If Marshall had given any thought to what being blasted by a tuba weapon would be like, he would probably have expected to see a brilliant flash followed by nothing forever.
He would certainly not have expected to feel a blunt force slamming into him from his left, sending him flying to his right. But that is, in fact, what he felt. And when he turned his sprawled body to look at where he had been, he could make no sense of what he saw there.
He saw motion: a lot of jerky, uncoordinated motion, though not from Anefren, to be sure. For that hapless lowlife, after exhausting his last iota of energy in firing the tuba, had slumped against the alley wall, thoroughly deceased.
The motion came, rather, from sixty or seventy or maybe a hundred jointed things scattered about a lump of cloth. Since each of these was twitching, Marshall had difficulty seeing them clearly. But then one of them flung itself onto the pavement beside him, and he got a better look.
It was a pair of sticks hinged together, with a hairy glob at one end and a leathery something at the other. A half-detached something with a rigid flat part and a roundish flexible part and a strap and a . . .
In short, a shoe!
Which meant the jointed things were . . . legs! Yes, disconnected legs.
Which therefore meant . . .
Frantically he crawled to the lump and knelt beside it. He made out the tubular shape and the yarn garment with its beautiful patterns. He saw the leg holes and the pompoms, then looked past the leg holes to where two antennae drooped over two huge and oval eyes.
Undoubtedly this was the Centi who, having somehow found him, had given his life to save him from the death he wanted and so richly deserved.
“You do not deserve it,” came a whisper struggling for existence in his brain.
Of course I do, thought Marshall, wondering why he would still be arguing with himself over such an obvious point.
Or was he arguing with himself?
“You are not arguing with yourself,” said the whisper.
Marshall looked harder at the savaged shape. He could detect not a hint of motion or consciousness. But if the voice wasn’t coming from the Centi, then who—?
“Come on. Who else would it be?” interjected the whisper. “I may not be able to move, but at least I can still think.”
“Then you’re alive!” cried Marshall.
“Strictly speaking.”
“And you’re on a technologically advanced planet. So surely they have ways to save you. You’ll be OK. I know it. You’ll be OK.”
“I’ll be OK, I’ll be OK,” repeated the whisper, which didn’t seem so OK. “We’re being observed, right?”
“Really? What makes you think—?” began Marshall, but broke off, having looked around. Yes, they were being observed. At both ends of the alley, onlookers were staring, rapt, at the dead two-spike, the nearly dead Centi-cab and the distressed biped belonging to a species no one could quite identify.
“You’re right,” said Marshall. “Lots of gawkers. Police, too. They’ll call for help, won’t they?”
“They’ve probably contacted some sort of arthropod specialist. Not that they’re ever much good in a place like this.”
“Of course they’re good,” countered Marshall enthusiastically if not entirely knowledgeably. “You’re going to be fine, and I’m going to help you. What do you need? A blanket? Water? You may not realize it, but I’m an expert in Advanced Emergency First Aid.”
As if to test this claim, a leg chose that moment to fling itself onto his head. From there it dropped into his hands, where it twitched piteously. Squashing down the natural inclination to gag, to recoil, to vigorously wipe himself wherever he had come into contact with the insectile body part, Marshall breathed deeply, set his jaw and attempted, very carefully, to insert its globby end into one of the holes in the Centi’s sweater.
The leg, however, would not cooperate. Oblivious to its proper place, it kept flopping sideways as Marshall kept trying to reattach it, until, with several spasms, it leapt clear and went rattling down the alley. Marshall sighed, once again realizing that he had bungled his preparations, spending scads of time on removing a leg, and not an instant on putting one back.
And he was realizing something else—that an unpleasant liquid was seeping between the shreds of sweater on the Centi’s lower abdomen.
“As you can see, the problem is not just with my legs,” said the whisper. “And there is nothing you can do except, please, before the end . . . listen to me. I need to apologize.”
“Apologize? To whom?”
“To you!”
“To me?” Marshall was flummoxed. “But why? Surely you realize I just got you killed. Not that you are killed. You’re fine. You’re going to be totally, absolutely fine. I was just pointing out that any discomfort or inconvenience you might be experiencing is solely the result of my—”
“No!” the Centi interrupted. “I got myself killed. It was my choice to intervene once I found you. And I thought I could move faster than that two-spike could shoot. But it wouldn't have been necessary had I listened to you when we met.”
Marshall thought back to that first encounter. It had gone downhill so fast and so understandably. What had he said that might have made a difference?
“That we’re alike,” said the other. “Totally alike in every way that counts. That for our whole lives we’ve been following the same scent trail.”
“Do you really believe that?” said Marshall, delighted and despondent simultaneously.
“Without a doubt,” said the Centi. “Think of it. We both didn’t fit in with the other larvae, did we? While they were having their ceiling races, we were down on the floor, looking up. Though not in envy. No, we were looking right through the ceiling, at the stars! Then, later, in our adult phases, while those around us were grubbing for possessions, we were still dreaming—and trying to inspire them to dream, too. Trying so hard, you with your articles, me with my thoughticles, while never imagining that all we were headed for, really, was a saddle. Or Circuit World.”
“Circuit World? How do you know about Circuit World?”
“What a question. You told me about it.”
For an instant, Marshall was stymied. Then realization dawned.
“My thought experiment. In that lot.”
“Yes, exactly.”
“It worked!”
“Of course it worked. You sent me the story of your life, and I realized that you were correct. That despite your hideous appearance—excuse my mentioning it—you are just like me.”
Marshall felt overwhelmed with amazement and sadness, and also curiosity.
“But what about those, uh, you know, life forms on my planet that, you know, look a little like you and that I, uh, smooshed. You mean that now you don’t object—?”
“No, of course not,” said the Centi. “True, they bear a certain resemblance to my kind. But anyone could see from your memories that they’re unthinking hedonists. So what else could you do when you found them in your crevice? Marshall, I have to confess something. I have a character flaw. No, don’t argue, it’s true. I am, you see, a self-pityer. And these days it is making me behave inexcusably. I resent my customers. I inject venom everywhere, metaphorically speaking. And you can observe where that has led me.”
That is nothing compared to where it has led me, thought Marshall to himself—or so he believed.
“Are you referring to that video recording in which you offer to betray your species?”
The response came not in words but waves of embarrassment and shame.
“Well . . . ,” said the Centi, after a pause. “Seeing it from a positive angle, I don’t believe it defines you. In my experience, everyone has such episodes. We say things. Maybe we do things. Then we go back to being who we were—who we are. Nevertheless . . .” He paused again, as if reluctant to continue. “Nevertheless,” he continued, “it would appear that this particular outburst of yours has decided the fate of species up and down the Galaxy. In fact, I heard some of it on a public affairs transmission shortly after receiving your thoughts.”
Marshall felt a wintry mix of cold panic and icy despair.
“But if you know so much,” he said, “then you must also know what I was trying to do when you pushed me aside.”
“Deprive the Zetans of your assistance? Inflict on yourself what you thought you deserved?”
“Yes, and save a largely blameless person.”
“But what of the billions you would not be saving?”
“Well, what about them? What am I supposed to do? What could anyone?”
A silence followed, during which Marshall examined with growing concern the glazed-over eyes.
Then the whisper resumed, showing equal concern.
“Marshall, I want you to do me a favor. Don’t ask why, just tell me: how many species have you seen today?”
“I don’t know. Twenty?”
“That sounds accurate. Now consider that each of those species was once like your own. Unable to build starships. Confined to its homeworld. That’s billions of beings over millions of years, Marshall. And in all that time, how many members of those pre-starfaring species do you think found their way to an inhabited planet in another solar system, even a tacky orb like this one?”
“I don't know,” said Marshall. “How many?”
“Well, I looked it up after receiving your thoughts, and the answer is…none. That’s right, none. Ever. Don’t you see what that means?”
Marshall tried to, but couldn’t.
“It means that you are the first, the only. Multitudes dreamed; only you made the dream real. Now doesn’t that tell you something?”
Marshall considered. Actually, it didn't.
“It tells you,” said the other, “that if anyone can find a way to save those 277 planets, it is you, Marshall Shmishkiss, you.”
“But that’s absurd,” said Marshall, seeing no other way to phrase it. “What does one thing have to do with the other? How would I even start?”
“The same way you broke all the rules of reality when you were back in your crevice.”
He strained to understand. What he had done? Gotten unemployed? Discovered a website?
Betrayed his world?
“If I hadn’t lost control of myself, I’d have never gone anywhere,” he protested. “So how does that make me someone who can save planets? Please, explain it to me.”
But the Centi said nothing.
“Come on.”
But still, the Centi said nothing.
“Come on, please!”
Silence.
Marshall stared into the unseeing eyes. He felt frustration, even resentment. Though the resentment soon changed into horror, the frustration into wrenching sorrow. And throwing his arms around the poor legless body, he buried his face in the autumnal weave.
“Hang on,” he sobbed. “Help is coming. It has to be.”
And he went on sobbing until, abruptly, he sat up.
There was a whisper, so faint it barely existed.
But it did exist. It did.
“You know, Marshall . . . ,” it said.
“Yes. Talk to me. I’m listening.”
“You’re reminding me of my nephew, the one who couldn’t molt. His mother, my sister, tried all the usual things. Creams. Lotions. No good. He kept ending up in the hospital. And now that’s you. Although a biped, a soft-body, you too must molt. You must shed the skin of guilt and hopelessness that binds you. And if you can, you will undo the harm, I know it. You will do what you specialize in—the impossible—and prevail. However, if that old skin stays on, I am equally sure that you will not prevail.
“You will end up like me . . . ”
The next word, faded and final, may or may not have been the Centi’s.
“ . . . smooshed.”