Part 12 (1/2)

On a whim she walked in a circle, then checked her own trail. It was just as strong, but smelled subtly different.

So. I leave the same scent trail. The other Konuan can follow me easily, too.

Telisa followed the trail through two more rooms, when it abruptly ended. She looked around with her washed-out vision. She didn't see anything except another cubical room.

Oh, of course. It leaped from here. To...where?

Finally her poor vision noticed a circular well in the floor instead of a grille.

An entrance to the Trilisk tunnels.

Telisa crawled all about until she found a spot where the Konuan before her had landed. It had been a jump that broke the trail. She followed the line. It had jumped here, and then...? Probably into the tunnel below. Telisa crawled down to check. She put half her body down the well and walked around the rim. She could smell it. This is where it had gone, into the Trilisk tunnels.

With a shrug that could only be imagined, Telisa crawled over the edge of the well and downward. Despite the smooth surface of the well, her legs stuck to the sides. She moved over the metal without fear of falling.

The tunnel below smelled very different to her Konuan feet. Clean and metallic.

Of course. I smell through my feet. Sigh.

Her gill flaps rustled.

I try to sigh, and it causes this new body to breathe. I try to move forward and my hundreds of legs just do it. It has all been connected in a way to minimize the alien-ness of the transfer. Yet a change this radical remains profound. One can't be perfectly mapped from Terran to Konuan. It all just feels right. Masterful.

The bottom of the well smoothly joined into a horizontal tunnel. Telisa followed the trail onto the ceiling of the tunnel and crawled on. She slowed. A new sensation had started to build. Some of her legs were not working. She felt them clutching onto something instead. Many somethings. She held many tiny orbs to her body with at least a dozen legs.

What are those? Eggs? I don't understand. This is less than masterful.

Telisa tried to release one. She couldn't quite force herself to let it go. She didn't want to let them go. Somehow the deposits had become so very important.

Unbelievable. I don't understand my own physiology enough to even get by. It could be dangerous. This could be a symptom of not breathing right, not eating, drinking, even standing upside down too long.

Telisa could not bring herself to drop anything so she simply walked on. A few more of her legs became distracted by the tiny spheres.

They have to be coming from me. This ceiling is utterly clean.

She came to a three-way intersection of the tunnels. Staying on the ceiling, she entered a triangular shaped s.p.a.ce that joined the tunnels. There was a niche in the three corners of the ceiling. Telisa was drawn to one of the tiny protected s.p.a.ces. She flowed over it, covering the depression with her body.

She shook. Her legs spasmed. Telisa couldn't think about anything; she just was for a moment. Then she focused on the smell of the spheres. Several of her legs ticked out to tap the walls of the niche. Then she put one of the orbs there. Somehow, it stuck to the wall.

Then she placed another, and another.

Well, at least I know what to do with them now. Less to carry...Five Ent.i.ties.

Her legs started to work rapidly. More and more of the tiny modules became affixed to the surfaces of the niche as she worked. Time became meaningless. Finally she seemed to come back into focus.

I can move away now.

She flowed forward from the niche, then turned about to take a look. Her eyesight was poor, but it looked like she had deposited at least a hundred little black nodules, maybe more.

If this is what my life has become, I'm not going to be sane much longer.

She attempted to dispel the negative thoughts.

I'm going to get help. s.h.i.+ny could help. Or I can figure out that Trilisk platform and get back to my regular self.

Telisa found the trail again and continued. She had to be following a chemical trail like an ant following a predecessor. The trails would help her to find another Konuan. But now she wondered: Did she really want to find the one that hunted them? Wouldn't it be deadly? Or did it only kill Terrans?

If I can follow it, then it can follow me. If it finds those egg-things, it might fertilize them. Or maybe they are clones of me. Or maybe they are just chunks of excrement. This is miserable.

Telisa left the intersection on the trail and left by another corridor. It was long and straight like the last one. The trail started out in parallel with the tunnel on the ceiling, but after some distance, which was hard for Telisa to estimate, it veered left.

Telisa noticed something. A tiny crack. She would have missed it as a Terran. To a Konuan, it was like a canyon. As soon as she started to crawl across it, she could feel it there.

Why did the tunnel have a seam? An artifact of modular construction?

No. Trilisk stuff is made perfectly, designed down to the molecular level. No such thing as an accidental or incidental seam in their work. It's a doorway.

She searched the large square panel that curved with the surface of the cylindrical tunnel. There were no b.u.t.tons or levers. Only the perfect seam around the entire perimeter.

Open?

The panel started to slide open. Telisa hopped off it instantly in a startled reaction.

Wow. I'm fast.

She felt elation that the panel had opened to her mere mental command. Either that, or something else had opened it...Telisa listened. The sound of the mechanism sliding the door was like thunder to her fine hearing. She looked through the doorway. She saw a small pa.s.sageway leading into a hidden room. Telisa hopped through and landed on the wall as naturally as a Terran would have strode through on the smooth black floor.

The room beyond looked like a s.p.a.ce force armory. A dozen rifles leaned against the wall. Bins of grenades. Five battle suits. Pieces of military robots. Explosives.

This is an incredible pile of tech. If this was gathered by the Konuan, it's no primitive.

Backdropped against it all, a large column extended from floor to ceiling. It looked out of place in the cubical room with grilles on each wall.

Trilisk. Jackpot!

Telisa scurried right up to it, then onto its surface almost without thinking. She felt the smooth surface with her surface-clinging legs. Her claw legs tapped it gently, feeling everything under the two square meters of her body surface.

This is creepy how fast I'm getting used to crawling all over everything.

Telisa crawled around it full circle in the s.p.a.ce of a second.

I want to be myself again, Telisa thought. Nothing happened. Is anything there? I want to switch back.

Her desires were ignored. But she felt another crack in the surface under her feet.

Open.