The Trial of Tompa Lee

by Edward Hoornaert

  18 The Smell of Flowers

  Voices woke Tompa. Her eyes shot open and her heart pounded, but she didn’t move. It was too dark to see anything beyond her hand, which was curled into a fist near the edge of the slab where she slept. A cool breeze carried a flowery smell so strong it was almost cloying.

  “. . . Deep forests growing impenetrably across entire northern landmass.”

  It was Awmit, talking in a chatty tone that lulled Tompa’s alarm. She let out the breath she’d been holding. She hadn’t slept long, so this must be the end of his first sleep—yet he’d wakened Roussel, instead of her. She wasn’t sure how she felt about that. Grateful, she decided as she yawned. Let the roach lose sleep tonight.

  “During days of anciently, rivers existed solitarily as means of travel, so consequence follows that Shon-Ahms-Zee swim more efficiently than other Shons.”

  “Oh,” Roussel answered. “Okay, I kind of understand why you’re so much better in water than those Shons who chased me across the creek. But you say you’re a Shon-Ahms-Zee and you’re implying you evolved differently. Does that mean there’s more than one species of Shon?”

  “Dante human recognizes negatively the vast differences?”

  “I’m afraid you all look alike to me.”

  Awmit made a huffing sound. “Four peoples live currently—Ahms, Tuke, Zho-arr, and Wod. The pursuers exist predominantly as greedy Wods and a few self-aggrandizing Tukes. Zho-arrs meditate over-spiritually to feel bloodlust—Servants of Bez-Tattin recruit predominantly from Zho-arrs. And this one’s tiny genus lives over-distantly to desire the slaughter of aliens. Dante human knew negatively the Four Genuses?”

  “No. Until we arrived, the Klicks were the only ones who had ever landed here. They never shared much information about you.”

  Awmit didn’t say anything right away. Tompa yawned again, but did it with her mouth closed; she didn’t want to be part of any conversation involving Roussel. Besides, if she pretended to be asleep she’d be able to doze whenever she felt like it—unlike last night, when Awmit was so eager to chat during prime sleeping time.

  Eventually Awmit responded to Roussel in a subdued voice. “The stars know negatively the very fundaments of Shon existence?”

  “Afraid not. But then, what do you know about humans?”

  “Situations equate unevenly. This one’s ignorance spins consequently from human alienness.”

  “But to me you’re the alien.”

  “This one exists negatively as alien!” The Shon’s voice rose nearly to the same volume as when he’d been upset with her this morning about not abandoning him. Tompa smiled in the dark.

  “Sorry,” Roussel said. “I apologize if I offended you. I gather the word ‘alien’ has negative connotations?”

  Awmit made irritated huffing sounds and Tompa’s smile widened. “Possibility lingers,” the Shon admitted, “that Dante human’s insult results confusedly from the inept translator machine.”

  “I certainly intended no insult.”

  “This one comprehends forgivingly. Graceful human also insults, yet this one knows that her spine ripples fervently with righteousness.”

  Dante laughed. “I’m sure no one has ever described Tompa Lee in such terms before.”

  “Bastard,” Tompa breathed. Luckily, Roussel was laughing so heartily that neither of them heard her.

  When Roussel stopped laughing, the silence stretched long enough that she expected Awmit to say at any moment, second sleep comes, but instead he gave a sigh that ached with what she thought was distress. “The stars know negatively essentials commonplace to this one since upbringing years? Truth shines, Dante human, that this one feels apprehensively minuscule in such a perspective.”

  “I’m sorry again,” Roussel said. “I didn’t mean to make you feel insignificant.” After a solemn moment, he added in tone that signaled a change of topic, “I’m still not clear on the different types of Shons.”

  “Genus names equal Shon-Ahms-Zee, Shon-Zho-arr-Zee, Shon-Wod—”

  “Not their names,” Dante interrupted. “I mean, how are you all related? My translator renders them as genuses, but that can’t be right. Are they different species, races of the same species, or simply nationalities?”

  “Dante human speaks gibberishly many untranslated words.”

  “Well, let’s see. Can you mate with other types of Shons? Uh, if that’s an embarrassing question, please forget I asked.”

  “This one comprehends negatively sex questions causing embarrassment.” Awmit made a purring sound Tompa had never heard before. “Truth shines, Dante human, that since approaching adulthood this one has dreamed longingly of intersex.”

  “What is intersex?”

  “Fornicating forbiddenly with another genus. Life-mating exists negatively, of course, and the sporadic offspring of liaisons face existence devoid of progeny. Yet intersex soars silkenly to the pinnacle of Shon fantasy.”

  Awmit’s voice vibrated with emotion. Tompa didn’t want to hear this, didn’t want to discover this side of Awmit, but she couldn’t simply stop listening, either.

  “If the matings produce mules, you’re different species,” Roussel said.

  “The Wods invent enthrallingly television exploits of intersex that tingle this one’s teats,” Awmit said. “The exploits exist singularly as the one good art the money-grubbing genus creates.”

  Roussel laughed, making Tompa want to scratch his eyes out. Men were men, it seemed, even if they were Shons. Still, until Roussel opened his mouth, she’d never known the coarse side of her friend. Damn the policeman.

  “Tomorrow morning,” Awmit asked, “Dante human and graceful human formalize an alliance by fornicating healingly?”

  Tompa bolted to a sitting position. “Don’t even think about it, you maggoty cockroach!”

  The two males were silent. She sat rigidly upright, daring Roussel to say anything—not that he could see her fierce expression in the dark, of course. Finally she lay back down, grunting angrily.

  Roussel cleared his throat. “I, uh, guess not.”

  “Asshole!”

  “Second sleep comes,” Awmit said. Last night when he spoke this phrase, he talked in a sleepy, robotic monotone. This time, however, he spoke hurriedly—using it as an excuse to avoid confrontation, she guessed. Smart guy.

  Tompa lay with her eyes open, aching for Roussel to say something that would serve as a lightning rod for her resentment. But silence reigned uncomfortably under the alien stars.

  Something tickled her thigh. Tompa jerked her leg in annoyance but didn’t quite come awake. She curled into a tighter ball and tucked her hands into her armpits, searching for warmth.

  Again, the tickle.

  What if it was some horrible alien bug, crawling up her leg? At that thought she kicked frantically to dislodge the creature, which in her half-dreaming state was fearsome indeed. Her foot hit something semi-solid that gasped. Someone’s stomach?

  Alarmed, she flipped onto her back and slammed again into the person she’d kicked. Roussel loomed above her, a doubled-over silhouette against a sky tinged with the faintest glow of morning. Tompa scrambled to the other side of her stone bed and stood up, glaring at him.

  He put his hands on his knees, then slowly straightened. He stared back at her. They confronted each other for several pounding heartbeats. His face looked strange and almost inhuman, with half a dozen angry welts puckering his forehead. Behind him, Awmit lay on his back with arms outstretched, sleeping.

  “Third sleep came,” Roussel said softly. “Awmit went back to sleep, but I couldn’t.”

  “So you got bored and decided to rape the street meat to pass the time?”

  He stood straighter. “No.”

  Tompa waited for him to say more, to try to wiggle out from under the weight of her accusation, but he simply looked her in the eye. He was either telling the truth or he was a liar to be wary of.

  “It’s light enough now,” he said eventually, “th
at I could tell your skirt had ridden up while you were sleeping.”

  Tompa looked away from his earnest gaze. After she won the Space Navy lottery and got out of Manhattan, gordos were always assuming that she was an uninhibited sex machine, ready to flop onto her back at the slightest twitch of their pricks. It had happened during training. It had happened with Jim Zhang at the beginning of her voyage on the Vance, and with Paolo McShallin and the others on shore leave. Now Roussel was making the same assumption. None of them grasped the obvious: that when sex meant rape, modesty was a survival trait. Bad things happened when men noticed you that way.

  Roussel said, “You looked cold and I—well, for my own piece of mind, too, I tried to pull your skirt down to cover you up.”

  With one hand, she made sure her skirt was correctly in place, then wrapped her arms around herself. Her dream of wearing Navy dress whites had turned nightmare in yet another way; every other version of the uniform featured slacks for women, not a skirt. “You expect me to believe that?”

  “I don’t care what you believe.” He rubbed absently at one of the welts on his forehead. “If you were nicer, though, I’d care.”

  Tompa wrapped her arms around herself and shivered. She said nothing.

  “And to think I made Awmit whisper when he woke up the second time, so we wouldn’t disturb your sleep. You don’t appreciate anything, do you?”

  Tompa snorted. “Yeah, I’m such an ingrate I never even thanked you for handing me over to the Shons. But then, why would a rich and powerful gordo expect better from street meat like me?”

  Roussel stared at her, then shook his head. “I’m going to the men’s room.” As he spoke, he pointed toward a jumble of boulders that obscured vision just down the road from the sharboo-cria. When she didn’t respond, he leaned his head toward her. “Don’t peek.”

  It must have been a joke—surely, it was a joke—but he said it so gravely that she couldn’t be sure.

  Tompa waited until he’d walked away, then headed the opposite direction. If the men’s room was down the road, she decided that the women’s room must be uphill. She picked her way carefully across loose rocks littering the old road, not wanting him to hear where she was going. Several times she kicked a stone despite her caution, because the light was still so weak that everything appeared grey and one dimensional. Nonetheless, she reached a sheltered nook in the steep bank without Roussel seeming to notice.

  The air in the six-foot-wide, room-like niche reminded her of the flowery aroma that had been so strong earlier in the night. Now its sweetness was undercut by a sour, rotten smell. As she peed, she glanced around, looking for flowers, but nothing grew in the tired dirt except for a few grey roots dangling overhead where part of the bank had collapsed. They tickled her ear.

  And that reminded her of Roussel. Trying to cover her legs—yeah, right. If she hadn’t wakened when she did . . .

  She brushed away the pesky roots and walked to the opening of the niche. The sour smell was stronger here. She looked up at the bank—

  And screamed.

  Three Shons, their bodies shriveled and grotesque and oddly pale, hung helter-skelter from a ledge at the entrance to the niche. Something about their unseeing stares told her they hadn’t been dead long. The only things holding them up were plump, pink roots that had burrowed into their flesh, leaving tiny streaks of dried blood where they’d drilled through the skin.

  Tompa rubbed her ear, desperately trying to make sure none of the tickling roots remained. Even as she rubbed, she was unable to take her eyes off the dead Shons. She opened her mouth to call Awmit, but instead she screamed.

  And then she screamed again, over and over.