Phylogenesis (33 page)

The human grunted, one of its more primitive sounds, and activated the doorplate. The composite barrier began to roll upward. Cold, searingly dry air rushed hungrily into the insulated structure, overwhelming any warmth before it. Desvendapur’s mandibles clacked shut to prevent the deadly cold from entering his system via his mouth. At such times it was useful not to have to open one’s jaws to breathe. The biped had cut two long, narrow slits in the blanket that covered the poet’s thorax, allowing his spicules access to the air. Internally, his lungs constricted at the intrusion of the frigid atmosphere. Trying not to shudder, he took a hesitant step forward.

“Let’s go. The sooner we start downward, the sooner the air will start to warm and to thicken with moisture.”

Cheelo said nothing, nodding curtly as he followed him out of the garage.

There was a path, of sorts, made by what animal or animals Cheelo did not know. It was just wide enough for them to proceed along it in single file. Possibly the poachers themselves had enlarged it to allow access to the cloud forest and the rare creatures that dwelled in the little-visited ecosystem lying between plateau and jungle. Llamas would not have made such a track, but far-ranging carnivores like jaguars or the spectacled bear might have tramped back and forth along the same route for enough generations to have worn a path through the unrelenting greenery.

Far more comfortable in the cool mountain air than his companion, Cheelo would have quickly outdistanced him but for the fact that the thranx, utilizing all six legs, was much more sure-footed on the narrow path. Where the thief was forced to take extra care before negotiating an awkward dip or steep drop, Desvendapur simply ambled on, so that the distance between them never became too great.

At midday they paused to eat beside a miniature waterfall. Huge butterflies fluttered on wings of metallic hue, skating the edge of the spray, while mosquitoes danced among the lush ferns that framed the musical cataract. Cheelo was feeling fit and expansive, but it was plain that his many-legged companion was not doing nearly as well.

“C’mon, pick your antennae up,” he urged the thranx. “We’re doing good.” Chewing a strip of reconstituted meat, he nodded at the clouds scudding along mournfully below them. “We’ll be down to where it’s revoltingly hot and sticky before you know it.”

“That is what I am afraid of.” Desvendapur huddled as best he could beneath the thin blankets that hung all too loosely around him. “That it will happen before I know of it.”

“Is pessimism a common thranx characteristic?” Cheelo chided him playfully.

Without much success, the poet tried to tuck his exposed, unprotected limbs more tightly beneath him. “The human ability to adapt to extremes of climate is one we do not share. I find it difficult to believe that you are comfortable in these surroundings.”

“Oh, it’s on the brisk side; make no mistake about that. But now that we’re off the high plateau and down in cloud forest there ought to be enough moisture in the air for you.”

“Truly, the weight of the air is improving,” Desvendapur admitted. “But it’s still cold, so cold!”

“Eat your vegetables,” he advised the thranx. How many times as a child had his mother admonished him to do just that? He smiled to himself at the remembrance. The smile did not last. She had told him things like that when she wasn’t hitting him or bringing home a different visiting “uncle” every week or so. His expression darkened as he rose.

“C’mon, get up. We’ll push it until you start feeling better.” Gratefully, the poet struggled to his six feet, taking care not to shrug off any of the inadequate blankets or put too much pressure on the splinted middle limb.

But he did not start feeling better. Cheelo could not believe how rapidly the thranx’s condition deteriorated. Within a short while after their meal the alien began to experience difficulty in walking.

“I…I am all right,” Desvendapur replied in response to the human’s query. “I just need to rest for a time-part.”

“No.” Cheelo was unbending. “No resting. Not here.” Even as the thranx started to sink down onto its abdomen, Cheelo was reaching out to grab the bug and pull it back to its feet. The smooth, unyielding chitin of an upper arm was shockingly icy to the touch. “Shit, you’re as cold as these rocks!”

Golden-hued compound eyes peered up at him. “My system is concentrating its body heat internally to protect vital organs. I can still walk. I just need to rest first, to gather my strength.”

Cheelo’s reply was grim. “You ‘rest’ for very long and you won’t have to worry about gathering any strength.” Why was he so concerned? What did it matter to him if the bug died? He could kick the body over the side of the narrow trail and into the gorge where the rich friends of the dead
ninlocos
would never find it. Continuing on alone, he would make better time. Soon he’d find himself down by the river, and then back in the outpost of civilization called Sintuya. Climate-controlled hotel rooms, real food, insect screens, and a quick flight to Lima or Iquitos, then on to Golfito and his appointment with Ehrenhardt. After a rapid electronic transfer of credit, his own franchise. Money, importance, fine clothes, sloe gin, and fast women.
Respect,
for Cheelo Montoya.

It had been promised to him and was all there for the taking. With all that in prospect, why should he exert himself on behalf of a bug, even an oversized, intelligent one? The thranx had brought him nothing but trouble. Oh sure, maybe it had saved his life up on the ridge, but if he’d never met it, he would never have found himself in that life-threatening situation. As if that wasn’t reason enough, the insectoid was a criminal, an antisocial, among its own kind! It wasn’t like he would be extending himself to help rescue some alien saint or important diplomat.

Des’s limbs folded up against his abdomen and thorax as he sank down and huddled beneath the blankets. Even his upstanding antennae folded up, collapsing into tight curls to minimize heat loss. Cheelo stared. Ahead, the trail beckoned: a slender, rutted, dirt-and-mud track leading to one paved with gold. With luck—and if the trail held—he’d be down by nightfall and in Sintuya the following evening. He felt good, and as he went lower, the increasing amount of oxygen gave an additional boost to his spirits.

He took a couple of steps down the trail, turning to look back over a shoulder. “Come on. We can’t stop here if we want to get out of the mountains by nightfall.”

“A moment, just a moment,” the thranx pleaded. Its voice was even wispier than usual.

Cheelo Montoya waited irritably as he gazed at the impenetrable, eternal clouds crawling up the green-clad slopes. “Ah, hell.” Turning, he walked back to where the alien had slumped to the ground, all blue-green glaze and crumpled legs. Swinging his pack around so that it rested not against his spine and shoulders but across his chest, he turned his back to the poet, crouched, and bent forward.

“Come on. Get up and walk. It’s downhill. Let one leg fall in front of the other.”

“Fall?” The barely perceptible, protective transparent eye membrane trembled. “I do not follow your meaning.”

“Hurry up!” Annoyed, impatient, and angry at himself, Cheelo had no time for stupid questions. “Put your upper limbs over my shoulders, here.” He tapped himself. “Hang on tight. I’ll carry you for a while. It’ll warm up quick as we go down, and soon you’ll be able to walk on your own again. You’ll see.”

“You—you would carry me?”

“Not if you squat there clicking and hissing! Stand up, dammit, before I have any more time to think about how dumb this is and change my mind.”

It was an eerie, chilling sensation, the touch of hard, cold limbs against his shoulders, as if a gigantic crab were scrambling up his back. By utilizing all four front limbs the thranx was able to obtain a secure grip on the human’s upper torso. Glancing down, Cheelo could see the gripping digits locked together across his chest beneath pack and straps. All sixteen of them. The embrace was secure without being constricting. The thranx was solidly built, but not unbearably heavy. He decided he could manage it for a while, especially since it was downhill all the way. The biggest danger would come from stumbling or tripping, not from collapsing beneath the moderate alien weight.

Twisting to look around and down, he saw the other four alien limbs hanging loose, two on either side of his legs and hips. Exquisite alien body scent filled his nostrils. Enveloped by perfume, he resumed the descent.

“Just hang on,” he snapped irritably at his motionless burden. “You’ll feel better as soon as it’s warmer.”

“Yes.” Sensing the four alien mandibles moving against the flesh of his shoulder, Cheelo tried not to shudder. “As soon as it is warmer. I do not know how to thank you.” The exotic alien syllables echoed eerily against his ear.

“Try shutting up for a while,” his human bearer suggested. The poet obediently lapsed into silence.

The more relaxed beneath the extra weight he became, the faster Cheelo found he could move. By afternoon the pace of their descent had increased markedly. True to his word, the thranx maintained a merciful muteness, not even requesting that they stop for a meal. The alien’s silent acquiescence suited Cheelo just fine.

By the time the shrouded sun had commenced its swift plunge behind the Andes in search of the distant Pacific, Cheelo estimated that they had descended almost halfway to the rain forest below. Tomorrow noontime would see them enter the outskirts of the lowlands, where the temperature and the humidity would reach levels uncomfortable to Cheelo but complaisant for the thranx.

“Time to get off,” he told his passenger. Reacting slowly and with deliberation, the thranx released its hold on the human’s torso and dropped to the ground.

“I could not have come this far without your aid.” Clutching tightly at the blankets with both tru- and foothands, the poet singled out a log on which to spend the coming night, painfully straddling it with all four trulegs. The dead wood was damp and chilly against his exposed abdomen.

“Ay, you have to be feeling better.” Without knowing why he bothered, Cheelo tried to cheer his companion. “It’s warmer here, so you ought to be more comfortable.”

“It is warmer,” the thranx admitted. “But not so warm that I am comfortable.”

“Tomorrow,” Cheelo promised him. Kneeling beside his own pack, he searched for one of the smokeless fire sticks he had appropriated from the poacher outpost. The stick was intended to help start a blaze, but in the absence of any dry fuel he would just have to burn one stick after another until they made their own tiny campfire. They were as likely to find dry wood lying on the floor of a cloud forest as orchids sprouting on tundra.

As he prepared his simple meal Cheelo noticed that the thranx was not moving. “Aren’t you going to eat?”

“Not hungry. Too cold.” Antennae uncurled halfway but no further.

Shaking his head, Cheelo rose and walked over to examine the contents of the alien’s pack. “For a space-traversing species you’re not very adaptable.”

“We evolved and still prefer to live underground.” Even the thranx’s usually elegant, graceful gestures were subdued. “It is difficult to adjust to extremes of climate when you do not experience them.”

Cheelo shrugged as he rehydrated an assortment of dried fruit. At least water for food rehydration was not a problem in the cloud forest. With the onset of evening it was already beginning to precipitate out on his skin and clothing. Blankets or not, they would be compelled to endure at least one chill, moist night on the steep mountainside. Hot food and drink would help to minimize its effects.

Despite its obvious disinterest in the food, the thranx ate, albeit slowly and with care. Scarfing down his own meal, Cheelo watched the alien closely.

“Feel better?” he asked when both had finished. As always, it was fascinating to watch the bug clean its mandibles with its truhands. It put Cheelo in mind of a praying mantis gleaning the last bits of prey from its razor-sharp jaws.

“Yes, I do.” A foothand traced a discreet pattern in the air while the two truhands continued their hygiene, causing Cheelo to reflect on the usefulness of possessing two sets of hands. “This gesture I am making is one of more than moderate thanks.”

“Like this?” Cheelo’s arm and hand contorted in an ungainly try at mimicry.

The alien did not laugh at or criticize the clumsy attempt. “You have the upper portion of the movement correct, but the lower should go this way.” He demonstrated. Once again, Cheelo did his best to imitate the comparatively simple gesture.

“Better,” declared Desvendapur. “Try it again.”

“I’m doing the best I can.” Muttering, Cheelo adjusted his arm. “Between shoulder and wrist I’ve only got three joints to your four.”

“Near enough.” The foothand extended and pulled back at a particular angle. “This is the gesture for agreement.”

“So now I’m supposed to learn how to nod with my arm?” Cheelo smiled thinly.

The lesson was an improvement over charades. In this manner they passed the time until total darkness. They had to keep the lesson simple. Not because Cheelo was insufficiently flexible to approximate the thranx’s gestures, but because there was no getting around the fact that the more elaborate ones required the use of two pairs of upper appendages. Despite his desire to learn, the thief could not see himself lying down and writhing all four limbs in the air like a beetle trapped on its back.

Morning arrived on the underside of a cloud, crisp and moist. Yawning, Cheelo turned over in his bedroll. The night had been clammy and cold, but not intolerably so. The temperature had stayed well above that common to the plateau high above.

He stretched as he sat up, letting his blanket tumble from his shoulders to bunch up around his waist. Glancing to his right, he saw that his alien companion was still asleep, huddled beneath its makeshift cold-weather gear, all eight limbs contracted tightly beneath its thorax and abdomen.

“Time to move,” he announced unsympathetically. Rising, he scratched at himself. “Come on. If we get a good start we’ll be all the way down by evening. I’ll rehydrate some broccoli or some other green shit for you.” Among the litany of terrestrial fruits and vegetables it had sampled, the thranx had proven particularly fond of broccoli. As far as Cheelo was concerned, this only reinforced the differences between their respective species.