The Star View (The Totality Cycles Book 2) Read online

  He sat back, blinking. It was like the world was being emptied, evacuated. But in such a way as to not induce outright panic, but rather outrage or whatever other manageable emotion the populace cared to evince.

  He thought briefly of showing Ro-Becilo’Ran, then decided against it.

  View Thirteen

  As he had hoped, Vespa Karaci’Tiv did not stay, but left again, almost immediately. She took a moment to tell him she was leaving, and then he had the domicive to himself again. After eating and going through his exercise regimen, he went straight to the Nil’aris.

  Level nine, he thought, reading the description again – and then he realized that he had already done part of level nine, by seeing the Living Glyph with his primary retinas. But to conceive of a new lifeform...

  He projected the basic Living Glyph, common to all living things. It glowed above his outstretched hand, slowly rotating.

  What to make? Nothing dangerous, or poisonous, or, the Ancient Hives forfend, anything like what existed below in the Roots.

  Now I wish I had not seen all those creatures, he thought, and there was the familiar pang of loss, the absence of Pavtala Ralili’Bax. He had not heard from her, nor had he looked for her in the Spheres – it was just too painful.

  Something quasi-living, perhaps, and useful, like the deshik and kwats? But what does not already exist, that I would not be copying? Does that even make sense? He stared at the glyph, vainly trying to think of what original thing to bring into existence. Then his mind ran to Okon, and the difficulty he had had, at first, communicating with her.

  Something that can translate words into glyphs, or words from one language to another? he thought, then nodded. A collar-like thing, that reached up to the aur’erio when interpreting was needed. That meant incorporating the communication glyph that Ro-Becilo’Ran had fumbled to make.

  Wait – does that require... rudimentary intelligence? He shuddered at the thought. He was unwilling to make even a quasi-sentient being, that needed any kind of brain-structure, for it would live in perpetual servitude. There were probably laws against it, though there were probably too few level nine Nil’Gu’ua people around to make it public.

  He formed the communication glyph in his other hand, and studied it. Would it take brain-structure to make a quasi-lifeform capable of containing the communication glyph?

  He studied how the communication glyph worked, letting it decompose to his primary vision. And learned something that startled him.

  All common ideas had basically the same base glyph, no matter the language.

  It seemed obvious, but was not, was so subtle that just knowing the communication glyph did not mean that he realized exactly what it meant. But food was food, though the glyph for an edible item might have different names, and the item might not necessarily be edible to some beings. In fact, being edible was part of the Living Glyph.

  Shivering at what he was learning, he let the communication glyph decompose further. The essence of communication was conveying a thought, a feeling, or a desire. It was not just words or gestures or glyphs, it was nuance, degree, quantity, magnitude.

  But is there a base-notion to communication? He despaired for his idea. One that does not require intelligence? He felt precious time slipping away from him as he let the glyph devolve to its most basic constituent parts. And at the base of each – the need to share.

  Need. Sharing. Are those things in the Living Glyph? His head was beginning to throb, but he turned his eyes and vuu’erio tennae to the Living Glyph. Need, of course, jumped right out at him from the complex glyph. But sharing – was that inherent in living things?

  He dispelled both glyphs and took off his deshik, a quasi-living thing, and studied its glyph. It shared comfort with him – conforming to his body brought comfort to it, for it shared his warmth, and his movements and breathing soothed it. And when it comforted him, it gained something from that, a kind of satisfaction without being a hard-edged need.

  Kreceno’Tiv sucked in a breath of relief, at that. The deshik was not a slave to needing to be worn – it would not die, or pine, if he did not wear it for a few turns. Its creation had been kind, gentle, a symbiosis rather than a servitileness.

  I’ll make certain to incorporate that aspect into my creation, he thought, studying in-depth how the function of the deshik had been incorporated. When he was sure that he had it firmly in his mind, he summoned the communication glyph and the Living-Glyph, looked at how they might be combined in the same way.

  There was, in a very primitive way, a need for sharing, or the potential for the need to share – mating. Sharing genetic material. Self-replication, when the genders were divided and differentiated. The thought was a little lewd, and funny, and disturbing. Could communication be thought of as aural sex?

  Suppressing the urge to guffaw, though his elytra-pace clacked furiously, he made a small replication of that potential need, the need to share genetic material, and gently tried to bring it to realization with the function being information. But that only shared the glyph of things. He wanted words – what of races who were not strong in glyph-projection? Or those who communicated purely verbally, and the only glyphs they had were written words?

  A basic vocabulary still requires cognation, he thought, exasperated. Unless – unless he could trick the aur’erio into thinking it heard the word spoken? He added an extra organ, that vibrated at the sensing organ that took in the unknown language, and also at the aur’erio end, along with the projected, interpreted glyph. Not true speech, but something approximating a whisper. A combination of glyph-projection and air vibration – an aural mirage.

  The rest of the basic functions were there – ingestion, digestion, discreet excretion, that would be removed when the aur’erio interpreter was refreshed. Very primitive respiration and internal circulation. Very little need for endocrinologics – the being would not need to mature, gestate or cognitively develop. Only a simple, rudimentary, cartilage and muscular structure that could extend up from the shoulders to the aur’erio membranes, and that, as unobtrusively as possible. An inhibitor gene to limit its growth. And a few ganglia, that controlled the basic sense of touch, and that sensed the need to share.

  He studied his new glyph through pounding eyes. It seemed complete, able to self-sustain with the same kind of nutrients that the deshik took.

  I don’t think I missed anything, he thought, looking at the completed glyph, then letting his eyes go semi-compound. It jumped out in sharp relief to his secondary retinas. It looked complete, viable.

  Shaking with fatigue, he glyph-conjured a tray with nutrient gel in it, placed the glyph above it, and applied Nil’Gu’vua to it, though all the while ready to terminate it should it produce something horrible.

  A nimbus field coalesced, and then a small, greyish-blue thing unfolded and dropped into the pan. It greedily absorbed the gel, got a little bigger, then lay quiescent.

  Unsteadily he picked up the tray and his deshik, and tottered to the refresher, and put the tray in. Then he tottered to his rest-pad, glyph-sparked a huge meal and an analgesic, inhaled the food, and began dropping off to sleep. His last thought was how he could test his creation at the Bustani.

  View Fourteen

  Kreceno’Tiv woke and looked anxiously at the refresher. Had his creation turned out the way he had intended? Had it fouled the refresher?

  The indicator was flashing normally. He got up and took the tray out, looked at the aur’erio terpreter. It just lay, waiting. He took it and gently coaxed it open. It expanded so that he could slip it over his head and settle it on his shoulders. It folded down around his shoulders and across the top of his elytra-pace. He looked at his reflection. It was not immediately apparent. Gesturing satisfaction, he went to his study station and pulled up a short phrase in the Heretian language. He made it play aloud, and projected the desire to understand.

  The aur’erio terpreter flowed up to gently cover his aur’erio.

  “I am hungry,” a soft voice whispered to him. He looked at the words. I am hungry, was the phrase.

  He sat back, with a breath.

  It worked, he marveled, it actually worked!

  Tingling inside with the enormity of his accomplishment, he considered his options. Go to the Bustani and test his creation on the sapients there? How obtrusive was it?

  He transferred a short Heretian phrase to his view-glyphographic, went to his mirror, and held the device up to his aur’erio. The aur’erio terpreter had relaxed, but flowed up again when he expressed the desire to understand. He played the phrase, and watched the quasi-living construct unfold. It was not too obvious, as it reached up again and whispered the new phrase. “I am Heretian.”

  He considered getting Ro-Becilo’Ran and going to the Bustani to fully test its capabilities.

  I’d better take him, he thought. If I went without him, he’d find out and want to know why. Letting his new aur’preter relax back down, he used his view-glyphographic to contact his friend.

  “Oh ha, Krece!” Ro-Becilo’Ran said jovially. “How goes it?”

  “It could be better,” he replied. “Becil, my parents sent me something, a natal-turn giving, and I want to try it out. Go to the Bustani with me?”

  His friend stared at him for an instant, then broke into a smile. “Already here, my over-grown friend! Come, we’ll be waiting for you!”

  “On the way,” he said, walking through the domicive and out the front entrance. He glyph-conjured his transport, and set the destination for the Bustani.

  View Fifteen

  Kreceno’Tiv strode into the Bustani, hiding his new distaste for the place.

  “Oh ha, Kreceno’Tiv!” Ro-Becilo’Ran called, waving. It was almost a reenactment of two dark-turns ago, withou
t his sister trailing behind him. He hailed all of them, and sat, though he dearly wanted to go test his creation.

  “Oh ha,” he greeted them all.

  “So, what is it that your parents sent to you?” Ropali Galici’Bel asked, peering at him. “Your hands are empty.”

  He half smiled, stood, and gestured for them to follow him. Mystified, they stood and moved after him. And they actually drew swift breaths when he headed for the displays with the sapients.

  “Krece...?” Ro-Becilo’Ran began, and the glyph of trepidation, that slowly grew to alarm, was clearly projecting from his friend. But he indicated that they desist for a moment, went up the Heretian display. The peoples in the displays gazed back at him, then began to murmur among themselves. He expressed the wish to understand, and the aur’preter rose into position.

  “The unmarked Travel God full of anger is back,” one said, making a gesture at him. He repeated their words.

  “He has grown,” another commented.

  Amid muted astonishment from the others, and laughter from Ro-Becilo’Ran, he moved to another, with Kevutu people in it.

  “The idle children of the Gods of Moving,” a male said/sang, his voice/song almost contemptuous. “They come and stare at us. With such powers, they should be conquerors, not idlers, frittering their eternities away! What I could do with such power as they had...!” He turned a snarl to Kreceno’Tiv.

  “The Gods have temperance,” a female said/sang, holding the upper left of his four arms. “They have wisdom. It is because of our violent tendencies that the Gods put checks on us. We agreed to serve here, and learn temperance, so that They will unbind our powers. We must learn to use them for things other than conquest.”

  “What point is there of having power if not to use it?!” he yelled/sang, the melodics of his triple voice discordant, and he punched the transparent membrane that kept him enclosed. It rang solemnly. Kreceno’Tiv did not flinch – he had read the impending violence in the alien man.

  “Tuiruk, if you felt that way, why come? Why stand in the Passageway of Serviles, if you don’t wish to be here, to be nearer the Gods of Movement, and learn their ways?”

  “To see my enemy, and steal his power!” Tuiruk growled/sang, baring a double row of fangs at Kreceno’Tiv. His head lowered aggressively. “What are you looking at, stripling? I could snap you in two in the circle of my arms!”

  Kreceno’Tiv had stopped translating the rant halfway through, and was just listening, now. He stepped closer.

  “I’m looking at you,” he said quietly, though he did not expect the other man to understand.

  The Kevutu man stumbled back a few steps, and made a gesture that he did not know, but guessed was astonishment. He was surprised, himself, and his elytra-pace clacked. The aur’preter had translated his words back to the sapient? Moreover, it could discern whom he was speaking to, and selectively translate? For it had not translated his interpreting the Kevutu when he was speaking to his friends, to the Kevutu themselves. Nor when he had just been listening. But when he answered Tuiruk back, it had.

  “He understood what you were saying,” the woman said/sang tremulously, backing away fearfully. “Tuiruk, what have you done?”

  “I – I didn’t think that they would know our words!” Tuiruk wailed/sang, huddling in a far corner. “None of the other youngsters ever seemed to...!”

  “That – that is amazing,” Ropali Galici’Bel said, coming over and reaching up to the aur’preter, distracting him from the man’s distress. “And you said that your parents sent it?”

  He gestured assent, turning away from the Kevutu.

  “Can I try it?” she asked, in a coquettish way.

  He laughed. “That only works on Ro-Becilo’Ran, Galici. But yes. Here, let me put it on you.” He took the living collar off, and carefully placed it over her head and onto her shoulders. It snuggled down into place, and changed to match her markings. That also took him by surprise. Had his desire that it be unobtrusive worked its way into the Living Glyph of the aur’preter?

  Of course, it could not help but do so, he thought.

  “It changes color, too?” Ro-Becilo’Ran asked, coming over to turn her and look at the aur’preter. “I can barely make it out – it is very well camouflaged!”

  Ropali Galici’Bel went to one of the other displays and waved at the peoples within. A few made what seemed to be friendly expressions and waved back with sinuous appendages.

  “Hello,” she said, smiling. The aur’preter rose to settle over her aur’erio.

  The sapients all waved their appendages wildly, and began chirping rapidly at her.

  “No, wait, I...” she stumbled backward, turned away. She looked distressed, and Ro-Becilo’Ran moved swiftly to take her into his arms.

  “What is it, my blossom, what did they say to you?” he asked, in the most tender voice that Kreceno’Tiv had ever heard him use.

  She made to roughly pull the delicate membranes off her aur’erio, but Kreceno’Tiv forestalled her, removed his creation carefully before she damaged it.

  She sniffed as she clung to her Geni’vheris. “They begged me to implore the Mother Gods to release their Nil’Gu’ua so that they could save their home!” she stuttered, tears in her eyes. “Kreceno’Tiv is right, this place is reprehensible!”

  Kreceno’Tiv put the aur’preter back on and went over to the display and looked in on the sapients. They gazed back, not evincing the despair and desperation that they had shown Ropali Galici’Bel. He saw a faint glyph of deception hovering around them. Creneloams, they were called.

  “Is your home really in jeopardy of some type?” he asked quietly.

  The one in front did not meet his eyes, its eyestalks averted.

  “No, God from Other Place,” it said.

  “Then why did you say it was?” he pressed.

  The eyestalks stretched up, until the sensing cells were level with his eyes. “We were just coming to the height of our power, and dominance, when you...! When you, the Gods of Other Place struck us down for our hubris. Now we must serve our indenture until we learn to use our gifts from you wisely.”

  The recurring theme of conquest was disturbing. Granted, he had only talked to two species, but the common whorl in all their glyphs was this – aggression. Perhaps – perhaps only races whom the Solidarim saw as threats to others were housed in the Bustani? Perhaps gentler races were not subject to the Deity-mythos?

  “That does not explain why you lied to her,” he persisted.

  The stalks twisted disturbingly around each other. “If your power to conquer were taken away, would you not use every and any means to get it back?” the Creneloam asked back.

  “How long is your tenure?” he asked, ignoring the sapient’s question.

  The stalks snapped back straight, lowered and retracted fully. The appendages all went limp.

  “Ten thousand passes,” came the faint reply. Then the Creneloam spoke no more.

  Deeply disturbed, Kreceno’Tiv turned away. He would have to ask his parents when they returned if what he suspected were true.

  Does that change how I feel about displaying sapients here, if this punitive action is part of their penance? He was not sure that it did, though his sympathy for them was much less.

  “I did not mean to sully your enjoyment of the Bustani,” he said apologetically to Ropali Galici’Bel. But she was staring hard at the Creneloam enclosure. She had apparently been listening to his side of exchange, and was not upset anymore, but more angry.

  “I’m sorry, Kreceno’Tiv, I’m not sure I agree that these sapients do not belong here,” she said tightly. “Lying to get themselves unbound, when all they wanted was to misuse their Nil’Gu’ua? Let them rot in there!”

  He gestured assent. And he decided to try to enjoy the rest of the Bustani, staying and conversing with the group, rather than going immediately back home, as was his original intent, even though he had two more levels to experiment with.