I knew the Shaddill had changed Melaquin from whatever it once was into a near-duplicate of Earth, with terrestrial weather and plants and animals… not to mention all the cities built underground and at the bottom of lakes. Was it possible such construction had been accomplished entirely by unsupervised machines? Perhaps so — aliens of advanced technical abilities might do everything with machines instead of physical labor. For all I knew, there might only be a handful of Shaddill left in the universe; they languidly gave a command, then years of work (including planning, design, and terraforming) were carried out by mechanical servants.
And if that were possible… why did there have to be living Shaddill at all? Suppose the old race, Las Fuentes, had created this stick-ship and programmed it to operate on its own. The living Fuentes then turned themselves to jelly, leaving the ship to work unattended.
It would be very most irksome if we reached the stickship’s control center, only to find it filled with more bulks of anonymous machinery: artificial intelligences running the whole show. One cannot punch a computer in the nose.
On the other hand, one can kick loose a computer’s metal housing and rip out its wires, dancing upon its circuit boards and smashing anything that says FRAGILE, DO NOT STOMP. Even better, the Leagueof Peoples would not consider me a bad person for doing so — if the League dealt with computers on a regular basis, they probably felt the urge to dance on circuit boards themselves. Perhaps they would appear before me in a pillar of fire and say, "Oar, most good and faithful servant, you have done exactly what we would have done ourselves, if only we had feet." It would turn out the League people were giant space butterflies; they would give me a medal for heroic achievement, then seat me upon their backs and we would ride off for Glorious Adventures on the far side of the galaxy.
That is what was going through my head when I saw the Pollisand.
In Good Paintings, The Eyes Follow You; In Stick-Ships, You Follow The Eyes
We had come to a junction and Festina was examining the dirt on the floor, trying to determine which way was used more often. Both left and right were quite trampled, indicating we had finally reached a major thoroughfare. While the others busied themselves debating which direction looked better, I kept watch for hostile elements… which is how I caught sight of familiar red eyes glowing in the darkness to my right.
The Pollisand was so far off in the shadows, I could not make out his body; but his eyes were unmistakable. They glowed for the briefest of moments, just long enough for me to recognize them. Then they winked out as if they had never been there.
"This way," I said, pointing in the direction of the eyes. "That is the proper route."
Festina looked up as if waiting for an explanation. I did not think she would be happy to learn I had seen the Pollisand again — Festina believed he was a Creature Of ill Omen, and perhaps she would insist on going exactly the opposite way. Therefore, I said nothing. Eventually, she shrugged and muttered, "Why not? Right looks as good as left."
So we moved in the direction I had seen the glowing eyes. I kept close watch on the ground as we walked, hoping to observe deep footprints from a rhino-like beast… but I saw nothing except packed-down soil. Perhaps all I had seen was an illusion inserted into my brain. Still, we pressed along the tunnel until we came to another intersection; and once again, I caught a fleeting glimpse of eyes down one of the passages.
"This way now," I said pointing.
Of course, it was not so easy as that — Festina wished to examine the ground, and we had to pause as Aarhus made grooves to mark our way back. In the end, however, Festina agreed the direction I indicated was as good a choice as any, and we proceeded accordingly.
Several minutes passed in that manner. None of the others noticed the glowing eyes: they were only visible to me. Nevertheless, at each junction, the Pollisand marked a reasonable way forward, so the others were willing to follow my lead.
Once or twice, Festina peered at me with suspicion — she obviously wondered why I had started to make snap judgments at each cross-tunnel. By now, however, she must have become accustomed to me behaving in a manner too deep for humans to understand; and as my Faithful Sidekick, she chose not to question my will. She simply made sure the sergeant continued to mark our way back, and little by little she took less time to examine the ground before declaring, "Let us do as Oar says."
Therefore, we made swifter progress, though we were now in a part of the ship where the ground was exceedingly well trodden. In spots, the dirt had worn away entirely, revealing solid flooring beneath. Festina said all these floors were made from steel-plast, a material found in human starships as well — which made sense, considering the Shaddill had taught humans how to make starships in the first place. One wondered what other features the stick-ship possessed in common with a vessel like Royal Hemlock… and we soon discovered such a feature, as a door we were approaching swished open automatically at our approach.
Doors had opened for us in this fashion several times on the Hemlock; however, this was the first such occurrence on the stick-ship, and Festina halted our march immediately. More precisely, since I was walking in front, she grabbed me by the collar of my jacket and yanked me back sharply.
I turned with a reproachful look and was about to tell her she should not handle me with such brusqueness… but she threw her hand over my mouth before I could speak a word. Apparently, she did not want any lurking Shaddill to hear us talking. When she was certain our companions would also keep quiet, she motioned us to stay where we were, then crept forward stealthily toward the open door.
She stood just outside the door for a tediously long time, holding her breath and listening for any sort of noise from the inner room. The rest of us listened too — Uclod and Lajoolie rolled back the coverings of their sphere-like ears, exposing raw eardrums to the world. Perhaps this made their hearing even keener than mine; at any rate, Festina must have believed they had the best ears among us, for she turned to them and mouthed the word, "Anything?" Both Divians shook their heads. Festina shrugged, clenched her stun-pistol in both hands, and hurled herself forward into the room.
Nothing happened. No shots, no shouts, no scuffles. After some tense moments, Festina reappeared in the doorway and waved us forward.
The Milk Of A Million Mothers
By normal standards, the light in the room was dim: just-after-sundown twilight like the hangar where we first landed. After the darkness of the tunnels, however, the soft dusky glow seemed pleasantly welcoming.
It was bright enough to show that the room was empty… which is to say, there were no robots or Shaddill or bulky machines. Instead, three mini-chili trees grew in a widely spaced triangle, their trunks arrow-straight and their branches heavy with yellow fruit. Nothing else sprouted from the surrounding soil — no bushes or undergrowth, not a single blade of grass — but in the center of the triangle formed by the trees stood a fountain carved from gray stone.
We had all seen such a fountain before — in the pictures Festina showed of her world, Agua. This was unmistakably a creation of Las Fuentes.
The fountain was simple: a low bowl-shaped basin ten paces across with a knee-high wall surrounding it, and a single unadorned pillar rising from the center. The pillar stood a little higher than my head; it had three spouts just down from its top, each oriented toward one of the mini-chili trees. At the moment, however, the spouts were not spouting. Indeed, the entire fountain was bone-dry, as if it had not operated in ages. It sat in stony silence — a silence that was somehow more intense because it ought to have been broken by the cheerful gushing of water.