This was an extraordinary speech from a Gammadian. Up to now I have met no one who would have admitted that anything at all could be going through the head of a bland.
The next morning Tedla was back, perfectly obedient again, and looking quite unintimidated by whatever discipline its master meted out.
I am extraordinarily keen to get Tedla to open up to me. It will be a touchy business, I can tell. Despite its behavior with Tellegen, the bland is shy and suspicious with strangers, as if apprehensive of maltreatment. I will have to seduce it as carefully as a nervous virgin.
When I got back to Tapis, I found a troubling message from the First Contact group. They warned me to stay away from Tellegen—he’s under some sort of cloud. Very confusing—I’ve seen no evidence whatsoever—here he is revered. So I went and asked Ovide point-blank. She scoffed, said my friends were talking to reactionaries, & I should pay no attention.
I don’t know what to do. The F.C.s’ word is supposed to be our law—but have they got the wrong end of the stick? I would hate to give up visits to Tellegen’s. I have learned more from him than any three others combined, and like him enormously. More to the point, there is Tedla. I can’t bear to be cut off from the only asexual who will even look at me, much less speak. This is really frustrating.
***
There was no further mention of Tedla or Tellegen for over twelve weeks. Then, a short note:
***
Made what I pledge will be my last visit to Menoken, to put a proposal to Tellegen that he lend me one of his blands for testing & research. I meant no harm by it, and thought he might be glad to further my studies. Am unable to fathom his hostile reaction. If any negative reports come of it, I can easily explain.
***
Val sat back, wondering what lay between the lines of that entry. She heard movement out in the dinery and called, “Tedla?”
The studium door cracked open, and Tedla looked in. “Come in,” Val said. When the neuter obeyed, she saw it had a rag over one shoulder and a scrubber in one hand. “What are you doing?” she said.
“Cleaning your cupboards,” Tedla said. “The last person who lived here didn’t do a very good job of it.”
Not the slightest bit pleased at the symbolism, Val said, “Well, stop it. You’re a guest, not a house servant.”
“I want to. Please, it’s the least I can do. I can’t stand not being useful.”
“If you want to be useful, sit down and answer some more questions. Did you ever wonder why Magister Galele stopped visiting the squire?”
Tedla looked blank. “Stopped? When?”
“After his first two visits.”
“He never stopped,” Tedla said. “He came like clockwork, every week. Sometimes twice.”
Val felt a smile grow slowly on her face as she understood. Tedla said, “What is it?”
“He ‘forgot’ to report it to his superiors,” she said. “They’d told him to stay away.”
“Really?” Tedla looked astonished. “How do you know?”
“He said so in his reports.”
Leaning forward in fascination, Tedla said, “You have his reports here? Can I see them?”
Immediately regretting her openness, Val said, “Actually, I’d prefer you didn’t, at least not yet. They might contaminate your memories. It’s very revealing when you disagree.”
Tedla sat down on the bed, obviously disappointed, but resigned.
Val said, “For example, he didn’t report his first visit to Menoken Lodge quite the way you did. He says there were over a dozen people there, and he didn’t stay the night.”
Tedla was silent for a moment, then said, “That’s impossible. I couldn’t forget something like that.”
After a moment of hesitation, Val said, “Oh hell, you’ve already told me your version in this case, so you might as well read what he has to say.”
She copied out the passage and rose to give Tedla the chair. The neuter settled down eagerly. On seeing the first sentence, it smiled. “He writes just like he talked. I can hear him saying this.”
Tedla became absorbed in the account then. After finishing, it leaned back in the chair, looking troubled. “I can’t explain this. I must be wrong.” It turned to look at Val. “I can’t be wrong! That memory’s the most vivid thing in the world, in my mind. I would have staked my life on it. Am I crazy?”
“Maybe Galele is wrong,” Val suggested. “He did have a reputation for sloppiness.”
All she knew for sure was that she needed to be skeptical of one of her sources. She just wished she knew which one.
Reading Galele’s report put Tedla in a reflective mood. Val said, “Do you want to tell me some more?”
Tedla fidgeted with the dishrag, twisting it between its hands.
“What’s the matter?” she said.
“I shouldn’t,” Tedla said. “I’ve been thinking about it. I shouldn’t have told you all that last night.”
“Why not?”
Tedla shifted as if the chair were upholstered with needles. “It could do such harm—terrible harm.”
“To you?”
“No, to Squire Tellegen. His memory. On Gammadis, he is respected, even revered. His whole life work was based on that. Even now, if people found out about us, all his reforms would become a ribald joke. His writings would have no moral authority any more. It would destroy everything he did.”
Watching the neuter’s face, Val came to a realization. “You still love him, don’t you?” she said softly.
Tedla looked away, lips pressed tight together. “That doesn’t mean for me what it does for you. For you humans, the sexual part is so powerful it drowns out everything else. You can’t imagine love could take over your whole being, even without it.”
“Tedla, why does it make you so guilty?” Val said.
“He was my guardian!” Tedla said angrily. “I was supposed to be protecting him. Even if it was from himself.”
For a moment Val was silent, counting the contradictions in that statement. At last she said, “No one on Gammadis is ever going to hear about it from me.”
Tedla gave her a worried glance. “I know. I trust you. It’s just that...this part is very personal.”
After a long silence, Val said, “I’d really like to hear it.”
Steeling itself, Tedla said, “I owe you so much. I don’t want to be ungrateful.”
She cleared the screen and hit the Record button.
***
I can only tell you this the way I remember it. Maybe my memories aren’t as good as I think they are. But if I start doubting myself now, I’ll lose track of everything.
Squire Tellegen had thought our secret was safe because there were no guests that night but Magister Galele. What he had forgotten was that there were nine blands in the house who all knew I hadn’t been in the roundroom, and who scarcely needed a map to know where I had been. But they were not the squire’s problem. They were mine.
When I entered the kitchen that morning, the blands were gathered in a knot, but their conversation broke off quickly when they saw me. Everyone went about their business, trying not to look at me. The breakfast preparations were way behind schedule; the blands must have been so caught up in gossip that nothing else got done.
“Where’s the coffee?” I asked, dismayed. “The squire’s asking for his cup, and you haven’t even started brewing it.”
“Oh, hold your hat on,” Dribs grumbled.
“You’d better get moving,” I said to Mimbo, who was getting out the fruit for breakfast. “They’ll be sitting down in a few minutes.”
“Oh, we’re taking orders from you now, are we?” it said.
“Well, where’s Pelch?” I asked, looking around.
“Sick,” Mimbo said, as if it were none of my business.
At that moment Pelch came in, looking not so much sick as ill-tempered. Our eyes met, and from clear across the room I could see that the tension between us was now full-fledged hostility.
On Pelch’s part, at any rate. I had nothing against Pelch; it was a hardworking bland and a good supervisor. But now its emotions were involved.
I turned to check on the coffee situation. Dribs was moving with agonizing slowness, so I snatched the cannister away and started making it myself, working fast. I held the silver urn under the drip spout till I had a cup’s worth. “Bring up the rest as soon as it’s ready,” I said to Britz.
I delivered the squire’s cup, then hurried down to the morning room to make ready for breakfast. I found the alien wandering around the vestibule studying things, so I steered him firmly into the breakfast room and told him the squire would be down shortly. He wanted to talk to me, but I quickly evaded him by ducking back into grayspace.
Neither fruit nor coffee had come up from the kitchen, so I was obliged to go down again. I found everything in a state of chaos; something had burned on the stove, and a cloud of smoke was hanging around the ceiling. Mimbo had backed into a serving-tray, and I glimpsed blands on their knees picking food off the floor and putting it back on the plates. I snatched up the coffee and left. The less I knew about all this, the better.
“Ah, at last,” Squire Tellegen said a little accusatorily when I came in with the coffee. There was a short silence as I poured, first for the guest, then for the squire. There was barely enough. Then the two men resumed their learned conversation.
“Legally, it’s fraught with undesirable consequences,” the squire said. “If they were defined as human, they would lose all the special protections we have designed. Without guardians, they would be subject to the depredations and exploitation of the evil side of humanity. Their special status is necessary for their own protection.”
“Do they ever run away?” the alien asked.
For a moment the squire was dumbfounded by such a strange question. “Where would they run to?” he said. “To live like animals in the woods? It seems unlikely.”
When I got back into the pantry, Britz was just showing up with a plate of half-burned, half-raw toast. “That’s not what I need!” I said. “Where’s the fruit? I need more coffee. Run down and get some, quick.”
“Sorry, Tedla,” Britz said. “It’s crazy down there.”
“I noticed.”
I thought of dumping the pathetic toast in the waste bin, but didn’t know when I might get something else to serve, so I took it in.
“Do they commit crimes?” the alien was saying. Every question he had was more outlandish than the last.
“Petty crimes, occasionally—thievery, sabotage, witchcraft.”
“Witchcraft?”
“Silly superstitions, yes. Major crime is rare. Occasionally there will be a renegade who goes berserk and has to be put down....What is this?” The squire picked up one of the pieces of stone-cold, charred toast.
“I’m sorry, sir,” I said. “Pelch is sick. The rest are doing the best they can.”
“That is no excuse.” His voice was uncharacteristically severe. He handed me the plate of toast. “Take this back. Tell them they all know their jobs, and should do them.”
“Yes, sir.”
Ordinarily, I would have shrugged off his tone; this morning it stung. As I carried the plate away, the visitor’s eyes followed me curiously. I suddenly wanted him gone. He watched too closely; he made us think in ways we would never dream of, otherwise.
Britz came in with the main dishes as I was dumping the toast. I inspected the plates carefully, picking out some hairs and bits of food that looked stepped on, then took them in.
“You will find it a sensitive topic,” the squire was saying. “All our fears center around them, as our guilt does. We fear them changing, becoming more like us—or us becoming more like them. We fear them outnumbering us, turning on us, ceasing to love us.”
He wasn’t looking at me, but there was a change in his voice on the last words that made me know they were addressed to me. I kept my stony composure till I escaped back into the pantry, then leaned back against the wall, my hands over my face. Britz came in with the fruit plates then.
“Tedla, what’s wrong?” Britz whispered.
“I don’t know what I’m supposed to do any more,” I said.
“What do you mean? Just carry the plates in.”
Britz was right. Just carry the plates in. That was all I had to do. It was no more complicated than that.
The alien left before noon, and all of us were glad to have him gone. Britz and I set to work stripping his room and washing the laundry in strong bleach. I was glad to be safe in grayspace, where I knew the rules, and everything was clear-cut.
But by evening, even that security deserted me. When I went up to dress him for dinner, and later for bed, Squire Tellegen was preoccupied and barely looked at me. I rushed through my duties in order to get away from his silence. I was glad to escape back to the roundroom. But when I lay down in my own familiar place, the other neuters, instead of settling down around me, drew away and left me lying there alone. They didn’t say anything; they didn’t need to. Everything I needed to know was in the way they recoiled, as if my body were a tainted thing. They no longer wanted to touch me.
I hadn’t expected the isolation. By day I kept up a civil facade, speaking only about work. By night, I retreated to the edge of the roundroom, as if it were my own choice, as if I didn’t want their companionship. But the loneliness began to weigh me down. Only Britz was still friendly to me; but the reason, as I occasionally glimpsed in its eyes, was pity.
Now, it seems strange to me that, except for Britz, they all blamed me, and not Squire Tellegen. I suppose it was because they had known him for years, and thought of him so kindly. I was the new element in the equation; therefore, I was responsible for this unsettling disruption. Then again, it’s in our nature as blands to despise each other.
For a week, Squire Tellegen spent a great deal of time in his devotional, praying and meditating. With me he was remote and silent; with the others, short and snappish. The whole house grew tense and unhappy. I was completely miserable.
At last one afternoon, when he was writing in the library, I came in to serve him a hot drink, and he looked up at me thoughtfully. “Tedla,” he said. I stood before him like a perfect automaton, my hands clasped behind me, my eyes cast down. In a puzzled voice he said, “Have you ever thought of running away?”
I knew what was going on then: The alien’s strange questions were making him doubt everything he knew. I said, “No, sir.”
“Well, perhaps not you. Do you think other blands might do it?”
“None I’ve known, sir.”
“Good. I thought not.”
I hesitated, wondering if that were the end of it. He was silent, and I was just about to turn and go when he said, “I haven’t seen you smile in days.”
I looked up at him. “I haven’t seen you smile, either,” I said.
It was a terribly impertinent answer, but it seemed to thaw him a little. “Do you watch me?” he asked.
“Of course I do,” I said.
“Do you think we can ever be friends again?”
I was so desperately lonely, all my caution fled the room at the slightest sign of kindness. “I hope so,” I said.
As he watched me, a sad smile grew on his face. “Don’t look at me like that, Tedla. I can’t stand it. Sit down and we’ll play a game of pijico.”
After that we slowly resumed our old routine of cards and conversation. But it wasn’t like before. There was a tension of restraint between us, like the spring on a mousetrap pulling back and back. If our hands came close, we both flinched away. From time to time I would catch him watching me, like Britz—but in his eyes it was both pity and maddening longing.
Soon we learned that Magister Galele was coming to visit again. This time, I was not worried about catching an alien disease. It was another sort of germ I was worried about: a virus of the mind.
He came alone. When I met him at the door to take his coat, he greeted me by name, as i
f we were old friends. I was polite and aloof.
I remember the second visit chiefly for what happened at dinner. They had both drunk more than was good for them, and were feeling quite jolly. I began to regret not having diluted their drinks more, because the squire was talking quite unwarily. I passed word down to the kitchen via Britz to hurry up the main course.
When I entered with their plates, Magister Galele was saying, “I would eagerly like to test one, but Ovide won’t hear it. I want to know if they’re bona fide of subhuman intelligence, and if so, why, eh? Are their senses less acute? Are their memories unable? Do they really have blunted affect?”
“The standard answer to all would be yes,” the squire said ironically.
“But what is the evidence?”
“Why, it’s common knowledge,” the squire said, then laughed. “There is no real evidence, Magister. I suspect, if we looked, we would find that there is a range of abilities in their population, as in ours.” I was replenishing the water in his glass when he said, “Tedla here is an interesting case. It’s pretending to be a model neuter right now, because you’re here. But when no one is looking, it’s quite bright.”
This made me feel very defensive. I was not pretending to be a model neuter—I was one. No bland could have been better. If he was dissatisfied, it wasn’t fair for him to say so to company.
He sensed something in my manner, and said, “Tedla?”
I set the water pitcher down on the sideboard and turned to face him, my eyes on the floor, as if waiting for an order. “Yes, sir?”
“What’s the matter?”
I sneaked a look at him. There was a fearful fondness in his eyes. I said, “I’m not pretending.”
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