Hunted lop-4

by James Alan Gardner

  There was no light in the room where we lay, but a dim glow came from next door — just enough for Counselor to watch me as I slept. Mandasars love to do that… I guess because they don’t sleep deeply themselves. They’re curious about it; the way humans go totally unconscious is kind of eerie to them, creepy but magical. Some of the maidservants back on Troyen actually took anaesthetics before sliding into bed beside me: they wanted to knock themselves out cold, to see what it was like, "sleeping together." Of course, they didn’t understand what that phrase means to humans… any more than Counselor understood what a man gets to feeling when he wakes up and there’s someone stroking his face. Mandasars never think about sex stuff at all, except during egg-heat. They know humans work differently, but Mandasars don’t realize how much… um… how often… how persistently certain urges keep poking their way into a Homo sapiens’ imagination.

  (Close your eyes, and a gentle’s voice sounds pretty much like a human woman’s. Her hand feels the same too. And so soft.)

  Looking at Counselor, feeling her hand on my cheek, I found myself remembering that kiss aboard Willow — the woman pulling me in tight, the perfume in her hair… a woman who was exactly like Admiral Ramos except she wasn’t… and Festina herself, lying beside me in the dark forest, looking up at the stars…

  Crazy, I thought to myself. My brain must still be jumbled, going all swimmy with what-ifs. Festina was pretty and kind, but she was an admiral; as for Counselor, she was just in my bed because I’d been sick. Why was I so eager to get dumb ideas about every female around me: an admiral and an alien for heaven’s sake… and I was even having thoughts about Kaisho, with her skintight clothes and her dangerous glowing thighs…

  "Teelu," Counselor whispered. "Are you troubled?"

  I reached up and took her hand, pulling it gingerly away from my face. "Maybe you shouldn’t call me Teelu, okay? It’s kind of…" I wanted to say "sacrilegious," but that would upset her. "You shouldn’t overuse the word," I mumbled.

  "Very well," she said. "Is there anything else I should or shouldn’t do?" She asked it in a soft sweet whisper, still holding my hand — all innocently intimate, not knowing how complicated things can get inside a human’s head. When you’re tired and lonely, you can catch yourself thinking, maybe, maybe, she really meant…

  No. She didn’t.

  But I couldn’t get my thoughts aimed any other direction. I told myself, Don’t be stupid, she’s a big brown lobster. It didn’t help. I’d had more kindness in my life from Mandasars than I ever got from humans. Lying beside one again brought back the golden days when the war hadn’t started and Sam was alive and we were all twenty years younger…

  I slipped my hand out of Counselor’s grasp and eased down on my pallet: rolling away from her, flat on my back, feeling lumpish and rude. "Where’s Admiral Ramos?" I asked.

  "She left with the other human — the one with frightening legs."

  "Are they coming back?"

  "In the morning. But the admiral had to arrange a journey. To Troyen."

  Counselor leaned in close to my face, her whiskers trembling. Her snout brushed lightly against my cheek, delicate and cool. Gentles have no nose-spike; just soft skin that smells faintly of ginger. "Are you really going to the home-world?" "Admiral Ramos wants me to. She thinks I know the lay of the land."

  "You do," Counselor said. "You were the high queen’s consort."

  "That was twenty years ago. Before the war." I closed my eyes. "All the time I stayed at the moonbase, I did my best not to hear what was happening on the planet. The observers couldn’t tell much anyway — with all the rogue nano on Troyen, nobody can use radios or computers or anything, so there’s nothing to listen in on. Our satellites kept track of troop movements, but when you don’t know who’s in charge of which army… half the time, the observers just made stuff up so their reports wouldn’t look too skimpy. Nobody really knows what’s happening."

  Counselor lay silent for a few seconds. I wanted to see the expression on her face, but decided eye contact would be a mistake: she’d take my hand again or go back to stroking my cheek. "Admiral Ramos has been investigating the recruiters," Counselor murmured at last. "The woman with the red legs said the admiral tries to prevent regrettable things. Admiral Ramos is what you call a watchdog and a troubleshooter."

  I didn’t know the navy had such things, but I was glad they put someone like Festina in the position. "She thinks another admiral is helping the recruiters," I said. "It makes her mad, and she’s trying to set things right."

  "Then Admiral Ramos is a good hume," Counselor murmured. "Even if she wants to take you away from us."

  "Um."

  When I looked at Counselor, her face was sad — the terrible kind of sad where someone is trying hard not to show it, and it spills through anyway.

  "Do you want to — go away?" Counselor asked.

  "No," I told her. "But Admiral Ramos thinks people on Troyen might know who’s behind the recruiters. She said it could solve your problems."

  "She told me the same," Counselor said. "But it’s painful to gain you and lose you in the same day."

  Suddenly, she bent in and pressed the soft end of her snout against my lips. A kiss. I’d never seen a gentle do that on Troyen. It must have been something she’d learned on Celestia, a gesture picked up from the humans who took care of her in childhood. So awkward and clumsy, like a little girl imitating adult things — she wrapped one arm around my neck and kept her nose against me… not moving her mouth, just holding it tight to my face as if she didn’t know a kiss could be anything else.

  I pulled back away from her, feeling awkward and clumsy myself. "It’s all right," I whispered. "Really. It’ll be all right."

  She lowered her chin so she could look me in the eye. Her eyes were solid black, blinking slightly — Mandasars don’t cry when they’re sad, but their faces can still be heartbreaking. "Troyen is at war. You could be killed… and then where would we be?"

  What could I say? That I wasn’t the savior she thought? I didn’t want to go back to Troyen, but I wasn’t worth much on Celestia. People would soon see I didn’t have a head for organization, or strategy, or rousing speeches, or anything that could help anyone. I said, "If Admiral Ramos thinks I’d be useful on Troyen—"

  "This Admiral Ramos," Counselor interrupted. "Is she your lover?"

  I winced. Zeeleepull must have blabbed how he’d found Festina and me in the forest. "No," I said. "She’s not my lover."

  "Do you intend to make her your lover?"

  "No. She’s an admiral. Anyway, I can’t make anyone my lover — people don’t work that way."

  "Teelu" Counselor whispered, "Teelu, Teelu, Teelu, don’t you know you can make anyone into anything you want?" She cupped my chin in her weak upper hands, holding me so she could stare straight into my eyes. "Don’t you know," she whispered, "you can stir any heart and make it yours?"

  If she’d been human, her words would have been an invitation. Maybe even a plea. Over the years, other women had come to me with that kind of offer… because they liked the way I looked, because they were bored, or because they’d been hurt by someone else and thought, Oh, Edward, at least he won’t be cruel. They told me that to my face — I was "pretty" and "safe" and "decent."

  And plenty of times, I’d said yes. In my twenty years on the moonbase, new personnel would arrive and even though I knew they’d just leave again after six months, sometimes you tell yourself six months is six months. (Forgetting how lonely it is when they go away… the awful point where they start pulling back from you, even before they ship out… how sometimes they’re never there with you at all, just treating you like medicine that’ll keep them from getting cranky.)

  So yes, there’d been human women; but not Mandasars. Gentles didn’t make come-ons, ever. Not to their own species and certainly not to humans. Even in egg-heat, gentles didn’t act amorous — it was all pheromone signals, not direct attempts at seduction. "I’m available,"
not "Now, now, now!" Whatever Counselor wanted to tell me, it was just my one-track human mind misinterpreting it as… the sort of proposition you yearn for when things are going all lonesome.

  "Counselor." I wrapped my arms around her shoulders, feeling her thin carapace yield: fragile as eggshell compared to a warrior’s armor. She put her arms around my shoulders and my waist, then pressed her snout against my neck… maybe another kiss, maybe just where her nose ended up. "I’m not as special as you think," I told her. "Verity married me for politics, not because I was some hero. And the way you kids react to me — it’s just the smell of venom, that’s all. Sooner or later, you’ll get mad at me for not being what you hope."

  She pulled back a bit from my neck so she could look me in the eye. "You are the Little Father Without Blame," she said. "You’re more than we hoped, and more than you know. Just for tonight, I wish I were your own species… so you’d stop treating me like some child you mustn’t corrupt. I was raised by humans, Teelu; I’m not as naive as you think."

  Once more she leaned in for a kiss: light, quick, on my cheek, then she slipped softly out of my arms. I let her go, stunned by what she was suggesting. I couldn’t, I couldn’t, I couldn’t — for all that she was a grown-up of her species, she didn’t know… she was confused by the smell of venom, that had to be it. And by her human upbringing. After years of hume stories like "Snow White" and "Cinderella," Counselor might fantasize about offering herself to some Prince Charming; but Mandasars didn’t really feel… they didn’t really want…

  Did they?

  She was still very close, near enough that I could smell her soft ginger scent; and she was waiting for me to call her back. To reach for her hand or her kiss. But it wouldn’t be right. Whatever she thought she wanted, it truly wasn’t in her nature. I couldn’t take advantage of her, no matter how soothing it would be just to give in, surrender, get lost in the dark.

  Counselor must have seen the decision on my face because she sighed quietly — a human sigh, yet another mannerism she must have picked up from the people who raised her. "Teelu" she murmured, "may I at least accompany you on your journey? To Troyen?"

  "It’ll be dangerous," I said. "They’re still at war."

  "All the more reason for me to go. You humans will be conspicuous and perhaps treated as enemies. I won’t attract as much attention."

  "Yes, you will," I told her. "There are so many things you were never taught. Ways to behave. And habits you’ve picked up that just aren’t Mandasar. You’d stand out as badly as any human."

  "Not if you teach me. The voyage to Troyen takes ten days — I can learn quickly. I’ll study with you every waking second."

  "But if I let you come," I said, "then Zeeleepull would want to go too. And Hib Nib Pib."

  "Well, of course," she answered, as if that had never been in doubt. "We all have to go." She fluttered her whiskers teasingly. "You wouldn’t want to recruit me off by myself, would you?" The fluttering stopped. "Would you?"

  Her last "would you?" was so wistful — as if she still hoped I might take her seriously. I couldn’t possibly… not because she was an alien, but because she was so young and innocent.

  And because in my head I might be thinking of other women besides her.

  If I told that to Counselor straight out, it would hurt her feelings; so I decided to give her one thing when I couldn’t give the other.

  "All right," I said. "I’ll talk to Admiral Ramos about taking your hive to Troyen."

  Immediately there was a cheer — not from Counselor but from four other voices. Zeeleepull and the workers tumbled out of the next room, all glee and triumph. "Troyen!" Zeeleepull yelled. "Troyen going, Troyen seeing, Troyen going, Troyen seeing…"

  He might have been singing. And dancing. It’s hard to tell with Mandasars.

  "I told you she could make Teelu say yes," Hib whispered, elbowing Nib proudly. "And she didn’t even have to sleep with him."

  "Don’t you know anything?" Nib answered. "She wanted to sleep with him."

  "After all," Pib added, "he’s a king."

  21

  TAKING OUR LEAVE

  Festina came back the next day at noon. By then the workers had packed, Counselor had arranged for neighboring hives to look after the vegetable fields, and Zeeleepull had made a complete nuisance of himself, getting in everybody else’s way.

  Of all of the kids, he was the most excited — telling me things he wanted to see on Troyen, places he wanted to go, stuff he wanted to do. After a while I just had to say, "You realize if we’re lucky, we’ll never set foot on the planet. Radio the missing Explorers, pick them up, fly away. No going down ourselves unless there’s a problem."

  "But Troyen is," he insisted. "Is Troyen. Is home."

  "Was home," I said. "Nobody knows what-all’s been destroyed in the past twenty years. Buildings bombed. Famous art burned or stolen. Even natural scenery gets wrecked or covered with ugly-looking bunkers. Whatever you think you’ll see, it’s not there anymore."

  He refused to listen. Of all the people in his hive, Zeeleepull had the most romantic notions about the planet he’d left as a hatchling. He told me he’d been brought up by elderly human sisters, Willa and Walda, who’d devoted themselves to raising the boy in accordance with his sacred heritage. The way he spoke of them, I just knew the women didn’t have a clue what they were talking about — their heads had got crammed with off-kilter ideas about Troyen, sparked by a ten-day trip they’d made in their thirties. That trip must have been the one impulsive thing the sisters had ever done, and they’d built their lives around it ever after… which explains why they leapt at the chance to take a baby Mandasar under their roof and acquaint him with his fabulous culture.

  No wonder Zeeleepull spoke such bad Troyenese. And worse English. He’d come to human language very late, because the sisters didn’t want to "pollute his mental development with contaminating influences." When they finally realized he had to learn English to communicate with his fellow Mandasars — the other kids spoke English 99 percent of the time — Willa and Walda encouraged Zeeleepull to use English words but Troyenese syntax, so he wouldn’t "warp his brain’s neural connections" with an alien grammar.

  I got the feeling Zeeleepull could speak normal English if he wanted to, but now he was making a political point. He’d even persuaded his fellow warriors to speak the same way, especially when they were out on maneuvers together. Like a secret code that proved you belonged to the club.

  It didn’t hurt that Counselor and the workers loved Zeeleepull to pieces for the bullheaded way he stuck to his twisted-up word structures. Us guys — even when we’re big red platonic lobsters — we put on silly poses to impress the girls.

  No rutabagas got weeded that day — when Festina’s skimmer set down on the road, every Mandasar in the valley was there to watch. A big colorful horde of them, reds and whites and browns, all jostled each other for the best view. It reminded me of something Sam said as we watched a riot from my palace balcony: "Like a water tank in a seafood restaurant: lobsters crammed in shoulder to shoulder." When I thought about it now, it’d been a cruel, mean thing for Sam to say… but she had a point. Mandasars cram together a lot; they like it. They’re the sort of species who snuggle together all the time — who bed down in a huddle, and who press into a single corner of a room rather than spacing themselves evenly around. Even these kids raised by humans… you’d think they’d be taught to maintain some personal distance, but there they were on the road, practically crawling on top of each other as the skimmer settled down to the pavement. Even so, they managed to skootch together a little more to clear a path for me up to the side hatch.

  The hatch opened. Festina hopped out and smiled when she saw me. "Edward! You’re looking better. Good. Great. Very fine." She was eyeing me up and down. "You had us worried when you passed out last night."

  "I wasn’t worried," said a voice inside the skimmer. "He was just exhausted." Kaisho’s wheelchair floated into the
sunlight and lowered itself to the road. Her hair looked beautifully combed this morning — combed so it covered her face like a silver-black veil, very neat and glossy. Even the Balrog looked well-groomed. Under the bright orange sun, you couldn’t tell Kaisho’s legs glowed on their own; they just looked like thick beds of moss, as unthreatening as red pillows.

  "Well," Festina said, still giving me the once-over (the twice-over by now), "you look damned terrific for a man who was poisoned yesterday. Are you ready to go?"

  "Um." I leaned in, and whispered, "Is it okay if I bring some company?"

  "Who?"

  I pointed behind me. Counselor, Zeeleepull, and the workers were lined up looking freshly scrubbed and gleamy bright themselves… all except Nib, who’d tried to paint a BON VOYAGE sign and got smears of green paint all over its just-washed white hands. (Workers!) Naturally, Zeeleepull carried the luggage; most of the hive’s worldly possessions were strapped to his back, boxed up in a wooden crate labeled ONIONS.

  Festina sighed deeply. "How many of them do you plan on bringing?"

  "Five."

  Counselor and the others waved gleefully — antennas as well as hands.

  "Told you," Kaisho whispered to Festina.

  "I could have guessed myself," Festina muttered back. "Are they all right?"

  "They won’t cause trouble," I promised.

  "That’s not what I meant." Festina motioned to Kaisho. "You and the Balrog check them out."

  Kaisho’s wheelchair glided toward the five Mandasars… and all of a sudden, the rest of the crowd scrambled back, putting a good healthy distance between themselves and the woman’s mossy legs. I don’t know if they’d heard gossip about the Balrog since last night, or if they all just spontaneously decided they didn’t like the moss’s smell. Either way, they were doing their best to keep clear; and from the looks on their faces, Counselor and the others would have been turning tail too, if they didn’t think they’d hurt their chance of seeing Troyen.

  "What’s Kaisho doing?" I whispered to Festina.