Ascendancies Read Online Free Page B

Swarm’s asteroid nest. Afriel smiled, comfortable for the first time in weeks. Most of his adult life had been spent in free-fall, in the Shapers’ colonies in the Rings of Saturn.
    Squatting in a dark cavity in the side of the tunnel was a disk-headed furred animal the size of an elephant. It was clearly visible in the infrared of its own body heat. Afriel could hear it breathing. It waited patiently until Afriel had launched himself past it, deeper into the tunnel. Then it took its place in the end of the tunnel, puffing itself up with air until its swollen head securely plugged the exit into space. Its multiple legs sank firmly into sockets in the walls.
    The Investors’ ship had left. Afriel remained here, inside one of the millions of planetoids that circled the giant star Betelgeuse in a girdling ring with almost five times the mass of Jupiter. As a source of potential wealth it dwarfed the entire solar system, and it belonged, more or less, to the Swarm. At least, no other race had challenged them for it within the memory of the Investors.
    Afriel peered up the corridor. It seemed deserted, and without other bodies to cast infrared heat, he could not see very far. Kicking against the wall, he floated hesitantly down the corridor.
    He heard a human voice. “Dr. Afriel!”
    â€œDr. Mirny!” he called out. “This way!”
    He first saw a pair of young symbiotes scuttling toward him, the tips of their clawed feet barely touching the walls. Behind them came a woman wearing goggles like his own. She was young, and attractive in the trim, anonymous way of the genetically reshaped.
    She screeched something at the symbiotes in their own language, and they halted, waiting. She coasted forward, and Afriel caught her arm, expertly stopping their momentum.
    â€œYou didn’t bring any luggage?” she said anxiously.
    He shook his head. “We got your warning before I was sent out. I have only the clothes I’m wearing and a few items in my pockets.”
    She looked at him critically. “Is that what people are wearing in the Rings these days? Things have changed more than I thought.”
    Afriel glanced at his brocaded coat and laughed. “It’s a matter of policy. The Investors are always readier to talk to a human who looks ready to do business on a large scale. All the Shapers’ representatives dress like this these days. We’ve stolen a jump on the Mechanists; they still dress in those coveralls.”
    He hesitated, not wanting to offend her. Galina Mirny’s intelligence was rated at almost two hundred. Men and women that bright were sometimes flighty and unstable, likely to retreat into private fantasy worlds or become enmeshed in strange and impenetrable webs of plotting and rationalization. High intelligence was the strategy the Shapers had chosen in the struggle for cultural dominance, and they were obliged to stick to it, despite its occasional disadvantages. They had tried breeding the Superbright—those with quotients over two hundred—but so many had defected from the Shapers’ colonies that the faction had stopped producing them.
    â€œYou wonder about my own clothing,” Mirny said.
    â€œIt certainly has the appeal of novelty,” Afriel said with a smile.
    â€œIt was woven from the fibers of a pupa’s cocoon,” she said. “My original wardrobe was eaten by a scavenger symbiote during the troubles last year. I usually go nude, but I didn’t want to offend you by too great a show of intimacy.”
    Afriel shrugged. “I often go nude myself, I never had much use for clothes except for pockets. I have a few tools on my person, but most are of little importance. We’re Shapers, our tools are here.” He tapped his head. “If you can show me a safe place to put my clothes…”
    She shook her head. It was impossible to see her eyes for the goggles, which made her expression hard to read.