship’s weapon?"
"No," the entity replied, "but I know nothing about… flying Starbiter. She would surely… not obey me… if I tried. I am not…a crew member; I am… the ship’s mate."
For a moment I just glowered at him. Then I realized what he was saying: that he was Starbiter’s spouse. The male of her species. Her lover. Which suggested that some or all of the tiny particles making up his body were Zarett seed — designed to fertilize whatever eggs Starbiter produced.
Quickly, I wiped my hands off on the floor.
Conversing With A Cloud
"What are you doing here?" I demanded. "We are in the lungs. Should you not be in another organ altogether? Doing whatever foul things a cloud man does to make babies?"
"I visit every organ on a regular basis," the ghostly entity answered. "In addition to my… husbandly duties…" (he sounded most amused) "…I am also what you might call… a veterinarian. Or perhaps the ship’s engineer. I patrol my mate’s airways and bloodstream in search of… metabolic imbalances…" The misty figure gestured in my direction. "Which led me to you."
"I am not a metabolic imbalance!"
The cloud man pointed to the place I was sitting. "You’re creating a hot spot," came the whisper. "And I sensed the presence of… unfamiliar chemicals…"
"My chemicals are very familiar! Have you never heard of glass?"
"There ate many kinds of glass," the cloud said, "and you’re none of them. Your skin is… an amalgam of transparent polymers, serviced by an army of… sophisticated agent-cells… that perform general maintenance and… ward off external microbes. There are also… trace fluids on your exterior, the purpose of which I can’t identify. Not conventional perspiration — possibly just a light body wash to prevent you from caking with dust… possibly something more complicated. All such… biochemical compounds are cause for concern, given the slight but real chance they may have a detrimental effect on my… patroness."
"Do not be foolish," I told him. "You can see I have had no detrimental effect — Starbiter is healthy and happy."
"At me moment, yes," he answered. "But you’re a stranger with an alien biochemistry, and I find that troubling."
"I am not a stranger," I said, "I am Oar. An oar is an implement used to propel boats, Who are you, you poop-head cloud?"
"Nimbus," he replied. "Or if you want the complete mouthful from the Bloodline Registry books, Capella’s Coronal Nimbus of Lee-Thee Five." His mist suddenly went blurry… as if every particle of him was shuddering with distaste. "In my grandfather’s day," he said, "Zarett males were called Sky or Fogbank or Rain Cloud; but then our owners made contact with Homo sapiens and picked up the Earthling fondness for giving thoroughbreds ridiculous names. My previous mate was called Princess Fly-in-Amber Heliopause, whatever that means. The person who christened her didn’t speak a word of any Terran language, but he gave her a gobbtedygook title to impress human buyers."
The cloud man’s voice had gradually risen from a whisper to normal speaking volume, His new tone sounded a good deal like Uclod… as if Mr. Zarett had taken the little orange criminal’s voice as a model. I also noticed Nimbus was no longer hesitating between phrases. When he spoke his first words, Sad woman, it seemed be knew almost no English; now he spoke it over-fluently. Perhaps Starbiter carried Ingenious Language Devices such as a mist man might employ to learn a new tongue within seconds. If so, it was most unfair — I put in weeks of diligent work to acquire my English, and disapproved of persons who bypassed the wholesomely tedious education process by using mechanical aids.
"I do not care about Zarett names," I told him, "but if you dislike what people call you, choose something else."
"It doesn’t work that way," he answered. "We Zaretts have an unshakable instinct to defer to our masters, even when we’d clearly love to do otherwise. The compulsion is too strong to overcome, no matter what the rational part of us thinks about it. Being a good and obedient slave is hardwired into my genes."
"You are not good and obedient if you complain about your master to someone you have just met. Do you think I will now go to Uclod and say, ‘Please change Nimbus’s name to Fluffy’?"
"It wouldn’t matter," the mist man replied. "Uclod isn’t my owner. He’s just renting me… for stud purposes."
I suspect he added that last part just to provoke a reaction in me. His tactic succeeded; I stood up angrily and said, "This is not the type of talk I enjoy. I cannot tell if you are deliberately trying to appall me, or if you are just a foolish creature who knows no better. Perhaps if I were compelled to follow the sordid profession of gigolo, I too would speak lightly of foul things. But I do not." Turning sharply awayfrom him, I headed for the corridor back to the bridge. I glared at him over my shoulder when I reached the doorway… and to my surprise, I found myself saying, "I am not a virgin, you know." Then I stormed away, feeling that my face had become very hot.