Oblivion by Dean Wesley Smith, Kristine Kathryn Rusch Read Free Book Online Page B

pocketed nine of his eyestalks. When facing the Elders, the ancient instructions said that no more than two eyestalks should be showing. That, of course, was different from the circle of respect for their betters that the Malmuria formed around their faces with all ten eyestalks. It felt awkward and uncomfortable. Cicoi had to work to keep the single eyestalk from floating freely and looking too closely at things it should not see.
    The room darkened for a moment, and then ten bells rang. Cicoi felt a sheen of nervous moisture form on his outliner. A waste of energy, but he could not stop it.
    Then the floor whitened and dropped away. The standing circles were the only support. If Cicoi stepped off his, he would fall into white nothingness.
    Slowly his circle lowered and, he noted with his uncontrollable eyestalk, so did the other two. The Commanders of the Center and North were holding their positions as if a single movement would hurt them.
    In exasperation at his own lack of control, Cicoi pocketed his last eyestalk and let the circle take him down in darkness. Only when he felt the circle bounce to a stop did he release an eyestalk—a different eyestalk.
    He had sight just in time to watch the room above, where they had been standing only a moment before, disappear. The ceiling closed, leaving them in this expansive luminescence.
    It was so bright to his single eye that Cicoi could not make out the details in the room. Except that this vast chamber had a slight breeze and was hotter than any other place he had ever been on Malmur.
    Was the energy expended here some of the energy brought to the planet through the solar panels? Or was there something else going on?
    He raised a second eyestalk, keeping it in rigid control. He noted that the Commanders of the North and Center had their eyestalks pointed in two different directions. He did the same.
    Then, from the depths below, creatures rose. They were shaped like Malmuria, but they were just black shadows, almost outlines of the shape of Malmuria. All of their eyestalks were floating around their heads in an uncontrolled fashion, and their tentacles waved like a child’s before the child learned discipline.
    One of the creatures assumed the front position. Cicoi saw that the rest, at least twenty, formed a row behind. He turned one of his eyestalks. There were others behind him. Perhaps fifty Elders in all.
    It was the force of their presence that kept this chamber warm. Cicoi wanted to hunch forward like the Commander of the Center, but he did not allow himself to do so. To express fear or even awe was to insult the Elders.
    Then there was a whisper inside Cicoi’s mind. A faint hum, like the touch of a tentacle before a male-female bonding. He tilted his head involuntarily and saw the others doing so as well.
    Good, a wispy voice said. Cicoi realized it belonged to the lead Elder. You can hear us now.
    Cicoi waved his front tentacle in acknowledgment as the other Commanders did the same. The Commander of the Center had raised a single eyestalk in surprise.
    We have been content for all this time to watch and let our people make their own way through the problems our new sun has brought. And for thousands of Passes near this new sun, all has gone well. Until this Pass.
    The thought felt alien, unlike his thoughts. It was like a voice, but not like a voice. Cicoi tamped down a feeling of fear. These were the Elders, the ones who had made Malmur survive. He had to listen to them.
    He tried to control his own thoughts, in case they could hear what he was thinking in return.
    The ability of our people to supply our basic needs has been put in extreme danger by the quick and surprising development of the race on the third planet. You must not underestimate these creatures as you have done before.
    That was the argument Cicoi had just made to his own Second. But to say that, and to do it, were two different things. The creatures on the third planet had changed so much between