Hunted (15 page)
That’s also when Zeeleepull walked into the clearing. “Oh, you humes! Always the sex, sex, sex.”
19
FIGURING OUT WHO DID WHAT
I bounded to my feet, afraid my face was burning as red as Kaisho’s legs. Festina didn’t look bothered at all; with an impish little smile, she actually held out her hand for me to help her up.
She didn’t need help getting up—she probably could have done a backflip straight to her feet. But she’d reached out her hand, and I had no choice except taking it. Her skin felt so warm against mine…I had to force myself not to give her a huge yank up, jerking her arm out of its socket or tossing her halfway across the clearing. But I went very easy: pulled her up, then let go of her hand fast. She smiled again, amused by my flusterment. “Thank you,” she said, then turned to Zeeleepull. “Yes?”
Zeeleepull’s ears were twitching in the Mandasar version of a you-randy-old-humans laugh. But all he said was, “Tracked serial numbers Kaisho has. Come. Come.”
Festina gave me a look—a mischievous sort of look, and for a second I thought she might try to fluster me more, by taking my arm or something. But I guess she decided teasing me would be mean. She told Zeeleepull, “All right. Let’s see what Kaisho’s got.” Then the three of us walked back in silence, little puffbally things going pop under our feet.
While we were gone, Kaisho had rearranged her hair. Now it completely covered her face, not the tiniest gap down the middle; in fact, she’d grabbed the long straight strands that’d been hanging down her back and flipped them up over her forehead, so they covered her nose, chin, throat, all die way to her chest. I didn’t know how she could see a thing…but as we trudged up to her, she said, “Festina dear, you’re looking amused.”
“Enjoying the fresh night air,” Festina replied. “What have you found?”
Kaisho lifted her hand and ticked off points on her fingers. “The communicator: still supposedly present and accounted for in a storehouse on New Earth. The universal map: present and accounted for on Moglin. The Bumbler: present and accounted for on He’Barr.”
Festina wrinkled her forehead. “Three different storehouses, dozens of light-years from each other. And dozens of light-years from Celestia too.”
The two women nodded to each other, like it was obvious what was going on. I tried to think it through myself. If the computer records said the Bumbler was still on He’Barr, but it was right here crushed into the mud…then someone had stolen the Bumbler and rigged the inventory computers to overlook the discrepancy. That might mean a thief in the local Supply Corps; but you wouldn’t have three thieves at three different supply depots, all sending stuff to one recruiter. Easier to assume a single thief: someone so high up in the navy, he or she had access to
any
depot. And also had computer permission codes to cover up the thefts.
In other words, an admiral.
“So who?” Kaisho asked…looking straight at me for some reason instead of at Festina.
“What who?” Zeeleepull demanded. He glared around at the rest of us, like we were intentionally hiding some secret from him.
“Who provided the recruiters with navy equipment?” Festina told him. “And who ordered
Willow
to fetch a queen from Troyen? It can only be an admiral on the High Council. Someone who’s sponsoring the recruiters…for cash or for power, or for some scheme we don’t know about yet.”
“An admiral?” Zeeleepull growled. “Humes never trust be can.” He glared at Festina, then caught sight of me right beside her. “
Teelu
exception is,” he mumbled. “Not really hume at all.”
Kaisho giggled at that. You wouldn’t think an advanced human-Balrog synthesis could giggle. Festina stared at her in surprise for a moment, then said sternly, “Let’s get a grip, shall we? A rogue admiral is helping the recruiters!”
“Ah, dear Festina,” Kaisho sighed, “always business, business, business.” Her head suddenly cocked on an angle; when she spoke again, her voice had the sly smug tone of someone who’s realized something you haven’t. “Pity no one from
Willow
survived,” she said. “They might have known which admiral ordered them to Troyen.”
Festina looked back at her. “You have an idea? Or should I say, the Balrog has some brilliant alien insight?”
The moss on Kaisho’s legs flared brighter for a second, almost as if it was taking a bow. “Who were the Explorers on
Willow?
” Kaisho asked.
“Plebon and Olympia Mell,” the admiral answered.
“Ever meet them?”
“I knew Plebon,” Festina replied. “He was one of the Explorers marooned with me on Melaquin. After we got back, I made a point of spending time with him because he was a friend of my old partner Yarrun; they’d considered themselves kindred spirits because they both had the same…”
The admiral stopped, lowering her eyes as if she was suddenly embarrassed. Vaguely, she waved her hand under her chin. I had no idea what she meant but Kaisho did. She turned straight to me and said, “Among the bodies on
Willow,
did you see a man with a deformed jaw?”
I stared stupidly at her while my brain tried to catch up with the question. Festina was way ahead of me. She gawped at Kaisho, then whirled and grabbed my arm. “Edward, please…think back. Was there a man, an African man, very tall and dark, but missing the lower half of his face? If you saw it, you wouldn’t forget it. He had practically no jaw at all.”
Still not quite understanding, I cast my mind back over the crumpled bodies in the lounge. “No,” I said, “there wasn’t anyone with a funny jaw on the ship.” Not in the lounge, not on the bridge, not in any possible hidey-hole. “I’m certain.”
Festina let out a sigh of relief. “Hallelujah.”
Kaisho held up her hands in a “What would you expect?” gesture. All smug and proud, she said, “The Explorer Corps vindicates itself again.”
“Cryptic and mysterious and annoying humes,” Zeeleepull grumped. “What, what, what this means?”
“Willow
carried two Explorers,” Festina answered, “and at least one of them wasn’t aboard when they headed back to Celestia.”
“Probably both,” Kaisho put in. “If Plebon stayed on Troyen, his partner would too.”
“Why would they stay on Troyen?” I asked.
“Because Explorers are smart,” Kaisho said. “Because they believed the queen was non-sentient. They knew the League would kill the queen and everyone who helped transport her. Plebon and Olympia wanted no part of it.”
Zeeleepull sniffed, all disapproving. “Desertion is,” he said. “If orders say, no cowarding out.”
“Not true,” Festina told him. “The Admiralty can give orders that skate to the edge of non-sentience, but if they ever go over the line, you don’t have to obey. In fact, official policy says you must
not
obey. Of course, the High Council really wants subordinates to shut up and do as they’re told; but the council has to keep the League of Peoples happy, and that means allowing folks to follow their consciences,
NAVY PERSONNEL WILL AT ALL TIMES CONFORM TO THE STRICKEST STANDARDS OF SENTIENCE, EVEN WHEN THIS NECESSITAES DEFIANCE OF A DIRECT COMMAND. That’s right in the Outward Fleet’s charter— the League wouldn’t accept anything less. So if Plebon and Olympia believed the queen committed atrocities during the war, they had every right to say, ‘Count us out.’ ” Festina paused. “I wonder if others from
Willow’s
crew stayed behind.”
“No way to tell,” Kaisho said. “Not with the ship missing and its records EMP’d.”
I stared at her a second. How did Kaisho know that? She hadn’t showed up till
after
I’d told my story. But before I could say anything, Festina was talking—all excitement and glee. “Plebon and Olympia must know which admiral controlled
Willow
,” she said. “Any good Explorer would demand to know who ordered such a lunatic mission. Hell, they’d break into the captain’s quarters if they had to, just to peek at the signature on the official dispatches.”
“So,” Kaisho murmured, “if we find Plebon and Olympia, we learn which admiral is backing the recruiters.”
“Whereupon we raise a big stink with the High Council,” Festina said, “condemning the bastard for stealing navy property. And for routing that property to a group who murdered poor Wiftim and tried to kill me. The council will not be pleased. The council will, in fact, howl for blood…if only because one of their own was playing fast and loose behind their backs. Next thing you know, they’ll squeeze the guilty party to spill his or her guts: demand name, rank, and serial number for every recruiter on Celestia. Anything else would be harboring a murderer, and not even the Admiralty would be stupid enough to do that.”
Kaisho gave a whispery chuckle. “Knowing the High Council, they’ll make a show of arresting the recruiters personally. Demonstrate their good intentions by sending a Security force straight to the recruiters’ base. Once you back the council into a corner, they have a knack for turning a hundred eighty degrees, snatching the limelight, and taking credit for defending the weak.”
“Just their style,” Festina nodded. She made a face, like she’d seen it happen plenty of times before. “On the other hand, our first concern is stopping the recruiters. Doesn’t matter who gets their pictures in
Mind Spurs Weekly.”
“But, um,” I said, “you have to get the name of the guilty admiral, right? And the only people who might know that are stuck on Troyen.”
“True,” Festina agreed. “You understand the situation admirably.”
Her eyes glittered in the glow from Kaisho’s legs. Both women were looking at me now. Even though I couldn’t see Kaisho’s face, I could tell she was grinning. “Um,” I said. “So I guess you’re going to Troyen?”
“Not just me,” Festina answered. She put her hand on my arm. “I’ll need a native guide, won’t I?”
Kaisho laughed and laughed. The sound of it made me dizzy.
20
LYING BESIDE COUNSELOR
I don’t remember much from there on—all of a sudden my body got so tired I couldn’t think straight. It felt like Kaisho’s laughter was going all hyena-ish like the Laughing Larry, getting so loud it drowned out everything else in my head. I had time to think,
It’s the venom again.
Then things turned into a fuddled-up blur where time seemed to get the hiccups.
First I was lying facedown in the mud, while insects no bigger than pepper scuttled under my nose; then suddenly I was neck deep in water, with Zeeleepull and the admiral dragging me across the canal; then whoops, I was back where I started, in the hive’s dome, lying on a pallet beside the Queen Wisdom table. After that, I might have slept, or just passed out for an hour or two…but not the whole night. When I woke with a clearer head, it was still dark, and Counselor had snuggled in beside me.
Several of her legs draped lightly over my body. One of her upper hands was cupped against my cheek: six delicate fingers covered in soft walnut brown skin. The fingers were too long to be human, and they had no nails, but they didn’t look strange to me; they looked like home. Night after night in Verity’s palace, the queen would assign a maidservant to stay next to me as I slept, in case I might wake and want something.
“Are you well now,
Teelu?
” Counselor whispered.
There was no light in the room where we lay, but a dim glow came from next door—just enough for Counselor to watch me as I slept. Mandasars love to do that…I guess because they don’t sleep deeply themselves. They’re curious about it; the way humans go totally unconscious is kind of eerie to them, creepy but magical. Some of the maidservants back on Troyen actually took anaesthetics before sliding into bed beside me: they wanted to knock themselves out cold, to see what it was like, “sleeping together.”
Of course, they didn’t understand what that phrase means to humans…any more than Counselor understood what a man gets to feeling when he wakes up and there’s someone stroking his face. Mandasars never think about sex stuff at all, except during egg-heat. They know humans work differently, but Mandasars don’t realize how much…um how often…how
persistently
certain urges keep poking their way into a
Homo sapiens
’ imagination.
(Close your eyes, and a gentle’s voice sounds pretty much like a human woman’s. Her hand feels the same too. And so soft.)
Looking at Counselor, feeling her hand on my cheek, I found myself remembering that kiss aboard
Willow
—the woman pulling me in tight, the perfume in her hair…a woman who was exactly like Admiral Ramos except she wasn’t…and Festina herself, lying beside me in the dark forest, looking up at the stars…
Crazy
, I thought to myself.
My brain must still be jumbled, going all swimmy with what-ifs.
Festina was pretty and kind, but she was an admiral; as for Counselor, she was just in my bed because I’d been sick. Why was I so eager to get dumb ideas about every female around me: an admiral and an
alien
for heaven’s sake…and I was even having thoughts about Kaisho, with her skintight clothes and her dangerous glowing thighs…
“Teelu
,” Counselor whispered. “Are you troubled?”
I reached up and took her hand, pulling it gingerly away from my face. “Maybe you shouldn’t call me
Teelu,
okay? It’s kind of…” I wanted to say “sacrilegious,” but that would upset her. “You shouldn’t overuse the word,” I. mumbled.
“Very well,” she said. “Is there anything else I should or shouldn’t do?” She asked it in a soft sweet whisper, still holding my hand—all innocently intimate, not knowing how complicated things can get inside a human’s head. When you’re tired and lonely, you can catch yourself thinking, maybe, maybe, she really meant…
No. She didn’t.
But I couldn’t get my thoughts aimed any other direction. I told myself,
Don’t be stupid, she’s a big brown lobster.
It didn’t help. I’d had more kindness in my life from Mandasars than I ever got from humans. Lying beside one again brought back the golden days when die war hadn’t started and Sam was alive and we were all twenty years younger…
I slipped my hand out of Counselor’s grasp and eased down on my pallet: rolling away from her, flat on my back, feeling lumpish and rude. “Where’s Admiral Ramos?” I asked.
“She left with the other human—the one with frightening legs.”
“Are they coming back?”
“In the morning. But the admiral had to arrange a journey, To Troyen.”
Counselor leaned in close to my face, her whiskers trembling. Her snout brushed lightly against my cheek, delicate and cool. Gentles have no nose-spike; just soft skin that smells faintly of ginger. “Are you really going to the home-world?”
“Admiral Ramos wants me to. She thinks I know the lay of the land.”
“You do,” Counselor said. “You were the high queen’s consort.”
“That was twenty years ago. Before the war.” I closed my eyes. “All the time I stayed at the moonbase, I did my best not to hear what was happening on the planet. The observers couldn’t tell much anyway—with all the rogue nano on Troyen, nobody can use radios or computers or anything, so there’s nothing to listen in on. Our satellites kept track of troop movements, but when you don’t know who’s in charge of which army…half the time, the observers just made stuff up so their reports wouldn’t look too skimpy. Nobody really knows what’s happening.”
Counselor lay silent for a few seconds. I wanted to see the expression on her face, but decided eye contact would be a mistake: she’d take my hand again or go back to stroking my cheek. “Admiral Ramos has been investigating the recruiters,” Counselor murmured at last. “The woman with the red legs said the admiral tries to prevent regrettable things. Admiral Ramos is what you call a
watchdog
and a
troubleshooter.”
I didn’t know the navy had such things, but I was glad they put someone like Festina in the position. “She thinks another admiral is helping the recruiters,” I said. “It makes her mad, and she’s trying to set things right.”
“Then Admiral Ramos is a good hume,” Counselor murmured. “Even if she wants to take you away from us.”
“Um.”
When I looked at Counselor, her face was sad—the terrible kind of sad where someone is trying hard not to show it, and it spills through anyway.
“Do you
want
to go away?” Counselor asked.
“No,” I told her. “But Admiral Ramos thinks people on Troyen might know who’s behind the recruiters. She said it could solve your problems.”
“She told me the same,” Counselor said. “But it’s painful to gain you and lose you in the same day.”
Suddenly, she bent in and pressed thfc soft end of her snout against my lips. A kiss. I’d never seen a gentle do that on Troyen. It must have been something she’d learned on Celestia, a gesture picked up from the humans who took care of her in childhood. So awkward and clumsy, like a little girl imitating adult things—she wrapped one arm around my neck and kept her nose against me…not moving her mouth, just holding it tight to my face as if she didn’t know a kiss could be anything else.
I pulled back away from her, feeling awkward and clumsy myself. “It’s all right,” I whispered. “Really. It’ll be all right.”
She lowered her chin so she could look me in the eye. Her eyes were solid black, blinking slightly—Mandasars don’t cry when they’re sad, but their faces can still be heartbreaking. “Troyen is at war. You could be killed…and then where would we be?”
What could I say? That I wasn’t the savior she thought? I didn’t want to go back to Troyen, but I wasn’t worth much on Celestia. People would soon see I didn’t have a head for organization, or strategy, or rousing speeches, or anything that could help anyone. I said, “If Admiral Ramos thinks I’d be useful on Troyen—”
“This Admiral Ramos,” Counselor interrupted. “Is she your lover?”
I winced. Zeeleepull must have blabbed how he’d found Festina and me in the forest. “No,” I said. “She’s not my lover.”
“Do you intend to make her your lover?”
“No. She’s an admiral. Anyway, I can’t
make
anyone my lover—people don’t work that way.”
“Teelu
,” Counselor whispered, “
Teelu, Teelu, Teelu,
don’t you know you can make anyone into anything you want?” She cupped my chin in her weak upper hands, holding me so she could stare straight into my eyes. “Don’t you know,” she whispered, “you can stir any heart and make it yours?”
If she’d been human, her words would have been an invitation. Maybe even a plea. Over the years, other women had come to me with that kind of offer…because they liked the way I looked, because they were bored, or because they’d been hurt by someone else and thought,
Oh, Edward, at least he won’t be cruel.
They told me that to my face—I was “pretty” and “safe” and “decent.”
And plenty of times, I’d said yes. In my twenty years on the moonbase, new personnel would arrive and even though I knew they’d just leave again after six months, sometimes you tell yourself six months is six months. (Forgetting how lonely it is when they go away…the awful point where they start pulling back from you, even before they ship out…how sometimes they’re never there with you at all, just treating you like medicine that’ll keep them from getting cranky.)
So yes, there’d been human women; but not Mandasars. Gentles didn’t make come-ons, ever. Not to their own species and certainly not to humans. Even in egg-heat, gentles didn’t act amorous—it was all pheromone signals, not direct attempts at seduction. “I’m available,” not “Now, now, now!” Whatever Counselor wanted to tell me, it was just my one-track human mind misinterpreting it as…the sort of proposition you yearn for when things are going all lonesome.
“Counselor.” I wrapped my arms around her shoulders, feeling her thin carapace yield: fragile as eggshell compared to a warrior’s armor. She put her arms around my shoulders and my waist, then pressed her snout against my neck…maybe another kiss, maybe just where her nose ended up. “I’m not as special as you think,” I told her. “Verity married me for politics, not because I was some hero. And the way you kids react to me—it’s just the smell of venom, that’s all. Sooner or later, you’ll get mad at me for not being what you hope.”
She pulled back a bit from my neck so she could look me in the eye. “You are the Little Father Without Blame,” she said. “You’re more than we hoped, and more than you know. Just for tonight, I wish I were your own species…so you’d stop treating me like some child you mustn’t corrupt. I was raised by humans,
Teelu,
I’m not as naive as you think.”
Once more she leaned in for a kiss: light, quick, on my cheek, then she slipped softly out of my arms. I let her go, stunned by what she was suggesting. I couldn’t, I couldn’t, I couldn’t—for all that she was a grown-up of her species, she didn’t know…she was confused by the smell of venom, that had to be it. And by her human upbringing. After years of hume stories like “Snow White” and “Cinderella,” Counselor might fantasize about offering herself to some Prince Charming; but Mandasars didn’t really
feel…
they didn’t really
want…
Did they?
She was still very close, near enough that I could smell her soft ginger scent; and she was waiting for me to call her back. To reach for her hand or her kiss. But it wouldn’t be right. Whatever she thought she wanted, it truly wasn’t in her nature. I couldn’t take advantage of her, no matter how soothing it would be just to give in, surrender, get lost in the dark.
Counselor must have seen the decision on my face because she sighed quietly—a human sigh, yet another mannerism she must have picked up from the people who raised her.
“Teelu,”
she murmured, “may I at least accompany you on your journey? To Troyen?”
“It’ll be dangerous,” I said. “They’re still at war.”
“All the more reason for me to go. You humans will be conspicuous and perhaps treated as enemies. I won’t attract as much attention.”
“Yes, you will,” I told her. “There are so many things you were never taught. Ways to behave. And habits you’ve picked up that just aren’t Mandasar. You’d stand out as badly as any human.”
“Not if you teach me. The voyage to Troyen takes ten days—I can learn quickly. I’ll study with you every waking second.”
“But if I let you come,” I said, “then Zeeleepull would want to go too. And Hib & Nib & Pib.”
“Well, of course,” she answered, as if that had never been in doubt. “We all have to go.” She fluttered her whiskers teasingly. “You wouldn’t want to recruit me off by myself, would you?” The fluttering stopped. “Would you?”
Her last “would you?” was so wistful—as if she still hoped I might take her seriously. I couldn’t possibly…not because she was an alien, but because she was so young and innocent.
And because in my head I might be thinking of other women besides her.
If I told that to Counselor straight out, it would hurt her feelings; so I decided to give her one thing when I couldn’t give the other.
“All right,” I said. “I’ll talk to Admiral Ramos about taking your hive to Troyen.”
Immediately there was a cheer—not from Counselor but from four other voices. Zeeleepull and the workers tumbled out of the next room, all glee and triumph. “Troyen!” Zeeleepull yelled. ‘Troyen going, Troyen seeing, Troyen going, Troyen seeing…”
He might have been singing. And dancing. It’s hard to tell with Mandasars.
“I told you she could make
Teelu
say yes,” Hib whispered, elbowing Nib proudly. “And she didn’t even have to sleep with him.”
“Don’t you know anything?” Nib answered. “She
wanted
to sleep with him.”
“After all,” Pib added, “he’s a king.”
