She gestured toward the fountain, pointing a claw toward the mini-chili. The small yellow fruit had completely disappeared; now, there was only a mush of jelly. "We don’t know how you found your way here so unerringly," Immu said, "but it’s a pity we didn’t notice until you had already reached the fountain. Quite possibly, you’ve seen additional secrets on our ship: secrets we can’t let you share with the outside world."
"Then keep us here, but let everyone else go — everyone in the crusade and Royal Hemlock. They haven’t seen any of this."
"They still know too much," Immu replied. "For example, they know FTL fields can be hyper-charged by entering a star." The mist above her head reshaped itself slightly — a tiny bit of fog broke off from the main gold ball and circled for a bit before plunging back inside. I realized this was intended to suggest Starbiter looping about the sun before she finally entered the fire… and I was most envious the Shaddill mist-clouds could not only perform English translations but provide delightful visual effects.
Even as the fog was pretending to be Starbiter and the sun, its voice continued to speak. "This information is something we sought to keep secret. We replaced high officials in every culture we uplifted — like your Admirals Rhee and Macleod — and had them pass laws to prevent disclosure. For example, all starship computers in the Technocracy must be programmed to stay well clear of suns… supposedly as a safety precaution."
"So," said Festina, "if someone ever wanted to get near a star, the ship’s computer just wouldn’t let it happen. Simple, but elegant."
"And yet," I said, "Starbiter flew into the sun. She was reluctant to do so, but she obeyed me." The fog above Immu’s head flared brightly and made a harsh fizzing sound. I do not think the noise was intended to be speech — it sounded as if Immu was transmitting such angry thoughts to the cloud, the translation nanites had caught fire. In a moment, however, the fizzing spittered into silence and the cloud muttered, "We never should have given the Divians living starships."
"It was part of their culture," Esticus said softly. "It was what they were used to. They would have been most suspicious of ships made from inorganic parts."
"I know," Immu snapped, her cloud threatening to fizz again. "We still shouldn’t have taken the risk." She turned back to Festina and me. "The moment we gave the first Zaretts to the Divians, we surrendered control. You don’t build Zaretts, you breed them; and in the breeding process, random factors inevitably creep in. The first Zaretts we made would never go close to a sun; we designed them to have an absolute phobia against it. But in every subsequent generation, a few individuals weren’t quite as afraid as their parents. Inhibitions just don’t breed true, especially when they’re groundless. By now, half the Zaretts alive can be bullied into entering a star if you scream at them loud enough. Fortunately for us, no one ever tried it persistently."
"Until I came along," I said proudly.
Immu did not answer… but her translation mist gave another angry fizz.
"Why did you do it?" Festina asked the Shaddill. "Why create this elaborate lie about the limitations of FTL fields?"
"To slow you down," Esticus said. "To disrupt your species’ development. And to make sure our own vessel was always much faster than the craft of lesser races."
"Surely you’ve realized by now," Immu said, "everything we do is aimed at weakening you. We approach cultures as they start into space; we offer them technology and flawed but plausible scientific models that completely bypass certain discoveries those races would otherwise make on their own." The cloud above Immu’s head split into two hemispheres with a slight gap between left and right. "We create a discontinuity in a species’ scientific progress," she said. "We give them devices they don’t understand and won’t understand, because they’ve been deflected from developing the necessary scientific background."
"And of course," Festina said, "you place robot agents in positions of authority to make sure the background science is never filled in."
"Exactly," Immu agreed, her cloud fusing together again. "Our robot replacements control the purse-strings for almost all research in your sector. If someone begins to investigate topics we dislike, that person is diverted to a different project." A part of her cloud spun off on its own. "When that doesn’t work — and scientists often prove difficult to sidetrack — we take steps to remove the irritant." A strand of fog lashed out from the main ball of mist, struck the little separate piece, and pulled it back into the whole again… like a frog swallowing a fly. "The annoyingly keen scientist simply disappears, and ends up in a comfortable holding facility on this very ship: a facility you’ll soon see for yourself."
Festina lifted the muzzle of her stun-pistol. "Think again."
Immu made the raspy throat-noise. This time it definitely sounded like laughter. "You obtained that gun from our robots. Do you believe we would arm them with weapons that would affect us?" "You might," Festina replied. "For all your fancy technology, you don’t seem very smart."
"We aren’t," Esticus whispered. Immu gave him another hip-bump, this time making no effort to conceal it. She also made a hissing sound and clacked her mandibles in a gesture that was clearly a Shaddill shorthand for, "Shut up, you fool!"
"Here’s what I think," Festina said. "I think five thousand years ago, your people were science whizzes who built this ship and a lot of other fancy stuff. Somewhere along the line, you developed a way to evolve to a higher state of being — to make yourselves smart as all hell, even if you ended up looking like blobs of purple jelly." She glanced at the liquid spurting out of the fountain. "What’s this stuff called?"
There was a pause. The clouds over both Shaddill heads dimmed, as if they were trying to deal with some difficult concept and had to use all their power for the translation process. Finally, the mist above Esticus spoke softly: "Blood Honey," it said.
Immediately, both speaker clouds brightened to their usual golden luster… or perhaps a bit shinier than before, greatly pleased with themselves for devising an elegant translation of the actual Shaddill name.
"Blood Honey," Festina repeated. "Cute. Anyway, your people built Blood Honey fountains so you could all advance together. You carefully cleaned up the worlds where you lived, then you prepared to jelly out. The only problem was, some of you didn’t like the idea of turning into purple goop. I think it scared you shitless. So when everybody else went to bathe in the fountains, a bunch of you just turned tail. You buggered off on this ship, and you’ve been running ever since."
"You mean," I said, "these Shaddill ones are cowards? All others of their kind pursued Celestial Transcendence, while these turned away in fear?" I glared at the two furry beetles with contempt. Suddenly, I understood why Esticus had called himself Tahpo: the dregs.
"So how many of you are left?" Festina asked the beetles. "Hundreds? Thousands? Millions? Or could it be you two are the only ones who didn’t have the guts to change?"
Immu didn’t answer — just turned her head away and lowered her gaze to the floor. Her mandibles fell still, as if she were paralyzed with shame. Finally, it was Esticus who spoke, his fog-cloud dim and drooping.
"There were others once," he said. "Many others. It isn’t an easy thing to contemplate changing to the Soft Form even when you’ve been assured it will… expand your horizons."