Bebe

by Phelps, Darla

  “Your malleable nephew has decided he’d rather die today than spend the next twenty-six years pretending Bebe and the rest of her kind are animals.”

  “How very noble...tender-hearted...you stupid ignorant fool!” Bach snapped around, raking his fingers through his own unbrushed hair as he stalked distance between them. His hands clenched and clenched again, indulging a curious twisting, wringing motion before Bach again dared to face him. Striving to regain his customarily impassive mask, he growled, “There’s no point arguing about this now. Get your stray. We have to get out of here now, while we still have a chance to flee the system.”

  “She’s not my stray,” Tral snapped, not moving. “She’s a human being. And anyway, I spent most the night thinking about it, and I know for a fact there’s no place we could run that they wouldn’t eventually find us. Without Pani and Bebe, maybe. With them, we haven’t a prayer.”

  “Damn!” Bach roared to the ceiling. He stabbed his fingers through his hair again, grabbing and pulling as he paced the room restlessly. The house rumbled under heavy engine vibrations as another transport arrived in the yard. Each stopping where he was, they both looked up at the ceiling, the rattling light fixtures, and finally the shadow passing beyond the closed curtains of the main-room windows.

  Drawing a deep and bracing breath, Bach glared first at Tral and then reluctantly approached the nearest one. He pushed the curtain aside with the tip of his finger.

  “Is it one of yours?” Tral asked, subdued.

  “No.” Bach was quiet. All trace of volatile emotion was gone, replaced instantly by calculating stillness. “It’s the magistrate.”

  Tral arched his eyebrows, both surprised and startlingly relieved. Of all the things he’d expected to happen, receiving a visit from the magistrate hadn’t even broached the list. “Should I fetch down another coffee cup?”

  His uncle snorted, watching as the very old politician was helped down from the transport. “I think you should bend over. We've a slim chance that he might still be amused by the impetuousness of youth, in which case he may satisfy himself with merely dealing out a good thrashing. Or he could be seriously annoyed, in which case you’ll be fucked. Either way, it’s going to be long and hard.”

  “He’s smiling,” Tral noted.

  “You’re fucked.”

  He suspected as much.

  The magistrate made his way through the deep snow to the porch, requiring help as he ascended the three short steps. With a cup of hot coffee in each hand, Tral met him at the door. For the first time in his life, he came face to face with not just the largest cog a governmental wheel could possess, but with the wheel itself.

  “Bach,” he greeted, the blackness of his gaze locking on Tral and staying there. Silver-haired, his back slightly hunched, he was lean and thin, his beige robe hanging on a lanky frame, and yet despite his truly advanced age, his eyes still possessed a clear and steely cunning that his smile could not quite allay. “Introduce me to your...impetuous nephew.”

  Ah. A thrashing then. Although certainly the more desirable of Bach’s two options, somehow it didn’t see appropriate to relax just yet.

  “You honor me with your visit.” Tral stepped aside to allow him entrance. “Please, come inside where it’s warm and welcome to my very humble home.”

  “Is that for me?” The magistrate took the coffee but never took his eyes off Tral.

  “I’d offer you sugar, but the humans stole it when they tied me to the bed.”

  “You’re fortunate they didn’t kill you.” Kicking off the snow, the magistrate started past Tral but stopped abruptly, staring at Bebe who must have been awakened by Bach. She stood in the hallway behind Tral, swimming in Tral’s smallest shirt and already shivering from the cold of the wide open door. As all eyes in the room turned to fix on her, her face slowly flushed and then her fingers began to tap.

  “So.” Remeik offered her a kindly smile. “This is the little one who started so much trouble.”

  “As kidnappers, I would think that burden lies more squarely with us,” Tral countered, not at all liking the way the magistrate was looking at her.

  Reaching out around Remeik’s withered shoulders, Bach smacked Tral up the back of his head.

  The magistrate pretended not to notice. “It does. Still, the task of setting it to rights is not a straightforward thing. Nor will it be easy. Not for us, and certainly not for them. What exactly,” he turned his black-eyed stare back on Tral, “did you think your little report was going to do?”

  “To be honest, I had no idea.” Tral closed the door before Bebe turned blue.

  The magistrate arched a silvered brow. “And you sent it anyway?”

  “It was the right thing to do.”

  “I’m surprised you aren’t more...” Bach paused, searching for a word that wouldn’t prove prophetic, “upset.”

  “Were I not retiring, I’d have both your balls on my desk by the end of the day. However,” Remeik turned on Tral with a toothy smile, “your nephew is right. It is time for things to change. It’s time for the old to step aside and let younger, fresher minds control the world. But I do not intend to go quietly into retirement; they’re going to have to work if they want to replace me. And what better way to show how wonderfully smooth was my reign and how tumultuous unstable shall be their own, than by liberating the humans first.” He laughed, a low and throaty growl that made his dark eyes dance. “If we do this right, I will be remembered fondly, reverently, for years.”

  “If we do this right,” Bach repeated, much more subdued. “If not, humans will be without a champion in any position of government to help them.”

  Remeik’s dark eyes glittered, dancing. “They will if you replace me.”

  “Ha!” Bach threw back his head with a hard bark of laughter. He also retreated from the old man. “No! No, no, and fuck you, no! I am retired.”

  “No one ever truly retires.” The magistrate pursued in measured steps as Bach paced restlessly as far as the mantelpiece. “Did you really think no one would notice you struggling to solve the human problem? You’ve been moving in the shadows, old friend, like an ucca worm, slithering by the barest of inches to avoid Central detection. But I saw you. And if I saw, with my poor eyes—”

  Bach laughed again, even less amused than before.

  “—others will have seen it as well. Replace me. Ensure that the good we begin here today will never undone.”

  “You want to throw all levels of government into upheaval and then leave me at the head of it all, to either flounder or succeed however I am able?”

  “I will forever be remembered as the magistrate who freed the humans,” Remeik said. “You will be remembered as the first to marry one. Replace me. You may as well agree; I’ve had you scheduled to win the next election for months.”

  Tral blinked startled. “What?”

  Bach actually looked pained. “Not in front of the boy, Remeik, please. He can’t keep his mouth shut to save anyone’s life, least of all his own. And he might still be naive enough to think the government actually works the way we say it does.”

  Tral stared from one to the other, stunned. “The elections are faked?!”

  Tsking, Bach all but rolled his eyes. With one open hand, he gestured at Tral as if to say, ‘See?’

  Smirking, Remeik only shook his silvered head. “Oh Bach, we are old beasts, you and I. And we know well how this game should be played.”

  “And yet the last time we tried to play it an entire race was destroyed,” Bach pointed out dryly. “To this day, nothing grows on Kadmeir.”

  “A bane on all our consciences to be sure, but also a lesson learned. Because of it, none of our competitors will want to tackle the human issue—the attempt alone would automatically bring failure and failure would bring the deaths of their careers.”

  Tral glanced from one to the other, not at all sure he followed the leap of their logics. “But we’re going to tackle it?”

  “Yes,
” Bach said, frowning.

  “And we’re going to succeed,” Tral said slowly, taking his best guess, “because you’re not in politics and he’s retiring.”

  Both Bach and the magistrate looked at him, waiting.

  “Except that no one ever truly retires,” Tral said, coming to the obvious conclusion. He looked from one to the other. “Do I still get to keep my job here?”

  “Ha,” Bach said again, even more dryly than before. “You’ll be lucky if my first official command isn’t to have you shot!”

  Raising his withered hands, the magistrate hushed them both. “Before we figure out who does what and who shoots whom, we need to sort out the problem. What to do with the humans? What is the bare minimum that must accomplish, and how do we do it? Let me ask you, Bach old friend, how would you react if we passed a law, right this very second, preventing you from keeping Pani? What would you do if we tried to take her from you?”

  “You would have to kill me first,” Bach said plainly. “And then you’d have to find a way to prevent Pani from escaping wherever you put her. She loves me. She would fight frantically to get back to me.”

  “As I feared,” the magistrate muttered. “I had two pets of my own, once. I do not believe your reaction will be unique. These are not merely pets, they are family members. They are friends and lovers. If we arbitrarily force such units to part, will we not be every bit as wrong as when we kidnapped them in the first place? How do we repair the damage we have done without inflicting more?”

  Tral glanced down at Bebe, who had crept close enough to cling to his shirt sleeve, her small hands petting at him in her nervousness, only to be briefly distracted by Pani as she shuffled sleepily back out of the kitchen. Draped in her blanket and hugging a steaming cup of black coffee between her hands, she went straight to Bach. When she leaned against him, he lay a comforting hand upon the top of her head. It was a touch both tender and possessive, and watching them together made Tral think. His uncle had loved Pani enough to marry her—to marry his ‘pet’—he couldn’t imagine many other people doing the same. He certainly wouldn’t have.

  He glanced at Bebe again, not at all sure how he should feel. He tried to imagine how she might react to being ‘liberated’, a very unpleasant knot beginning to tangle his insides. Would she understand freedom? Would she understand being given the chance to live on her own, to be her own person, or would she think she was being abandoned again? Perhaps even, that she was being punished? And on the tails of that thought came an infinitely more selfish one. For all that he hadn’t known her for very long, the idea of having to return to his solitary lifestyle was not a happy one. Far from it, in fact. It made him almost sick to his stomach. Amazing, how fast a man could grow accustomed to taking care of someone else. Maybe it was the small and defenseless factor. Maybe it was simply a matter of having someone else to talk to or to share his bed. It wasn’t even the sex—that was too new to even factor in the decision. He was going to miss her. He was going to miss that sensation of having an extra body taking up half his mattress space, meekly sliding closer to him when she thought him too deeply asleep to notice, and stealing a corner of his pillow in the middle of the night.

  But he would not have married Bebe. He didn’t have that kind of courage, and that meant he had no right to her. He had no right to want to keep her. People didn’t keep people, anyway.

  He caught the magistrate watching them, and for an instant thought he glimpsed a trace of careful calculation before the old man asked, “And you? How will your Bebe react to being pulled from your protective side?”

  “She’s not...she’s not mine,” Tral hedged uncomfortably, winning another hard laugh from Bach.

  “Is she not?” Remeik’s look said he suspected differently, particularly when Bebe surreptitiously slipped one of her small hands into his, as if to reassure herself that everything was still all right. He gave her fingers a gentle squeeze. “Answer the question anyway, for idle curiosity’s sake.”

  Tral couldn’t. He didn’t want to think about it, but in his mind’s eye he could already see her blue eyes filling with worried tears.

  “Hm,” Remeik said as the silence stretched on. “I ask again: What do we do? Shall we segregate the little beasts from ourselves? Shall we send them back to Earth and wish them all the very best of luck?”

  “They would not be welcomed there,” Bach said flatly. “Pani was imprisoned upon her return. I doubt if any of our humans would be more kindly received.”

  “Nor should they be when so many have been born here, by our will and genetic tampering.” Making his way to a cushioned chair, the old magistrate lowered himself to sit. That brought his head to a level with Bebe’s. He smiled at her, though she did not return it. “Do you think she could survive on Earth any easier than she does here? Could she adjust?”

  “No.” Tral felt sick. “I really don’t think she could.”

  “The Preserve is twenty-five thousand acres,” Bach said. “We’ll build a human civilization separate from our own right here. A refuge, so to speak.”

  “Against their will?” the magistrate pointedly asked again. “Shall we set armed guards along the perimeter, keeping humans safely inside the fence and former owners desperate to regain their company out?”

  “We’ll give each person a choice,” Bach said firmly. “Let each individual select where he would prefer to make his home.”

  “Ah yes,” the magistrate smiled thinly. “I can see it plainly now. We’ll go house to house throughout every cityship and rural town, ripping the abused and the beloved alike from their lives, traumatizing everyone as we put the question to each man in turn: Would you like to stay here or go to a refuge and live in a cave?”

  “We’ll build houses for them, bring them food and clothes, and continue to provide for them,” Bach argued, frowning. “Only we’ll do it here, where the abuse can stop.”

  “An expensive venture,” the magistrate added.

  “One which we, by our very actions, deserve to pay.”

  “You won’t be magistrate for very long with that kind of attitude.”

  “We could teach them how to fend for themselves,” Tral spoke up. “Anyone who’s ever spent more than a minute with a human knows how fast they learn, how independent most are. Eventually, some will be able to build their own houses, grow their own food, make their own clothes. The wild pack has been doing that with nothing more than primitive spears and rock tools for years.”

  “So the solution we shall present to the populace is, we trade one planet-wide prison for another twenty-five thousand acres wide.” The magistrate gave them both the same meaningful stare.

  “Temporarily,” Tral nodded. “Yes.”

  “And then?”

  “We integrate them back into society. As citizens instead of pets.” When Bach and the magistrate both stared at him in silent, dark-eyed calculation, Tral had the near uncontrollable urge to tap his fingertips together. He gave Bebe’s hand another squeeze instead. “Life as everybody knows it will have to change. Maybe for the better, maybe not. But I agree with my uncle, segregation should be the first step. For everyone.”

  “Except Pani,” Bach said flatly.

  “Everyone,” Tral repeated. “Otherwise, we’ll have no way of separating the abused from the cherished, the willing from the captive, and probably more importantly, it’ll look like we’re allowing those in positions of power get to keep their ‘pets’ when no one else can.”

  “Not,” his uncle growled, glaring at them both, “Pani.”

  “Foster guards,” the magistrate said, sitting up a little straighter, his expression brightening just a shade. “We will initiate a fostering program to allow well-cared for humans to remain with the families they love.”

  “How do we tell the difference between those that truly care for their humans and those who don’t want to lose an expensive piece of property? Especially if they’re...” Tral hesitated, glancing sidelong at his uncle. He almost sa
id ‘perverted’, except that he could now lump himself into that category as well.

  Bach arched a sarcastic brow. “Dipping their pens in a tighter fountain?”

  Tral could feel himself starting to flush. “All I’m saying is, our own kind will go to all lengths to hide evidence of abuse against them. After living with Bebe, I don’t believe the humans will be any more forthcoming. I particularly don’t see them leaving their existing situations simply because we offer them some unseen, unknown ‘safe haven’?”

  “They might,” Remeik interrupted. “If it were another human doing the offering. We would need an ambassador, a well-known face to champion the cause.” Smiling, he beckoned Bebe to him. “Come here, child. I am old and—” His smile widened. “—almost toothless. You need have no fear of me.”

  Tral didn’t believe him for a second, and he didn’t blame Bebe at all when she hesitated, casting nervous glances up at him before reluctantly letting go of his hand. She slipped past his leg, fingers tapping away as she approached the magistrate. When he held out his hand, she stared at it for a long time before reaching back for him and allowing herself to be drawn right up to stand at his knee.

  “So,” he took her tiny hands in his. “These are the fingers that have shattered the world as we know it.” He drew himself stiffly upright, eyes raised to the ceiling as he sought back through the dusty recesses of his mind for a half-forgotten memory. “Let’s see. It’s been years since last I practiced this at my ailing grandmother’s knee.”

  Releasing her hands, he slowly began to sign. Tell me, child, how did you come to be in this place? Tell me the tale of you.

  * * * * *

  The sun was rising high above the tree line when the transport set down within sight of the southern-ridge caves. Tral got out first. To say he was a little nervous was the understatement of the century, and this century was very quickly about to become chock-full of monumental understatements.

  He looked cautiously through the snow-laden trees, his eyes falling first upon the thin thread of smoke rising from the far hillside, to the leathered hide that covered the entrance of the cave, and finally came to rest on the freshly-skinned ground rats hanging over a branch in a far tree.