Breath of Life

by Christine Pope

  “A horrible joke?” I asked, and my father shook his head.

  “No, Anika. I tried to tell him what he asked was impossible—and illegal—but he wouldn’t listen. Told me to breathe of the flowers, as by then my own oxygen supply had almost run out, and I did. I wanted to have enough breath to argue with him, if nothing else. He said he could make things difficult for me—bring me up against the magistrate. He pointed out that if the ruling went against me, I could lose the homestead.”

  “Well, we can’t let that happen,” I said, my tone flat. Crazy as it might have seemed to someone outside the situation, somehow complaining about giving myself over as chattel to a vindictive alien seemed petty when measured against the possibility of losing the piece of land we’d struggled to survive on all those years.

  My father replied, “It’s insane, and we all know it. We can fight this thing—”

  “With what?” my mother interjected. “We don’t have money for a lawyer. Are you going to defend yourself? We’ve all seen this Zhore’s property—he can probably afford to hire an army of lawyers if he needs to.”

  I knew she was right, but somehow it didn’t feel that great to listen to my mother calmly point out all the reasons why it would make much more sense for me to hand myself over like a good girl. Technically, at twenty I was considered an adult and could do as I wished, but the truth was that I depended on them for everything. The best way I could help them now was to go to the Zhore.

  “It’s all right, Dad,” I said, my voice calm enough, even though an odd, fluttery sensation had started somewhere in my midsection. “We all know there’s no way you can let him take you to court. You’ve worked so hard on this homestead—I won’t let you lose it.”

  His eyes looked suspiciously bright, but he stared back at me without flinching. “And I won’t let my daughter give herself over to a monster.”

  “I’ve been of age for almost three years. You really can’t stop me.” The words sounded firm and reasonable. I almost believed them.

  A few seconds passed, seconds in which he sat there and watched me as if he hadn’t really ever seen me before. “You mean that?”

  “Yes,” I said. “You’ve done so much for me. Let me do something now to help you.”

  He was silent, but somehow in the sudden slump of his shoulders I saw he wouldn’t fight me anymore.

  “Besides,” I added, and managed to summon a smile, “I’m ready for a change.”

  I had spoken only to hearten my father, to attempt to erase the miserable look on his face, but I realized once I had said the words that I actually did mean them.

  Only after I packed my few meager belongings did I understand how little I had accumulated during our years here on Lathvin IV. Some changes of clothing, the precious gold ring my parents had given me for my eighteenth birthday and which I knew they really couldn’t afford. My own tablet computer, smaller than my mother’s and not as powerful. I used the desk computer for my schoolwork, as the tablets weren’t set up to connect to the subspace grid, but of course I couldn’t exactly take that with me. Somehow I doubted the Zhore would allow me to continue my studies, but if he did, well, he was rich enough to get me my own desktop unit with subspace relays.

  The storm had blown itself out, but the world was still sodden as my father and I set forth. My mother begged off, saying her head ached. I wanted to hate her for her cowardice, but maybe it was easier for her to make her farewells inside the familiar walls of her own home. An odd numbness had overtaken me, and I could only hug her briefly before I followed my father out to the airlock.

  The Zhore’s instructions had been that I should come immediately, even though by that time it was almost twenty-three hundred. They used Gaia time on Lathvin, even though the planet’s natural day only had twenty-two hours; our hours were shorter than Gaia standard to compensate. Still, late was late, no matter how you calculated it.

  I wore my breather and my father had the spare. They were designed so you could communicate easily when wearing them, but neither of us seemed too inclined to conversation. My father carried a halogen torch, and I my little satchel with all my worldly goods. I concentrated on the treacherous ground underfoot; of course the road was well-paved, but mud had flowed across sections of it. In a few days someone would come along with a ’dozer to clear it out, I supposed. In the meantime, we picked our way along and tried not to trip over scattered rocks or stumble into a hole.

  Despite the rough going, we reached the perimeter of the Zhore’s property sooner than I would have liked. The moonflowers danced and swayed around us, seeming to laugh in the darkness. A dark path wound through them toward the Zhore’s house.

  We stopped there. My father said, “You can’t do this, Anika.”

  Somehow I’d known he would make one last attempt to keep me from going. I shook my head, wishing that so much of our faces weren’t obscured by the breathing apparatus. There were newer, more streamlined models available, but purchasing them had been beyond our modest means. “It’ll be fine. It’s really like I’m hardly leaving at all. Libba’s the one who’s light-years and light-years away—I’ll just be a few kilometers down the road.”

  His cheeks moved, and I guessed he smiled a little behind the breathing mask. “I see I really can’t stop you.”

  “No,” I said. “Let me do this, Dad. Let me help.”

  And then he took me and gave me a fierce hug before he turned away, as if he couldn’t bear to watch me walk up the path to the Zhore’s house. It was all right. I didn’t think I’d want to do that, either, if our roles had been reversed.

  So there was no one to see me move down the dark path through all those pale flowers, which sighed and rustled in the dark. I kept my head up and walked steadily toward the looming bulk of the Zhore’s home—mansion, really, now that I grew closer and saw how big the place actually was. It looked like pictures I’d seen of old houses on Gaia, except something seemed slightly off about the proportions, and the windows had odd little arches above them. Two lights burned blue-white at the entrance, one on either side of an enormous pewter-colored door. As I approached, the door swung inward, opening on an airlock much grander than the one at our homestead. This one looked almost like a vestibule of its own.

  Maybe the Zhore had been watching on a closed circuit, or maybe the door was programmed to open whenever someone came near it. I supposed it really didn’t matter. I had set myself on this course, and so I’d have to follow through, no matter what happened.

  I stepped inside, then waited for the familiar whoosh of the door sealing behind me. I reached up and took off the breathing mask. Fresh air, with none of the faintly recycled scent of the air of my family’s homestead, swirled around me.

  The interior door opened then, and I stepped out into an enormous room fully two stories high, with a wide staircase directly in front of me. Lights in sconces burned at half-power, gleaming off floors and walls of what appeared to be dark, polished stone. In one corner a wall fountain splashed into the silence.

  “Welcome.” The voice was deep and calm, and seemed to come from a spot halfway up the stairs.

  I started, then realized what I thought had been just another shadow was the Zhore himself, standing there in his night-colored robes. Of course, I could see nothing of him, just the vague outline of a hooded figure. He did seem very tall.

  “Thank you,” I said. What a silly thing to say. Why should I be thanking him for blackmailing me away from my family and my home? I added, in a slightly sharper tone, “That is, I’m here because you didn’t give us much choice.”

  To my surprise, he laughed. The laugh sounded human enough at least, although I knew no human being lurked beneath those concealing robes. “You are not afraid to speak your mind. That is good.” A pause, then, “Come here.”

  I wanted to refuse, but I doubted that would do me or my cause much good. Clutching my satchel, I mounted the basalt staircase and stopped on the step just below him. He surveyed me for a
moment.

  “What is your name?”

  “Anika,” I replied. “Anika Jespers.”

  “Anika,” he repeated. “What does it mean?”

  “Mean?”

  “All names have meanings, don’t they?”

  I supposed that was mostly true, but I found myself reluctant to give him an answer. “My parents said it meant ‘beautiful’ in one of the old Gaian languages.” I shrugged. “Sorry about the false advertising.”

  “You are not considered beautiful?”

  How was I supposed to reply to that? Libba had always been considered the golden child, with her strawberry blonde hair and big green eyes. If a person had been feeling charitable, they might have referred to my hair as dark auburn in certain lights, but really, it was plain reddish-brown, and while I was pretty enough according to Gaian standards, I didn’t think anyone except an indulgent parent would have ever thought of me as beautiful.

  “Not by people who’ve had their eyes recently checked,” I said.

  Another laugh. “Zhore eyes are sharper than human eyes,” he commented, rather cryptically. “Come—I will show you to your room.”

  Failing any other alternatives, I followed him upstairs, where he led me down a long hall to a doorway with a palm lock.

  “Put your hand on it, so it can learn your print,” he instructed me, and I pulled off my glove and set my palm against the cool glass surface. A second or two passed, and then a blue light came on, and the door slid open.

  I hadn’t really known quite what to expect—maybe that he’d put me to work in the kitchen or tending the plants hidden in the greenhouse at the back of his property—but what I hadn’t expected was a room almost as big as my parents’ entire house, with sleek furniture of some pale polished material I couldn’t identify, and a bed covered in silky fabric in an elusive aquamarine shade.

  “It’s beautiful,” I said in awed tones, before I thought that maybe I shouldn’t seem quite so grateful. After all, I was here under duress. The most luxurious bedroom in the galaxy couldn’t change that.

  The hooded head tilted slightly. “I am glad it pleases you. The closet is there, behind that door, and the door opposite goes to the washroom. You will want to sleep, I should think. It is quite late.”

  That much was true. Still, something made me blurt out, “But…why am I here? Those threats to my father, just so you could have a house guest?”

  Silence for a few seconds, and then he said only, “You are tired. We will speak tomorrow.”

  He turned and left. The door hissed shut behind him. It was only after I stood there for a minute, staring at the swirl-polished metal, that I realized I had never asked him his name.

  I overslept, despite the strange bed. Or maybe because of it—my bed at home was lumpy and thin, while the bed the Zhore had given me was made of some soft material that seemed to cushion and cradle every inch of my body. The washroom provided similar luxury, with a polished granite shower and unlimited hot water—at least, it seemed unlimited, as I stood under the warm, pulsing spray for at least a quarter-hour with no sign of it letting up or the familiar warning buzzer telling me I was hitting the danger zone. Back home we’d always had to ration the water so we didn’t go over our allotment and get charged extra.

  It seemed a shame to have to climb into my plain old gray coveralls after all that decadence, but there wasn’t much need for high fashion on a homestead, even if we could have afforded to buy fancier clothes. Once I was done getting dressed I halfway thought the door wouldn’t open for me, that I’d been locked in, but it slipped aside without any fuss and allowed me to enter the hallway unchecked.

  The house was as gloomy and magnificent as it had been the night before. Lathvin IV’s days were about as somber as its nights, and so the Zhore’s house was still illuminated by the same artificial lighting I’d seen when I first arrived. I had no idea whether a Zhore home would follow the same layout as a human one, but it seemed logical that the kitchen and therefore the dining room or other eating chamber would be located on the ground floor.

  Rain beat against the windows; it appeared I’d been granted enough grace to walk here last night without getting soaked, but that was as far as the weather seemed ready to cooperate. I realized then, as I stood on the bottom step of the huge staircase, that I had no idea what kind of schedule the Zhore might follow. It was entirely possible his race was a nocturnal one and that he’d greeted me last night just as he was getting ready to start his day. True, he had said it was very late. That might have just been a recognition of my human clock, though.

  But then I heard him say, “Good morning, Anika,” and I turned to see him waiting in a doorway off to the right that led to a room I hadn’t yet seen.

  “Good morning,” I said. I went on, “I never asked you your name last night. It was rude, I suppose.”

  “You were tired,” he replied.

  Still I could see nothing of his face, as his hood was constructed to droop so low that it covered him all the way down to his chin. If he had a chin, of course.

  He added, “It was understandable. You may call me Sarzhin.”

  “All right…Sarzhin.” It felt odd to address him so plainly, but at least he didn’t want me calling him “lord and master” or some other nonsense. As my father had said, the Zhore’s voice did sound quite human, even if it was deeper than my father’s voice or the voices of the men I knew in Port Natchez. For some reason, that only discomfited me further. Shouldn’t an alien have sounded…alien?

  “You are hungry?” he asked.

  I nodded, even though I couldn’t repress the flutter of apprehension that moved through my midsection. Who knows what kind of food the Zhore ate? Maybe I’d get to see his face if we ate together. Of course, that might not be such a good thing. Rumors swirled about the Zhore, and how they must be hideous because they wouldn’t let anyone see what they looked like, but that was just human speculation. No one really knew anything.

  “Then come in,” he told me, and moved out of the way so I could enter the room after him.

  It was definitely the dining room, or at least what I’d learned from vids and books that a dining room should look like. We’d never had the space for a chamber like this, either on the homestead or back in our apartment on the moon. My family ate shoulder to shoulder at a round table that might have comfortably fit two. This place, though—I counted twelve chairs around the shining black table’s length, though only two places at the far end were set, with gleaming metal plates and glasses in a deep shade of cobalt.

  So he did plan to eat. Another of those nervous little tremors passed through me, but I went and took a seat anyway, at the place setting to the right of the table’s head. I wasn’t about to presume to sit there. He went past me to pull out the chair reserved for the master of the house, so I supposed I had done the right thing. It was sort of difficult to know the etiquette involved in these situations when I’d spent my whole life sitting at a round table.

  I wondered whether he had Zhore servants, or maybe humans for whom homesteading hadn’t worked out. There were quite a few of those in Port Natchez; they worked in the pub or the commissary or over at the spaceport, and a lot of them weren’t above taking on the occasional odd job if one came along. Steady work in a rich Zhore’s household might not be such a bad gig.

  But then I heard a soft whirring noise, and a gleaming humanoid shape drifted into the dining room, carrying a tray filled with food. My eyes widened a bit. Oh, I’d seen a few mechanoids from time to time at the spaceport, whenever a contingent from the GRC or possibly the Atmospheric Development Agency came by, but no one I personally knew could afford one. Despite all the human race’s technological advances, biological muscle was still cheaper than mechanical.

  Obviously the Zhore—Sarzhin, I reminded myself—didn’t suffer such financial constraints. I tried not to stare as the mechanoid set a plate in front of me and then placed one in front of its master.

  “Thank
you,” Sarzhin said.

  The mech bowed its gleaming head and disappeared back into the kitchen.

  Although I couldn’t quite identify what was on the plate in front of me, it did smell good. I picked up my fork, hesitating.

  “It is Zhore food,” Sarzhin offered, “but I chose something close to a human dish. You would perhaps call it crepes and mushrooms on Gaia. I grow the fungi here myself. I shall show you after breakfast.”

  Fungi didn’t sound particularly appetizing, but I knew they were considered a delicacy back on Gaia. My family had never bothered with anything beyond the basics, although my father had set up a little hydroponic farm in a utility shed behind the house where we grew tomatoes and squash to supplement the bland rations that formed the bulk of our diet.

  “Great,” I said, more because it seemed he expected a response than because I thought mushrooms sounded great…or, for that matter, because I was interested in seeing where he grew them. Besides, I had slept so late that this breakfast was almost a lunch, and I was hungry. Then I forced myself to put the forkful of crepe and fungus in my mouth.

  The rich taste of butter and something more subtle, more savory, seemed to explode over my taste buds. I’d had real butter exactly three times in my life, but it had left such an indelible impression that I had no trouble recognizing it now. I quickly took up another forkful, and then another.

  “Good?” asked Sarzhin. He sounded almost amused.

  At least I remembered to swallow before I replied, “Amazing.”

  “Excellent.”

  He applied himself to his own plate. Any thoughts I’d had of sneaking a look at him while he was eating vanished; his hood still drooped so low that I could see nothing of his face, only the fork disappearing up into the recesses of the bulky fabric and then reappearing quite clean. I found myself wondering whether Zhores used forks back on their home world or if the utensil was a concession to my human ways.