Fenton allowed his caped arm to be cradled as the shorter man guided him. “All right. If you people haven’t the nerve, I’ll go evict him myself!” He freed himself, brushed wrinkles from his impeccably tailored business suit, and marched beside the Captain out into the cavernous Round Room that was the central chamber of the hollow asteroid, over the teeming causeway and up the slideway to one of the higher ports.
The ship corridors were narrow, quiet, and amply supplied with railings, outer viewscreens and the showcased artworks of various races, but the passengers they passed were all human. Eventually, they rounded a curve and entered the first class deck, which differed from the rest of the accommodations only in allowing an extra nine cubic feet per passenger. The Presidential Suite boasted an extra twelve cubic feet.
The Captain brushed the signal plate set into the rectangular door and after a slight pause it clicked outward invitingly. The “suite” consisted of one large room with two chests-of-drawers and a table with two chairs. In the wall to their right, a door stood ajar revealing gleaming sanitary facilities.
The colors were neutral beiges and grays and there was no attempt at decoration lest some dignitary be offended. The dim lighting concealed whatever contrasts in tone and texture the designers had employed to relieve the monotony. Fenton observed, privately, that bon voyage gifts had a place in such a room and were conspicuously absent now.
As they entered, a gray drape swished aside on power-pulls, and at the same instant Fenton shivered in the chill, dry air that reeked of bread mold and knew who the Presidential Suite belonged to.
The Captain said, “Mr. Fenton, may I present Mr. Zepon Aamidtsurras. Mr. Aamidtsurras, may I present Mr. Fenton, the man who claims this cabin, as I’ve explained.”
The Stilhzani reclining on the bed was living proof that the phyla of one planet can’t be compared to those of another. The patches of feathery growths on the round, earless skull weren’t avian. The neck frill, prominent incisors and scaly skin texture weren’t reptilian. The slanted, glowing eyes with the paired, vertical pupil slits weren’t feline. To sophisticated eyes, he was comfortably humanoid, though with twice as many joints to his limbs.
Fenton’s eyes were more than sophisticated. They flicked from the motley, light green fuzz that should be blue to the shiny green skin that should be dull and met the glazed, listless red eyes set far apart in the all too human face. He didn’t need the bread mold body odor to tell him the Stilhzani’s condition was truly critical.
Zepon said, “Forgive that I not rise.” His accent, while surprisingly intelligible, ignored Terran vowel-consonant distinctions with fine abandon.
As the shock wore off, Fenton knew what he had to do and he did it without hesitation. He touched the backs of his hands to his eyes and then swept them outward in the Stilhzani gesture that said, “I humbly beg permission to share your abode for a space of time short but definite.”
Some of the glazed look faded as Zepon said, “Why would you believe I willing to share with a human?”
“I don’t,” said Fenton, allowing the anger to rise in him, the same anger that had propelled him through a brilliant career ending prematurely as a colonel in the Federation Force of Order, the same anger that was now about to abbreviate his career in business. It was a cold anger that struck a paralyzing chill through the heart of all who encountered it. He said, “However, you obviously aren’t going to make it without help.”
He turned to the Captain. “Have the purser get me several changes of warmer clothing, then stow my baggage and get this glorified garbage scow moving. I’ll no longer tolerate a moment’s delay. Move!”
The Captain retreated hastily, not at all sure what had caused the sudden reversal but not inclined to question his good fortune.
Fenton closed the door and went to examine the thermostat set in the wall beside the door. He spun the scales until he found Fahrenheit and read sixty-five. He adjusted it to sixty-two, and then turned back to Zepon, his face a stone setting for implacable gray eyes. “I’ll bet you haven’t been out of that bed for days.”
“Truth. But what do you know of it?”
“I know that it’s twenty-two standard days to Stilhza and that you’re going to live through every last one of those days. You’re going to hate me, but you’re going to live because I will not, repeat not, travel on the same ship with a corpse. Is that understood?”
Without waiting for acknowledgement, Fenton took the three strides to the other bed, flung his cloak onto it, and rounded on the Stilhzani. “What I want to know is how you came to be here in this condition and why nobody has been helping you.”
“And what would you know of ‘this condition’!?”
Approaching the recumbent figure with bitter determination, Fenton said, “I know enough. Now roll over.” Warming one hand against the other palm, Fenton looked down into the now clear scarlet eyes with their paired, yellow pupils open to the dim lighting. He wasn’t disturbed by the eyes. In fact, he was pleased to note they were now clearly focused on him. That was an encouraging sign.
Something in him melted and he leaned down to speak softly. “Listen, Zepon, I know enough to recognize incipient estivation when I see it. Now, it’s going to be a long three weeks home for you and you just aren’t going to make it if you don’t get some attention.” He laid a hand on the Stilhzani’s shoulder, carefully clear of the sensitive frill. “I know how to do this, believe me. I won’t hurt you. Now roll over.”
Too enervated to put up a fight, Zepon rolled over to expose his bare back to the human’s touch. With a deft gentleness surprising in those large, blunt fingers, Fenton probed the lower back until he found the upper emission orifice. It was retracted and hard as stone. He laughed. “Relax. You’re tense enough to start spewing your wrapping right now, and that would be both futile and fatal.” He patted the barely distended abdomen briefly. “You haven’t got what it takes yet.”
For several minutes he crooned soothing words and massaged the orifice and the whole back while Zepon emitted hoarse groans and occasionally twitched away, gasping. Finally, Fenton said, “There, that’s better. Doesn’t hurt so much now, does it?”
“Yes. You’ve done well. I believe I could actually sleep.”
“Oh, now, none of that. Come on, roll over.” When he had him on his back again, he gripped both those hands with their seven long, four-jointed fingers and two opposable thumbs. “Here, I’ll help you sit up.”
“No. Let me rest.”
“You’re going to take a walk.”
“I can’t....”
“I know. But you’re going to anyway.” He hauled the limp body to a sitting position, swung the thin but powerful legs to the floor. “Now, stand up. I won’t let go, I promise.”
He draped Zepon’s arm over his shoulders, settling both elbows comfortably and lifted him to his feet. The Stilhzani was easily as tall as Fenton, much thinner, but, Fenton knew, ordinarily much stronger than any human.
For ten minutes, he walked Zepon around the room until the Stilhzani could manage some semblance of coordination. “OK, that’s enough for the first time.” He deposited his charge on the bed and made him comfortable. “Wait right here and don’t go to sleep.”
Fenton went into the tiny washroom, found a cup, filled it, and returned to shake the Stilhzani to wakefulness. “Here, drink this.”
“What is it?”
“Just water.”
“No. I couldn’t, I’d....” He made a little circular motion with his hand.
“I know, I’ll get something.” He drew him to a sitting position and handed him the cup. “Drink. I’ll be right back.” He rummaged around in the washroom a second time and came back with a large pan just in time to brace Zepon’s head as the retching started. The water came up first, followed by great quantities of green mucus, until Fenton was wondering if the pan would be big enough. Then the heaving became drier and finally subsided.
“OK, now you can take a little nap u
ntil the food arrives.”
“Oh, please, no. I’ll be sick again.”
“Not this time. I think you got it all up. How long has it been since you’ve eaten?”
“I really don’t know.”
“Figures. I’ll find out from the steward and order something appropriate. If you’re not sure, though, you could try some more water.”
“No, thank you.” Zepon slumped back, exhausted.
Fenton slipped out of the room quietly, blinking against the bright corridor lights. Inhaling the clean air gratefully, he followed the strands of coffee aroma to their steward’s station.
Twenty minutes later, he returned with a well-stocked tray and shook Zepon awake. “You told them to leave you alone, so they did.”
Managing to sit up without assistance, Zepon regarded his benefactor levelly. “I wonder how you learned all this.”
“Eat something, you’ll feel better. Then we’ll talk. For three weeks, we’ll talk.” Fenton settled the tray over Zepon’s lap. “Well, are you going to eat or do I have to feed you?”
Zepon peeked under some of the bright covers, eyed Fenton and performed the frill-rippling equivalent of a shrug. “I can try.”
It took him half an hour to nibble at everything and eat about a third of a bowl of the soup. In the meantime, the Chief Steward arrived with Fenton’s luggage and several changes of heavier clothing.
When he finished stowing his belongings, Fenton heard the warning chime for the warp drive and sat down on his bunk to wait it out. “Here we go, Zepon. Can you hang onto that tray?”
“Yes. I’m feeling stronger for the moment.”
Then the wrenching twist that was not a movement but a distortion surged through them. It was short and very mild since this was a modern passenger vessel boasting all the latest refinements. Afterwards, Fenton put the tray on the table and took a chair to Zepon’s bed.
“Fine. Now tell me, how the devil did you get yourself into this mess?”
“I’m most curious to know how you learned such skills. Are you, perhaps, a physician?”
“No. A friend taught me.”
“I never adequately can repay you for your efforts.”
“I’m not asking payment.”
“The more pity that your efforts will be useless.”
“My efforts are never, repeat never, useless.”
“To survive this, it is necessary to have a strong desire to live. Obviously, I lack sufficient will.”
“Why?”
Zepon’s neck frill plastered itself against his shoulders, clearly indicating this was a private matter. Fenton abandoned that tack, knowing the Stilhzani attitude toward privacy.
“All right. Your name is Zepon and you’re of the Aamidtsurraa Quadrant. How did you get this ‘suite’?”
“It’s the only room aboard with sufficiently flexible environmental controls.”
Fenton nodded. “Of course. And this was the only transport available. That’s really all I need to know. A man in my position has the means of acquiring information.”
Zepon looked again at this huge man with the so-gentle hands and the so-implacable will. “You are the President of the Intersystem Development Corporation?”
“Right. But call me Max.”
“How is it a person of your position knows so much about Stilhzani?”
“I told you, I had a friend.”
“Do you also know that if it gets much colder in here it may throw me into hibernation...or worse?”
“It’s not that cold. You’re just getting stiff. Come on. Time for your walk.”
“No. I can’t.”
“On your feet.” Fenton pushed his chair back and held out an arm. When Zepon didn’t respond, he moved him bodily but un-protesting onto rubbery legs. “For the next three weeks, you’re not going to sleep more than four hours at a time, you’re going to eat, and exercise, and you’re going to hate every minute of it. Especially later, but I’m not going to let you wrap yourself up until you’re safely home. Now that’s my final word on the subject. Understood?”
It was then that Zepon knew that he was going to live whether he liked it or not. And, being in no condition to care much, he didn’t fight the idea. When Fenton helped him back to bed, Zepon fell into a deep sleep.
Satisfied, the human welcomed the opportunity to slip out to the dining room for a meal.
A week passed under Fenton’s severe regimen and Zepon seemed to be holding his own, but in the second week, the lethargy returned and his protests, while feeble, became more frequent.
Fenton spent much of his time brooding over the mess he’d made of his life by adopting another Stilhzani. But he wasted no time on regrets, preferring to plan a job hunting campaign while mentally calculating his cash assets.
Then, one day near the end of the week, Fenton roused his charge for a meal and afterwards had it abruptly returned to him. When he’d cleaned up the mess and pulled up a chair to sit beside the recumbent Stilhzani, Zepon said, “I’m sorry.”
“There’s no need to apologize. We’ve done well so far. We’re going to make it.” Fenton gauged Zepon’s growing abdomen and body odor. “You’re first quarter of your Quadrant, aren’t you?”
Zepon’s neck frill flushed violet in assent. “I’ve always been among the first to retire into estivation.”
“All right. So you can’t eat any more. I can understand that. The Aamidtsurraa Quadrant passes into High Season tomorrow, if my calculations are correct. The catacombs have been filling with first comers for days. I don’t dare lower the temperature in here any further. In fact, I should start raising it soon to avoid upsetting your natural rhythm more than necessary. You’ve been feeling the chill lately.”
That last was such a flat statement of fact that Zepon half raised his head to train all four pupils on his benefactor. “You have lived on Stilhza. How else could you know so much?”
Fenton studied his fingernails meticulously. “I...ah...have an unusually high empathy rating.”
Zepon allowed his head to fall back to the pillow. “That does explain-not how you learned so much about Stilhza when most humans know-not that we exist, and care-not.”
“I told you, I had a friend.”
“Why are you doing this...for me?”
“Because it needs to be done.”
“Why? What difference in your Totality that I exist or not?”
This gave Fenton pause. Why did it matter to him whether this insignificant individual called Zepon lived or died?
“Max.” Zepon’s soft voice called Fenton out of introspection. “Tell me about your friend.”
Something in Zepon’s tone, some gentle prodding or need pierced the cyst that had encased that memory for so many years, and like an abscess draining, the story spilled out of him.
“I’d just gotten an emergency field promotion to Lieutenant Colonel and command of a Post out by the Orion Wedge. I’d been promoted too far too fast and the responsibility was really more than I could handle. I was Earth born and about as segregationist as they come. You can imagine my reaction when Khela’an Aamidtsurraa introduced himself as my aide and proceeded to run the Post while I foundered about trying to become oriented.
“At the time, he was a Captain, but you know how much that means for a nonhuman. He was a twenty-year man and he had more experience in his seventh finger than I’d had in my entire life. And at that, he was still a young Stilhzani.
“It took many bitter humiliations to knock some sense into me, but I finally realized which of us was the ranking officer and eventually we became fast friends. He made an officer-and-a-gentleman out of me as the Academy hadn’t, and I owed him my life and my career many times over.
“Then one day, orders arrived saying there would be a delay in his hibernation leave. Oh, I sent in emergency pleas, all the usual paperwork, even sent some precedent-smashing tunnelgrams to Hub Central. But you know how the Service is. It was a wretched three weeks later before transport arri
ved.
“I insisted on accompanying him home. We made it that time. I really don’t know how. He was first quarter too.
“All in all, those were good years. He got me a promotion and I got him a promotion and by some miracle I kept him on my staff everywhere I went. And, through the years, I leaned about the difficulties Stilhzani have away from their natural environment, and I even learned something of that natural environment.
“Then, one year, we didn’t make it.” Fenton sat on that bald statement for a long time and Zepon let him brood in silence. Finally, Fenton took a deep breath symbolic of the fresh determination that had come to him as grief receded. “So I resigned my commission to do something to realign the structure of our society before it topples from being human heavy.
“It was really an accident that I fell into Intersystem Development, but I took the opportunity to find a way to enable other races to colonize as extensively as humanity has. Of all the races that are bound to their planets, the Stilhzani are in the worst position. At least individuals of other races can travel freely if they’ve the inclination.
“The Stilhzani have the inclination, but it’s too dangerous for the average person to consider. The Stilhzani need help the most, and are a potentially profitable market. But it’s been ten years, and our labs still haven’t come up with anything commercial. Until now. Perhaps.
“I was on my way to an important conference on the matter when I found that my reservation had been picked up by someone else. I was too furious to even ask who or why. And when I met you, of course I had no choice but to help.”
He was interrupted by the door chime. He pushed the release and walked toward the door. The steward stood at a crisp attention and, tight-lipped, handed Fenton the tunnelgram. Fenton nodded and closed the door before he broke the computer’s seal, skipped the salutation and read the words printed on the glossy:
As Chairman of the Board, it is my duty to inform you that there must be no scandal involving any official of this Corporation. I must remind you of the terms of your contract which was written with a view to your past preferences.
Science Is Magic Spelled Backwards and Other Stories Page 2