by Tanith Lee
When it rolled over for the ninth time, I laughed, which wasn’t the thing to do.
Gray-Eyes drew itself to its full height—two feet?—made some sort of blood-freezing threat-display—bared gums, daft ears back, ruff bristling—and bravely ran for its life.
My loss at its flight was mingled with hilarity. I shouldn’t have laughed, I knew it. But oh, the relief of laughter.
It wasn’t till I had gone down to get the plate (charming with saliva, and slightly chewed) that I realized the desert had stopped rotating and the mountains tilting. I looked right up at the sky, beautiful arch of heaven high above. Agoraphobia had perished, along with the cactus-cream, in Gray-Eyes’ silly little teeth.
There was something I wanted to say to someone. I couldn’t think quite what, or to whom. Maybe one of those ancient rituals…prayers? But going in, stubbing my toe on a rock, it was other things I actually said.
3
So my love affair with Gray-Eyes began, and a stormy and tempestuous affair it was to be.
I’d only meant to stop to do battle with my phobia, and the place I’d picked was random, chosen blind and angry by the spin of a dial. Odd to consider how important the most haphazard and trivial of decisions can turn out.
Naturally, once I’d made contact with my visitor, I reckoned on staying put a while longer. I planned to win the little thalldrap’s interest and affection by stuffing food down its gullet until it was too fat to waddle off again to the Hard Life. Failing that, I was prepared for kidnap. To such doleful measures are the lonely reduced.
All that first unit I prowled the adjustable veranda I’d forced into constructing itself along the “porch” side of the ship, or wallowed on the pillowy couch I’d installed there just by the doors. A robot, programmed to bring me Gray-Eyes-tempting trays from the saloon, scurried back and forth. Absorbed in my scheme, and probably more than half zaradann, I gobbled things myself off the trays, watched magazines, and frequently cajoled the desert: “Come on, aren’t you hungry yet?”
It never occurred to me, though it should have, with my previous experience on the archaeological site in the past, that something other than the expected guest might materialize, having sniffed the odor of victuals on the breeze. Luckily nothing did, for in the condition I was in I might well have accorded it equally friendly treatment, and got divided, devoured, and digested along with the meal as a reward.
I hadn’t really looked at the terrain much: getting over my fear of its openness had been enough. In the desert, initially, everywhere is like everywhere else—sky, sand, mountains. So far, this was the extent of what I’d seen in my involuntary roost. Then the day began to ebb, the world turned to topaz and gold, and the color of the sky seemed to sink away into the disc of the sun. I found I really could touch the beauty of it then, as I had touched its beauty so long ago when I was free to travel where I wished, and the city still owned me. Now, tinged with my sorrow, the loveliness was bittersweet, but strong as wine.
The ship perched on highish rocky ground, which in turn fell quickly away into a valley of dunes edged east, north, and south by the fabulous, many-shaped crags. None of these looked particularly violent, and the lava traces I was still able to detect, more or less at a glance, were absent from their lean, gnarled thighs.
The scent of the desert changes at sunfall, as it changes at dawn. This I’d forgotten, maybe only because I couldn’t bear to remember in sterilized Four BEE. At early evening it’s a smoky voluptuous scent, like a candle of incense burning down, but this alters, as the air darkens and the stars emerge, to a hollow, almost spiritual smell of emptiness. After the rains, the perfume of green oxygen fills the spaces, and inebriates.
I’d got up from the veranda, and wandered down and out into the dunes, a damn silly thing to do, as are most of the things I do, let us admit. Suppose something were to pounce—
Something did.
Gray-Eyes.
“Gray-Eyes!” I shrieked, and God, how that high female voice got on my nerves after three vreks of baritone alternating with silver tenor. Apparently it got on Gray-Eyes’ nerves as well, for, leaving the steaming dish I had laid out for it but ten splits before, it fled.
I tore my hair and rushed for the veranda, yowling at the robots to fetch more food. It was too awful to have lost the wretched animal when I’d been waiting the entire day. However, I needn’t have had such a fit. For no sooner had I collapsed upon my pillowy couch than Gray-Eyes reappeared, virtually out of nowhere, thumped up to the dish, and resumed work. Nevertheless, its rear end was noticeably tense. “I’m doing you a favor,” that rear end said. “I mean, I don’t really like this muck, but one doesn’t want to be rude. Still, watch your step. It won’t take much for me to bolt.”
I cringed, quietly, eating up Gray-Eyes with my glance. Every twitch and burp was dear to me. I longed to cradle it in my arms. Let’s face it, ooma, I thought, it’s the only child-substitute you’ll ever get, some poor little animal you’ve seduced out of the dunes with your filthy synthesized nut-meat.
One of my reasons for remaining a male so long had been that child thing.
I’d killed my child, too, hadn’t I? Due, as the Q-Rs said, to sheer folly. They’d never, never have let me make another child, even when I was out of Jang. They didn’t trust me, despite the fact that after my one mistake I’d hardly have fooled about in that area again. (That was the stupidity of their assessments, wasn’t it? They could act on deeds, but not on psychology, the knowledge that you might have learned.) As a male, my paternal urge was around ten percent, very low. But when female, though only at certain intervals, the yearning came strong.
So here I was in the waste, female and childless and yearning. So watch out yourself, tiny lemon-fur, I’ll make a pet out of you yet. And this time there’ll be no shock wall, and no death for you. I’ll wrap you in cloud cotton if I have to, I’ll defend you with my good right arm.
4
Several units I courted Gray-Eyes by putting out sumptuous feasts. Dawn, noon, and sunset came to be the set times for feeding—Gray-Eyes, naturally, determined these times. Having fed, Gray-Eyes would wash thoroughly, presumably in order to scent itself with the aftertaste of syntho steak-jelly and liver-root. During these ablutions I was careful to observe a respectful silence. At last, the guest would lie down on the rocky slope just below the ship, eight paws pointing heavenward, belly distended, and looking at me upside down.
Always then I made the fatal mistake of trying to approach. Sometimes Gray-Eyes would let me get within arm’s length before scooting away across the dunes—or into them, for I would soon lose sight of it.
Through the daytime, only too aware of filling in the hours, I went for brief trudges here and there about the sand valley. A modicum of caution had returned, and I didn’t wander too far from the ship, never out of sight of it, and always I took a robot with me. I wasn’t sure, in an emergency, quite what it would be able to do, for they carry no armament, of course. Still, perhaps, I could get it to sock any ravening monster on the jaw. My knowledge of local fauna was more or less nil. My most dangerous encounter formerly, I had to admit, had been with the ski-feet, whose worst fault might only have been that they’d trample you underpaw in order to sample your earrings.
The robots weren’t meant for the outdoor life, though; they tended to get dust and rainbowy sand in their valves, and would suddenly stop in the middle of nowhere to service themselves with reproachful, martyred clatterings. Fortunately nothing attacked. In truth, apart from Gray-Eyes, and maybe other gray-eyeses, the valley appeared uninhabited beyond the odd pale furry snake, humping morosely from dune to dune. The watercourses in the desert were sunk deep, and rare, and none seemed present hereabouts, which probably accounted for the depopulation.
Nevertheless, I enjoyed my walks—falling down sand-slides, over rocks, into small faults. The air hummed with heat, and a few miniature hard-shel
led insects, which dived about on tinsel wings, made strange faint whispery noises. They seemed indigenous, for I couldn’t remember seeing such entities elsewhere. But then, how much had I seen before?
At night, the cool came. The sky was black, but outlined against the mountains, oddly phosphorescent. Stars dazzled. I’d already got a couple of landmarks—a northern crag that reminded me of a fire-apple (round and pitty, with a sort of stalk); another to the east like an enormous cup, its sides eaten inward by wind, sun, and rains, its summit widening into a large smooth overhang, which one unit, no doubt, would come crashing off and frighten me into a paroxysm—if I were still in the vicinity.
Then—about three hours after sunset, almost to the split—the Sisters would go off like two great guns to the south.
I hadn’t been able to resist calling them that. Sisters and brothers were figments of the past, ancient history. In the cities, nobody was permitted to make more than one child per Ego-Life—that is, between PD sessions—so consequently nobody ever got a sister or a brother. The supposition of related flesh from one’s own makers had intrigued me when I read about it in the History Tower.
By day, the Sisters were very far off, blue and vague with distance, like two pillars of almost-blown-away smoke, about half a mile apart, and apparently identical. In the dark, lit with their own red glare, as they puffed up steam and the odd fountain of molten pumice, they had a suggestion of slender aggressive villainesses from antique romance, tossing their ruby hair. Lucky for me they were too remote to wreck the valley. At any rate, their nightly performance only lasted about ten splits.
* * *
—
Tonight I’m going to get you, Gray-Eyes.
The sky was turning cinnamon and green as I lurked on the veranda, dish of goodies in hand.
“Here, Gray-Eyes,” I yodeled. “Come and have your lovely seventh meal!”
Gray-Eyes, you bet, was intending to do just that, and came racing from the rosy dusk. However, no platter lay in the sand. I had the platter, I, Gray-Eyes’ wicked step-maker.
Emitting encouraging noises, I held the plate in Gray-Eyes’ direction. Probably the rotten little floop would take to its heels. But no.
Gray-Eyes stole toward me with a sidling, anxious motion. “I know you’ll slay me,” its tragic gazes said. “But I’ve no choice since the skin is sticking to my ribs.” Some ribs. It was already so fat it could hardly walk. I would have to diet the poor thing later or it would go off bang. Maybe the provision machine could rustle up some starch-reduced kidney-rissoles?
Now Gray-Eyes was on the veranda.
I backed, very slowly, into the ship, and set the plate down on the floor of the open general area beyond, between the steel pillars. Then I sat stealthily on a velvet seat, my hand on the switch which would shut the doors.
Gray-Eyes entered the ship with a look of unconcern and indifference. Obviously, Gray-Eyes fought dragons and conquered citadels in its spare moments, I was the only thing which gave it nightmares.
Gray-Eyes reached the plate and fell to.
Then conscience smote me. With the ultimate power of capture in my grasp, I felt a positive slime-crawler, and took my hand off the switch. Oh, let the animal go free. I pictured it, a prisoner, sodden with fear, huddled pathetically under a table in the saloon, refusing to eat, refusing to move, pining away. My, my, was I in for a lesson.
Presently, seventh meal decimated, Gray-Eyes stationed itself, legs straddled on the mosaic, and began its washing procedure. However, the rite seemed rather shorter than usual, and was soon concluded. Next, Gray-Eyes rose, and glanced about for the first time.
Its eyes frequently goggled, thus it was hard to be sure if it were as genuinely madly interested as it now looked. But, after a brief sniff about, still goggling, it turned and headed for the interior of the ship, and my mood jumped a notch or so. Being very slow and careful, so as not to cause panic, I crept after.
Then Gray-Eyes reached the saloon.
And then it started.
A robot was laying seventh meal for me at the center table, and very nice it looked. Jeweled plates, crystal goblets. The glitter perhaps attracted Gray-Eyes, or the possibility of further refreshment. Whatever it was, Gray-Eyes proved an opportunist.
The plates went one way, goblets the other, and the silver placemats discus-ed in four directions. One cought the robot in the thorax region, and presumably activated some metaphysical theory that if there was trouble, the robot was going to deal with it. It lunged about, registered the position of Gray-Eyes—currently unsuccessfully champing a fork on the rugs—and made a grab. Gray-Eyes spat out the fork, which shot into the table leg, and went into its threat-display, naturally to no avail. So it bounded for the wall drapes and ripped its way up them, and onto the latticework ceiling, and inevitably reached the large, decorative chandelier, which depended, glowing with chemical fire, above us.
“No, Gray-Eyes,” I cried. “Naughty.”
I’d always liked the chandeliers on the ships, but not now that this one was swaying in vast donging arcs, fortunately non-hot flames hailing on the robot and me and everything else, Gray-Eyes slithering and scrabbling at the center.
“Come down, Gray-Eyes,” I entreated.
I pushed the robot to a spot where it could catch the flailing lemon bundle, but Gray-Eyes studiously avoided us, and toppled instead, frantically clawing, down a fresh lot of draperies, landing at the archway where the robot-kitchen lies, tastefully hidden behind crystallize automatic doors.
“No!” I yelled.
Even the robot made a noise—involuntarily, I think, some overstrained joint protesting.
But it was no good. Trailing clawfuls of shredded curtain and faintly shining with droplets of chemical fire, Gray-Eyes sped with hurricane force at the doors, which obligingly automatically opened, and vanished into the metallic jungle beyond. After which the doors jammed.
Some of the vandalized satin-of-gold had got caught between them, no doubt, hence the difficulty, but the reasons for the fault were my last worry. I shouted useless orders at the meal-robot and at the other robot that had come thudding in to help. They were trying to bash the doors down, unaccustomed to such catastrophes, and over their racket I could hear the sound of metal racks going over and ball-bearings or something rolling, and something else rolling, which was probably Gray-Eyes, and then a most terrifying silence.
Just at that split the doors unjammed abruptly and both robots fell through into the kitchen. I didn’t stop to pick them up as they lay there threshing feebly among the steaming debris of Gray-Eyes’ passage. Gray-Eyes itself stood precariously poised, with noncommittal lethargy, upon the brink of the chute which passes down into the bowels of the provision-dispenser.
I took the kitchen in one leap, but wasn’t quick enough. With a nonchalant yawn, Gray-Eyes slithered from sight.
Down in there a whirlpool of—what? I didn’t know, but my mind’s eye supplied an amalgam of steel cleavers, pulverizers, mincers, pestles and mortars. Wailing, I flung myself upon the machinery. There was a little button, I’d seen it before, a little black button with an enormous red message printed over it:
TO HALT MECHANISM, DEPRESS ONCE.
WARNING! USE ONLY IN EXTREME EMERGENCY.
I stabbed at the button with both hands, and next instant the world went mad.
First off, the machine regurgitated Gray-Eyes at about eighty knots and covered with this evening’s proposed menu—cactus-pineapple, cheesecake, the lot. This object, propelled through the kitchen doors, which had jammed open now, thonked to earth out of sight, and made its departure, stickily and fast (as I later deduced from pineapply pawmarks on the rock outside).
Post Gray-Eyes, there erupted from the provision dispenser about a hundred miles of leather-of-steel moving belt, plus a gallon or two of cold soup which promptly flooded the kitchen area and w
ashed through into the saloon and beyond with liberated gurglings. This, however, was a mere divertissement compared to what followed.
Scarcely had I time to curse than an explosion cursed louder, from the guts of the ship where the lower tubing of the dispenser shared bow-storage space with the tanks of the water mixer. The whole ship, taking umbrage, bucked and writhed and seemed about to turn turtle.
Things previously undamaged rained about my ears; worse than earthquake, the floor wriggled queasily. Rugs, robots, furnishings, and I floundered among the heaving soup.
Then nemesis. A great whoosh, a wave of heat and a wave of cold, the ominous grumble of some force restrained—followed by the splintering roar of restraint collapsing. Last, a bang to end all bangs as part of the roof of the sandship ejected into the night, oxygen compression whistled away, and a jet of combined semi-synthesized food and ready-mixed water arrowed northward at the stars, missed them, and crashed spent upon the recumbent desert.
5
“Help!” I screamed into the monitor beam. “Help! Help!”
Far off in Four BEE sleeping circuits presumably engaged, and the link awoke. A crisp sizzling on the frequency, followed by the cool, stern voice of the computer, interrogating me across the miles.
“What is it that you need?”
It was no good trying to be prosaic, up to my knees in soup with half the ship gone and half the alarms of the ship going off all about me, quite pointlessly, I might add. “Need? Need? Can’t you hear?”
“I can hear perfectly. What is it that you need?”