Halfway Human

by Carolyn Ives Gilman

  “Him and his damned ad hominem arguments,” Dag Sorno said.

  The bailiff had opened the doors, and the others were leaving the room. “I’ve got to go find some coffee,” Val said. “Do you want some?”

  “No, thank you,” Tedla said. It looked like someone whose last vestige of defense had been stripped away.

  When she arrived in the courthouse cafe, Val had to wait just outside the door to avoid meeting Surin in line. When the coast was clear, she bought a cup of coffee and made for an isolated table hedged in by brick partitions. She didn’t want to talk to anyone. She sat down and tried to empty her mind of everything.

  A voice beyond the wall to her left said, “You really can’t help but pity the poor thing.”

  It was Nasatir. He and his party were completely hidden behind the wall and a screen of plants on top of it. They obviously didn’t know that Val was near.

  “It did pretty well, actually,” a woman with a Gammadian accent said. They were speaking Capellan, so Val assumed they weren’t alone. “Are you sure it’s really a bland?”

  “I’ve seen its matriculation records. It’s a bland all right. Just a devilishly skillful one at manipulating humans. It can wrap kindhearted people around its little finger.”

  So much for the parrot mimicking human words, Val thought ironically. She wished the judges could hear this.

  “What are you going to do with it?” a woman said. Val wasn’t sure of the voice—one of their lawyers, perhaps.

  “That’s not up to us,” Nasatir said. “Our instructions were just to get it back.”

  A new voice spoke, and Val recognized this one instantly. It was Shankar. “If you don’t mind my asking, what’s so important about this bland? Why couldn’t you just let it sink into obscurity here? Apart from your humanitarian concerns, of course.”

  “Of course,” Nasatir said, giving a little laugh. “It has nothing to do with this bland per se. We just want to draw the line clearly before allowing any more Capellans onto our planet.”

  “Naturally,” Shankar said.

  “Actually, it does have a little to do with this bland,” the other delegate said.

  “Oh, yes,” Nasatir said. “The mythology thing.”

  “What do you mean?” Shankar asked.

  “It was the Capellans who taught us to pay attention to the beliefs and superstitions of our blands,” Nasatir said. “We learned that even silly stories can cause trouble. Well, Tedla’s become the subject of a whole mythology among the blands. You know, the neuter that outsmarted all the humans at their own game and got away. They cherish the belief that the aliens will come back some day and the rest of them will escape. Before any Capellans set foot on Gammadis, we need to demonstrate that no bland gets away. Not even Tedla.”

  Val stared at the surface of her coffee, watching it quiver slightly, knowing it was growing cold. She didn’t touch it. Her mouth already felt bitter.

  The woman delegate said, “The judges won’t be swayed by this “fundamental rights’ business, will they? I know it’s one of your favorite concepts.”

  There was a silence Val couldn’t interpret. Then Shankar said in a low voice, “I wouldn’t worry about it. The judges know what’s at stake here. We saw to that.”

  Val left the coffee sitting on her table untouched. As she crossed the cafe, she felt very distant from the noise of conversation around her. She felt very distant from the whole planet. It was like a stage set she had been walking through all her life, mistaking it for truth.

  When she came back in the courtroom, Tedla and Dag Sorno were still sitting there, waiting. Val put a hand on Tedla’s shoulder and said as quietly as she could, “Tedla, can I talk to you for a second outside?”

  She headed for the door farthest from the cafe. Leading the way across a lobby, Val stayed silent till they were in an empty corridor on the other side. Then she stopped.

  “What is it?” Tedla said.

  “I just learned the verdict.”

  “How?”

  “The judges have been fixed. This whole thing was a charade. Nothing we could have said would have made any difference.”

  Tedla didn’t look nearly as upset, or as surprised, as she felt. Her own disillusion was like bile in her throat. She had trusted the system.

  “Who did it?” Tedla said resignedly.

  “Epco. Possibly Magister Gossup, though I thought he was working for WAC. I don’t know who anyone is working for any more.”

  “So I’m going back?” Tedla asked.

  “No!” Val said fiercely. “Not if I can do anything about it. Damn it, Tedla, I’m not going to let them do this to you. I don’t care what it takes.”

  In a way, it was a relief to be rid of all the constraint, all the inner negotiation, of having to look out for herself. Now there was nothing driving her but the tigress instinct to protect, to fight, to flee. She put her arms around Tedla and hugged it close, as if to claim it for her own. She felt how thin it was, mere bones and muscle, completely yielding against her.

  “Come on,” she said, taking Tedla’s hand. “We’ve got to find a way station.”

  They made three leaps, more or less at random, before stopping in a tile-roofed Gundic market square, where the sun beat down overhead and the air was scented with basil. Val went to a public terminal and called Max.

  “Is there a verdict already?” he said as soon as he saw Val’s face.

  “There was a verdict before the hearing started,” she said grimly.

  “Why am I not surprised?” he said ironically.

  “Listen, Max, we’re going to drop out of sight for a while. Don’t try to find us.”

  He looked very alert. “Okay.”

  “And Max...I think you ought to implement your plan. Right away. Before they stop you.”

  He said, “E.G.’s got the material already. All I need to do is call him, and the story will go out.”

  “Do it,” she said, and cut the transmission. Too late, she remembered she hadn’t sent her love to Deedee. Tedla was standing nearby, eyes shifting apprehensively around the crowded enclave. “We’ve got to disappear now,” Val said.

  Tedla laid a hand on her arm. It had a determined look. “If you don’t mind, Val, I think I know where to go. You don’t have to come. I can find my own way around grayspace.”

  “You’re not on Gammadis,” Val said. “There isn’t any grayspace here to disappear into.”

  Tedla gave a bitter laugh. “Every planet has grayspace. You Capellans just never see it.”

  Startled not only by Tedla’s words but by its manner, Val stifled her take-charge urge. “All right,” she said, “show me.” When Tedla hesitated, she said, “I’m not leaving you now.”

  They took one more wayport leap; then Tedla insisted they switch to public ground transport—cheap and untraceable. It had been years since Val had been on a bus, and she found it even more unsavory and fume-filled than she remembered from her undergraduate days. She and Tedla made their way down the swaying aisle past rows of passengers, toward an empty seat.

  They passed the boundary into an enclave that made her own neighborhood seem middle-class. Outside the bus window, everything was the color of dust. Square housing units marched away from the street in monotonous rows. There was not a shred of greenery—just concrete, plasto-ceramic, and people, as far as the eye could see. It was a mass-produced landscape, constructed without a thought for anything but function.

  Val wanted to pull out her University scarf to distance herself from her surroundings, but knew it would draw attention. It was not danger she felt, so much as distaste.

  “You’re on the other side of the glass now,” Tedla whispered. When she looked puzzled, it went on, “Power relationships on Capella are all like one-way glass. The people on the power side look at it and see nothing but themselves, reflected. The people on the other side look through and see the whole world outside, beyond their reach.”

  “These people aren’t like
blands,” Val said.

  “Not anatomically,” Tedla said. “You have both male and female blands here.”

  “Not legally, either,” Val protested.

  “You think you need laws to create blands? Civilization itself creates them. It can’t run without them. They’re like the waste from manufacturing—impossible to eliminate, impossible to use well. When they build up, they become toxic to your society, just like they did to ours.”

  Tedla motioned for Val to get out. As the bus pulled away in a cloud of dust, she looked up into the dreary, uniform windows of a tall concrete housing unit across the street. Tedla was staring at it, too.

  “You’re stereotyping, Tedla,” Val said. “Just because these people are poor doesn’t mean—”

  Tedla gave her an odd, charged look. “I lived here,” it said, then turned to point to a window high above. “See there, sixth floor, on the corner? That was my window. Do you want to go in?”

  “No,” Val said.

  “I didn’t think you would. It’s just as well.”

  Val felt chastened. “There’s a lot about your life you haven’t told me.”

  “Yes,” Tedla said.

  Tedla led the way down a side street. As they passed farther into the enclave, the sidewalk became stained and littered, and the shops began to have barred fronts. Here, the dense life in the housing towers spilled out onto the street; old men lounged in front of shops, idle teenagers clustered on street corners. Tedla moved with a purposeful gait, fast but not fleeing, interacting with no one. At last they came to a sidewalk stand where it bought some bus tokens. When the bus wheezed up, it was even more decrepit than the one that had brought them, but far more crowded. Val and Tedla stood.

  Val was afraid she knew where they were bound, but she didn’t ask. They transferred two more times on street corners where Val felt acutely conspicuous in her courtroom dress. At last they came to the gate marking the edge of the Worwha Shana enclave.

  “I know someone here,” Tedla said, its face tense. “He knows how to make people disappear.”

  ***

  The flesh-vendor was an Eclectic, a person living permanently between cultures. His features were Balavati, but his forehead was covered with livid Skor tattoos, and diagonal Worwha scar-ridges ran down his left cheek. A ring of rhinestones belonging to no culture at all was embedded in the skin around his neck. Val disliked him instantly. In her experience, Eclectics adopted the superficial outer trappings of culture, and left all the meaning and morality behind.

  “Tedla, darling,” Shandurry said, reaching out to stroke the neuter’s cheek. Tedla stiffened at the touch. Shandurry gave a vulpine grin, revealing silver-tipped teeth.

  They were standing in a wormbore tunnel bar; the only light came from the ever-shifting hairline cracks in the wall as the room breathed. Shandurry’s establishment was a vast maze of light-veined tunnels whose only aboveground manifestation was a relatively innocuous druggery. A sinuous barmaid in glittering fishscales brushed past, casting a knowing glance at Tedla.

  “I need a room, Shandurry,” Tedla said.

  “What, are you freelancing now?” the Eclectic said, giving Val a look that left her feeling slimed.

  “One of the private ones,” Tedla said. “Someone may be looking for me.”

  “Tell me something I don’t know,” Shandurry said, crossing his arms. Val noticed that his nails had been replaced by bird claws. “The big man acted like there was a rocket up his ass when you disappeared. He sent some suits to fetch you. They damaged some valuable equipment. You knew they were going to do that, didn’t you?”

  “No,” Tedla said. It was a transparent lie, even to Val, who had no idea what they were talking about.

  “How long do you need the room?” Shandurry said.

  “Three days. Maybe more.”

  The flesh-vendor’s eyebrows rose. “It’ll cost you. Payment in advance.”

  Val’s heart sank. She had almost no cash, and a credit would be traceable. To her surprise, Tedla reached out and touched Shandurry’s arm. “Come on, you know I’m good for it.”

  The flesh-vendor’s color changed. “You little tart,” he said softly.

  Tedla didn’t back down. “Well?”

  “On one condition. No, not me. You’ve got to take the big man to heaven one more time.”

  Tedla hesitated, obviously repelled. At last it forced out the words, “All right. As long as no one finds me for three days.”

  “Satisfaction guaranteed,” Shandurry said, leering at Val.

  When he turned to lead them out of the bar, Val whispered to Tedla, “Was that deal what I think it was?”

  “I’m sorry if this embarrasses you,” Tedla said, its face stiff and unmoving. “You didn’t have to come.”

  They passed the entrance into a lounge where a dancer was undulating under blood-red lights. Ahead, Shandurry placed his palm on the wall, and the plates retracted, momentarily flooding the corridor with lime-colored light. When Val’s eyes adjusted, she saw the entrance to a wayport. “Take the rose room,” the proprietor said. Tedla nodded and motioned Val through.

  On the other side was a short corridor lined with doors. Tedla opened one of the doors with a thumbscan. Val stepped through into a chamber like the inside of an obscenely suggestive flower. The walls were soft velour; the bed erupted from the floor, the shape of a giant orchid. Val stood looking in perplexity at some of the devices with which the room was equipped, quite unable to imagine their use. “Do you know how to operate these?” she said.

  Tedla was locking the door. “It’s a very high-tech place,” it said noncommittally. “This may be offensive to you, but I know it’s safe. Shandurry’s got clients with reputations, and security is one of the things he charges for. The snoops are constantly poking around, but they’ve never found these rooms.”

  Val realized the purpose of the device she was looking at, and turned hastily away. “It’s perfect, except for the price,” she said.

  Tedla looked away. “Don’t worry about that. I just won’t do it. I’ve got three days to think how to get out of it”

  With luck, Val thought, in three days Tedla’s name and story would be well enough known that the big man wouldn’t want to claim his payment.

  “I’m going to take a shower,” Tedla said. “Make yourself at home. There’s a terminal over there, and you can order food and drink from the dispenser.”

  When she was alone, Val sat down at the terminal to see whether Max’s campaign had commenced. When she tapped one of the big newsnets, there was already a small headline about Gammadis. Not knowing how secure the terminal was, she didn’t dare access the story. But checking the other nets, she found two more stories. The info-snowball was just starting. Satisfied, she shut off the terminal and punched up a cup of coffee from the auto-server. She then kicked off her shoes and settled back on the outstretched tongue of the orchid.

  Tedla came out of the bathroom wearing only a towel, and opened an armoire where some clothes were hanging. With its back to her, it dropped the towel and took out a silk kimono. Val glimpsed long legs and a hard, adolescent body. She remembered vividly the sensation of holding it pressed against her. Surprised at herself, she suppressed the thought. It was the room. Or was it that simple?

  “Do you want something more comfortable to wear?” Tedla asked.

  “Later, maybe,” Val said.

  Tedla finished tying the kimono sash and turned around. There was something both elegant and vulnerable about that ambiguous body; Val was finding it hard to look away. Tedla smiled shyly at her and came to sit on the bed, legs folded under. Its skin was rosy and fragrant from the shower; its hair was slightly damp.

  “How long did you work here?” Val said.

  “Only a couple months.”

  “You seem to have made an impression.”

  Tedla shrugged.

  Val said, “Were you good at it?”

  Tedla’s eyes rose to her face, slightly surpris
ed, slightly knowing. “Yes,” it said. “I was very good. I could be anything the client wanted—male, female, adult, child, anything. I changed genders every night. No one could tell what I really was; they were all mystified and attracted, but Shandurry charged a fortune for them to find out. Humans find sexual ambiguity very stimulating.”

  It was watching her seriously, almost expectant. Very softly, Val said, “Tedla, are you trying to seduce me?”

  A look of uncertainty crossed Tedla’s face. It watched her intently, poised to jump whatever direction her body language hinted. She realized she could have anything, absolutely anything, from it. The feeling of power was itself seductive.

  “What makes you think sex would tie me any more closely to you?” Val said. “Do you think infatuation is your only safety?”

  A complex look crossed Tedla’s face: part frustration, part unease of being discovered. Val realized that she had hit home. “You’re perfectly aware of what you’re doing, aren’t you?” she said. “All your innocence is just a strategy. Nasatir was right about you. You are a master manipulator.”

  Tedla looked as if it had made a fatal miscalculation. “I’ve disgusted you,” it whispered.

  “No, you haven’t.”

  “Yes, I have. You didn’t think I was so depraved, so...” it drew a shaky breath “...sexualized. You think Nasatir’s right, that I’m just a piece of filth.” Suddenly, there was real panic in its eyes. “Val, please don’t leave me here. Even if you hate me now, even if you’re repelled, please don’t leave me.”

  The desperation was perfectly genuine. Even aware that she was being handled, Val could barely restrain herself from taking that childlike, unresisting body in her arms.

  Instead, she squeezed Tedla’s hand between both of hers. “I’m not going to leave you, Tedla. You don’t need sex to make me love you. It’s not the thing that governs all our thoughts, as you think. You’re so much more than your body.”

  “My body’s all I’ve got,” it said, speaking fast. “It’s all I’ve ever had, the only thing you humans want. You can’t imagine what it feels like to have no power, no power at all. I have no way to get anything but through humans. You are the ones who cause all things to happen. All the rest of us—plants, animals, whole planets—we are just objects you humans batter around like some cosmic sport, using us in your competition to get ahead. We have no choice about where you’re going to hit us, which direction our lives will ricochet—unless somehow we learn a way into your hearts. It’s not a game for us, it’s survival. It’s how we must evolve. You are our natural selection.”