by John Varley
“Now, Snitch,” she said. “We’re going to play a game.”
“I hate games.”
“You’ll like this one. Gaea has done a terrible thing.”
He cackled. “I knew something good was about to happen.”
“But you’d never think of warning me, right? Well, maybe next time you will. What happened, you venomous pestilential chancre, is that somebody has kidnapped a child. Gaea is behind it, as surely as flies breed in shit, and you’re going to tell me where the child is.”
“Why don’t you bite my ass?”
Robin was startled when Chris reached between them and grabbed the ugly little thing in a big fist. Only its head was visible, and its eyes rolled wildly.
“I want him, Captain,” Chris said. His voice was low. “I’ve been thinking about him for the last hour, and maybe I’ve come up with some things you haven’t thought of yet.”
“Wait a minute, wait a minute!” the Snitch shrieked. “You know I do better work if you don’t hurt me, you know that, you know that!”
“Hold on, Chris,” Cirocco said. The tiny eyes moved from Chris to Cirocco and back again. He gulped, and then spoke in a wheedling tone.
“What do I care what Gaea’s cooked up?” he said. “For a couple of drinks, I might be able to help you.”
“Four drops is what I’m offering.”
“Now be fair,” he whined. “And be reasonable. You can’t deny that I do my best work when I’ve had a few under my belt.”
Cirocco seemed to consider it.
“All right. But you didn’t let me tell you about the game. Put him down, Chris.” He did, and Cirocco struck a match. She moved it toward the demon, held it about a foot away.
“I’m going to give you two drops right now. Then you are going to tell me where the child is. We will fly there. When we get there, if you were right, I’ll give you three more drops. If you’re wrong, I will wire one of these matches along your back and light it. They take about twenty seconds to burn. Then you’ll try again. If you’re wrong again, you get another match. I’ve got about…” she looked down into her pack, “…oh, about fifty matches. So we can play the game a long, long time. Or it can be over very quickly.”
“Quick, quick, quickquickquickquick!” Snitch yammered, jumping up and down.
“Okay. Open your mouth.”
Cirocco gave him his two drops, which seemed to calm him. And, oddly, to color him. He had been a rather sickly yellowish-white at first. He was turning ruddier.
He jumped down from the edge of the jar and began pacing up and down the dashboard. Robin watched, fascinated.
The demon paced for a few minutes. Eventually he began to stagger as the drinks hit him. But gradually he looked more and more toward one part of the sky. He lurched up to the windshield and pressed his repulsive face against it, as if to see better. At last he belched, and pointed with one leg.
“He’s up thataway,” he said, and fell over.
Fourteen
“Conal, turn left twenty degrees and climb to forty kilometers. Increase speed to two zero zero kilometers per hour.”
“Twenty degrees left, forty, two hundred; Roger, Captain.”
He executed the turn immediately, increased the thrust, and watched to make sure the plane did the rest as it was supposed to.
Like clockwork, he thought, with satisfaction. Outside, the wings were shrinking from their three-quarters deployed position and sweeping back slightly.
“Why do you suppose she decided to do that?” Nova asked.
“I don’t know,” Conal said. Actually, he had a good idea, but it would be too complicated to explain, and he had been instructed never to speak to anyone about the Snitch unless specifically authorized by Cirocco.
“I can’t figure her out,” Nova confessed.
“You aren’t the first one.”
“Conal, are you wearing your flak suits?”
“No, Cirocco. Should we?”
“I think so. We’re putting ours on. I don’t have any specific reason except my standard one.”
“What’s the use of having it if you don’t use it, right, Captain?”
“That’s it.”
“Will do.” He turned to Nova. “Can you reach them? Those blue outfits.”
Nova fumbled with one of the suits until she had it unfolded. It was a light, slightly stiff blue jumpsuit without arms or legs. The carbon-filaments woven through tough plastic would stop any handgun bullet, and give some protection against heavier weapons and bomb fragments.
“What if you get hit in the head?” Nova asked.
“If we get into something, we’ll put on those helmets, and the leggings, and the sleeves. Do you need any help with that?”
“I can manage.” She lifted herself off the seat, and shoved her pants down around her ankles. The plane lurched to the right, and she looked outside anxiously. “What happened? What’s the matter?”
“Nothing,” Conal said, and coughed nervously. “Ah, I thought you’d put that on over your pants.”
“Does it matter?” She pulled her shirt over her head. The plane only jumped a little that time.
“No, it doesn’t matter,” he said, and pulled the privacy curtain down from its little niche overhead.
He heard her long-suffering sigh. Then she jerked the bottom of the curtain and let it roll back up. He glanced at her and saw she was holding her clothes over the front of her body. Her eyes were blazing.
“Can I talk to you a minute? Is this okay? Am I decent?”
He gulped. “It’s…Nova, it’s not enough.”
She ran her fingers through her hair, then tugged at it in frustration.
“Okay. My mother told me about this but I just couldn’t understand it, so maybe you can explain it. It’s not that you don’t like to look at me, is it.”
“No, it’s not that at all.”
“That’s what I can’t understand. You make me feel ugly.”
“I’m sorry.” Jesus, where to start, how to explain? He wasn’t even sure he could explain it to himself, much less to her. “Dammit, I get upset because I want you, and I can’t have you. Seeing you gets me turned on, okay?”
“Okay! Okay! Great Mother, I don’t know why you’re so worried about getting turned on, but I’ll go along with you. I’ll cover up the places Robin told me to cover up. But I thought I was doing that now. So tell me, mister male man, what do I have to cover up?”
“You can throw all your clothes out the fucking window for all I care,” Conal said, through clenched teeth. “It’s your business, not mine.”
“Oh, no, I wouldn’t want to upset you. I wouldn’t want to make you lose your precarious control of yourself. Mother, preserve me.” She slammed the curtain back in place, then, a few seconds later, pulled it back up enough to look under it.
“There’s one more thing. I didn’t have a chance to pee before we took off. Do I have to wait till we land?”
Conal opened a compartment in the dash and handed her the oddly-shaped cup, pulled the vacuum hose from its slot.
“You hook the hose to this thing, then…hold it to—”
“I can figure it out! I guess you’ll want privacy for this, too.”
“If you please.”
Her reply was more growl than word, and she pulled the curtain down. Conal flew on, simmering, trying to ignore the sounds coming from the other side.
Seven years ago he might simply have gone mad. No telling what he might have done—what a temper he’d had! He’d learned a lot since then. The temper was still there. But it was tightly and permanently under control.
He went through the hard-learned routines to calm himself. When he was done, he felt foolish, as he usually did, for letting himself get so angry. She operated from her own logic, and by her lights he was being very silly.
Hell, he thought. By my own, too. He wished he hadn’t allowed himself to get in a shouting match with her. She was right. Her nudity was no kind of assault o
n him.
He wished he could say those things as clearly as he could think them. But he knew from bitter experience that the words never quite came out right.
When she let the curtain back up she had her pants on over the flak suit. She had folded her shirt and stuffed it in back. She sat with her back straight and looked rigidly forward.
He made very sure he didn’t laugh, though he wanted to. He felt a lot better. Now she was the foolish one. She didn’t know how to turn off her anger, and that made him feel superior to her, which was a nice feeling. She was still so young.
So he solemnly pulled the curtain back down and quickly got into his own flak suit, and pulled his clothes on over it.
“You watch the radar while I take care of this stuff,” he told her, as he opened the curtain again. She nodded and he turned and secured the netting over the loose cargo in back. When he turned back there was still nothing in the empty sky. They flew on, in silence.
***
In the next hour Cirocco got two signals from the radar. They were all excited the first time, though she had warned them not to be. And they quickly saw it was a solitary blimp. Cirocco veered away. Blimps hated anything to do with fire, and had been quite cool toward her for years after she imported the jets. Which was unfair, as her reason for doing so was to destroy the buzz bombs that had made the skies unsafe for lighter-than-air beings. But you couldn’t argue with a blimp.
The second blip proved to be a solitary angel. Spirits rose for a moment, until it was clearly established that this one’s wings were the wrong color. She turned off her engine and glided beside him for a few minutes. He was of the Dione Supra Flight. He seemed genuinely shocked that an angel was working for Pandemonium, and swore that his flight, section, and wing remained loyal to the Wizard.
So she attached a match to Snitch and it inspired him wonderfully. After another drop of grain alcohol he was able to talk again, and said the angel was below them now, and slightly behind. She radioed the new heading to Conal.
***
“Can I ask you something?” Nova said.
“Go right ahead.”
It had taken her a long time to get that much out. Now that she had, she found it hard to go on.
Somehow, she had to make sense of this insane world, because she was stuck here for the rest of her life with Titanides and males. She could still feel the impact of Cirocco’s palm on her cheek. She loved Cirocco, and Cirocco had hit her, and those two things had to be reconciled somehow, had to be worked out so that Cirocco would never find reason to hit her again. For that to be possible, she had to understand some things.
“What do you think Cirocco Jones meant when she told me I had to join the human race?” Having asked it, she relaxed a little. His answer wasn’t going to mean much, she realized. It had been a silly idea to ask him in the first place. Perhaps her mother could explain it, when they had some time alone. But he surprised her.
“I’ve been wondering the same thing,” he said. “I guess she just didn’t have time to say what she meant, so she said something to get your attention.”
“So you don’t know what she meant, either?”
“Oh, no, I didn’t say that. I know what she meant.” He frowned, and gave her a wry smile. “I just don’t think I can explain it to you.”
“Would you try?”
He looked at her for a long time. The look disturbed her.
“Why should I?” he finally said.
She sighed, and turned away. “I don’t know,” she said.
He shrugged. “I was asking myself. Why should I try to explain something to you, when every time I give you a friendly smile you look at me like I was a cootie bug? Don’t you think I have feelings?”
It was just the sort of question Nova didn’t want to think about. But not thinking about it had gotten her a slap in the face.
“You weren’t thinking about my feelings a while ago.”
“I admit I had an unfortunate lapse,” he said. “You want to know what I’m going to do about that?” He looked at her again, and grinned. “I’m going to say I’m sorry, I apologize, and I’m going to do better from now on. How’s that for a kick in the pants?”
She tried to meet his stare, but finally had to look away.
“It makes me feel uneasy,” she admitted. “I don’t know why.”
“I do. Want to know?”
“Yes.”
“Say please?”
What an infuriating person. But she took a deep, long-suffering breath, crossed her arms, and glared at him.
“Please.”
“Jesus, that must have hurt.”
“Not at all. It’s just a word.”
“It did hurt, and it’s not just a word. It hurt for the same reason you didn’t like me apologizing. Twice now you’ve had to look at me as a human being.”
She thought that over for several minutes, and he didn’t say anything.
“You’re saying that’s what Cirocco meant? That I have to become a heterosexual, make love to men?”
“Nothing so drastic, and nothing so simple.” He rubbed his hand over his face and shook his head slowly. “Listen, I’m not the guy for this. I wish to hell Cirocco was here. Why don’t you wait till you can talk it over with her?”
“No,” she said, becoming more interested. “I’d like to hear it from you.”
“I sure don’t know why,” he muttered. Then he took a deep breath.
“Look. With you, there’s lines drawn all over the place. There’s us, and there’s them. Us seems to be a pretty small group. Okay, I can understand, I feel the same way. I don’t like all human beings. And I know Cirocco ain’t the biggest groupie the human race ever had, either. And she didn’t even mean human, because Titanides aren’t human but they’re part of what she wants you to join. Are you with me so far?”
“I don’t know. But go on.”
“Shit. Grow up!” he thundered. “That’s what she said. Stop making your decisions about people based on what they look like.” He stopped, and shook his head sadly. “Nova, I could rattle on for half an hour, like a CBC public service spot, about how you’re supposed to love the Qubeheads and the Normans and the Beecees and the Eeks and the niggers and the poor and little fuzzy animals and rattlesnakes. I hated some of those people when I was a kid, too. These days I keep my hate for slavers and babyleggers…and like that. Every person I meet is on probation, because it’s a no-kidding dangerous world out there, and you’re right to be suspicious of new faces. But if they don’t prove themselves to be villains, why, then you treat them as you’d like to be treated, like the old golden rule. If a friend of mine has a friend, then he’s my friend, too, until he proves otherwise. I don’t care if he’s black, brown, yellow or white, male or female, young or old, two-legged or four-legged or sixteen-legged. And I’m a good friend to have, too. I’m loyal as hell, and I wash my own dishes.”
“I’m loyal, too!” she protested.
“Sure. To anybody on your side of the line. Which is only two-legged females. Valiha can’t be your friend because she looks like an animal, and I can’t because I have a cock.” He pointed out the windscreen at the empty sky. “That poor little brother of yours can’t be your friend, either, because you don’t see him as human. Nova, just looking at you—at the good part of you—I know you’d be a terrific person to have on my side. But I can’t cross that line.”
He sighed, and leaned back. Nova had watched in fascination, not getting a lot of it, such as the part about Qubeheads and niggers. She hadn’t the vaguest notion of what either of those might be. And why did he bring skin color into it? What did that have to do with anything?
“How would you suggest I go about this? Should you and I make sex?”
He threw up his hands.
“I’m hurt. I really am. You think I said all that just to get in your pants?”
“I’m…sorry. I don’t know what I said wrong, though.”
He looked tired.
&
nbsp; “I guess you don’t, do you? All right. Can you take honesty and not get angry? I’d love to ‘make sex’ with you. I was offended because, where I grew up, guys will say just about anything to get girls to go to bed with them, and here I am being so stinking noble it makes me sick, so it hurt me you thought it was all a line. But you were serious, weren’t you?”
“Yes. I’ll do it, if it’s what has to be done.”
“Kinder words have never been spoken to me.”
“Did I offend again? I’m sorry.”
He grinned.
“You’re getting better at that. I appreciate it. Shows you’re trying. Listen, Nova, you ought to talk this over with your mother. She figured out how to do it. But if you want my opinion, you should do what I did when Cirocco started straightening me out. I was a right ’orrible stinking bigot when I got here. I’m not perfect, but I’m better. So when I thought ‘Frog,’ or ‘Qubehead,’ I changed it to ‘Canadian.’ When I thought ‘black,’ I changed it to ‘white.’ So when you hear ‘man,’ change it to ‘woman.’ When you look at a person and think ‘Titanide,’ change it to ‘sister.’ When you think about Adam, pretend he’s your baby sister. Think how you’d feel.”
She thought about it, and was amazed at her rage. It went away quickly—it was only a trick, after all—but it was interesting to think of how the world would be if those things were true.
“Can I check an impression I have?” he asked. She nodded. “You find me…physically repulsive, don’t you.”
And another amazing thing happened. She felt herself blushing.
“I don’t wish to offend…”
“I’d prefer honesty.”
She nodded, uncomfortably. “You have too much hair. Your chin is so rough, I think it would be painful to be kissed by you. Your arms and legs are…wrong. Do these things…attract Earth women?”
He grinned again.
“They have been known to.”
“And you find me…attractive,” she said.
“More than that. You are stunning. You’re one of the most beautiful women I’ve ever seen.”
