He closed his eyes: great brown eyelids rolled down from his forehead. "Once upon a time, this vessel was full of Tahpo. We spoke as if we were on a grand adventure — the last of our race, a single brave ship against a hostile galaxy. A grand, most noble adventure… and we formed a plan we all agreed was necessary for our survival. We would undermine lesser races before they could become our equals. There weren’t enough of us to compete any other way; our only defense was sabotage. So we all agreed. We all…"
Esticus’s mandibles suddenly clenched tight against each other. They squeezed for a long shuddering moment; then they fell limp and motionless. "We all agreed. But over the years — the long, long years — the others left, one by one. They found the courage to change… or perhaps it wasn’t courage but despair. Despair at what our lives had become."
Esticus sighed. "In a way, we’d become as lifeless and tired as the alien species we subverted. We all knew it. As the centuries passed, our comrades listened to the voices of… of those who had changed in the fountains." He paused. "The Soft Ones speak to us now and then. Or at least they used to. I haven’t heard them in years; perhaps they’ve given up on Immu and me. But when there were more of us, the Soft Ones whispered how profound their lives had become since the transformation… and slowly the other Tahpo surrendered. We’d discover that one of our number had vanished; we’d come to this room, and the fountain would be bubbling smugly."
He opened his eyes and looked over at his mate. "Immu always turned off the Blood Honey and let the fountain drain… but eventually, the basin would be full again and another of us would be gone. Until…"
Esticus’s voice trailed off.
"You are the only two left," Festina said. "Aren’t you?"
"Yes," Esticus whispered. "We are the greatest cowards of our race."
He closed his eyes again. The two Shaddill stood there, huddled against each other in silence.
The Effects Of Blood Honey
They did not hold the pose long. Immu suddenly lifted her head and glared at us, her mandibles once more working furiously. "So!" she said. "Now you know how pathetic my mate and I are. No doubt you’ll have a good laugh about it… once you’re locked in our jail."
"I would not enjoy imprisonment," I told her. "That would be unfair treatment… and I am fed up with cruelty at your hands. You gave me a Tired Brain! You made all my people that way! And since you first appeared above Melaquin, you have hounded me unmercifully for no good reason."
"There was a reason," Esticus said. "I don’t know whether you’d consider it good…"
He turned toward Immu with what I suspect was a pleading expression. Immu made an unpleasant grunting noise, as if she really did not wish to explain; but gazing on Esticus’s face, she relented. "When we picked up the Rhee and Macleod robots from New Earth," Immu said, "they told us a woman had died on Melaquin four years ago." The fog cloud above Immu’s head reshaped into an arrow pointing in my direction. "Few among your people ever die… and we thought we could use your corpse."
"What for?" I demanded.
"For an experiment. To see…" Immu glanced at the fountain, its basin now nearly full. "It’s been centuries since that was last turned on. Not since our final companion changed to the Soft Form. We don’t know if the Blood Honey is still potent."
"Of course it is potent," I chided. "You could discover that with a simple test." I waved toward the basin. "I placed a mini-chili in the bowl… and behold, it has turned to jelly."
"Jelly is only the first part of the transformation," Immu replied. "The easy part — breaking down a cell’s exterior to expose the DNA inside. After that, there’s a second process to convert the DNA into… something else. Something that can hold a vastly expanded consciousness."
"The process is complicated," Esticus put in. "It has to maintain existing neural connections in the brain to preserve the original psyche, while adjusting selected portions of the genome in a particular sequence…" His voice cloud began to reshape itself into some sort of twisty ladder, then collapsed back into a ball. Esticus must have decided this particular visual effect was too much bother. He said with weak sheepishness, "It’s very complex."
"How does Oar fit into this?" Festina asked.
"We wanted to put her body into the fountain," Immu answered. "Using a living person would be too much of a risk; it’s been so long since the Blood Honey was tested, the League of Peoples might condemn us for endangering another sentient being. But there’d be no problem with a corpse. We’d put Oar in the fountain, then examine her afterward to see if her cells had undergone the desired transformation." The alien glanced toward her husband. "Merely out of curiosity," she said. "To see if the Blood Honey still worked."
"Yes, just to see," Esticus agreed, gazing back at her. "A way to pass the time."
"But what good would Oar be?" Festina asked. "It sounds like the transformation is specific to your species. Any other species will just get broken down into purple goo, without being put back together the right way."
"Of course," Immu said, as if that should be obvious to anyone. "But Oar is our species. Haven’t you figured that out by now?"
The Stupidest Creatures In The Universe
"I am not a villainous Shaddill!" I replied hotly. "Not even a little bit."
"You are," Esticus said, his voice cloud sliding a short distance toward me. "Your genome is 99.999 percent the same as ours."
"The differences between you and us," Immu said, "are no greater than the differences between your Freep and Tye-Tye companions out in the corridor. Or between female Zaretts, who are large and spherical, versus males, who are small and cloudy. External looks are insignificant compared to what’s in your chromosomes and cytoplasm. We made your race to be just like us."
"But I am beautiful glass! Not fur at all. And I have five fingers, without claws… and no tail or mouth attachments…"
"All trivialities," Immu said. Her translation mist shaped itself briefly into an approximation of me, pleasantly tall and humanoid — then the image shifted into something more squat and beetle-ish. "Inside," she said, "you have the same organs that let you go without food for long periods of time, the same cellular structures that prevent you from aging, the same defensive systems that make you practically impossible to kill. We’ve lived more than five thousand of your years. Your people have the potential to live that long too."
"But it is five thousand years with Tired Brains!" I snapped. "That is another difference between you and me."
"It was necessary," Esticus said. "To make sure you didn’t get too…" His golden cloud broke into a large number of thready wisps surrounding two little lumps — perhaps suggesting a horde of my people vastly outnumbering the two Shaddill.
"We wanted children," Esticus continued, "but the Soft Ones changed us somehow so we couldn’t… it didn’t happen naturally. They wanted to be sure we were Tahpo: the last of our kind. Lucky for us, this was originally a colony-building ship; it still had full terraforming capabilities and a supply of frozen fertilized ova. We altered the DNA in the ova just a bit to create a human-shaped race and… well. You really are like us, Oar, even if there isn’t much external resemblance."
I still did not think it could possibly be true; but Festina was nodding to herself. In a quiet voice, she said, "If we get out of this, Oar, I’ll show you pictures of a Chihuahua and an Irish Wolfhound — unquestionably the same species, but different as night and day. External appearance just isn’t a reliable guide to cellular composition." She turned back to the Shaddill. "So you wanted Oar’s corpse to test the Blood Honey. Just out of curiosity. You had absolutely no thought you might take the big step."