Flesh and Blood

by French, Jackie

  I glanced back at the centaur mare. I could smell her, up here among the thinner trees of the ridge — not quite a horse smell, not quite unwashed human, more pungent than either. Perhaps she was frightened, I thought, and that was what I smelt. She glanced round at me, as though she’d sensed my thoughts, and I caught a flash from the whites of her eyes.

  Yes, she was scared.

  For a moment I regretted we hadn’t called Theo before we’d set out. But after all, there was nothing that could hurt us in the safety of the utopia. Pregnant fancies, that was all …

  Neil took my hand as we began to descend again. ‘Be careful here. It’s rough.’

  It was. We had come to the edge of the community now, land that was too steep to clear for orchards, and too shaly to ever bother sowing pasture. But there was a clearing in front of us, where the soil was too rocky even for trees. Boulders humped in the moonlight, like sleeping camels, and tussocks twisted out of the thin soil.

  He was lying at the edge of the clearing, his mares around him. They scattered as we approached, moving back into the shadows of the surrounding trees. Five of them I counted, and two yearlings, one with the belligerent, arms across the chest look of a teenage boy. I glanced down, between his hind legs, but the light was too poor to see for certain.

  The Centaur looked up as we approached.

  ‘Humanhumancome,’ he grunted, then suddenly stopped, and shut his eyes.

  There was drool at the corners of his mouth. There was no sign of any injury.

  ‘He’s sick,’ I whispered.

  Neil nodded. ‘Better call Elaine.’

  I wondered how much Elaine could help a centaur. But I took out the amplifier from my pocket — life was much easier now I could Link again — and tried to Link her comsig. Busy signal, so I used an override. Her face filled the screen. ‘What’s up?’

  ‘The Centaur,’ I said. ‘I think he’s sick. One of the mares came up to find us. He’s lying down … Elaine, it couldn’t be the plague, could it?’ The words were out before I realised I was going to say them.

  Elaine smiled. It was a tolerant smile. ‘No. I’ve never known any of the centaurs to suffer from a human disease. I think it’s probably kidney failure. I’ve been expecting it.’

  ‘I didn’t know horses got kidney failure,’ I said stupidly.

  ‘He’s not a horse,’ said Elaine gently. ‘And it may not be kidney failure either. Maybe heart failure — there aren’t any diagnosis programs for centaurs. But his father died like this, and his grandfather. He’s nearly sixteen now.’

  Old age at sixteen, I thought. A shorter life than humans, and horses too. Had whoever created the centaur modification ever given a thought to length or even quality of life?

  ‘I’ll be there in a few minutes,’ said Elaine. ‘I probably can’t do much. But I can make him more comfortable.’

  The signal faded.

  I turned to the Centaur. He seemed to be sleeping, breathing in long, heavy pants. One of the mares whinnied in the shadows. It might have been a cry of grief, or a word I couldn’t understand.

  I crouched by the big brown body, with Neil beside me, and listened to the hoarse breathing. The putter of a dikdik grew louder as it skimmed up the hill. The mares muttered as it drew up beside us and Elaine swung her leg over the saddle and climbed off, then unhitched her bag from the back.

  ‘Poor old boy,’ she said softly. She knelt beside him and held a diagnostic to his neck. The Centaur kept sleeping.

  The diagnostic beeped softly. Elaine held it up to the torchlight.

  ‘What’s it say?’ I whispered.

  ‘Temperature’s higher than I’d have expected, though I’m not sure what would be normal for him anyway. Pulse is way too rapid.’

  ‘Infection?’

  ‘Probably. The diagnostic gave him a shot of antibiotic. I could give him phages, but who knows how they’d react with his metabolism.

  ‘Then it’s not just kidney failure?’

  Elaine sighed. ‘It probably is. When the body fails, infections slide in. Heart failure, too, maybe. I don’t have either the experience or qualifications to judge. The main thing is to make him comfortable and see he doesn’t get dehydrated. I’d better call a floater and some help to take him down to the Clinic.’

  The Centaur opened his eyes. They were brown eyes, wide horse eyes, but there was a touch of human somehow too. ‘No. Stay.’

  I laid my hand on his fur. ‘It’s all right. You’ll be more comfortable down at the ’topia.’

  The brown eyes gazed up at mine. ‘Stay. Stay.’

  I looked at Elaine. She shrugged. ‘Animals like to die in quiet and familiar places.’

  ‘But he’s not …’ I began, then stopped.

  ‘I’ll bring a bucket of water, in case he’s thirsty,’ said Elaine. ‘Then we should probably leave him in peace.’

  How much had he understood? I didn’t know. But as we stood to go the Centaur opened his eyes again. ‘Die?’ he asked.

  I knelt beside him again. ‘Yes,’ I said quietly. ‘Elaine thinks you’re going to die.’

  ‘Die,’ he agreed.

  I glanced at the mares. Had they understood too? They stood in the shadows, still and silent, watching us.

  ‘No go,’ said the Centaur quietly.

  I shook my head. ‘I don’t understand.’

  ‘Die. Human. Human. Stay.’

  ‘You want us to stay with you?’

  The Centaur closed his eyes. The almost human lips moved. ‘Not die alone,’ he said.

  The words were clear and precise. Their meaning was unmistakable.

  ‘We’ll stay,’ I said. I had no idea why he wanted us here. Perhaps, I thought, because we could talk, unlike his mares, none of whom had his language ability. Whatever the reason, we had no choice but to obey.

  The heavy breathing began again. I couldn’t tell whether he’d allowed himself to sleep or if that final effort had launched him into unconsciousness.

  I looked up at Elaine, shadowed in the moon and torchlight. ‘How long?’ I mouthed.

  ‘A few hours maybe.’

  I didn’t think he heard us. I sat cross-legged on the ground beside him and let my hand rest on the coarse fur of his back.

  Neil lowered himself beside me. ‘Might be a long night,’ he said.

  I nodded.

  ‘I’ll get the water,’ said Elaine. I heard the dikdik putter down the hill.

  chapter 18

  So we sat in the darkness, listening to the Centaur’s breathing growing harsher as the night went on.

  Elaine came back with the water, in case he woke and we could coax him to take some. She also brought our jackets, for which I was grateful as the night was growing cold, coffee in a Flashpak, egg and lettuce sandwiches and a blanket to sit on.

  So Neil and I sat on the blanket with our jackets around us, and Elaine sat there too. Finally I said, ‘You go. We’ll call you if there is anything you can do.’

  ‘Are you sure? I’ve got a rejuve case first thing tomorrow …’

  ‘We’ll be fine.’

  Elaine nodded gratefully. I listened to the dikdik retreating in the darkness.

  At some stage I must have slept, leaning on Neil, and perhaps he dozed too, for suddenly the noise of a kookaburra calling woke me.

  The sky was grey, not black. The mares still stood silently, but they were closer now, in a half-circle about their stallion, their heads hung low. None of them even looked at me as I woke, except the young male. Yes, I thought, he was definitely a male. He stared at me. It was impossible to read his expression. Challenge? We might be human but, he was now in charge? Gratitude? Resentment? Possibly all three.

  I touched the Centaur’s shoulder. He was dead.

  chapter 19

  ‘Should we bury him?’ I was really asking Neil, though for courtesy’s sake I looked at the other centaurs too. The young male snorted suddenly, and bit the neck of the mare next to him. She accepted it with a sligh
t yelp of pain.

  The young male glanced at me. ‘Go. Go,’ he said. It was a challenge.

  Neil stretched in the thin morning light, then picked up the basket that had held our sandwiches and coffee. The fresh air felt cool on our faces. ‘Come on.’

  ‘But we can’t just leave him,’ I said stupidly.

  ‘They’ll mourn in their own way,’ said Neil gently, Neil who had grown up with Animals, unlike me in my sterile City creche. ‘We’re just in their way now.’

  He began to walk up the ridge without looking back. I followed him reluctantly. ‘It seems wrong somehow, though. Not to have a ceremony of some sort.’

  ‘A memorial jazz concert? He liked jazz. Used to come to most of the concerts. None of the mares did. No, love, we did what we could.’

  ‘But just leaving the body there …’

  ‘It won’t be there for long.’

  ‘You mean they’ll bury it?’

  ‘I mean that crows will get to it, and goannas and flies and a hundred other things. It will be bones in a month or so and finally even those will go back to soil.’

  We walked in silence. Then I said, ‘It almost sounds like you want to become soil one day too.’

  ‘Bury me under an apple tree,’ said Neil lightly.

  You could see our house from here, its stone pale pink and blue and the hard bright gleam of quartz. Neil took my hand. We walked down to the creek, then up through the dappled tree trunks to the garden.

  It was good to be home, good to have a shower and wash off the scent of fur and dust and death. Good to eat buttered toast and boiled eggs in the quiet kitchen and sleep till the sun was high.

  Neil Linked a call to Elaine, to tell her what had happened. I pottered in the garden, weeding, tying up a straggly rose, then picked vegetables for dinner.

  Days never seem quite right when you’ve slept through part of them. We monitored the Nets again and found nothing more remarkable than a recipe for pickled crabapples and a story about a transvestite rooster that may or may not have been true.

  ‘I’ll cook,’ said Neil.

  I smiled. It was one of his more lovable characteristics, pretending that one night I might say, ‘No, I’ll do it,’ and actually come up with something edible apart from toast and jam, providing someone else had made the jam and the bread and cut off the bits I burnt.

  He made a stir-fry of chicken (the freezer was full of middle-aged chickens, from the utopia’s annual chook cull a month before) and the veg I’d picked, broccoli and burdock, some rather stringy celery and some of the plenitude of carrots I grew mostly for the Wombat.

  We ate in the kitchen, with music on Realtime instead of Link. I would have loved to Link our minds too — not to ponder anything or for any deep exchange, just for the merging of emotions. The taste of the dinner: too salty? No? Good. The feel of the early night breeze from the window. But overall a simple consciousness of each other. There is no way I can explain it. If you’re Forest then you’ve felt it; if you’re a Tree you never will.

  But until Neil felt comfortable with MindLink there was no point trying, especially after last night as our minds would have unconscious undertones of death that would be exaggerated when they met each other.

  Not that Neil would know that things like that happened. Not yet, and maybe never.

  The music changed to something heavy. I glanced at Neil. He understood music; to me it was mostly noise, though pleasant enough in the background.

  ‘Turn it off if you like,’ he said, when there was a noise at the door.

  ‘Elaine?’ I said.

  ‘Sounded more like a scratch than a knock,’ said Neil. ‘Probably the Wombat.’

  The Wombat seemed to have no sense of time. If he came while we were still up, most times he’d come inside, perch uncomfortably on the lowest chair and exchange a sentence or two, then amble outside to his carrots, his social duty done.

  ‘I’ll get it,’ I said. The Wombat had been my first friend here, when I had been too emotionally drained to accept friendship from any human. I mostly left the door ajar for the Wombat when we were home — his hands could never cope with door handles — but tonight I’d shut it. The night breeze was cool.

  I pulled the door open.

  It wasn’t the Wombat. It was the Centaur.

  I think I screamed. Not loudly, just a rush of breath. I don’t think Neil heard.

  ‘I … I’m sorry,’ I stammered. ‘I wasn’t expecting … you see I thought …’

  The Centaur didn’t speak. He didn’t look at me either. His eyes looked strange, brown, almost milky. His arms hung limply by his sides.

  Had he just been so deeply unconscious that we’d taken him for dead? But surely he’d been cold to touch, so very still.

  ‘Do … do you want to come inside?’ I asked. He had never been inside before. Had never knocked, or was it scratched, on the door either.

  He didn’t answer. It was almost as though he didn’t see me or hear me. But he was looking straight at me; his ears, too high on his sloping head for human ears, were pricked towards me. He lifted his hands, so for a fraction of a second I thought he was going to shake hands, or take mine in his.

  Then suddenly he moved. The hooves clattered forward on the hall floor, his hands grabbed my dress. The fabric tore.

  ‘Wha—?’ I tried to run, but he’d crashed against me now. I fell under his hooves, rolled to escape them, but his hands reached for me again. I caught the stink of his breath, the stale stench of sweat and hair. I tried to push his hands away. His flesh felt soft and tight all at the same time.

  I think I screamed again. At any rate Neil came running; I could hear his footsteps down the hall.

  Neil yelled something, I don’t know what. I scrambled between the Centaur’s legs. He wasn’t expecting that. He tried to turn, but the hallway was too narrow. He backed into the dining room doorway till he was facing me again, but I was out the front door now. I got to my feet and stumbled down the steps.

  ‘Danny!’

  ‘I’m all right …’ The floater … if I could get to the floater I’d be safe. Or even to the back door, we could shut him out, surely he wasn’t strong enough to break the door. This house had withstood the Wild Years, it could withstand a centaur’s hooves …

  I glanced back. The Centaur peered out the door, then stepped slowly down the steps, as though he found them difficult.

  I began to run, then caught a glimpse of Neil in the doorway. For a moment I thought he held an old-fashioned rifle, the sort you see in ancient vids. But it was just an umbrella, the only weapon that we had.

  I shouldn’t have looked back. The rosebush hooked the rag end of my dress. It took a second to tear free, and in that second the Centaur grabbed me again, not with his hands but with his teeth, those blunt wide teeth tearing at my arm. It could have been my neck, I thought vaguely, even as I screamed again. If it had been my neck I would be dead.

  He shook me like a cat shakes a rat, to soften it before it eats. I could see blood on the almost human face. My dress was wet with it.

  Suddenly he dropped me. I landed face down, then rolled. Above me Neil yelled and stabbed with the umbrella into the Centaur’s neck and then his eye. I saw the point descend. Neil drew it out, but again there was no blood.

  I was beyond screaming. I half crawled, half dragged myself away from the hooves till I was against the wall. I reached into my pocket for the amplifier, but for some reason my hand wouldn’t work. Why wouldn’t it work?

  It must be all the blood, I thought dazedly. I used my other hand, flashed Theo, said ‘Help’ weakly, vaguely, as though that was all I needed to say.

  Stab and stab and stab, aiming always at his hooves. The battle by the steps continued. The Centaur tried to rear, to raise the weapons of its hooves, but the bushes caught his legs and forced him down. Neil struck again. I’d never thought, I realised through the grey haze that surrounded me, that an umbrella could be such a weapon. The Centaur’s arms
were too short to reach around it, and when he tried to bite it Neil moved back.

  The Centaur turned. He reared. He lashed down with his hooves. But Neil was faster, he’d ducked behind the rosebush, he struck again, into the Centaur’s side, distracting him from me.

  I had to tell Neil to run back into the hall, and shut the door. I’d go round the back. Maybe if I ran Neil would follow, but my legs wouldn’t obey; the knees, I thought, why won’t they hold me up? The world was growing colder.

  And suddenly it was over.

  The Centaur stopped, oblivious to Neil’s blows. He made no sound. He just collapsed, his legs folding under him. The brown eyes were open. The bloodstained mouth as well. The blood was mine.

  But at least he was still. And this time I was very sure that he was dead.

  ‘Neil … are you all right?’

  ‘Yes. Can you walk?’

  ‘Of course I … no, Neil I …’

  ‘Lean on me.’ He helped me inside, then half-carried me into the living room and onto the sofa. ‘I’ll bind that up then call Elaine.’

  ‘What? … Why? … Oh, I see.’ I looked at the blood pulsing from my arm. Suddenly I felt faint. ‘Yes … yes do …’

  The world turned even greyer. I needed to tell Neil I’d already called Theo. But somehow it didn’t seem to really matter, and anyway the world was black instead of grey and I was cold, colder than I’d ever been …

  When my vision cleared a white pad was roughly strapped onto my arm, hiding the worst of the gore, and Neil was holding sweet tea up to my lips.

  ‘Drink,’ he ordered.

  I sipped.

  ‘Elaine?’

  ‘She’s on her way. Theo and others too.’

  I nodded. I shut my eyes again. I didn’t want to see the blood on my arm. I didn’t want to look outside and see the Centaur lying in my garden.