Phylogenesis (29 page)

But there was something in the alien’s manner—an unrestrained eagerness, a desperation to learn, a need to achieve—that appealed strongly to something deep inside Cheelo Montoya. It wasn’t that they were in any way alike: That was an absurd thought. Cheelo had never had a poetic or artistic impulse in his life, unless one counted the skill with which he relieved the unsuspecting and the unlucky of their valuables.

The camouflaged scanner had already passed this way. It was unlikely a second would be following it. Surely the resources of this secret colony were limited and any search it instituted, however frantic, must necessarily be circumspect. Otherwise it would attract the attention of the Reserva rangers or their own automatic monitoring devices. If he and the bug kept moving in the direction the eagle scanner had come from, they ought to be free of observation and safe from detection for quite a while.

Without really knowing why, he heard himself saying, “One day?”

The thranx nodded. Cheelo no longer thought the familiar gesture strange when executed by the alien. “One day. So that I may finish my note taking and observations and round them off smoothly and completely.”

“I’m not sure I know what the hell you’re talking about. I don’t owe you nothing.”

“No, you do not. Even though we are, in a way, spiritually of the same clan.”

Cheelo frowned. “What are you babbling about?”

The thranx’s tone did not change. “We are both outcasts, antisocials. And takers of life. I too am responsible for the death of another. All because I wish to compose something of importance.”

There it was. This alien, this grossly oversized bug from another world, wanted to do something big, just like Cheelo Montoya.

No, he thought angrily, refusing to accept the analogy. We don’t have anything in common! Not me and a goddamn bug! He said nothing aloud. What was there to say? He knew nothing of thranx society, of what it considered acceptable and what it did not, though he felt he could be certain of one thing: Surely among any intelligent species, the murder of one’s fellows was considered inappropriate. He was wrong, but correct where the thranx were concerned.

“And if at the end of that time you remain tormented by uncertainties,” Desvendapur was saying, “you can still kill me.”

Cheelo started, his eyes widening slightly. “What makes you think I’d want to kill you?”

“It would be the logical thing to do.” Two hands gestured in the direction of the human’s holstered pistol. “I’ve seen your hands moving, up and down, back and forth in the direction of your concealed weapon, your gestures reflective of your changing mood. You have been thinking about it ever since we met. You could do it at any time.”

“You’re mighty confident I won’t.”

“No, I’m not.” Antennae bobbed in a complex pattern. “I have been monitoring your pheromones. The levels rise and fall according to your state of mind. I know when you’re thinking about killing me, and when you are not.”

“You’re reading my mind?” Cheelo gazed unblinkingly at the thranx.

“No. I’m reading your body odor. As I mentioned before, it is very strong. Even it is a source of suggestion to me.” The heart-shaped head dipped slightly. “One more day.”

“And then I can kill you? You just said yourself it would be the logical thing to do.”

Again the alien nodded. “Very much so. But I don’t think you will do it. If I did I would already have slipped away during the night.”

Cheelo’s tone was challenging. “What makes you so sure I won’t do it?”

“Because you haven’t already. And because doing the illogical thing, the unexpected, is what separates the exceptional individual from the great mass of the hive. Sometimes that individuality is not well regarded. In both our societies, iconoclasts and eccentrics are viewed with great suspicion.”

“Well, I’ve sure as hell always been viewed with suspicion. One day.” He considered. “All right. Tomorrow afternoon you go your way and I go mine.”

“Agreed.” The thranx gestured with both his scri!ber and with a foothand. “I already have enough material to nourish composition for several years. It wants only some framing, some greater context. If you would consent in the time we have remaining to us to answer a few questions, I will depart your company tomorrow very much content.”

“Yeah, sure. But right now let’s concentrate on getting away from
here
, okay?” Raising a hand, he pointed upstream. “Let’s put some more distance between us and that airborne scanner.”

Falling in alongside the human, Desvendapur held his scri!ber out, the better to pick up the biped’s voice more clearly. “Please tell me: When you killed your fellow human, what did it feel like?”

Cheelo glanced over sharply, wishing he could read those compound eyes. But they only stared back, glittering in the light that filtered down through the canopy, siliceous gems set in blue-green chitin.

“What the hell kind of question is that?”

“A difficult one,” the alien replied. “Easy answers make for weak poetry.”

The interrogation, as Cheelo came to think of it, was relentless, continuing all through the remainder of the day and on into the night. What the thranx gained in response to queries that Cheelo felt waned from the irrelevant to the inane he could not imagine, but the alien seemed pleased by every reply, be it fleeting or lengthy. Cheelo endured it all, not really understanding the purpose, knowing that tomorrow he would be free of questions and questioner alike. Free to make the appointment in Golfito that would forever change his life.

He was awakened not by the sun or the chorusing of monkeys, not by demonstrative macaws or buzzing insects, but by a gentle prod to the shoulder.

“Later,” he grumbled. “It’s too early.”

“I agree,” came a familiar, soft, gently modulated voice, “but it is necessary. I do not think we are alone any longer.”

Cheelo sat up fast, throwing off the blanket, instantly awake. “Your friends, come looking for you?”

“That is the peculiar thing. I see only evidence of passing, and it is not of the sort that traveling thranx would leave behind.”

Cheelo frowned. “What sort of evidence?”

“Come and look.”

Following the alien into the undergrowth, Cheelo was brought up short by a sight as expected as it was shocking. The pelts had been neatly stretched and hung to dry on racks fashioned of trimmed poles bound together with vine. There were signs of recent cooking as well as places where the soil had been compacted by repeated bootprints. No biologist, he still recognized the skin of the jaguar and the two margays. There was also a lightweight container that, on inspection, proved to be full of feathers plucked from dozens of macaws and other exotic rain forest birds.

Lowering the lid on the container, he found himself scanning the surrounding jungle anxiously.

“What strange human activity is this? Some peculiar ritual the local officials are required to perform?”

“It’s a ritual, all right.” Cheelo was already backing carefully out of the small, cramped clearing. “But it has nothing to do with local officials. Just the opposite.” He nodded toward the forlorn skins drying in the heat of early morning. “This is a poacher camp.”

“That is a term I am not familiar with.” Scri!ber out, Desvendapur paralleled the human’s retreat. He could not keep from turning to look back at the hollow-eyed skins hanging forlornly from their crudely rigged racks.

Cheelo’s eyes darted from side to side, tree to bush, as he nervously scrutinized the surrounding forest. “Poachers slip into places like the Reserva to steal whatever they can sell. Rare flowers for orchid collectors, rare bugs for insect collectors, exotic woods for furniture makers, mineral specimens, live birds and monkeys for the underground pet trade.” He gestured at the covert encampment. “Bird feathers for decoration, skins for clothing.”

“Clothing?” Desvendapur lowered his scri!ber as he looked back once more. “You mean, these people kill animals and strip off their skin so that humans can put them on?”

“That’s about right.” Alert for ants, snakes, and saw-jawed beetles, Cheelo pushed through a dense overlay of bright green leaves.

“But humans already have skin of their own. Beyond that, you manufacture what appears to be perfectly adequate artificial outerwear to protect your soft, sensitive exteriors from the elements. Why would anyone choose to wrap themselves in the skin of another living creature? Does the act involve some religious significance?”

“Some people might look at it that way.” His mouth widened in a humorless grin. “I’ve seen rich folk who treat fashion like a religion.”

“And they eat the flesh of the dead animal, too.” Desvendapur struggled to convey his distaste but was not yet fluent enough to do so, having to resort to gestures to properly express his feelings on the matter.

“No. These people throw the rest of the animal away.”

“So each creature is killed only for its epidermis?”

“Right. Unless they sell the teeth and claws, too. You getting enough inspiration out of this?”

“It all sounds vile and primitive. This mystifying mix of the sophisticated and the primal is all part of what marks you as a very peculiar species.”

“You won’t get no argument from me.”

Though Desvendapur had no trouble keeping up, and in fact even with his broken middle leg moved more supplely and easily through the forest than did the biped, he wondered aloud at the human’s sudden desire for speed.

“The people running that camp would shoot you just as casually as they would a representative of an endangered species. Poaching in the Reserva is punishable by extensive mindwipe and a program of enforced social correctness. That’s something I wouldn’t ever submit to, and neither will whoever’s smuggling out macaw feathers and cat pelts. We’ve already got your people looking for us. That’s enough.”

“Not quite enough.”

Cheelo sucked in his breath. He could have kept going, could have tried to go around the muzzle of the weapon pointed in his direction, but that probably would have resulted in a journey of very brief duration.

There were two of them: very short men with very big guns. Their skin was the hue of burnished gold, their long black hair was tied unfashionably back, and they wore jungle mimic suits that allowed them to blend almost seamlessly into the landscape of bush and vine and tree. The tip of one rifle hovered uncomfortably close to Cheelo’s nose.

He might have tried ducking, or slapping the barrel aside or grabbing it, or pulling his pistol if his antagonist had been operating alone. Unfortunately, he was not. His companion stood nearby but too far away to tackle, his own weapon held at the ready. Cheelo’s fingers fell in the direction of his concealed holster. The poacher holding the rifle on him did not smile, did not speak. Only shook his head slowly, twice. Cheelo’s hand drifted prominently away from his own weapon.

The other poacher stepped forward. After removing the pistol from its hiding place, he proceeded to pat the stranger down and remove his pack. Slinging Cheelo’s belongings over one shoulder, he stepped aside to regard the thranx.

“What the hell is this,
cabrón
?”

Cheelo dropped his hands to his sides as the point of the rifle lowered from his nose to his chest. “That’s an alien. A thranx. Don’t you
ninlocos
watch the tridee?”

“Yeah, man.” The other poacher laughed once, curtly. “And we have our own sensalude emporium here, too.”

“It’s a lonely life,” the poacher shouldering Cheelo’s backpack told him. “But it was good enough for my ancestors. Hapec and I do okay.” The man’s gaze darkened. “As long as nosybodies leave us alone to do our work.” Dropping the backpack, he knelt and began going through its contents. After a while he looked up at his companion. “Not a ranger. Not a scientist, either.” He eyed Cheelo speculatively as he rose. “He’s a
pesadito
, a nobody.”

“Good.” His companion gestured with his rifle. “That means nobody’ll miss him.” The man’s hard, unyielding gaze searched beyond the edgy Cheelo. “What do we do with the big bug?” Using the muzzle of the rifle he prodded Cheelo ungently in the stomach. “Where’d you get it, man, and what good is it?”

“Yeah,” added his comrade. “What’s an ugly alien thing like that doing in the Reserva, anyway? Does it speak Terranglo?”

Keeping a careful eye on the rifles, alert for any opportunity, Cheelo thought fast. “No, it doesn’t. Something that looks like that? Are you kidding? It doesn’t understand a word we’re saying.” Turning, he stared daggers at Desvendapur. “Its kind communicate by gestures. See, watch this.” Raising both hands, he contorted his fingers strenuously at the thranx. The poet eyed the human’s wiggling fingers askance. While he was not entirely sure of the newcomers’ intentions, the fact that they were pointing weapons at Cheelo was something other than a testament to peaceful intentions. Their comments about his appearance did not trouble him, but their words, which despite Cheelo’s ingenuous denial he understood with considerable faculty, caused him more than a little concern. The human’s expressions he still could not read, but his companion’s intent was clear enough: It might prove useful for one of them to feign ignorance of ongoing conversation. This he proceeded to do, replying to Cheelo’s aimless manipulations with contrastingly eloquent gestures of his own. None of the humans had a clue what he was elucidating, but that was not the point. All that mattered was that they believed he and Cheelo were communicating.

“What did it say?” the nearer of the two poachers demanded to know.

Cheelo turned back to them. “It wants to know your intentions. I’d like to know myself.”

“Sure,” responded the other poacher agreeably. “First we’re going to kill you, and then we’re going to kill it, and then we’re going to dump you both in the river.” The muzzle of the second rifle shifted to point at the silent poet.

“You don’t want to do that.” Cheelo fought to keep his voice from shaking. He’d never begged anyone for anything before and he wasn’t about to start now, but he wasn’t ready to die, either.

The nearer poacher glanced over at his colleague and smiled unpleasantly. “Hear that, Hapec? Now he’s telling us what we want.” The rifle in his hands hummed softly with barely contained death. “We know what we want, man.”