"Colony? Of _bugs?"_ Cheelo digested this, then shook his head sharply. "That's crazy! Even in a place as isolated as the Reserva Amazonia something like that would've been spotted before it got started."
Desvendapur begged to disagree. "Everything was done below the surface. Research, design, excavation, construction: everything. The colony's human sponsors provided and continue to provide the necessary cover to maintain our seclusion. Once the initial excavating was completed, expansion was not difficult. Or so the history that I studied of the colony declaims. I was assigned here. Unauthorized egress from the hive is strictly forbidden."
"This 'colony' of yours ..." Cheelo hesitated uncertainly. This was bigger than he'd suspected. Much bigger. "It hasn't been authorized by the government, then? I mean, I don't exactly scan the media every day, but the big things, the major stories, you hear about them from other people. I've heard about your kind, but never anything about a bug colony."
"It is not authorized by your _visible_ government," Desvendapur admitted readily. "Apparently only a few individuals from certain departments are involved. They have moved forward with this project on their own."
Like a child's building blocks, a crude but recognizable structure was assembling itself in Cheeio's brain. "So if this colony's been planted here on the sly, and nobody's supposed to know about it, and nobody from inside is supposed to go outside, then you're illegitimate twice over."
"That is correct."
Cheelo stood stunned, gaping at the calm, composed alien. Here he thought _he_ was the one who had to be wary of discovery, and all along he had been traveling in the company of someone who had committed an offense beside which Cheelo Montoya's entire lifetime of minor misdeeds and infractions paled into insignificance. Every felony the part-time resident of Gatun and Golfito had committed had been provincial in nature, even the accidental killing in San Jose. Standing quietly before him was malfeasance on an interstellar scale.
He frowned. "Why're you telling _me_ this?"
"To observe your reaction. I collect reactions." The thranx shifted on its trulegs, trying to spread his weight away from the injured, splinted limb. "I am not a researcher any more than you are a naturalist. I am a poet who seeks inspiration. I arranged to come here, to your world, in search of it. I illegally exited the colony in search of it." Like accusatory fingers, twin antennae were pointed directly at the biped. "It was in hopes of finding it that I went in search of humans who had not had prior contact with my kind."
Cheelo's thoughts swirled and collided. All the time the bug had been tagging along, it hadn't been studying the forest-it had been studying _him._ Not for scientific purposes, either. His bug was a goddamn artist, all right.
In his comparatively short lifetime Cheelo had thought of himself, envisioned himself, imagined himself as many things. A source of poetic inspiration was not one of them.
"What'll they do to you if they find you out here?" he asked pointedly.
"Take me back to the hive, to the colony. Debrief me. Ship me offworld as soon as proves feasible. Punishment will follow. Unless..."
"Unless what?"
"Unless my unauthorized sojourn here results in composition the likes of which has never been beheld before. I do not know how it is among humans, but among my kind great art excuses a multitude of transgressions. Additionally, all eminent artists are presumed to be at least partly mentally deranged."
Cheelo nodded. "Ay, I can see similarities." His expression darkened. "Just a minute. If nobody except these covert friends of your colony are supposed to know about its existence, and you've just told me all about it, then I'm compromised. You've compromised me." His eyes widened. "Shit, what'll they do to _me_ if they find me in your company? I ain't going off to no bug world with you!"
"Obviously not. I imagine that either my people or yours will have to kill you to ensure your silence on the matter."
"My silence on the ... ?" At that moment Cheelo wanted to reach out and choke the alien, except that constricting its neck would not result in a reduction in the supply of air to its lungs. It might be subject to suffocation in the coils of an anaconda, but not by any human. He could, however, by exerting diligence and all his strength, possibly break its neck. "Why'd you have to tell me all this? _Why?"_
"You deserved to know. If that disguised scanner had discovered us and we had been picked up, you wouldn't have known the reason for it. Now you do. I did not have to tell you about the colony to compromise you. Simply being found in my company by searchers from the hive would be enough to doom you."
The biped stiffened. "Who's doomed? Not Cheelo Montoya! I've been hiding from searchers all my life! I've slipped safely in and out of places nobody else would go near. Unless I want them to, no bunch of goddamned illegal sweet-stinking bugs is going to find me, either!"
A thranx could only smile inwardly. "An intriguingly aggressive response for a self-proclaimed naturalist."
Cheelo started to shout something more, only to find himself strangling in mid-declaration. His lower jaw closed and his voice changed to a dangerous, angry mix of accusation and admiration. "Why you ugly, burrowing, big-eyed, toothless bug bastard. You think you're pretty clever, don't you?"
"That is a proven fact, not hypothesis," the thranx replied calmly. "Why not tell me what _you_ are, man?"
"Sure. Ay, sure, why not? It doesn't matter. You can't exactly walk into the nearest police depot and turn me in, can you? Sure, I'll tell you." He gestured at the alien's thorax pouch. "Why don't you get out that scri!ber of yours and take it all down? You might get a goddamn poem or two out of it."
Oblivious to the human's sarcasm, an excited Desvendapur hurried to comply. Holding the compact instrument out toward the biped, the poet waited eagerly.
"I take things from people," Cheelo told him pugnaciously. "I was born without anything, I saw my mother die without anything, and I had a baby brother who died before he had a chance to know anything. I grew up learning that if you want anything in this world you've got to go out and get it, because nobody's going to give it to you. This is a pretty advanced planet. Lots of nice new technology, good medicine, easy to get around, a lot cleaner than it used to be. That much I learned from history. I do read, you know."
"I never doubted it." Desvendapur was absorbing not only the human's words, but his attitude, his posture, his wonderfully distorted facial expressions. Truly, the biped's ranting was a veritable fount of inspiration.
"Humankind's managed to get rid of a lot of things, a lot of the old troubles. But poverty isn't one of them. Not so far, not yet. I hear the sociologists argue about it a lot: whether there'll always be poor people no matter how rich the species becomes. Somebody always has to be on the bottom, no matter how high you raise the top." He shook his head sharply. "Me, I ain't going to stay on the bottom. When I found out I'd never be able to rise any other way, I started figuring out methods to take what I needed to lift me up. I'm not the only one, not by a flicker, but I'm better at it than some. That's why I'm standing here talking to you right now instead of licking my hospital dressings waiting to go in for a court-ordered selective mindwipe." There was something deeply gratifying about spilling his guts, even if only to an alien bug. Feeling more than a little reckless, he plunged on.
"I'm here right now because I killed somebody."
Desvendapur felt a thrill run through him. This was more than he could have hoped for: inspiration taken to and beyond a degree he could not have imagined in his wildest dreams. "You murdered another of your own kind?"
"It wasn't intentional," Cheelo protested. "I never meant to hurt nobody. Killing's bad for business. It just-happened. I needed the money. So I had to get away, to someplace where I could lose myself for a while." He gestured at the wild, all-enveloping rain forest. "This is a good place for that. Or it was, until I ran into you."
"You are still 'lost,' " Desvendapur assured him. "I will not give you away."
"One more day." The thranx glanced skyward. "They haven't found me yet. I don't think they will, if I choose to continue hiding, but all I ask for is one more day in your company."
Cheelo's fingers hovered. Why wait- he told himself. Kill it now and move on. They'll find the body or they won't. Either way, he wouldn't be connected to it. As far as this unauthorized colony and its allies were concerned, he'd be just another solitary wanderer in the vast reaches of the rain forest.
But there was something in the alien's manner-an unrestrained eagerness, a desperation to learn, a need to achieve- that appealed strongly to something deep inside Cheelo Montoya. It wasn't that they were in any way alike: That was an absurd thought. Cheelo had never had a poetic or artistic impulse in his life, unless one counted the skill with which he relieved the unsuspecting and the unlucky of their valuables.
The camouflaged scanner had already passed this way. It was unlikely a second would be following it. Surely the resources of this secret colony were limited and any search it instituted, however frantic, must necessarily be circumspect. Otherwise it would attract the attention of the Reserva rangers or their own automatic monitoring devices. If he and the bug kept moving in the direction the eagle scanner had come from, they ought to be free of observation and safe from detection for quite a while.
Without really knowing why, he heard himself saying, "One day?"
The thranx nodded. Cheelo no longer thought the familiar gesture strange when executed by the alien. "One day. So that I may finish my note taking and observations and round them off smoothly and completely."
"I'm not sure I know what the hell you're talking about. I don't owe you nothing."
"No, you do not. Even though we are, in a way, spiritually of the same clan."
Cheelo frowned. "What are you babbling about?"
The thranx's tone did not change. "We are both outcasts, antisocials. And takers of life. I too am responsible for the death of another. All because I wish to compose something of importance."
There it was. This alien, this grossly oversized bug from another world, wanted to do something big, just like Cheelo Montoya. No, he thought angrily, refusing to accept the analogy. We don't have anything in common! Not me and a goddamn bug! He said nothing aloud. What was there to say? He knew nothing of thranx society, of what it considered acceptable and what it did not, though he felt he could be certain of one thing: Surely among any intelligent species, the murder of one's fellows was considered inappropriate. He was wrong, but correct where the thranx were concerned.
"And if at the end of that time you remain tormented by uncertainties," Desvendapur was saying, "you can still kill me."
Cheelo started, his eyes widening slightly. "What makes you think I'd want to kill you?"
"It would be the logical thing to do." Two hands gestured in the direction of the human's bolstered pistol. "I've seen your hands moving, up and down, back and forth in the direction of your concealed weapon, your gestures reflective of your changing mood. You have been thinking about it ever since we met. You could do it at any time."
"You're mighty confident I won't."
"No, I'm not." Antennae bobbed in a complex pattern. "I have been monitoring your pheromones. The levels rise and fall according to your state of mind. I know when you're thinking about killing me, and when you are not."
"You're reading my mind?" Cheelo gazed unblinkingly at the thranx.
"No. I'm reading your body odor. As I mentioned before, it is very strong. Even it is a source of suggestion to me." The heart-shaped head dipped slightly. "One more day."
"And then I can kill you? You just said yourself it would be the logical thing to do."
Again the alien nodded. "Very much so. But I don't think you will do it. If I did I would already have slipped away during the night."
Cheelo's tone was challenging. "What makes you so sure I won't do it?"
"Because you haven't already. And because doing the illogical thing, the unexpected, is what separates the exceptional individual from the great mass of the hive. Sometimes that individuality is not well regarded. In both our societies, iconoclasts and eccentrics are viewed with great suspicion."
"Well, I've sure as hell always been viewed with suspicion. One day." He considered. "All right. Tomorrow afternoon you go your way and I go mine."
"Agreed." The thranx gestured with both his scri!ber and with a foothand. "I already have enough material to nourish composition for several years. It wants only some framing, some greater context. If you would consent in the time we have remaining to us to answer a few questions, I will depart your company tomorrow very much content."
"Yeah, sure. But right now let's concentrate on getting away from _here,_ okay?" Raising a hand, he pointed upstream. "Let's put some more distance between us and that airborne scanner."
Falling in alongside the human, Desvendapur held his scri!ber out, the better to pick up the biped's voice more clearly. "Please tell me: When you killed your fellow human, what did it feel like?"
Cheelo glanced over sharply, wishing he could read those compound eyes. But they only stared back, glittering in the light that filtered down through the canopy, siliceous gems set in blue-green chitin.
"What the hell kind of question is that?"
"A difficult one," the alien replied. "Easy answers make for weak poetry."
The interrogation, as Cheelo came to think of it, was relentless, continuing all through the remainder of the day and on into the night. What the thranx gained in response to queries that Cheelo felt waned from the irrelevant to the inane he could not imagine, but the alien seemed pleased by every reply, be it fleeting or lengthy. Cheelo endured it all, not really understanding the purpose, knowing that tomorrow he would be free of questions and questioner alike. Free to make the appointment in Golfito that would forever change his life.
He was awakened not by the sun or the chorusing of monkeys, not by demonstrative macaws or buzzing insects, but by a gentle prod to the shoulder.
"Later," he grumbled. "It's too early."
"I agree," came a familiar, soft, gently modulated voice, "but it is necessary. I do not think we are alone any longer."
Cheelo sat up fast, throwing off the blanket, instantly awake. "Your friends, come looking for you?"
"That is the peculiar thing. I see only evidence of passing, and it is not of the sort that traveling thranx would leave behind."
Cheelo frowned. "What sort of evidence?"
"Come and look."
Following the alien into the undergrowth, Cheelo was brought up short by a sight as expected as it was shocking. The pelts had been neatly stretched and hung to dry on racks fashioned of trimmed poles bound together with vine. There were signs of recent cooking as well as places where the soil had been compacted by repeated bootprints. No biologist, he still recognized the skin of the jaguar and the two margays. There was also a lightweight container that, on inspection, proved to be full of feathers plucked from dozens of macaws and other exotic rain forest birds.
Lowering the lid on the container, he found himself scanning the surrounding jungle anxiously.
"What strange human activity is this? Some peculiar ritual the local officials are required to perform?"
"It's a ritual, all right." Cheelo was already backing carefully out of the small, cramped clearing. "But it has nothing to do with local officials. Just the opposite." He nodded toward the forlorn skins drying in the heat of early morning. "This is a poacher camp."
"That is a term I am not familiar with." Scri!ber out, Desvendapur paralleled the human's retreat. He could not keep from turning to look back at the hollow-e
yed skins hanging forlornly from their crudely rigged racks.
Cheelo's eyes darted from side to side, tree to bush, as he nervously scrutinized the surrounding forest. "Poachers slip into places like the Reserva to steal whatever they can sell. Rare flowers for orchid collectors, rare bugs for insect collectors, exotic woods for furniture makers, mineral specimens, live birds and monkeys for the underground pet trade." He gestured at the covert encampment. "Bird feathers for decoration, skins for clothing."
"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.
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