Was her psychosis inheritable? Had she been crazy from birth? He had a sudden vision of a successfully resurrected humankind—all mad. Would that, after all, be so very different from the species that had created and disseminated the Aura Malignance?
For now, he pushed the unsettling images from his mind. The girl had just been found. She was about to be introduced to aliens and an alien society. Unlike the mature individual he had been when a Myssari exploration team had found him wandering on Seraboth, she had no reference points for such an encounter. In contrast, he’d had access to more than a hundred years of studying and learning, albeit largely self-directed. In the absence of such experience, he would have to direct for her. He would have to explain, to teach, to assure. Whether she would let him or not remained to be seen.
In dreaming of finding another human alive, he had fantasized himself as a mate. Not a teacher. But he resolved to accept the destiny Fate had handed him with as much grace as possible.
The small, leather-tough hand that firmly gripped his made it easier for him to acquiesce to that inevitability.
She might have found his description of the Myssari amusing, but it turned out that his own estimation of her courageousness had been overdone. When she saw them approaching in their exploration gear, Bac’cul in the lead, she let out a cross between a scream and a squeak and tried to bolt. Gripping her hand tightly (he told himself it was for purposes of reassurance and not restraint), he knelt down and hurried to calm her.
“Hey, hey!…Relax, Cherpa. They’re friends, I told you.” He put on his best smile. “You said they sounded funny. Just look at them. They are funny-looking, aren’t they?” The pull on his hand, the frantic desire to escape, grew less insistent. Her wide-eyed gaze flicked rapidly between him and the approaching Myssari. He kept talking—fast, but not so fast as to suggest panic. “See how they walk? Sometimes the middle leg first and then the other two, sometimes one-two-three, one-two-three.” He leaned closer and she did not pull away. “You know what’s really funny?” She shook her head uncertainly. “Watching a Myssari trip over all three of its own feet.”
Her brows drew together, an indication that internal visualization was hard at work. Then she smiled. It was the second-most-beautiful thing he had seen that day, following his first full glimpse of the long-tressed girl.
“My friends will be your friends,” he promised her. “They can be a lot of fun. You know what else is fun?” The Myssari team was almost upon them now and he made sure to keep his body between them and her. “A haircut. See?” Reaching up, he ran his palm across a pate that was covered with very short gray follicles. “But we won’t cut yours this short. Unless you want it this short.” He hoped she would not say yes. Though it was an utterly unscientific, culturally antique thought, he was inordinately pleased when she did not.
To their credit, the Myssari slowed their advance despite their unconcealed excitement.
“Another human!” Cor’rin was breathing hard as she stared. “And an immature female at that. I never thought to see such a thing. Wonderful, wonderful!” Forcing her gaze away from the wide-eyed newcomer, she regarded Ruslan. “Is she healthy?”
Not “What is her name?” or “How is she feeling?” Ruslan thought. As a Myssari scientist, Cor’rin’s first concern was for the viability of the new specimen. He decided he could not blame her for being characteristic of her own species. Still, the researcher’s query rankled slightly.
“No, she’s not fine.” He looked on intently as Bac’cul and several other members of the exploration team formed a curious, reverential semicircle behind Cherpa. Reassured by Ruslan, she studied them in turn, more curious now than afraid. She could not understand anything they were saying about her, of course. Language learning would take time. Meanwhile there would be mechanical translators, perfectly efficient thanks to Myssari technology and his assistance with corrections.
They were examining her as if she were a new genus of arthropod. It was a look he knew intimately, having himself been subject to it on more occasions than he could count. Cherpa appeared to be handling the attention very well. What was actually going through her mind as she withstood the intense alien scrutiny remained unknown. At least, he told himself, she wasn’t running in circles and screaming or coiling into a fetal position. Thus far her madness seemed drawn from a source that, as such things went, was comparatively benign.
“Look at the extent of follicular growth.” Informed that Cor’rin was also female, the bright-eyed Cherpa was allowing the Myssari researcher to handle her long hair. Nine limber, soft-tipped fingers trolled through the auburn tresses. “Contrast it with Ruslan’s.”
“I could have had the same,” he pointed out. “Via simple genetic manipulation or chemical stimulation. I chose to let nature take its course.” He nodded at the now surrounded girl. “That’s what has happened with her. It will have to be trimmed back, if only for hygienic reasons. But not too much.” Moving closer, he smiled down at the girl. Her initial fears now banished by the humorous appearance and gentle touch of the Myssari scientists, she grinned loopily back at him.
“Will you let your hair be cut, Cherpa? I’ll do it myself if you don’t want the Myssari to do it—though I think one of their medical personnel would do a better job than me.”
“Funny Bogo; of course you can cut my hair! It’s just hair. I used to hide behind it. I don’t have to hide anymore, do I?” Looking around, she met many of the small-eyed stares that were openly marveling at her. “I embrace funny, run from nasty. No hasty-nasties here.” Her voice fell slightly as her attitude grew more serious. “We are going away from here, aren’t we?”
He nodded encouragingly. “No hasty-nasties where we’re going, I promise you. Just lots of real food and new clothes.”
“I’d like to have some new clothes.” Her voice faded. “I remember that I had some once, a long time ago. My mo…my mo—”
A great gush of tears erupted from her. Alarmed by the unexpected outpouring, the Myssari hastily retreated. Bac’cul looked downright terrified. Afraid of losing the new specimen, Ruslan mused unfairly as he moved to hold the girl and let her wring out her sobs against him. Even while they were staring concernedly, at least two of the researchers were checking to make certain their automatic recorders were functioning properly. Cherpa’s anguish constituted a unique display, one that outside of studied historical recordings of human children was entirely new to the Myssari. Dedicated researchers that they were, they were not about to miss preserving a moment of it.
Ruslan found himself thinking that the first one of them that mentioned possible reproductive possibilities was going to receive a punch to its facial foreridge. The girl was awakening in him all manner of instincts he thought long forgotten. Ancient genetic information was being roused. It was astounding. It was remarkable. For the first time in decades he felt…protective. Alien though the emotion might be, and unnecessary, he did not reject it.
Taking a small, individual specimen recovery tube from his pack, Bac’cul contemplated obtaining a sample of the lubricating fluid that was spilling from the immature human’s eyes. He was anxious to learn if its composition differed from that of the male mature specimen Ruslan. It was not the human who intervened to prevent him, however, but one of his own kind. Startled, he looked to his left. It was the intermet Kel’les who had interrupted the scientist’s proposed course of action.
“I believe I perceive your intention. I recommend postponement. As was often the case with Ruslan, I am certain there will be ample future opportunity to acquire the sample you wish to take.”
While Bac’cul technically outranked the human’s personal handler, the researcher decided not to make an issue of the minor confrontation. Not without fully satisfying his curiosity, however.
“Why should I not proceed?”
Kel’les gestured toward the humans. “Observe the interacti
on. Note the intimacy of the respective stances. An elder male is comforting a distraught juvenile. One whose mental state is, according to Ruslan, perilous. From the extensive time I have spent in Ruslan’s company, I deduce that interruption at such a moment could be interpreted as unnecessarily provocative.”
Bac’cul indicated his uncertainty. “I am not sure that I follow your reasoning.”
Kel’les obligingly abridged it. “There are times when Ruslan takes objection to being treated as a thing. Now that he is functioning in caring mode, I believe his reaction to what he might perceive as an insensitive intrusion would be detrimental to your ultimate purpose.”
The researcher was taken aback. “You’re not suggesting he might resist my attempt physically?”
“I am suggesting precisely that,” a tense Kel’les replied.
Bac’cul didn’t hesitate. He returned the collection cup to its holder. He was not fearful that the human might hurt him: he was afraid that the human might hurt himself. As he looked on he realized that there was wisdom in Kel’les’s intervention that could be applied beyond the immediate situation. The history of Ruslan’s presence among the Myssari had shown that it had taken some time to fully gain the human’s trust. Similarly, gaining the girl’s confidence was likely to take at least as long. As with Ruslan, it would be vital to have her full cooperation in order to best advance the field of human studies. As a specimen, she was plainly going to be around for longer than the older male. Bac’cul’s withholding his immediate interest was therefore based entirely on a respect for good science and not at all on empathy for a distressed fellow sentient. It was just good sense, if not good sensitivity.
Having lived long among the Myssari, Ruslan would have understood this reasoning. But that did not mean he would have liked it.
10
It was as the team was packing to leave Dinabu for the last time that Ruslan felt a tug on his arm. That the touch was slightly but noticeably warmer than that of a Myssari immediately identified the owner of the insistent fingers.
“Can’t go yet.” An anxious Cherpa was gazing up at him. “Won’t go yet. Won’t. I’ll suck in my breath until I turn inside out. I’ll wriggle—”
“Easy, easy.” By now the soothing tone he had adopted whenever he was in her presence came unbidden to him. “What’s wrong? Why don’t you want to leave yet?”
“Need something. Can’t forget.” Turning, she gestured in the direction of the city. “You need to come with me to get it. Three-legs need to come with me to get it.” Her expression was deadly serious. “We’ll need guns. Lots of guns.”
“There’s that kind of danger?” he inquired gently.
Her head turned slightly to one side and she eyed him as if he had suddenly morphed into one of the eel-like creatures that lived their whole lives in the slimier portions of the endless mudflats.
“No. I’m making it all up. I’m crazy, remember? Crazy and ’leven. I want lots of guns because there’s no danger. What do you think?”
Where Cherpa was concerned, he hoped for intelligence. He wished for sanity. He had not expected scorn.
“Lots of guns it is.” He started away. “I’ll tell Bac’cul and Cor’rin and they’ll inform the escort leader. When do you want to do this?”
“Right now. This minute. Yesterday.” She was plainly troubled. “I shouldn’t have come with you without it, but your appearance slapped my brain and it didn’t stop shaking until today.”
“We’ll get ready as fast as possible,” he assured her.
What could be so important? he wondered. A nicfile containing her personal records, perhaps with images of her parents? A visual life history of the kind people used to carry around with them on Seraboth, contained in a tiny device that recorded one’s every action, every utterance? The Myssari would treat any such material as invaluable since the contents could be corroborated by her, by a living human being. All he had to do was suggest that was the case and the escort she was requesting should be immediately forthcoming.
More than a dozen armed Myssari from the outpost accompanied him and the girl as they retraced their steps back to the section of the city where he had initially encountered her. It being essentially a recovery operation with an as yet undefined target, a quick in and out allowing no time for field research, Bac’cul and Cor’rin remained behind with the driftecs. In the event a flash extraction was required, they would be in constant contact with the compact expeditionary group.
Having been attacked twice now by the local bipedal aborigines, Ruslan was more than a little wary of every dark alley and overhang, every crumbling ledge. Back once more among the devastated reaches she had called home, the effervescent Cherpa had gone silent. She had survived here alone through stealth and caution. The presence of armed Myssari around her did not result in a sudden change in habit.
So she was the only one not taken by surprise when the parallel walkways being utilized by her new friends erupted beneath them.
“Nalack!” she screamed as she bolted for the safety of a nearby structure.
The name meant nothing to Ruslan. The creature’s appearance meant everything. “Nalack” might not even be a name, he told himself as he threw himself to one side while simultaneously struggling to draw his sidearm. It might be a curse. Both seemed applicable to the shape that was rising out of the muck.
It looked like the mother of all nematodes. Coated in a special mucus that allowed it to slip rapidly through the mudflats in search of food, the slick snakelike body terminated in a spray of two-meter-long tentacles that themselves were coated with thousands of tiny barbs. Unable to escape, trapped prey would be ingested as the head-mouth folded in upon itself, pushing the incipient meal backward down the long gullet. There were no visible eyes or other sensory organs.
Twice as thick as his own torso, the upper portion of the muscular dark brown body emerged farther from the mud and struck at the scattering of Myssari. Many shots were fired but none struck home. Taking aim at the flailing nalack was like trying to draw a bead on an uncontrolled hose. Metal, ceramic, and blended graphite flowered in fragments as the missed blasts struck the surrounding buildings.
A frantic Ruslan heard a sickening crunching sound as one of the escorts was snapped up by the thrashing head-mouth. Impaled on dozens of backward-facing barbs, the unfortunate Myssari’s bones snapped and crumpled as his body was forced down the predator’s throat. It was a sacrifice not in vain. In order to begin the process of swallowing, the nalack had to slow its wild gyrations. This allowed the doomed escort’s comrades to pause in their flight and take proper aim. Convulsed by repeated hits from their weapons, the nalack shuddered, thrust several times at its now well-concealed tormentors, and finally fell, a coil of extirpated muscularity that collapsed in upon itself. Its subsidence sent a shower of mud and dirty water cascading over anyone unfortunate enough to be sheltering nearby, including Ruslan. As the nalack spasmed through its final death throes in the muck, it regurgitated its most recent meal. Hardened from their tour of duty on Daribb, the companions of the dead and broken Myssari dealt with his remains far better than Ruslan, who turned away and threw up.
It was only when he had finished wiping his mouth with the back of his bare forearm that he remembered Cherpa.
Responding to the nalack’s attack faster than any of her companions, she had ducked into an open, protective doorway the instant the monster pseudo-worm had erupted from its hiding place within the harbor flats. Ruslan hurried toward the opening where she had disappeared, absently brushing at the filth that covered him as he ran, all manner of worrisome thoughts rushing through his mind. Given her still-uncertain state of mind, it was possible to imagine a raft of possible scenarios, few of them good. The appearance of the nalack might have driven her over the edge on which she had been teetering. Panic might have wiped memory of him and the Myssari from her mind. Revitalized fear
could have sent her fleeing into the depths of the empty city. The inability of the Myssari to deal instantly with the threat posed by the predator, much less detect it before it attacked, could have led her to conclude that there was no safety in throwing in her lot with them.
His gaze swept the interior of the building into which she had fled. There was no sign of her, no indication she had ever been there. Behind him the sorrowful Myssari escorts were bundling up their dead comrade. There was no wailing, no heaving sobs. The Myssari did not cry. Their anguish was private. Ruslan’s throat constricted. Even had they been biologically able to produce tears, his friends would have found the act of weeping an unforgivable imposition on those around them.
They had better be prepared to deal with it, though. If they didn’t find the girl, an increasingly distraught Ruslan was going to put on an exhibition of grief that would go down as unprecedented in the annals of Myssari xenological research.
He let the escorts deal with their deceased associate for as long as he dared before informing them of the situation.
“We should call in the others.” The leader of the escorts was beyond upset, though one would never have guessed it from the intermet’s controlled demeanor. “The lifeform detection gear on the driftecs far exceeds the capabilities of our hand-carried instrumentation.”
Ruslan nodded ready agreement, not bothering to consider if the escorts would correctly interpret the meaning of the gesture. “Do it now.” He gestured over a shoulder, toward the building where Cherpa had vanished. “But we can’t wait for them to get here. We have to move now. The longer we wait, the deeper into the city she’s liable to run. I only found her the first time because she was being threatened by the natives.” He licked his lips. “She’s likely to have a network of deep, protected hiding places where we won’t be able to find her even with advanced search-and-locate equipment.”
Relic Page 15
