Bebe (33 page)

Over his dead body, but Tral didn’t say that. She was incredibly proud of herself and he wasn’t about to diminish that pride by starting an argument. Instead, he said, “Let’s get your hands cleaned up.”

And have sex
, she signed.
I want to be on top. I feel very powerful
.

Tral barked a quick laugh, then caught her hands to keep her from saying anything more. Over the last few weeks, signing had become the foreign language of choice, and understandably so. But it also meant that more and more people were learning how to read her busy hands, and already he was coming to miss being able to hold even the most intimate of conversations while in the company of others.

And there were others. Lots and lots of them, with hundreds more arriving every day. It had been two months since the great Liberation of the Humans rocked the civilized world, and still fully-loaded transports touched down every few hours. The Preserve had gone from being a quiet five-human sanctuary with a few scattered observation stations to a sixteen-barrack compound that now housed more than fourteen thousand people, both big and small. Sometimes it was still hard to tell which species was the most traumatized by the sudden change in laws.

Throughout Magistrate Remeik’s retirement speech—on the heels of which followed Bebe’s two-hour inaugural interview, complete with a sign language interpreter for her and a voice-over interpreter for everyone else—Bach, Tral, Pani and Bebe, and damn near the entire planet, had sat glued to their computers, watching in silence as the world they all knew came to an instant end. It was, in fact, the loudest silence ever heard, one that lasted for three very long days during which time every shelter was irrevocably shut down, followed quickly by the breeding facilities, both public and private. At the end of those three days, the backlash Bach and the magistrate had anticipated hit, but no one could have foreseen the form that it would take.

Like a low and rumbling storm of discontent, it swept the larger portion of the populace. An empty shelter was bombed; a well-known veterinary clinic set on fire. The army mobilized, but not before two private breeders were beaten to death and a third hospitalized. Impromptu bonfires were built out of human-sized housing crates and leashes. Loving families and smugglers alike began to hide their pets, and the sheer number of applications to join the new foster guardianship program hit more than ten thousand strong, crashing the system for four hours.

Nearly six hundred volunteers arrived in dribbles and in droves that first day, and everyone got their hands dirty to build two hospitals, a rehabilitation center and an orphanage in the center of the new human compound. Most of those volunteers had been previous pet owners. All had willingly paid a recall fee in order to stay in the Preserve, living in an impromptu tent city in order to help wherever they could and be close to their frightened and/or confused ‘pets’ while waiting their guardianships were approved.

In the cities, concerned citizens took to the streets, organizing night-long hunts in an attempt to clean the back alleys of every wild ‘stray’ that could be found. These were some of the most maltreated and bedraggled humans that Tral had ever seen and yet could never have imagined existed. The day that transport touched down in the Preserve and opened its doors to unload, everybody had cried. Except for Ben and his wild pack, who had chosen that precise moment to hike out of the woods, their spears and primitive knives in hand.

To his credit, Ben did not fly into a seething rage and hurt someone—which relieved Tral immensely since he’d been the only one fool enough to stand close to the man. He did, however, shove Tral out of the way and assume command of the situation. He took over the barracks and put Matt in charge of assigning quarters to new-arrivals, both human and not. He put Greg and Will to work distributing supplies. Day after day, he stood in the thick of activity, directing builders, soothing the panicked, matching the weak to the strong, and keeping everyone busy and working, fed and clothed. He kept them all organized and he didn’t kill anyone, although at times it seemed he very much wanted to.

Which left Tral free to do his part: As the newly promoted foster guard to the ambassador of the human species, his primary duties had been elevated from studying men to mediating disputes, approving foster families, reuniting former pets with their families, and preventing others from being returned to situations that were, to put it kindly, less than desirable.

It had been two months. It had been, in short, a good beginning. Even if the majority of the humans rescued, like Bebe, feared change and weren’t yet able to recognize much of this as good. Like the strays from the city streets, most of whom had to be tranquilized and kept segregated in private hospital cells to prevent them from harming themselves or the volunteers who tried to care for them, gentle them, help them adjust to what was no doubt perceived as captivity instead of freedom. Or for breeders like Sonsa, who continually tried to break into the orphanage and steal the babies.

No, change wasn’t easy. It was hard-fought for and success achieved by mere inches. It was violent and tear-filled, painful and often grudgingly compromised, but no one could argue that it wasn’t also happening. For everyone, both big and small.

The old man is on the box again
, Bebe signed as she pushed open the station house door and went inside.

Tral wasn’t surprised. The most tumultuous decree to be passed in decades, Remeik’s liberation speech had been played almost continuously for two months. Invariably, Bebe’s media interview would follow it, making hers the most recognized human face in existence.

Following her into the kitchen, he could already hear the low, somber tones of the magistrate saying, “For decades we have suspected there was more to the human animal than previously believed. To that end, twenty years ago a conservation was established with the purpose of observing and hopefully confirming these suspicions. That end has been achieved. It is to our shame that we could not recognize this fledgling race for what it is. In our ignorance, we have kept humans as pets and as slaves, and now we must put to rights that grievous error in judgment.”

He’s going to say it now
, Bebe signed, tossing Tral a grin as she climbed up onto a kitchen chair.
I like this part the best.

“Yeah,” Tral drawled, somewhat less than exuberant.

“Out of the darkness of failure,” the magistrate continued, “rises a great opportunity. We have been given the chance to guide this fledgling race of men as they grow in sentience—”

“Isn’t that nice of us?” Tral smirked, as he always did when that line was spoken.

And Bebe nodded, answering his smile in kind, as she always did and which never failed to leave him wondering if she truly understood the magnitude of the joke or if she was just humoring him.

“—becoming as great a people as ourselves. And so it is with pride and honor that I introduce you to the human for whom without our horrible error in judgment might yet be compounding. Meet Bebe.”

It’s me
, Bebe signed, and leaned over the table to better see herself in the computer monitor.

The digital Bebe sat on a chair before a simple blue screen. She was wearing brand new clothes, a soft blue dress that matched her eyes with a bib of white running like an apron down her front. The interviewer, a woman—popular opinion being that a woman might help alleviate Bebe’s obvious nervousness (Tral had known differently, of course, but apparently being a foster guardian did not yet make him a big enough cog to be listened to)—was joined by a sign language interpreter and every word exchanged flowed through a ticker ribbon in all four major languages across the bottom of the screen. It was all very official looking.

At the time of the interview, Tral had been there too, although he hadn’t warranted an on-screen appearance. No, he’d been tucked well behind the camera. Now and then, Bebe rose up in her chair, craning her neck until she could reassured herself that he was still there, then she sat back down again.

It’s the same
, Bebe signed, somewhat disappointed.

“Tragedy sells,” Tral told her, and of all the questions that first one had to be the most dramatically tragic of them all.

“Bebe,” the interviewer asked, “tell us how you came to be at Audotat Preserve.”

I don’t like that dress
, Bebe signed and turned from the computer.
It makes me fat.

“It’s the camera,” Tral said diplomatically. Pulling his medical kit down from a shelf, he brought it to the table and sat down beside her. “Cameras make everyone look wider.”

She gave him a very knowing look.
It’s the dress.

While her interview ran in the background, Tral washed and disinfected her hands before bandaging the worst of the broken blisters. “You should take it easy for a couple days and let these heal.”

Balak says I can use the saw, maybe tomorrow
.

“Not until these are healed first.”

Balak says ambassadors outrank foster guardians.

“You can tell Balak if he keeps talking like that, he’s going to lose his lips. And if you keep listening to him, you’re going to lose your ability to sit.”

Bebe grimaced, but a light three-rapping knock at the door interrupted the argument before it could truly get started.

“No saws tomorrow,” he told her anyway, boxing the kit closed again and getting up from the table.

Okay
. But her look said she was as far from capitulated as a willful human female could be without at least half a dozen firm-handed incentives distributed all across her bare and bucking bottom.

“Fine,” he said, and went to answer the door. “You just hold on to that thought, because we are definitely not done talking about it.”

She gave him another look.

“That’s it,” he announced, one hand on the door. “Someone’s getting spanked tonight. For real this time. I’m not even joking.”

He gave her a promissory glare and then opened the door, revealing the young man and woman, a sleeping baby held to her shoulder, standing just outside. They jumped a little when he confronted them. “Hello.”

Nervously, their eyes shifted to one another, and then even more reluctantly they faced him once more. Neither of them said anything.

He looked from one to the other, glanced far enough out into the compound to realize there was no half-frantic pet signaling desperately to be taken home, and then asked, “Can I help you?”

“Yes, we—” The young man cleared his throat. “We were told to come here. We’re looking for our—”

Behind him, two small feet suddenly hit the floor as Bebe leapt from her chair and ran to join him at the door. She all but wrenched it out of his hand as she pushed past him and then stood there, staring in open-mouthed shock before erupting into squeals of joy unlike any sound he’d ever heard her make before.

Everybody jumped, and Bebe flung herself at them, arms outstretched to grab each of them around the waist. She hugged them fiercely, jumping up and down as she squealed.

A very hard, cold stone dropped into the pit of Tral’s stomach and then just sat there, refusing to be dislodged. “You must be Sir and Ma’am.”

Neither the man nor woman looked as happy to see Bebe as she was to see them. In fact, they looked incredibly guilty, particularly when they glanced up from her to find him glaring fiercely back at them.

The woman knelt down first and put her free arm around Bebe. “We’ve missed you too,” she whispered.

He could have them both arrested. It was Tral’s strongest, raging thought. But then his gaze fell to the mere months-old baby cradled in that dark-haired woman’s arms and somehow he kept his mouth shut. Barely.

“We didn’t know,” the man said, but he wasn’t looking at Bebe when he said it. He was looking at Tral. “We didn’t know they...were smart. How could we have known? Nobody knew.”

Tral stepped back from the door. If he didn’t get some distance between them, he was afraid he might hit someone. He’d never physically punched anyone before, but his hand was shaking to do it now. He already knew who he’d aim for first, and really, that wasn’t the sort of behavior befitting the Foster Guard of the human ambassador. Especially not when said ambassador was already excitedly signing,
Come inside
.
Sit down. We can talk
.

She dashed back into the kitchen, hurrying to clear the clutter of paperwork from enough chairs around the kitchen table to accommodate everyone. The woman stood up, but other than that neither moved. They stared at him even more reluctantly than before.

“What is she saying?” the woman eventually asked.

“She said...she said come in.” Tral moved away, giving them enough room to enter, hoping they’d both make their excuses and leave. Right now, he just wanted them gone. He’d happily let them melt back into the unknown shadows where he’d mentally been able to compartmentalized their existence up until this moment.

And up until this moment, he thought he’d come to terms with it. After all, had they not abandoned Bebe at the fence, he never would have found her. He’d still, even now, be unobtrusively watching the wild pack, taking his photographs, rationalizing everything he saw as mere animal instinct and probably never would have been the wiser.

Because he was an idiot.

And so were they. Idiots who hadn’t known any better, but who had done a callous and ignoble thing that he could still have them arrested and sent to prison for. And it would have felt so good to do both, yet Tral managed to keep his mouth shut. He managed not to lose his temper. He had to walk all the way across the room and stood with one white-knuckled hand gripping the mantelpiece, but he kept his temper. His ironclad self-control.

His uncle would be so proud.

Sir held the door for his wife, who was brave enough to enter first, and then he came in only just far enough to join them. He kept glancing at Tral; they both looked very nervous. He was beginning to see where Bebe got it from.