“Clothing?” Desvendapur lowered his scri!ber as he looked back once more. “You mean, these people kill animals and strip off their skin so that humans can put them on?”
“That’s about right.” Alert for ants, snakes, and saw-jawed beetles, Cheelo pushed through a dense overlay of bright green leaves.
“But humans already have skin of their own. Beyond that, you manufacture what appears to be perfectly adequate artificial outerwear to protect your soft, sensitive exteriors from the elements. Why would anyone choose to wrap themselves in the skin of another living creature? Does the act involve some religious significance?”
“Some people might look at it that way.” His mouth widened in a humorless grin. “I’ve seen rich folk who treat fashion like a religion.”
“And they eat the flesh of the dead animal, too.” Desvendapur struggled to convey his distaste but was not yet fluent enough to do so, having to resort to gestures to properly express his feelings on the matter.
“No. These people throw the rest of the animal away.”
“So each creature is killed only for its epidermis?”
“Right. Unless they sell the teeth and claws, too. You getting enough inspiration out of this?”
“It all sounds vile and primitive. This mystifying mix of the sophisticated and the primal is all part of what marks you as a very peculiar species.”
“You won’t get no argument from me.”
Though Desvendapur had no trouble keeping up, and in fact even with his broken middle leg moved more supplely and easily through the forest than did the biped, he wondered aloud at the human’s sudden desire for speed.
“The people running that camp would shoot you just as casually as they would a representative of an endangered species. Poaching in the Reserva is punishable by extensive mindwipe and a program of enforced social correctness. That’s something I wouldn’t ever submit to, and neither will whoever’s smuggling out macaw feathers and cat pelts. We’ve already got your people looking for us. That’s enough.”
“Not quite enough.”
Cheelo sucked in his breath. He could have kept going, could have tried to go around the muzzle of the weapon pointed in his direction, but that probably would have resulted in a journey of very brief duration.
There were two of them: very short men with very big guns. Their skin was the hue of burnished gold, their long black hair was tied unfashionably back, and they wore jungle mimic suits that allowed them to blend almost seamlessly into the landscape of bush and vine and tree. The tip of one rifle hovered uncomfortably close to Cheelo’s nose.
He might have tried ducking, or slapping the barrel aside or grabbing it, or pulling his pistol if his antagonist had been operating alone. Unfortunately, he was not. His companion stood nearby but too far away to tackle, his own weapon held at the ready. Cheelo’s fingers fell in the direction of his concealed holster. The poacher holding the rifle on him did not smile, did not speak. Only shook his head slowly, twice. Cheelo’s hand drifted prominently away from his own weapon.
The other poacher stepped forward. After removing the pistol from its hiding place, he proceeded to pat the stranger down and remove his pack. Slinging Cheelo’s belongings over one shoulder, he stepped aside to regard the thranx.
“What the hell is this, cabrón?”
Cheelo dropped his hands to his sides as the point of the rifle lowered from his nose to his chest. “That’s an alien. A thranx. Don’t you ninlocos watch the tridee?”
“Yeah, man.” The other poacher laughed once, curtly. “And we have our own sensalude emporium here, too.”
“It’s a lonely life,” the poacher shouldering Cheelo’s backpack told him. “But it was good enough for my ancestors. Hapec and I do okay.” The man’s gaze darkened. “As long as nosybodies leave us alone to do our work.” Dropping the backpack, he knelt and began going through its contents. After a while he looked up at his companion. “Not a ranger. Not a scientist, either.” He eyed Cheelo speculatively as he rose. “He’s a pesadito, a nobody.”
“Good.” His companion gestured with his rifle. “That means nobody’ll miss him.” The man’s hard, unyielding gaze searched beyond the edgy Cheelo. “What do we do with the big bug?” Using the muzzle of the rifle he prodded Cheelo ungently in the stomach. “Where’d you get it, man, and what good is it?”
“Yeah,” added his comrade. “What’s an ugly alien thing like that doing in the Reserva, anyway? Does it speak Terranglo?”
Keeping a careful eye on the rifles, alert for any opportunity, Cheelo thought fast. “No, it doesn’t. Something that looks like that? Are you kidding? It doesn’t understand a word we’re saying.” Turning, he stared daggers at Desvendapur. “Its kind communicate by gestures. See, watch this.” Raising both hands, he contorted his fingers strenuously at the thranx. The poet eyed the human’s wiggling fingers askance. While he was not entirely sure of the newcomers’ intentions, the fact that they were pointing weapons at Cheelo was something other than a testament to peaceful intentions. Their comments about his appearance did not trouble him, but their words, which despite Cheelo’s ingenuous denial he understood with considerable faculty, caused him more than a little concern. The human’s expressions he still could not read, but his companion’s intent was clear enough: It might prove useful for one of them to feign ignorance of ongoing conversation. This he proceeded to do, replying to Cheelo’s aimless manipulations with contrastingly eloquent gestures of his own. None of the humans had a clue what he was elucidating, but that was not the point. All that mattered was that they believed he and Cheelo were communicating.
“What did it say?” the nearer of the two poachers demanded to know.
Cheelo turned back to them. “It wants to know your intentions. I’d like to know myself.”
“Sure,” responded the other poacher agreeably. “First we’re going to kill you, and then we’re going to kill it, and then we’re going to dump you both in the river.” The muzzle of the second rifle shifted to point at the silent poet.
“You don’t want to do that.” Cheelo fought to keep his voice from shaking. He’d never begged anyone for anything before and he wasn’t about to start now, but he wasn’t ready to die, either.
The nearer poacher glanced over at his colleague and smiled unpleasantly. “Hear that, Hapec? Now he’s telling us what we want.” The rifle in his hands hummed softly with barely contained death. “We know what we want, man.”
“I’m on my way up to Golfito, Costa Rica, to see Rudolf Ehrenhardt,” Cheelo declared importantly. “He’s expecting me on a matter of real importance.”
“Too bad,” responded the other poacher mirthlessly. “You’re not going to make it.”
He had wanted to lose himself, Cheelo reflected, and had done so. If these ninlocos didn’t recognize the name of Rudolf Ehrenhardt, then he was in the middle of nowhere indeed. In a city, that name would have meant something, would have carried weight. Here, in the vast expanse of the Reserva, it was just a name. Of course, Ehrenhardt could not give a fig whether a hardscrabble lowlife like Cheelo Montoya lived or died. It was nothing to him. The cherished franchise promised to Cheelo would go to someone else. Since this pair did not know the name, it didn’t matter anyway.
“Let us go,” Cheelo pleaded. The second rifle was now pointed at the thranx, but he doubted he could wrestle the first away from its owner before his companion adjusted his aim and got off a shot. “We won’t tell anyone you’re around. What you’re doing here is nothing to us.” He spread his hands imploringly. “You don’t understand. I got to make this appointment! It’s my whole life, man.”
“Sure.” The poacher opposite laughed darkly. “We’ll just trust you. That’s how come Hapec and I have managed to bring this off for the past ten years: by trusting people. Now Hapec, he’d just off and shoot you right now. But me, I’m kind of a traditionalist. So I’ll let you have any last words.” He squinted past the thief, swatting away a hovering botfly. “You can a
sk the bug if it has any last gestures.”
“You can’t kill me!” Cheelo argued. “If you do, I won’t be able to make my appointment!”
“Boy, that’s tough. I’m all weepy inside.” A finger nudged a trigger booster, and the hum from the rifle rose audibly.
Cheelo thought frantically. “Also, you’ll have no way to communicate with the thranx.”
The poacher shrugged. “Why would I worry about communicating with a dead alien body?”
“Because—because it’s valuable. Probably valuable dead, but a lot more valuable alive.”
The two wiry forest pillagers exchanged a glance. “Okay, cabrón. Talk. What’s valuable about it?”
“You guys collect for the underground animal trade.” He jerked a thumb in Desvendapur’s direction. “Here’s a specimen nobody’s got, not even your richest, most private collector. If they’ll buy a spotted tapir or a black jaguar, think what they’d pay for a live alien.”
“Hey,” declared the other poacher, “we know a couple of guys who got a number of aliens in their private zoos, but none of them are intelligent. That’d be pushing the limit.”
“Who’s going to know?”
On the verge of personal and financial triumph for the first time in his life, Cheelo was not to be denied now. He reasoned with all the skill at his command. Somehow, some way, he was going to make it back to Golfito in time to present the payment to Ehrenhardt. As for the thranx, he had ceased to think of it as a person, as a living, intelligent being like himself. It was a commodity, nothing more. He was bargaining with that commodity for his life.
“The bug doesn’t talk, so it can’t object. Nobody but your buyer and whoever he trusts will ever see it again. It can survive on terrestrial plants and stuff, so food’s no problem. Come on, guys, you’re not thinking big enough. Imagine what your top buyers would pay for something like this!”
It was evident from his expression that the nearest poacher was giving this heretofore unconsidered prospect careful consideration. Cheelo tried not to give him time to think it through.
“And if nobody bites on the offer, you can still kill us both later.”
“We can kill you right now, man.” Again the rifle bobbed. “We sell it, we don’t need you.”
“Sure you do. Because I’m the only one who can communicate with it. If you want it to come along peacefully, you need me to convince it to do so. You could try and catch it, roll it up in a net, fight with it, but it might get injured. Isn’t an undamaged specimen always more valuable?”
“You stay right where you are,” the poacher warned him. “You move, you try to run, you cross your eyes funny, you’re dead. Understand?” Retreating slightly, he and his comrade entered into a conversation marked by intense whispering. Cheelo listened hard but could not make out what they were saying.
Eventually the discussion concluded, and the first poacher resumed his previous stance. “You still haven’t told us what it’s doing here.”
“It’s a naturalist,” Cheelo informed them without hesitation. “Part of a small survey and study mission. But it’s not authorized. So if this one turns up missing, the others can’t go public for help. They’re probably searching for him right now.”
The other poacher reflexively glanced skyward. “If it’s part of some alien science project, why would it come along quietly with us?”
Cheelo took a deep breath. “Because it wants to learn about humans. It trusts me. If I tell it we’re going to go someplace where it can learn a lot about humankind, it’ll take my word for it. Its cooperation will spare you a lot of trouble. By the time it catches on to what’s going on, you’ll already have it sold, crated, and shipped. Then it won’t matter what it thinks.”
Desvendapur listened to this exchange in silence. It was clear that his human companion was making up his story to forestall these two exceedingly antisocial types from shooting them. In this he so far appeared to be succeeding admirably. Meanwhile the poet kept silent and, as Cheelo had explained to the poachers, devoted himself to learning about humankind, a subject that was at present forcefully on display. He did not have to worry about either of the antisocials interpreting his hand movements because they were wholly unfamiliar with their meaning. As for them reading an expression, the inflexibly faced thranx had none to give away his true feelings.
“Why are you offering to be so helpful, cabrón?” The nearest poacher was studying him shrewdly. “What makes you think we won’t kill you after we’ve sold the bug?”
Cheelo did his best to affect an air of disinterest. “I’d rather live for as long as possible. Besides, maybe whoever buys it will want to talk to it. That’d mean including me as part of the deal.”
“You’d go along with that?” The other poacher was openly dubious.
“Sure, why not? The police are after me anyway.”
“No shit? What’d you do, man?”
“Killed a tourist I was skragging. Bad luck, but that’s not much of a defense in court. So you see, I’m probably on more wanted lists than you guys.”
“And you think that maybe makes us some kind of brothers or something?” the nearer poacher asked.
Cheelo eyed him coldly. “No. If you thought that, I’d think you were pretty stupid.”
For the first time, the poacher’s expression softened. “You’re okay, man. Twitch the wrong way and I’ll still blow your stinking head off, but you’re okay. All right. Explain to the bug that we’re, um, collectors authorized to cull certain Reserva species that have bred to excess. We’re carrying weapons to protect ourselves from dangerous forest predators. Tell the bug that we sympathize with its aims, that we’ve no love for the Reserva rangers who sometimes interfere with our work, and that we’re going to take him to a museum.” He glanced over at his colleague and chuckled. “A museum where he can learn a lot more about humans. Explain that it’ll be well looked-after, and that you’re coming along to translate. Tell it that after a couple of days we’ll bring it back here so it can rejoin its colleagues. It’ll have lots of swell stories to tell.” He gestured with the rifle. “Tell it.”
Turning, Cheelo stared into those expressionless compound eyes and began making snaky motions with his fingers. Would the bug understand? It had heard everything, but would it comprehend the need to keep silent and go along with the story? If not, at least one of them wasn’t going to leave this patch of rain forest alive, and it would in all likelihood be the one with the fewest appendages.
He need not have worried. Desvendapur understood the situation quite well. He had no intention of speaking out. Clearly his human acquaintance had something in mind, a plan that would result in their salvation from these two virulently antisocial representatives of his own species. What that might be he did not know and could not imagine, unfamiliar as he was with the myriad mysterious workings of the human mind. Meanwhile he was delighted to observe and to listen. Already the experience had generated raw material enough for an entirely new suite, one that he would hopefully live long enough to render.
After several minutes of aimless, meaningless writhing, Cheelo turned around to confront their captors. “It has accepted my explanation and wants to know when we’re going to leave.”
“Tonight, man.” The poacher gestured at his companion. Setting his rifle aside, Hapec moved off into the undergrowth. “I’m not going to tie you up because that might give your bug friend the wrong idea. Just don’t do anything stupid.”
Cheelo raised both hands, palms facing the poacher. “We’ve got an arrangement. Why should I risk it? If you can get me out of this hemisphere I’ll be better off than I would if we’d never met.” His gaze wandered to the patch of forest that had swallowed the other poacher. “We’re going to walk at night? A GPS will show you the right way, but it won’t light it for you.”
The poacher hesitated uncertainly, then laughed anew. “You think we’re going to walk? Man, if we had to rely on our feet the rangers would’ve caught us years ago. We�
��ve got an airtruck back in the trees. Mesyler two-ton carrying capacity, stealth construction, heat-signature-masked engine. Paid for, too. Not many people know this country like Hapec and me or how to get around the Reserva security net. We’re good, man. We’ll fly out. In an hour we’ll be at a little place we keep just outside the Reserva boundary. You get to rest there while we put the word out to our regular people that we’ve got something special for sale.” He grinned again. “You didn’t think we were going to march you into Cuzco and stick you in a street stall with a price tag on your forehead, did you?”
Cheelo shrugged, trying to appear neither too smart nor unreasonably ignorant. “I don’t know you vatos. I don’t know how you operate. I wasn’t assuming anything.”
“Good, that’s good.” Extracting a smokeless stimstick from a shirt pocket, the poacher waited for it to ignite before slipping the aromatic mouthpiece between his lips. “Just don’t assume that I won’t fry your head the first time you piss me off.”
20
While the poacher named Hapec busied himself breaking down the camp and carefully obliterating any memory of its existence, his colleague, whose name was Maruco, kept a watchful eye on their two prisoners. He concentrated his attention on the fidgety Cheelo, allowing Desvendapur to roam freely through the evaporating encampment. Whenever it looked as if the thranx might be wandering too far afield, Maruco directed his human prisoner to “call” the alien back. This Cheelo proceeded to do with much meaningless flailing of fingers. Desvendapur continued to fulfill his part in the masque by waiting for Cheelo to finish each charade before complying, not with the human’s gestures, but with the directives the poet had already perfectly comprehended.
In this manner the two poachers remained ignorant of the alien’s cognizance. Had Desvendapur possessed a weapon, he could simply have shot both of them. But all he had was the small cutting tool in his improvised survival kit. Granted complete surprise, he might have employed it successfully to incapacitate one of the two antisocials, but not both of them. They were too lively, too alert, too attuned to a life of imminent threat and danger. Additionally, while not directly suspicious of the alien in their midst, neither were they especially comfortable in the thranx’s presence. Consequently, he was never able to get within a few meters of either of them before they began acting uneasy.
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