by George Olney
Frenchy wasn't too sure about that. She watched Grae casually jerk his blade from the fallen bat's body and begin to clean it with a small cloth he produced from somewhere. The man never looked more muscular and intimidating than he did in that moment.
"If you say so," she muttered.
He walked back to meet them, still wiping his blade. They stopped in front of him and he surveyed both women silently. Frenchy wanted to look him in the eye with her old defiance, but she knew the whole attack was her fault. If she hadn't been sulking in the dark like a child, the bat things would never have tried to jump her. She had made herself an easy target then tried to fight one with zero for training. If Maev hadn't popped the one she was trying to fight, she would have been dead. Everyone knew it. She felt like sinking into a hole.
Grae's dry remark took her completely off balance. "What you're feeling is the letdown after a fight, you know."
"Huh?"
"You weren't totally at fault," he continued. "I shouldn't have let you go out alone. As capable as you are, I simply overlooked the fact that you weren't ready for the Barrens, yet. You will be shortly, though. We are going to work on you and your ax. I want you to be able to take the next one you try on.
"Now let's get back to camp and get a drink. I'm dry as dust." He turned and walked back to the fire, leaving Frenchy staring after him in openmouthed surprise.
The rest of the evening was far quieter. Grae set up a barrier field around the camp to discourage further nocturnal visitors and rolled up in his sleeping bag across the fire from the two women. He was asleep in moments. As she settled into her sleeping bag and tried to relax, Frenchy decided things were just as confusing as ever, but seemed to be looking up. At least everybody was sleeping alone.
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The next morning, Grae made an announcement over breakfast. "We will not travel today. You" he said, gesturing vaguely at Frenchy with his fork, "are going to spend the day learning your weapon."
She looked at him in surprise. "You want me to be able to fight bats?"
"No." He shook his head. "You will be a long way from that. In fact, one day's training will be just enough to let you cut yourself. What I want is to create a basis for you to learn. After today, you will practice every day. One day you will be as good as you should be, then you will be able to defend yourself.
"As long as you carry that thing," he continued in his normally dry, sardonic tones, "people will expect you to know how to use it. I intend to keep you out of trouble if someone ever decides to find out how good you are.
"Now, finish eating. We are going to work."
He was as good as his word. By late afternoon, she was sore all over, had several fresh small cuts, and a new respect for Grae's ability with mean-looking cutting weapons. She also had something else to think about. Several times during the training sessions, she had flashing daydreams. They were almost too quick to notice, but they added up to a general impression.
She kept getting pictures of a young man, eager and unschooled, wrestling awkwardly with the strange heft of unfamiliar weapons. There was an overlay of paternal fondness, with something else mixed into the background. There was joy and sadness in the fondness. Was Locar right? Was she getting something out of Grae's mind? Was he really soft on her? Why was he sad? What in hell was going on, now? Great, that was all she needed! Along with everything else, she was starting to read minds now!
She was silent and a little apart as the other two sat and laughed around the campfire. She tried to study him unobtrusively as he talked to Maev. She tried, but got no other impressions. Mind reading didn't seem to work if she was conscious of it. Maybe he just wasn't thinking about anything she could receive. Judging from what she already had, her campaign was working. To Grae, she was now somebody special, special enough to awaken old memories of when he went through the training process.
It was kind of cute in a way. Also scary. He was falling for her.
Oh, hell! All she wanted was him gone. Wasn't it?
Finally, she tucked herself into her bedroll and went to sleep. The other two were still talking as she drifted off.
At some time during the night, she began to dream. Again, there were confused snatches of a life that wasn't hers. There were pictures of an awkward boy, terrified of being embarrassed by doing the wrong thing. That fear led to a very real, mind numbing, paralyzing fear felt in the middle of a dark picture of flashes, strange bodies, explosions and things happening around her she couldn't fully picture. The fear stayed, manifesting itself whenever the dream was about battle, but it changed rapidly to aggressive tension every time. She experienced the full gamut of emotions from terror, through cold, deadly anger experienced as she lay frozen in the bushes and watched an enemy who had killed her friend, to the subtle joy of brotherhood with the small group that accepted her as an integral part. There was tension as she was ready to step out of a hatch over enemy territory and the exhilaration of willingly doing it. She felt the subtle and addictive joy of living through the fear and confusion of combat.
She was not alone.
There were many faces, each of which she knew she'd always remember. At first they were male faces, later there were women. There was one woman, beautiful and dark haired, that was indistinct. There was love and sorrow and horror that clung to that woman's image like a haze that blotted away the details. Later, there was another woman, magnificently beautiful with shining gold hair. That woman's image was equally indistinct, surrounded as it was by love and deep regret.
Frenchy's sleep that night wasn't restful.
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The next morning, she extracted herself from her bedroll into the cool of early day with the greatest of effort. During breakfast, she found she couldn't meet Grae's eyes, or even look at him without forcing herself. She had done it again, only this time she felt like some kind of spy, stealing his memories. Guilt overlay every thought she had.
She was pensively hugging her knees and staring into the fire when a strong, gentle hand lifted her chin. She looked directly into Grae's eye as he looked at her with compassion. "You took nothing. It was given," he said softly. "You have a newly developing ability and I'm helping strengthen it. There are only a few things I can truly do for you and that's one of them. I think perhaps it's time you knew me as well as I know you."
"Don't go thinking you know all about me, pal," she shot back with her old spirit.
He smiled at that. "I know you better than you know yourself, sometimes. But I promise not to ever admit it again."
She watched him walk off and fumed. That man!
During the morning's ride, she mused about the beautiful blonde in his dreams. Was that how he saw her? Hell, he as much as said so! That wasn't her. She was a permanent blonde, now, but nowhere near that beautiful. She tended to think of herself as a high mileage model and had a woman's tendency to emphasize her physical faults. That took no imagination. Was that the way men saw women they loved? Did he love her?
She smiled and unconsciously tossed her hair back behind her shoulders in a graceful gesture. That bum was sweet on her! Her plan was working. She was developing a strong hold on him. Strong enough for her to gain her freedom.
She frowned slightly as she wondered about her feelings for him. He was the first guy that ever treated her as more than a sex object, and that was worth a lot. If he just wasn't her damned owner! But the Tribes didn't see it the same way she did. She knew that much. So what did all this mean to him? What were his plans for the future? There were hints all over of a permanent separation coming sometimes. Wasn't that what she wanted? For some reason, the thought made her agitated and worried.
She looked for him for a second, just making sure he was still there, and felt easier when she saw him. She was trying to make sense of her reactions when Maev's voice broke into her thoughts. Unnoticed, the girl had gradually come even with her. They were now riding side by side. "Hey, wake up!" Maev said. "You look like you're a million miles away."<
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Frenchy shook her head as though to clear it. "I guess I was. I seem to have a lot to think about right now."
Maev chuckled. "Let it go. Whatever comes will come. Just be ready to come out on top when it happens."
Frenchy laughed. "I can't decide if that sounds Yuppie or Tribal."
"What's Yuppie?" That started a conversation where every answer Frenchy made prompted another question. The conversation drifted to Frenchy's background. "What did you do before Grae took you?"
"I was a professional dancer," she explained, wondering how she was going to explain striptease in a culture where nudity was considered normal, unremarkable, and healthy.
"That sounds artistic," Maev mused. "I enjoy it, but I never did it for a living, so I guess I envy you."
After a brief mental flash picturing the last joint she'd worked in, Frenchy commented, "I'm not sure you could call it that, but I did some big shows when I was younger."
"Like what?"
"Oh, I was a chorus line dancer for a while, even did a few bit parts in movies, some modeling, all on the up and up." Meaning she more or less kept her clothes on. She decided to carefully avoid mentioning the movies and modeling where she was dressed pretty much as she was now, in shoes and a smile. Those made money, but needed to be left in the past.
"You must have enjoyed it."
"You know," Frenchy found herself surprised at her own answer, "I did. I loved dancing, but I didn't do much of it later on, not the real kind. One of these days I'd like to get back to it.
"Do you folks use professional dancers?"
Maev laughed. "Dancing is a Tribal obsession. We all love it, but nobody does it for a living. Galactics use professional dancers in their entertainment, but I'm not really interested in working in Galactic culture."
Frenchy was slightly shocked, more so when she found herself tending to agree with her. Gamely, she tried the role of devil's advocate. "But you'd be free! Right now, you're riding around naked and wearing a pendant that says you belong to Grae."
Maev gave her a penetrating look. "That means less than you apparently think, because he's Tribal. It's a condition of life we both share and imposes rules we have to live with, but we're alive! Out there," she said, waving her hand at the heavens, "they're all wrapped up in safe little cocoons! They aren't living life, we are!"
She smiled and touched her name pendant. "I wouldn't trade this for a mansion if it meant I had to be a Galactic. I’m enjoying myself too much."
"Not me. I want my freedom. I'll agree with you on one thing, though. I'm beginning to see what you mean by living life. Maybe if I was raised like you, I'd see it your way. I just want to be my own person."
Maev gave her another long look. "You need to think about it. You already are." The discussion continued along for some time in a lively vein.
Suddenly, Maev pointed to the top of a nearby boulder. "Look, see there? That's an athal. An abasscus from the size and markings."
Frenchy looked and saw a small animal that looked like one of the velociraptors in Jurassic Park, except it had some kind of big folds of skin running along its back. "That looks like what we call a dinosaur on Earth. Scientists tell us they evolved into birds."
"Well," Maev said, "we have birds, but athals are a family of animals all their own. They change shape and personality at night. Right now, it's so docile you could just go up there and pick it up. It'll attack anything half again its own size at night. It's a shape shifter. It has hollow bones and a lot more cartilage than you and me, and that cartilage changes shape and hardens after the sun goes down. Ears change, face and body shape shifts, those are wings along its back and they change enough so that it can fly."
"Wow, weird," Frenchy said with a more intense look at the slow moving athal. "What makes it change?"
"Them," Maev corrected. "The leeth'al are the largest and most highly developed members of that family. We figure sunlight suppresses hormones that cause the change. Athal bigger than that guy are rare, but kill one of those if you find it. They'll attack you at night otherwise."
"Har-r-r-o-o-o-o!" The cry made Frenchy look ahead, searching for Grae. He was some distance in front of them, atop a slight rise, sitting on his mount and waving slowly at something on the other side of the little hill. As she watched, he called again, "Har-r-r-o-o-o-o!"
Maev followed her look and commented, "There must be a leeth'al village ahead. He's signaling for polite entry."
"Polite entry! Those bats tried to kill us a few nights ago!"
"Oh, relax," Maev tossed over her shoulder as she nudged her gort forward. "They're in their daytime form. They're harmless and friendly."
Frenchy stared at her for a moment, mouth slightly agape then urged her own gort to speed up and follow the girl.
The leeth'al village was everything an alien village was supposed to be in her science fiction adventure dreams. The huts, while still basic housing structures, were indefinably different from anything she'd ever seen in a book or on TV. They were just, Frenchy finally decided, alien!
The daytime form of the leeth'al was as friendly and inoffensive as their nighttime form was frightening. The leeth'al in daylight were lighter colored, with softer contoured faces and smaller ears. The limbs seemed somehow shorter and fuller but it was hard to tell, because they wrapped their wings around themselves like soft cloaks. She got the feeling she was in some kind of oriental religious retreat. In fact, the behavior of the leeth'al reminded her of the Buddhist monasteries that were popular in travelogues.
As the villagers clustered around the three travelers, Frenchy heard the soft chirruping sound that was their speech. Briefly, she wondered how they spoke with the human inhabitants of Lycanth. One of them solved the minor mystery by thrusting an arm from its folded wings and making gestures to which Grae replied in kind. Frenchy decided the sign language made the whole thing perfect. She watched happily as the craggy, leather clad man traded signs with the exotic alien. It was a scene straight out of a fantasy story and she loved it. Now this was adventure!
She heard a soft chittering by her leg and felt a light touch on her knee. Everything was so pastoral that she didn't even start at the unexpected touch. Looking down from her saddle, she found one of the aliens looking up at her. The alien canted its head, chittered again, finally trying sign language. Frenchy shook her head and tried to indicate she didn't understand the language. In reply, the alien appeared puzzled for a moment then reached into the folds of its wings, the hand emerging with a small bundle of flowers. It handed them up to her, but she didn't take them, unsure of the protocol.
Off to one side, Grae called to her, "Take them and hold your hand out, palm down. That is thank you. Her name is Desert Bloom and she thinks your hair is beautiful. She's trying to show appreciation."
Frenchy did as she was told and was rewarded with a rapid nodding of the alien's head. "That's her smile," Grae explained. "You have a friend."
The three dismounted and visited with the village for a while, sharing a meal. The strange foods presented them bothered Frenchy for a few seconds, but she joined in tentatively when she saw the other two eating with a will. The flavors, she decided, were odd but good. Throughout the visit, Desert Bloom remained at her side occasionally making friendly gestures, still fascinated by Frenchy's hair.
As they rode off after signing good-by, Frenchy rode even with Grae. She wanted an explanation. "I thought they were killers."
"Only at night," he replied. "It took us a while to understand, but the answer is simple. They transform into their hunting form at dark. When the transformation takes place, they become entirely different beings with entirely different personalities. We found out they don't even have any memory of what they do in the other form. During the day, they are pastoral and gentle. In fact, the people of that village are old friends of mine. At night, though, kill one if you are confronted or it will kill you. There's no feelings involved, just simple practicality."
Pausing a sec
ond, he asked, "Did you notice they didn't eat? Even when they fed us?"
She thought for a moment, and realized he was right. The aliens' actions were so natural, the failure to eat just passed right by her. "No, I didn't," she said, thoughtfully. "Why is that?"
"They only eat in their nighttime form. The meal was a courtesy to us as visitors, learned over years of contact. Our relations with their day form have never been less than friendly."
Then a thought struck her, so weird she just had to say it. "Grae, if that was their daytime form, and it was so much quieter than their nighttime form, and their two shapes means they are active twenty four hours a day, and... and... and... I'm lost," she concluded helplessly.
He was looking at her intently. "No you're not, Frenchy. Come on, say what you came up with."
She gushed it out, amazed at herself for the crazy idea. "They were sleepwalking in that village! The daytime form is their sleeping form. They drifted around like they were in a dream because they were! They are awake at night and sleep during the day, only they weren't sleeping, just doing something else! And..." She found herself tongue-tied again.
He nodded seriously, undisguised admiration in his eyes. "You know, you've just come up with something it took decades of scientific study to discover. Yes, their daytime form performs for them the functions that sleep performs for us. It's the same for all athal. They hunt, feed, build, breed, and any other activity in their nocturnal hunting form. They are pastoral during the day. The leeth'al are more active than other athal because they are more highly evolved."
Grae smiled at her. "I've said it before. You have a great deal of intelligence to go with your beauty."
She flushed and decided to change the subject to cover her embarrassment. "Why did Desert Bloom become so fascinated with my hair?"
Grae's smile changed slightly, and a strange expression flitted across his face. "Golden hair like yours is rare in this part of Lycanth. In fact, I know of only one other woman in this area that has it."