by T M Roy
She sighed. “Just feeling old. It has been a long while since I was a student rushing off to classes. The study never ends, though.”
“No, it doesn’t. That’s the beauty of science. Discovery.” A passionate note came to his voice. “Seems like the more we learn, the more we find out we don’t know. For every answer there’s a thousand more questions. I think it’s an effort worthy of dedicating a lifetime to. I think we leave a legacy of discovery that will never grow old, or out of style. It just changes in methodology or equipment.”
Povre stopped. “That’s beautiful, Kent.”
He blushed and shrugged. “I’m starting to sound like some of my early professors. Guess with age comes a need to philosophize.”
Povre grinned, following him through a door. His office. Cluttered with books, papers, plants.
“You know, I never asked how old you are.”
His statement made her blink in surprise. “Does it matter?”
“No. I’ve already figured you were of age enough that I wouldn’t be arrested for alien child molesting. I’m just curious.”
“As any scientist should be.” Povre estimated her chronological age into years—what Kent’s people called the period of this planet’s orbital revolution around the primary star. She didn’t count the time spent traveling, since her body didn’t age at normal rates in the grip of hypersleep. The metabolic processes were so reduced one had to be in the cryogenic stasis for a decade to age even a day. Her sleep on this journey, the longest in her life so far, had been just over five of his planet’s years.
Time and distance was the reason families traveled together or not at all, especially with infants or very young children. It was also why close friends tried to get on the same teams, and why most Explorers were single and unattached with few relations living at home.
“Thirty-two years,” she said finally.
“Thirty-two?”
“Mature for a Sirgel,” she countered in defense.
“You don’t look a day over eighteen.”
She frowned at that, not understanding. Some races considered thirty-two barely getting started in life, for her, it was the middle. Was he implying she was immature? The sparkle in his eyes and his light, teasing tone indicated that perhaps that sort of statement was meant as a compliment on this planet.
“Humph,” she said, reluctant to commit herself on the tone of her response. “Still, I have been considered mature since my sixteenth year, and in the field of xeno-botany, have had a title equivalent to your own since I was twenty-five. At twenty seven I got my second rating in xeno-zoology, and now I study toward a third.”
Kent stared. “A double Ph.D. at your age?” He whistled. “I just got the first one four years ago.”
“You are not old, Kent. You’re very young.”
“I’m thirty-nine, Povre. I don’t know how Sirgels age, but for a human, I’m just about at the halfway point.”
Now Povre nodded. “I keep comparing you to the Folonar. They live into the second century, barring accident.”
He pointed to a chair. “Have a seat. I just need to check my mail and stuff, get some things in order.”
“Kent, you have a life here, in this region, at this university. You love what you do. You have a future…”
He leaned across his desk. “Povre, what are you getting at?”
“I’m not part of your future,” she said softly. “Being one trained to observe, and adding already what my people know of yours and the policies toward aliens, I can make reasonable assumptions my presence can ruin you. Perhaps it is doing so already.”
“I’m willing to take that chance.”
“I’m afraid what I feel for you—and what you feel for me—will ruin the rest of your life.”
~~
Kent dropped into his chair and put his head in his hands. It was too easy to forget that people were looking for her…for them. Too easy, now that he was back on home turf and, so far, so good.
“What if your people don’t find you? And the government agencies don’t either?”
“I don’t know,” she said softly.
“You’ll be stuck here, permanently. It only makes sense to think ahead about what you’d want to do.”
“For a while,” she said, and looked away.
“What do you mean?” Fear grabbed his guts.
“Certain locations on your planet are amenable to my species, to an extent. Prolonged existence without proper supplements and special protection isn’t possible, Kent. Our physiological needs and chemistry rely on different source elements. Different qualities of light, for example. Gravity. Your lighter gravity will eventually cause many metabolic problems.”
“There has to be ways around that,” he argued, not wanting to believe that Povre couldn’t exist on Earth as long as he could. His fists clenched, crushing several computer printouts.
“Perhaps,” she said. “But already I feel the effects. Our landing parties linger in any one area on your planet for short intervals only, just one of your moon cycles at most, and then they return to the ship for a while before going to the next location. And the equipment we carry provides a balance for certain conditions we require. I have none of those.”
“We’re scientists. We’ll find a way. It might not be easy. But between the both of us, and my contacts in the scientific community, we should be able to find solutions.”
“Kent, though we have not spoken of them calmly, we both know the agencies are closing in.”
Kent didn’t want to believe there wasn’t a way, some way. “I won’t turn you over to the agencies. People get lost in the wild areas around here all the time—man, I know of a couple people who’ve been squatting on BLM land for five years without any agencies finding them. We have to give your people some time. You said it takes time, and you said you need to stay in one area for a while so they could locate you.
“And there’s Kelly—my sister. She’ll help us. She’s a detective, so she can tell us what to do and not to do in order to stay hidden. I’ll call her. She’d help us. We can hole up somewhere and wait. Your father will not leave without you, he won’t, I know it.” He leaned across the desk again and seized her hands, making her drop the pencil she had picked up to examine. “Povre, we’ll wait it out. Together. I’m not leaving you to face any uncertain future alone. I—”
“Are human,” she finished for him. “And not omnipotent. No one is.”
“I am not going to let anything happen to you.” He surprised himself with his fierceness. “You want omnipotent, you wait and see just how omnipotent I can be.”
Her head lowered, hiding her expressive face and eyes from his view. It hurt to see she didn’t have much confidence…or hope.
Before he could comment on it, someone knocked sharply on his door. Kent was only inches out of his chair when it opened. A short, slender man slipped in, closed the door behind him, and leaned on it.
“Yes?” snapped Kent, willing Povre not to turn around. “I’m busy here.”
The newcomer was dressed casually, like so many of the students, faculty, and staff, in jeans, scuffed hiking boots, a T-shirt advertising a local microbrewery. A boyish face was saved from outright childishness by a sparse, silky beard and moustache.
Kent had seen him before and hunted his memory for the name. One of this year’s crop of graduate students…field, what was it? Oh, yes. Molecular biology, if he remembered correctly. Doing incredible work, much more technical, groundbreaking and likely to get good funding than anything Kent could ever hope for.
“Dr. Xavier,” said the young man. His bright brown eyes sparkled behind the lenses of wire-rimmed glasses.
“Uh…Goldberg, isn’t it? Ben?”
“Yes, that’s right. And am I glad I caught you in. Saves a lot of trouble searching.”
Ben Goldberg crossed the room and draped his butt comfortably on a corner of the desk so that he could see both Povre and Kent. He smiled at them both as if he paid th
em social visits every day at this time.
“Look, Goldberg, I said I was busy. What’s this about?”
“If it wasn’t for the vibe,” commented Goldberg, looking Povre up and down, “from a distance I’d think I made a big mistake.”
“I think maybe you did,” said Kent.
Goldberg ignored him to lean a little closer to Povre, speaking to her as if he didn’t exist. Shocked, he realized it had to be Povre’s language Goldberg used.
“Folonar?” he heard her gasp. Then to Kent’s surprise, she flung herself at the newcomer, grabbed his hands, kissed them, kissed Goldberg—on the forehead, then on his lips.
“Now then,” said Goldberg, holding her back. He was flushed.
Though his first reaction was one of jealousy, Kent had to sympathize. He knew the effect of Povre’s kisses. Even the simple ones.
“Jasr’re ene,” said Povre, with that lovely downward sweep of her long, long lashes and a bow of her head.
Ben Goldberg nodded. “Ine’asre. You’re welcome, Dr. Povresle,” he said. “Afraid that about exhausts my command of your language. I learned just enough to convince you who I am. And we Folonar on this planet aren’t that familiar with Sirgel customs of greeting and introduction…but I like them.” He chuckled again. “Not sure my better half would enjoy finding out, however.”
Better half. So he was married or otherwise spoken for. Kent immediately felt better.
“Just so you both know, now that I’ve made contact, your people can come within eighteen hours to pick you up. All we have to do is keep the ETIS, homeland security, and military people out of it, and we’ll have no problem. And we’ve got all three of them on Povre’s trail right now.”
“All we have to do? That’s like saying all we have to do is split the Red Sea, let the Israelites walk through on dry ground, and then close the waters on Pharaoh’s Army.” Kent let out a disgusted snort. “All we have to…Wait a minute! You’re not…you’re not human?” Oh sure, Povre had told him about the Folonar. But Kent hadn’t expected to meet one. Especially not so soon. And certainly not in the form of someone he’d seen around the campus for years.
Goldberg smiled. “What defines human, Dr. Xavier? Funny you should mention Israelites. I’m Ben Goldberg, born in New York City, a US citizen, a Jew with a heritage as long as there were Jews.” His brilliant brown eyes glinted from behind his round lenses. “My grandparents and some others from my family who survived both the war and the Holocaust emigrated to America from Austria after World War Two, and everything about me is provable and documented. Except, of course, for the fact I’m not one of the species of human being native to this world. Naturalized, you might say.” He paused.
“About the Moses comment.” Kent winced. “He wasn’t—?”
“One of ours?” Ben chuckled. “I’ll leave you to wonder about it. Now, I’m going to have a look at you, Dr. Xavier. I’m not going to be sneaky about it like we normally have to be, so you might feel a little something.”
Before Kent could ask the younger man to elaborate he felt it. A sensation he couldn’t put a name on tickled through his mind and his fingertips went to his temples in response. Goldberg was in his head, and the undergrad’s mind touch was as different from Povre’s as rubies were from apples. For one thing, Goldberg didn’t have to touch him. And Kent somehow knew the other man could do a lot more than feel emotions and download speech patterns. Just as he became uneasy the contact ended.
“Didn’t mean to get you nervous, Dr. Xavier. But yes, I can do much more than Povre. And, no, I’ve never used my talent to cheat on exams.”
Kent smoothed his fingertips over his forehead and eyed Goldberg. “Now that we’ve been intimate,” he said dryly, “don’t you think you can drop the Dr. Xavier stuff and call me Kent?”
“If you call me Ben, it’s a deal. So Povre told you a little about the Folonar already. That’s okay. You’re a safe bet. You were lucky, Povre.”
“Kent is a very special person.” Her voice, husky already, had a raw edge. “I would not have revealed as much as I did otherwise.”
“I’m…what are you talking about?” demanded Kent.
“One in several million we can trust without, now how should I put this? Without adjusting,” Ben said.
“Using your psi talent to make people forget?”
Ben nodded. “For the most part. Sometimes it gets much more involved. And making people forget, completely, and remember something else entirely is not as easy to do as it is to say. We’ve been here for thousands of years with no human the wiser unless taken into our confidence. One or two in every generation might need to know.” He made a “tsk” sound, shaking his head. “This century has beat all of them for the number of your people aware of our existence.”
He forestalled Kent’s question before it surfaced by raising a hand. “Don’t ask, Kent. You can imagine the witch-hunts that’ll happen if word got out. In the next generation, perhaps the one after, things may be different. But not now. I will assure you, just like Povre said, that we’ve lived our lives as human lives with the same risks, responsibilities, and commitment to whatever culture or society we’ve integrated with. As observers and recorders of history only. Most of us, myself included, aren’t any more technically advanced than anyone else on this planet.”
Ben shrugged. “This is our home as much as it is yours now. Like you, I was born here, raised here, my loyalties are to this planet and country if it comes down to that. Not that the Affiliated Races would ever ask me to make that choice. And, rarely do we use our talents to interfere with anything beyond the scope of human means.” He sighed. “This is one of those times.”
Kent nodded. “Just one more thing. You’re not, like, two hundred years old, are you?”
Ben awarded him a strange look, which slowly transformed into a tolerant grin. “Oh. No. Let’s just say that in Folonar years, I’m still younger than you. All right?” He took a deep breath, pushed his glasses further up on his nose, and then crossed his arms. “Now, to the matter at hand. I think it’s best Povre stay here in this building. I have passkeys to the experimental greenhouses, that’s the only way anyone can get in. You, Kent, are going to go with me over to Streisinger Hall for a while. Then we’re going to cruise around campus here and there. Some others will watch and see if we pick up any tails, so we can figure out how many and just who might be watching. Later, we’ll come back, and I’ll take you two to Skinner’s Butte. That’s where the ship will land.”
Kent looked at Ben like he was crazy. “Skinner’s Butte is a public park! And practically in the middle of town!”
The overlook atop the butte, named for Eugene Skinner, founder of the city of Eugene, was a popular hangout and by day offered a lovely view of the city, the Willamette Valley, and the High Cascades to the east.
“It’s going to be pouring rain. Don’t worry. Things are arranged.”
Kent slid his arm around Povre, who looked as if Ben had told her she would be meeting a funeral procession instead of a rescue party. “You should be happy. You’re going home.” He smiled, hoping it didn’t look as lame as it felt.
POVRE TOUCHED THE PLANTS WITH reverence and wished she had the nerve to ask for some cuttings to take back with her.
“They’ve given me far too much already.” She sighed, letting the end of a short fingernail whisper along the edge of a fleshy leaf. “But I’m so sure you would adapt to our habitat’s environment. And you require such little light, the difference in quality wouldn’t affect you that much. If it did, it might be possible to engineer a strain that could survive.”
A good part of the collection of unusual flora required no soil, and this tiny greenhouse section they thrived in was cool, shaded, with just the right touch of humidity. It didn’t have the intense energy of the Willamette forest; none of these plants had much to tell her, but she felt peaceful, at home. The habitats and Sirgel space stations were kept at temperature and humidity levels very close to this.
The air was rich with green smells, and higher in oxygen than outside.
Best of all, no one could get in without a key.
She sighed, and as she leaned across one of the plant benches a potted fern tickled her face. She let her awareness settle with the plant, trying to learn its secrets, wishing Kent would hurry and return. They had so little time left together.
“Maybe it’s better he doesn’t come back. Maybe it’s better we don’t say good-bye,” Povre whispered to the fern. Her breath caused the feathery branches to flutter. “His life can get back to normal. He’ll find someone, and make a wonderful life-mate and father, and be happy with his teaching and research, and making her happy.”
He had such potential. She thought back to when she accused him of being passionless, his emotions driven by mindless biological processes. How wrong she had been. He had such passion it took Povre’s breath away. His love of science, of learning, his capacity to care, to love, to protect. His convictions. His tenacity.
“Goddess, I love him,” Povre told the plant. Closing her eyes, she turned the other side of her face to the feathery caress of the fern.
She wanted to go home, yes, but she wanted Kent even more. The problem had no accommodating solution. She couldn’t stay here and survive. She couldn’t take him with her. Not only was that utterly forbidden, but it was possible Kent might not survive. No human had ever traveled in Sirgel environments. Even though the Folonar could and did thrive without adjustment in ideal Sirgel environments, Kent wasn’t Folonar, no matter how much he looked like them. And how could she take the risk with his life to find out just how hardy the human race really was?
She didn’t want to hurt him. Just to argue the point, what if she could stay here, thrive here, on his planet? What could she offer him? A life of running, hiding, living in fear, all for a few hours of closeness? No matter how he might feel about her now, he would slowly come to resent her for the type of lifestyle they’d be forced to live. Over time, he would learn to despise her, and then what? From what she knew, the humans often left their mates to seek out others. And where would that leave her?