Afterwards, as they silently lay side by side on the ground in a tangle of hastily discarded clothing, Bruce tried to work out what had just happened. After a moment Bruce carefully disentangled himself from Sue, who was apparently dozing, and went to sit by the river.
“Piss off, dog!” He slapped away Cop, who had arrived to investigate the irresistible odor of recent sex. “Ya dirty old bastard.” He looked over his shoulder sensing another presence, prepared to give one of the dogs a whack.
“Do you mean me?” Sue touched his arm lightly, playfully.
“No, of course not.” A flush spread across his face. “It’s a nice spot here,” he added meaning something far more romantic. However, Sue had the measure of him now. She knew which of his buttons to push. Well, some of them at least, for under the rough, taciturn, exterior there lurked a pussycat that needed its belly tickled like everybody else.
“Could you build a decent house here, Bruce?”
“Yeah, not a problem. It’ll take no time at all.” He was glad to be on more practical ground, undaunted that he had never tackled anything that complex before.
“Here you reckon?”
“Yes, any reason why not?” she squeezed his arm and pecked his cheek impulsively.
“Come on. Let’s get back to town before anyone decides to check up on us.”
“Can we have a barn?” Sue asked. “I’ve always thought it would be nice to live on a farm and have a barn full of hay, chickens and horses, a cow to milk, perhaps.”
“Yeah.” Bruce was not sure they’d need hay. A place to store tools and stuff. Yes. Sue, he realized, saw farming or ranching as a romantic pastime where cowboys rode around on horses and the woman baked biscuits or something all day while all the boring monotonous work that was involved in farming was done by as if by magic.
She burbled on about the house they would build, that Bruce would build. A place to sleep and wash. A comfortable place to have a quiet evening beer and to watch television summed up Bruce’s requirements. Left to his own devices he might have constructed a box surrounded by a porch where he could sit, have a beer with his boots on.
He was beginning to realize what he might have let himself in for. There was no chance of holding Sue at arm’s length now, and he wasn’t sure he even wanted to. It also occurred to him that she seemed intent on organizing him. It was an amazing change in circumstance, domestic bliss finally, a universe away from home. At least, he grinned to himself, he wouldn’t have to worry about cooking and cleaning for himself any longer.
“You’d better come up with a house plan, we’ll never agree otherwise. I’ll be happy just as long as there’s somewhere to have a beer while the sun’s going down.”
Sue smiled with a secret satisfaction. She had not really wanted to distance herself from Bruce, and now she knew just what she had to do to keep him firmly under control. When in doubt feminine wiles would win out, though she was beginning to realize she had not acted entirely from self-interest. There had been real passion between them, and for all his apparent deficiencies she found she was beginning to see him in a new light. Was Bruce the partner she had been vainly waiting all her adult life to find or was it just Skid? What would Mom say about that?
Sue who had eventually nodded off to sleep, relieving Bruce of her incessant chatter, woke with a jolt as the ute came to a stop back at the house in Sietnuoc. She gave Bruce a smile that sent his heart pounding and climbed out. Loner that he was, Bruce realized even he needed someone who at least halfway understood where he was coming from occasionally. Or did he? It was something neither of them would probably ever know.
For the moment he didn’t give a stuff, wishing only that Sue was a little less demonstrative. Her openness unsettled him, and the way she talked for the sake of hearing her own voice still irritated him. Still, he thought, he could probably live with that.
When, to Sue’s disappointment, Bruce flopped down in front of the television after dinner and began to watch one of the interminable Stim games, she realized she might have a bigger job on her hands than she had thought.
The change in the nature of their relationship did not make him suddenly more sensitive to her needs or desires, or change overnight, the habits of a lifetime.
“I’m going to bed,” Sue said provocatively walking past Bruce to his bedroom. Bruce was a bit slow on the uptake. Instead he scrabbled around for his tablet. Fruitlessly, as it happened.
“Hey, Leaf!” he bellowed. “Where’s my tablet?”
Leaf silently materialized from somewhere or other, with the appliance.
Grasping the tablet tentatively Bruce began speaking at it self-consciously, looking up to make sure nobody was watching him over his shoulder ready with a smart comment.
“I’ve given Sue’s tablet a list of things; can you organize to have all the stuff picked up?” He neglected to say from where, or where the material was destined, but the tablet replied, “As you wish, sir.”
“I also want to build a dwelling and other buildings where we stopped today. Please deliver all the necessary materials to the site.” Despite the lack of detail given the tablet didn’t seem to require any further clarification. This, if Bruce had stopped to consider it, would have given him a clue as to how the tablet collected and analyzed much of its data and followed instructions. Its speech function was just to make the offworlders feel better.
As he finished talking to the tablet, Bruce became aware that Leaf was still standing silently beside him.
“Yeah, what?” For the first time Bruce could recall, Leaf smiled at him. In some ways it was a quite attractive smile, though at second glance it was more of a leer. Still, the change in her expression was a welcome one, for she usually seemed so sullen.
In passing, Bruce wondered if Skidian women were physically similar to the women of earth. He wondered how he could find out and then remembered that if he really wanted, Leaf was probably his to do with as he wished.
No, he decided. Well, not right now, anyway. Perhaps one day when Sue wasn’t about.
“Go away, will you please?” Her presence was discomforting, like a teacher leaning over the shoulder of a child struggling futilely with some new mathematical concept.
Leaf responded by running the tip of her tongue around her lips in a parody of a lascivious leer. Not the sort of behavior Bruce expected from the usually pompous Skidians and he burst out laughing.
“What are you up to, Leaf?” Then to his horror, her sickly smile still fixed, but maybe slipping now, Leaf sank slowly to the floor. First sitting, then reclining full length on her back, then pulling up her robe so the lower part of her body was exposed. He goggled at her long, slender legs and the wild thicket of black hair that grew where they met.
“What the hell do you think you’re doing?” he hissed, panicking that Sue might suddenly appear at the doorway. “Get up! Come on, get up!” He pulled Leaf to her feet.
“You’d better go,” he said huskily before he decided otherwise. “What the hell’s got into you?”
Twenty
Leaf waited for Bruce’s wrath to fall about her, aware she had failed in her quest for greater understanding of the offworlders and somehow deeply offended Bruce in the process. She both feared and yearned for the ultimate punishment that would now surely be her fate. However, to her surprise Bruce merely seemed to be ordering her from his presence.
Confused by the whole situation, she followed the direction of the pointing finger, wondering how she had failed.
Leaf’s main role was to be a part of the ongoing assessment program of the offworlders to monitor how successfully they coped with the sophisticated Skidian society they were living in. A process which involved some potentially distasteful activities, not least having to live in close proximity with them.
Earlier in the day Leaf had met with Sideshow who had ordered her to procreate with the male offworlder. Because their genetic material was remarkably compatible, viable progeny should result from a succe
ssful mating. Like Mulgoon before them, this discovery had been a disquieting one for the researchers, for it meant the offworlders had sprung from the same ancestral stock as themselves. The coincidence of two similar populations evolving, separated by hundreds of light years, was inconceivable. Yet they were the same species.
The Skidian researchers theorized that some of their forebears must have traveled across the universe to populate the offworlders’ home planet. There were no records of such an event, and none of the Skidian researchers could think of a reason why anyone from Skid would want to do such a thing. Nevertheless, they must have. The possibility that Skid might have been populated the opposite way was unthinkable. An identity crisis, which rivaled the impact of impending famine, was developing among what passed for a Skidian intelligentsia. Were Skidians really what they had always imagined themselves to be? And if they were not, who were they?
A major puzzle was also developing over the offworlders’ reproductive behavior. Despite evidence suggesting they indulged in multiple sexual acts, the female especially showed none of the scars of having borne offspring. On the contrary, there were traces of a hormone in her bloodstream that would render normal conception impossible. It meant that offworlders potentially coupled merely for pleasure, unlike the Skidians who mated perhaps once or twice in a lifetime for the express purpose of producing offspring and only then under strictly controlled clinical conditions.
It had been theorized that the offworlders possibly had other means of producing offspring. How else could the large and burgeoning population of their planet be explained?
Sideshow had repeatedly analyzed various data, programing Leaf with the appropriate information to enable her to ‘seduce’ Bruce. However, despite such precise instructions, Leaf’s first attempt had been a dismal failure. She was not, however, embarrassed by this failure; quite the reverse, she felt as if she had gained a new insight into some previously unknown mysteries of the universe.
In those few minutes she had experienced a whole new and thrilling range of emotions, which she was at a loss to explain but which excited her nonetheless. What had caused the moist, warm sensation between her legs and her heart to start thumping in her chest? Now those strange and exciting emotions were replaced by a feeling of vast emptiness. Why was Bruce’s response so negative towards her? Had Sideshow missed something vitally important in her study of the offworlders’ reproductive behavior? Leaf decided she must have, for her own behavior had been above reproach.
Twenty-one
“What do you think, Sue?” Bruce asked over breakfast the next morning. “I don’t think we’re going to achieve anything by sitting around here. Let’s go out to the house site today. If we have to, we can sleep rough for a while.”
Bruce had already discovered that the mighty Skidian industrial complex had not been idle overnight. A variety of useful materials and tools that would enable them to live in the wild while he set about building a roof over their heads had appeared as if by magic in the living room. Waking in the predawn light and feeling strangely uncomfortable about finding another body in his bed, Bruce had stumbled into the living room and fallen over a pile of junk on the floor.
A more thorough inspection with the light on revealed an amazing pile of equipment. He now had a decent knife, a rifle that, as far as he could work out, fired projectiles that would kill, a roll of canvas from which to make a shelter if necessary and a few other odds and ends.
“I don’t see any reason why not,” she said after a moment. But sleeping or living rough did not really appeal to her. On the other hand, she did not want to lose sight of, or her tenuous physical connection with, Bruce. If he went off by himself, there was no telling when he might bother to return – if ever.
Bruce decided to leave most of the pile of equipment where it was for the moment, intending to collect it later. They’d probably return that night or tomorrow anyway; he couldn’t see Sue taking to the idea of living under canvas or in some kind of rough shack without any amenities while he built them some kind of house.
He grabbed the rifle, made sure he had plenty of shells and shoved the butcher’s knife in its sheath into the waistband of his trousers and was ready to roll.
“What’s that?” Bruce saw it first as they approached the spot by the river where they had picnicked the previous day and let the dogs off for a run.
“That’s funny,” Sue said as the outline of a building emerged from behind the trees.
“What? Some other bugger has built right slap bang where I wanted to? They’ve got the whole bloody planet to do it on, and they do it right here. The nerve of these people!”
“No, Bruce, I’ve seen it – or a house very like it – before.”
“Eh?”
“Oh, I know now.” Sue was suddenly subdued. “It’s exactly like a show home I looked at. Uuh. The day before I got lost in the forest …” Her voice trailed off into an awed whisper. “But how did it come to be sitting here?”
Bruce’s gaze fell on the tablet sitting on the dashboard. “I wonder.”
“What?”
“Well, hazarding a guess, I’d say the house was intended for us. I told my tablet to consult with you about the design and what not. Did it?”
“No.”
“Which means?”
“That we’ve got to be a bit careful what we think about.”
“Yeah.” Bruce stopped in front of the house and got out of the ute.
A bit late for that!
“Anybody there?” He pushed open the front door and walked inside. Beyond the door was a short hallway with several rooms opening off it, including what appeared to be a kitchen.
“This place really is almost exactly like that show home,” Sue said, hanging on to Bruce’s arm, not sure whether to be horrified or delighted with the house.
“Looks okay to me.” He didn’t notice her shudder of revulsion and wouldn’t have understood how she felt if he had.
Bruce made his way around the house, leaving Sue alone in the lounge with her thoughts. She was almost sure she did not want to stay in the house at all. Bruce turned taps on and off, tasted the water, discovered how synthofood was delivered to the more isolated homes of Skid and checked to see the fridge and stove worked. The Skidians had even supplied a microwave and a toaster.
“Hey, look at this, Sue!” he shouted, opening cupboard doors to discover cutlery, frying pans, pots and other utensils. “All the gear, everything that opens and shuts!” He waved about the kitchen. “Pity we can’t use most of it. This for example …” He picked up an egg beater. Eggs were unknown on Skid as far as he could work out. He hadn’t seen any chooks.
Sue was much less enthusiastic. The house felt less like a potential home than a prison. It was so creepy to find it sitting out here in the middle of nowhere – the dream home that was really out of her reach and yet here it was. She walked to the lounge windows, looked down at the river and saw another building, half hidden by some trees down there. “Hey, what’s that?”
Bruce wandered up to her, wrapping his arms about her waist and resting his chin upon her shoulder. “Dunno. Who cares?” But after a dismissive glance he looked more closely, recognizing the outlines of a barn that had stood for several generations on his father’s farm. Bloody hell!
“Let’s go down and have a look, shall we?”
“Nah, I’m off to get something decent to eat. Wanna come?”
“Off to the supermarket are you? Don’t forget to get some bread and milk!”
“In a manner of speaking,” he answered, unfazed by her sarcasm.
“What do you mean?”
“Come and find out.”
“Look, I’m in no mood to play silly games.” Sue freed herself from his embrace, annoyed at his flippancy and his continual failure to explain himself, especially as she felt her mind had been invaded by the Skidians almost as if she had been raped. She thought the least Bruce could do was be a bit sensitive at a time like this. Neverthele
ss, he seemed totally unfazed by the implications of the house and everything else suddenly materializing just because they happened to think about them.
“I’m going hunting. Satisfied?”
He grinned mischievously. Sue sighed in exasperation. When Bruce was up, he was really up. She tried to assess his mood and took it to be somewhere between plodding along with no apparent concerns to acute depression, which was hardly surprising given their present predicament.
On the other hand, Sue considered herself particularly well adjusted, thanks to the efforts of her therapist. However, she was wide of the mark in mistaking Bruce’s individualistic streak for emotional problems that needed specialist attention. She stared at him until he became uncomfortable and looked away. It was so difficult to work out what was going on in the depths of those impassive, hazel eyes.
“You make everything sound so easy, Bruce,” she said at last.
“What’s the problem? I’ve got a gun; I see a herd of ivops, so I shoot one and see what the meat tastes like. Okay?”
“How do you know it’s alright to eat?”
“I’ll toss a bit to the dogs, and if they don’t roll over and die we should be okay.” Mind you, Bruce told himself, there were many things the dogs probably found quite tasty that he wouldn’t touch with a forty-foot pole, let alone consider eating. “Are you coming, then?”
“I suppose so,” Sue replied doubtfully. She found the idea of killing something and then eating it slightly repugnant; it was enough to make her seriously consider becoming a vegetarian or existing on synthofood alone. She suddenly realized that the prospect of killing an animal for meat put a different perspective on going to the meat section of the supermarket.
“Right. Let’s get ready then.” Bruce wandered over to the ute, pulled the rifle out from behind the seat, found the box of ammunition and filled the magazine. Then he looked around for a likely target to test his aim on.
He pulled the rifle to his shoulder and peered through the sight at a lone tree about a hundred meters away. Bang! The rifle butt kicked into his shoulder and he worked the bolt quickly and fired again. Bang!
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