Earthblood (8 page)

"Yeah, sweetie, go where? You'd have to earn passage money back to Tambool—and believe me, it costs plenty. You'd better stick with the show at least until you've saved some money—and I'll see that you're paid what you're worth."

"I don't want you to get in trouble."

"Don't worry about Gom Bulj. He's really a kind of a nice old cuss, after you get used to that tough talk. He's so used to these tough Geeks he thinks he has to talk that way to everybody—but he doesn't try it with me." Roan dried on a huge soft towel that smelled as sweet as the room and dressed in a clean tunic that Stellaraire took from a locker filled with bright clothes.

"Come on," she said. "I'll show you around the ship. It's over five thousand years old . . . "

For an hour Roan followed the girl along endless corridors filled with hurrying creatures, sounds, colors, odors, through vast, echoing halls which Stellaraire said had once been ballrooms and dining areas, up wide staircases and down narrow companionways, to a broad, curved room with a wall of ink-black glass set close with brilliant points of colored light.

"You mean . . . that's the sky?" Roan said, and watched the fantastic array of slowly proceeding lights, realizing for the first time what it meant, to be in space. So much nothingness there. He looked around the rest of the room—a vast array of instruments and dials and a door with a red glare that said BATTLE CONTROL—AUTHORIZED PERSONNEL ONLY.

"What's all that?" he asked. "And who does the controlling in that room?"

"All that's not anybody's business. Nobody goes in that room and nobody knows what all that's for. It's separate from the guidance system. This was originally a Terran warship and all that's for fighting. Gom Bulj says it works automatically if we run into another warship. But that isn't likely. The thing to remember is not to touch any buttons or switches and not to go into that little room."

Roan went over to look at the instrumentation closely. His people had built this ship and old heroes had flown them, fought in them.

"I've got something a lot more interesting than that to show you," Stellaraire said. "Come on. I want to show you Iron Robert."

"Who's Iron Robert?"

Stellaraire laughed and shuddered at the same time. "Wait and see." They rode a lift, passed along a hall which vibrated with the thunder of the idling main drive, went through a high-domed room where several dozen ill-assorted beings sat in a group, puffing and thumping strange implements. Roan winced at the din of squealing flutes, blatting horns, clacking tambourines, whining strings.

"What's all this noise for?" he called over the cacophony.

"Oh, a band is traditional with a 'zoo. It goes back to Empire days. The Old Terrans always used to have noisemakers with social events. Some of our instruments even date from then."

"It's terrible!" Roan watched a short, many-armed being in yellow silks puffing away at a great brass horn. "It's like some kind of battle."

"Gom Bulj says the Terry noisemakers used some kind of charts, so they all made the same noises together, but our fellows don't know how to read the charts. They just make any old noise."

"Let's get out of here!"

Nine decks below, in an armor-plated hold where heavy cargo had once been stored, Stellaraire took Roan's arm, nodded toward a wide aisle which led back into gloom.

"It's along here," she said. "He has the whole last bay."

"Why are you whispering?" Roan was looking around at the battered bulkheads. "I didn't know anything could make dents in Terry metal. What happened?"

"This is where Iron Robert exercises for his fights; and who's whispering?

Come on . . . " She led the way along the unlit passage, stopped before an open bay which was a cave of deeper gloom.

"He's in here," she whispered. She was still holding Roan's arm, tighter than before. He went closer, wrinkling his nose at a faint odor of sulphur, peering into the darkness. He could see dim walls, an object like an oversized anvil in the center of the floor, and near one wall an immense lumpy shape that loomed up like an incomplete statue in gray stone.

"He's not here," Roan said. "There's nothing here but an old boulder."

"Shhh—" Stellaraire started.

The boulder moved in the shadows. It leaned forward, and Roan saw two bright-faceted jewels near the top, which caught the light and threw back a green glint. There was a low rumble that seemed to come from the bottom of a volcano.

"Why you wake Iron Robert up?"

"Hello, Iron Robert," Stellaraire said in a squeaky voice. "I . . . I wanted our new Freak to . . . to meet you . . . He's a Terry, sort of, and he's going to do a wire-walking act and double in greenface . . . " Her voice trailed off. Her fingers were digging into Roan's arm now. He wanted to take a step back, but she was half behind him, and he would have to push her out of the way, so he stood his ground and looked into the green eyes like chips of jade in an ancient idol hewn from lava.

"You mean new Freak want to look at old Freak. Go'head, Terry, take good look. Iron Robert strongest living creature. Fight any being, anytime, anyplace." The giant's voice was a roll of chained thunder. Stellaraire tugged at Roan's arm.

"We . . . uh . . . didn't mean to bother you, Iron Robert," she said breathlessly. She tugged again, harder. But Roan didn't move.

"Don't you have any lights in this place?"

The dark shape stirred, rose up in the shadows, nine feet tall, massive as a mountain.

"Iron Robert like dark. Sit in dark and think of old battles, old days." He took a step and the deck boomed and trembled under Roan's feet. "You come meet Iron Robert? OK, you shake hand that can tear leg off bull-devil!" He thrust out a vast, blunt-fingered, grayish-brown paw. Roan looked at it.

"What's matter, Terry, you 'fraid Iron Robert tear arm off you?" Roan reached up, put his hand in the stone one before him. It was rough and hard and warm, like rock in the sun, and it made him feel as soft and weak as a jelly-toad. Iron Robert flexed his fingers, and Roan felt the grating slide of the interlocking crystals of the incredible hide.

"You small, pale being," Iron Robert rumbled. "You really Terran?" Roan tried to stand up straighter, remembering that once Terrans had ruled the Galaxy.

"That's right," he said. He looked up at the rough-hewn face above him and swallowed. "Why do they call you Iron Robert instead of Rock Robert?" He hoped his voice sounded bold.

Iron Robert laughed, a deep, gutsy laugh. "I come of royal ferrous stock, Terry. See oxidation?" He turned his arm so that Roan could see the flakes of rusted iron in the silicon of his skin.

"You look as though you'd last forever," Roan said. He was thinking suddenly of mountains, and how they weathered and endured, and of his own soft, inadequate flesh and the maybe two hundred years he had left.

"Why not?" the giant said, and he took his hand away and turned and went back to the cast-iron slab that was his bed. Roan's eyes were accommodating to the dim light now, and he saw a wall plaque over the bunk, a carved design of growing flowers. One of the blossoms, half-blown, leaned, dropped a petal that fell with a gritty crunch, crumbling into dust.

"Petals all gone soon," Iron Robert said. "Then last remembrance of home gone. Flower getting old, Iron Robert old, too, Terry. Last long time, maybe, but not forever."

"Well, 'by, Iron Robert," Stellaraire said, and this time when she tugged at Roan's arm, he went with her.

That night Stellaraire made Roan a pallet in a small room near her own. She dressed the scratch on his face again, and the other, deeper one on his thigh, adjusted the blanket under his chin, did something nice to his mouth with hers, then went away and left him alone in the silence and the dark. For a while he thought of the strangeness of it, and suddenly the loneliness was almost choking him, like the bad air in the Soetti Quarter. Then he thought of Stellaraire, and of suddenly having a friend, something he had almost forgotten since Clanth had died so long ago.

Then he slept, and his sleep was tortured with vivid, dying images of Dad .

. . of Dad's sad corpse, crying for blood.

Roan awoke with a foot digging into his side.

"So here you are," Nugg growled down at him. "Let me tell you I got better things to do than look all over the ship for you, Terry! Here!" He dropped a box on the floor by Roan.

"Chow's been over for an hour. What do you think this is, a vacation cruise?"

Roan sat up, rubbed his eyes, feeling the cold, early-morning feeling, even here in a ship in space, far from any sun, with a temperature controlled by machines so that it never varied, year in and year out . . . He picked up the box Nugg had tossed to him, got the lid off. Inside were two lumpy-shelled eggs, a slab of coarse, gray bread, a fruit that looked like a small purplefruit; there was also a lump of raw, greenish meat and a red, coagulated pudding that almost turned his stomach in spite of the sudden hollow hunger feeling.

"Thanks, Nugg—" Roan started. But Nugg cut him off with a snort.

"If you don't eat you'll be too weak to work. Hurry it up." While Roan ate, Nugg went on grumbling about dangerous Freaks, malingerers, and interference with discipline by privileged characters. Roan finished, then pulled on his tunic, feeling the pain as he stretched his wounded flank. It hurt more than a deeper wound might have, and it reminded him of Ithc. The feeling of hatred warmed him. It made his heart thump and his body ache. He hated Ithc worse than he loved Stellaraire—

Love, he thought loudly. That's what love is.

He stood, doing up buttons and thinking of the slender mule, and how it felt to love a girl who was human, or almost human—

"I'm taking you off scraping. You'll work in Stores. It's only a short hop to Chlora, and there's inventory to take."

Roan buckled on his belt. It made him feel strong, the hard embrace of the belt, and he wondered if this were why there were so many stories of magic belts, like the ones Uncle T'hoy hoy used to tell him.

"If I have to work all the time," he asked as he followed Nugg out into the corridor, "when do I practice my wire-walking act?"

"Practice? What's that?"

"I need to get ready for the show. Gom Bulj said—"

"You're supposed to be a Terry who can walk a wire like a vine-rat; that's why Gom Bulj took you on. You either can or you can't. Practice! Hah!" Roan followed Nugg through the din of the Freak Quarter, past the bumps, hisses, shouts, the dragging of boxes, and the commotion of people doing things in a hurry. He stared at furred and scaled and feathered faces, massive bodies that clumped on short legs, and lean ones that jittered on limbs with too many joints, tiny things that scuttled, and here and there the bald, clumsy-looking shape of a Minid or a Chronid, or some other creature with some faint claim to a trace of natural Terran or humanoid blood.

He looked around for Stellaraire but there were only strangers everywhere, all hurrying and shouting to each other, their faces hot and busy-looking. He passed Gom Bulj at the center of a crowd, snapping out orders and smoking two cigars at once. The entrepreneur saw him, waved a nine-fingered hand, and called out something Roan couldn't hear. They went down, down, into smellier and less crowded levels. In a vast, noisy storeroom, Nugg pointed out a skinny, scruffy being like an oversized and wingless gracyl.

"He's foreman of the shift. Do what he tells you. And stay out of trouble." He walked off and left Roan standing alone.

The foreman had been watching from the corner of a moist eye. He stalked over to Roan, looked at him, then gave a shrill cry. The workers who had been crawling over the heaped goods stopped what they were doing and gathered around. Others appeared from aisles. Altogether there were fifteen or twenty of them, no two alike. They all stared at Roan.

"What are you?" the foreman whistled. "Never saw one like you before."

"I'm a Terran," Roan said.

Somebody hissed.

The foreman clacked his shoulder blades together and ruffled out a fringe along the side of his neck. "I'm Rik-rik and I'm the boss here," he whistled.

"Now, you're new. Your job will be to carry out the slop jars. And some of the boys don't have sphincters; you'll take care of the diapers. And o'

course, some of the gang are messy eaters, regurgers, you know. That has to be cleaned up. And—"

"No," Roan said.

The circle around him moved in closer. Something plucked at Roan's tunic from behind.

"I'm boss here, Terry," Rik-rik shrilled. "You'll do what I tell you, right, fellas?"

The tug came again, and Roan whirled, grabbed at a snaky tentacle that was wiping something slimy on him. The being who owned the member yanked angrily, but Roan hauled it close, then suddenly shoved it back. It fell. The others made excited noises. Roan faced Rik-rik.

"I didn't ask to be here," he said, "but I'm here anyway. I'll work, but I won't carry slop. Your men can clean up their own messes."

"You're the newest one," Rik-rik squeaked. "You're supposed to carry the slop. The newest one always does . . . "

"Not me," Roan said. "Leave me alone and I'll work as hard as anybody. But don't think you can pick on me." He looked at the being who was shifting from one of its eight or nine feet to another and snorting softly through its trunklike tentacles. "And if you ever touch me again, I'll tie a knot in that arm of yours."

"Spoilsport," someone grumbled.

Rik-rik stared at Roan angrily. "You're a troublemaker, I can see that. Probably you'll want off three or four hours in a cycle to hibernate; most of you would-be Terries do."

"I sleep eight hours a day," Roan said, "in a bed."

"And you'll want food every day, too—"

"Three times a day."

"Maybe it'd like to join our sex circle," a bulbous being suggested. "We have a vacancy in—"

"No, thanks," Roan said. "We Terries prefer our own kind for that."

"Chauvinist," a gluey voice said.

"Hah," someone else commented. "Thinks he's something special, I guess."

"All right," Rik-rik said sharply, taking charge again. "Back to work all of you. And as for you . . . " he gave Roan a threatening look. "I'll have my eye on you."