"Precious items," he commented. "Needed elsewhere."
"Priority 1A on FTLcom," Sorrel replied almost haughtily. That internal haughtiness surprised Sorrel himself. He'd never imagined himself pushing for the prerogatives the first Bloodbond had granted him, but Kik Nee rubbed him the wrong way. "Impediment intentional?"
The Rosan exhaled sharply. "Much work waits," he almost pleaded. "Let it progress. You need not speed, you have time."
And that, Sorrel knew, told the whole story. You have time, the Bloodbond knew, and hated. Jealousy haunted the Rosans at last. Sorrel cleared his throat. "I'm sorry. I've not treated you justly." Sorrel moved forward, took an incline. "But that equipment is needed. Without it the project halts. Though I can wait, engineers cannot. I waste not their lives." Sorrel remembered an old analogy, from the Rosan past. "There's an old bit of Rosan poetry—have you read Gesh Lok Tel Hor?"
The Rosan's lips drew back in disgust. "No time for ancient history."
Sorrel shook his head, blushed. "Of course not," he mumbled. "I'm sorry, again."
Kik Nee turned to the next waiting Rosan, who rushed into rapidfire discussion—again Sorrel was embarrassed at how much the Rosans had to slow down to talk to humans. But Sorrel wasn't done here yet. "Equipment?" he demanded in a loud, human voice, over the hummingbird sounds of the Rosans.
Kik Nee turned to him, head slumped ever so slightly. "Yours," he acquiesced.
Sorrel left with much food for thought.
Balcyrak stood with his back to Sorrel, watching the darkening sea, while the wind whipped his fur. Sorrel shivered, though the air was warm—on old Earth, the feeling in this evening air would have meant a storm coming.
Balcyrak turned as Sorrel approached. "You must see a sunrise while you are on Khayyam, Man Everwood. Do you know of them?"
Sorrel nodded. "I am, after all, the expert on the planet, right?"
Balcyrak chuckled. "Then tell me this, expert. From whence did the planet get its name?"
Sorrel tilted his head in thought. "Youve got me there. I know it was discovered by a Lazarine, but Khayyam doesn't sound like a Lazarine name."
"It is not. The leader of the Lazarine expedition that landed on Khayyam was an expert, if you will, on Man. Omar Khayyam was one of your own poets. The Lazarine explorer named the planet for the human author who wrote so eloquently of a species similar to the people of Khayyam." He paused, looking again to the sea.
"Yes, look—a thousand Blossoms with the Day
Woke—and a Thousand scattered in the Clay
And this first Summer Month that brings the Rose
Shall leave Another's gentle Petals, once blown, to lay."
Sorrel cleared his throat. "It does seem apropos, at that."
Balcyrak turned back to the human. "Yes. And now I have a warning for you." "Oh?"
"Watch out while you are on Khayyam, my friend-to-be. When you arrive, you will be honored, but it will not last. You will prove too alien to them, and a love/hate bond will form. It will prove cyclic. First they will love, then they will hate, then they will love again." The Lazarine's hand clenched and unclenched as he spoke. "Much as Man loves and hates Lazaran," he whispered to the wind.
Sorrel squinted at him. "I see." Sorrel moved to stand shoulder to shoulder with Balcyrak, at the edge of the precipice. "Why is it so important to you that the FTL communicator be ready so soon? Granted, it'll prove valuable beyond price, but why the rush? Why do you need to send people hurtling halfway across known space to get it done so quickly?"
Now it seemed that Balcyrak shivered under his thick coat of hair. "I suppose you should know. I suppose it might help motivate you, as well." He paused. "There will be another war between our peoples, Man Everwood."
Sorrel nodded, though currently the peacefulness of Man's relationship with the Lazarines was sickeningly sweet, he knew there was an undercurrent of hatred, a slowly growing group of people who disliked the Lazarines as much as Sorrel himself did. "Who will win?"
"Does it matter? Someone will lose. Someone, Man Everwood, will lose everything. The next war will be a war of genocide. Our wisest consuls have studied carefully, and they know not who will be destroyed, but all agree that one or the other of our species is doomed."
Sorrel paled; he hadn't realized it would go that far.
"We need better communications, Man Everwood. The time it takes for even the starships to carry messages is too great for your people. Given better communications, and hence swifter understanding, we believe we can avert the war"
Sharp cynicism left a sour taste in Sorrel's mouth. "Communications will avert a war, huh? Just like that." He snapped his fingers. He'd heard that sort of thing before, but only from human dreamers who thought that words had substance. He hadn't expected it from a calm, realistic Lazarine.
"I don't blame you for doubting. Certainly, talk has rarely helped your species avert internal warfare. But this is considerably different." For the first time, the Lazarine's eyes refused to meet Sorrel's. "There is a . . . molding of directions involved. It is difficult to explain." Balcyrak's eyes regained their penetrating intensity. "But I am telling you the truth; communication is the answer." Now his amusement returned as well. "This also is something you'll understand better after working with the people of Khayyam."
Sorrel pursed his lips; Balcyrak's sincerity made a believer of him. "I confess, the urgency of the project seems somewhat greater now than it did a few minutes ago"
"I thought it might. Yes." A particularly strong gust of wind pushed them back from the cliff just as the sun sank beyond the horizon. They turned back to the path. "And remember to see a sunrise while you are there, Man Everwood. It is special indeed."
Sorrel squeezed through the narrow passage into the fresh-cut cavenet. "Whew!" he exclaimed, "what a small entrance. I didn't even see it at first. You'll have to enlarge it."
The tunneling chief looked upset. "Of course, Man Everwood. The entranceway is always widened as the last step, so our noise and dust disturb the rest of the cavernwork as little as possible."
"Oh. I understand." Sorrel toured the new FTLcom lab facilities with some pleasure. "Well, it all looks pretty good to me, though I don't know anything about the arrangements you need for hyperspace experiments. I suppose we should have Cal and Wandra take a look."
They squeezed back out of the cavenet. Sorrel looked again at the narrow entrance. "Wait a minute. What if we don't open it up now?" He pondered for a moment.
The tunneling chief looked upset again. "Why wouldn't you open it?"
"Just in case of emergencies, that's all." He nodded his head. "Chief, these labs are ours to do with as we please, right?"
"Of course."
An evil gleam entered Sorrel's eyes. "Cal and Wandra will probably shoot me for this—the lecture hall is horribly overcrowded, and they need this space now— but I think we'll leave it as is."
The chief s petals fluttered rebelliously.
"Don't widen the entrance," Sorrel said, to make his orders explicit. "We'll open it later. When we want it, I'll have one of your bloodchildren do it for us."
The chief looked like he'd collapse with sorrow. Still he managed to stutter, "Yes, Man Everwood."
Sorrel touched his forearm. "And thanks. You've done a wonderful job. We'll remember you forever."
"Thank you, Man Everwood." The chiefs eyes shone brightly again.
All the Rosans are bright, Wandra thought, but this Sor Lai Don Shee is something special, even among Rosans.
In fact, he and his descendants could be the key to turning the FTLcom problem into a trivial task. Sor Lai's bloodfeast memories were impossibly crisp; leaving him a perfect understanding of everything his four FTLcom engineering parents had understood.
That was exceptional enough—but then Sor Lai went beyond that. He also learned new things faster than anyone else, he asked the most insightful questions, and he brought new points of view to bear on every problem. In just a few weeks he cou
ld have resolved every remaining problem in the final design, Wandra was sure.
But he didn't have a few weeks, and when the second instruction session was over, Wandra didn't want to let him go; she wanted to keep teaching him, to pack as much of her mind into his as fast as she could. She hurried from the platform, worried she wouldn't catch him before he burst from the room in normal Rosan fashion.
But he was not hurrying off with his peers; rather, he was hurrying toward Wandra, and only swift Rosan reflexes kept them from colliding in mid-step.
Wandra gurgled with laughter. "Two minds with one thought," she said. "Would you like to continue our discussions?"
Sor Lai smiled as only a Rosan could smile, with the cheeks lifting gaily and petals fluttering as though in a breeze. "Very much, Man Furenz. I would appreciate it beyond your knowing."
She crossed her fingers at him. "My name is Wandra, Sor Lai. I hate formality."
She had to admit, she liked Sor Lai for more than merely his superior performance. She liked the naive optimism he'd shown early in the day, and she enjoyed watching that optimism develop by midnight age into a mature confidence. He knew that the eccentricities of the Universe could impede progress, or even reverse progress, but never, in the long run, stop progress.
They turned to the cavern passage. "Come with me," Wandra bubbled. "We'll go to my . . ." Wandra bit her lip; there was no word for "home" in Rosan. "We'll go to my place-of-work."
Sor Lai looked puzzled. "Isn't the lecture hall your place-of-work?"
She threw up her hands. "I have many places-of-work. This is a special one."
"I see. I think I understand. "
She took him by the arm. "I see a free speedcart up ahead. Race ya!"
Sor Lai won the race, of course, laughing all the way.
They survived Sor Lai's driving, somewhat to Wandra's surprise, and stopped before the small fountain at the entrance to Wandra's cavern. "Beautiful!" Sor Lai exclaimed. "How many people worked upon this? And what does it do?"
Wandra shook her head. "I built it myself; I'm a sometimes-sculptor. It's not very good, I'm afraid. And all it does is shoot water in the air, from the fairy's fingertips, and collect it again among the green rocks beneath her feet." She turned to flick the pump switch. A thin stream danced up, spiraled down again. Sor Lai bent to touch the smooth stone, amazed. "This is the work of many lifetimes. Joyous." He rose up. "What else do Men do in their immortality?"
Wandra stammered in horror.
"Do not answer. I'm sorry." He came and took her arm. "I must see the rest of your place-of-work." They entered Wandra's home together.
Sor Lai pointed at the walls. "The pictures. Of what are the pictures?" he demanded.
Wandra looked at the scenes of Karly for the first time in weeks. "Pictures of my—" again, there was no word for home— "birth world. I had our ship computer make these up specially—they appear through my infrared goggles to look the way the originals look in normal light—normal light, that is, for a Man. So you're seeing my planet as I see it, more or less."
"These are all pictures of the surface!"
Wandra nodded. "It is gentler on my world than on Khayyam." She looked at the dry-ice-capped mountain towering above the capital and chuckled. "Though not too gentle, I suppose."
Sor Lai looked at another scene, where the sun set over a pink, powdery beach. "Those aren't Men, are they? They're too small."
Wandra followed his pointing finger. "They are almost Men, Sor Lai. They are my children. Humans metamorphose slowly, gradually becoming more Manlike."
"Your children!" He scrutinized the picture. "They laugh with grace. Have you met them? You could have met them, couldn't you?"
Wandra laughed. "Yes, Sor Lai, I lived with them for a long time."
Sor Lai turned back to Wandra. "Do they know your memories well?"
Wandra pondered that. "I suppose you could say they do, at least as Men go. They're more like me than their father, that's for sure. They'll be great mathematicians, someday, not housekeepers like my ex-husband." She shook her head.
Sor Lai turned slowly through the room. "And a love couch right here, in your place-of-work!"
Wandra blushed, though she wasn't sure why; she'd never thought of herself as the innocent type. "Not for a long time, my friend. I use it for, uh . . . You've noticed that Men tire faster than Rosans, haven't you? I rest there. We are unconscious for almost a third of our lives, resting."
"And still you get so many things done." Sor Lai's admiration continued.
By now Wandra's face was burning. "We do our best," she muttered. She turned to her kitchen. "Now, I have to eat something, or I'll die of starvation."
Sor Lai's admiration turned to amazement. "Eat! Like a larva?" he gasped.
"You bet," she agreed. "We don't store enough fat before adulthood to last for the rest of our lives, though sometimes it seems like my body's trying to."
At last Sor Lai was speechless. Wandra cooked, set the table, and started to eat. She talked mathematics continually, until she noticed the horror on Sor Lai's face. She felt uncomfortable. "Listen, do you want me to eat another time?"
"No, not at all," Sor Lai said. To Wandra, he seemed to be shuddering. "It's . . . intriguing."
She looked at him a while, then continued her meal.
"I remember my bloodfeast," he said, petals waving ecstatically. "It is a joy beyond imagining."
"I believe it," Wandra replied. "When we eat, though, it's nothing like that." She had heard of Rosans with keen memories of the bloodfeast ecstasy actually stealing someone's brainblood, to try to eat it—even though the adult Rosan's digestive tract is atrophied. And the ecstasy had to be strong indeed, to risk the consequences—for the stealing of another Rosan's brainblood was punishable by brainblood cremation.
They talked. Wandra finished her meal at last, and the two of them sat upon her bed, still talking. Suddenly Sor Lai clapped his hands and jumped to his feet. "You know, this hyperspace link with sound and video is all right, but the properties of the four-space beg you to generate three-dimensional pictures. Do you have a computer terminal here?"
Wandra was on her feet as well. "It begs you, huh? Well, it never begged me, but if you say so, here—" She marched to her desk and pulled out a keyboard. The wall in front of her lit up, and with quick keystrokes she logged into the Rosan central computer system.
Sor Lai crossed the room to join her. His fingers flew across the keys, and he spoke in machine-gun Rosan as the ideas developed and the machines to implement them took shape. Wandra could only stand and stare. "There," he proclaimed at last. "It's even better than I thought. When the FTLcom is ready, you won't even have to send a ship to deliver the construction plans to people on other planets. We'll be able to project and receive 3-D images all with one transceiver, without any equipment at the other end. Unless they throw a blast screen around your target location or some such thing."
Wandra continued to stare at him. "That's incredible."
He smiled broadly. "Yes, it is, isn't it?"
She laughed. "Even more incredible than a Man who eats even after she becomes an adult."
His smile turned quiet. "No, not as incredible as that."
They hugged each other, artificial coolsuit petals touching honest, living, roselike petals.
For the first time, Wandra became aware of how much thinner Sor Lai was now than when they'd left for her home. She looked at her watch; six hours had passed—the equivalent, in Rosan terms, of almost ten years.
Wandra jerked away. "Sor Lai!" she almost screamed. "We have to get you back!"
"I guess we should, at that," he conceded.
They speeded through the cavenets, as fast as they'd gone before, yet it was too slow for Wandra's concern. She had used up an awesome part of Sor Lai's life, just bringing him home.
Wandra tried to counter her guilt with logic. After all, the time had been productive, hadn't it? And yes, it had been worth it, hadn't it? She
hurt nevertheless.
They returned to the conference cavern, where Cal was lecturing. Sor Lai took his place among his fellows, but Wandra couldn't bear to leave. She listened to Cal's lecture absently, looking among the now dawning-aged nightspinners, seeing them for the first time, watching them grow old.
The lecture ended, and a break was taken—a break to work on the two prototypes nearing completion. Wandra hovered by Sor Lai's team. Work ended, and Wandra lectured, and work continued, until dawn.
Wandra fought the tears gathering in her eyes. The curled, green-tinged petals spread inexorably across Sor Lai's body. He smiled at her sadly. "You should leave me now," he whispered. "It's time for me to go, to let my children remember."
"No, let us not waste a minute of life," Wandra choked.
The laughter in his eyes calmed. "I am tired," he said. He settled to the ground. "I'm sorry."
Wandra knelt beside him.
The air turned sweet with honeysuckle, and the flowing blood mingled with a woman's tears.
Sorrel peeked around the corner, into the interior of Wandra's home. "Anybody home?" he asked, watching her lie upon her bed.
She turned to him, tired and distraught. "Hi," she smiled wanly. "I'm sorry I haven't made it in yet. The students are probably better off without me, anyway."
Sorrel slipped in, moved to sit on the edge of her bed. "Are you sick? Did you finally find a bacterium on this planet that knows what to do with our proteins?"
She shook her head.
He nodded. "I understand there was an exceptional student during nightspin."
She nodded.
"I also hear . . . you were rather fond of him."
She rolled away. "God, yes. He was kind, he was beautiful, he was . . ."
"He was all good things. I know. It seems to be a common trait among the Rosans." He rolled her gently over to face him.
"Why do they have to die so soon?" she yelled at him. "Why can't they live like we do, and laugh and love and talk with their children and . . ." She was crying.
The Gentle Seduction Page 13
