He looked like he was going to protest, but then restrained himself. “All right,” he said. “Do whatever you think is best.”
“You’re going to have to leave for a while,” I said, not trusting him to know.
“Why?” he said.
“So the blands can come in and do their work.”
“Why can’t they do it while I’m here?”
“They just...can’t. They’d be ashamed.”
He looked mystified. “You’re not ashamed.”
Little did he know. I said, “I’m your Personal. I have to be here with you. Please, just let me handle the blands.”
“All right,” he gave in, “as long as you will tell me what they say and do.”
He was out of his mind, but I’d known that. “All right, I will,” I said.
When I got him shooed out of his rooms, I could relax at last. I quickly turned to the graydoor. There was no difficulty finding the cleaning blands; they had parked their equipment cart just down the bland-run, and were sitting around it, taking a break. “Hi,” I said, coming up. They eyed me incuriously. “Are you assigned to clean the alien’s quarters?”
One of them, a middle-aged bland with a disgruntled expression, gave a short laugh. “For all the good it does. He won’t let us do it.”
“What do you mean?” I said.
“He’s always there when we come through. We can’t get in.”
“Well, he’s not there now,” I said.
The bland shrugged as if there were nothing it could do. “We’ve already been past that door.”
I looked back down the bland-run. They had passed it by maybe thirty feet. “Oh, come on,” I said. “Can’t you go back? It’s filthy in there.”
“Sorry,” the bland said, sounding not the least bit sorry. “We come down the run from that direction. We don’t go the other way. If people hang around so we can’t get in, that’s their problem.”
I was astonished at this attitude. The bland eyed me as if I were a simpleton. “You new around here?” it asked.
“Yes. I’m Tedla, the alien’s Personal.”
They exchanged looks among themselves. Their spokesbland said skeptically, “The alien’s got a Personal?”
“Yes,” I said, a little touchily.
“What does Cholly say about that?”
“Cholly” didn’t sound much like a human name, but I said anyway, “Is that your supervisor?”
One of the other blands gave a dry laugh.
“Well, who is your supervisor?”
They all stiffened visibly. The talkative bland exchanged a look with one of its silent cohorts. “Supervisor Moriston.”
“Where’s his office?”
“Her office is on level four.” The bland paused. “I wouldn’t go to her if I were you. She’s in a really crabby mood today.”
I hesitated. My situation was so odd, I needed a supervisor with some understanding, not one with a temper. “Maybe I’ll have my human talk to her,” I said at last.
There was a squeak of wheels down the bland-run, and a laundry cart rounded the corner, approaching. The bland I’d been talking to said, “Hey, Cholly.”
The bland pushing the cart said, “Hey, Gibb.” It came to a stop, leaning on the cart and looking at me with open suspicion. Everything about Cholly was narrow: thin body, sunken cheeks, sharp nose. Its eyes were sharp and intelligent, but made me uneasy. I couldn’t tell its age.
Gibb said, “This bland says it’s the alien’s Personal.”
“Is that so?” Cholly said. Its face was unreadable.
“It wants us to go back and clean his place.”
“He’s not there now,” I said, hoping Cholly could break the impasse.
Cholly abruptly straightened up. “I’ll do it.”
“Thanks, Cholly!” I said. “It’s really nice of you.”
I set off down the bland-run then to explore my new space. I quickly found that the network of grayspace in the convergence was immense, tangled, and completely unmarked. The only way to navigate was by asking directions of the small groups of blands I met frequently, desultorily going about their tasks. They did not seem at all surprised to see a new face; I realized there must be new blands all the time, here.
Whenever I came to a set of stairs I headed down, and soon I arrived at level three, which was grayspace. The facilities here were immense. I peeked into a huge, echoing refectory where several hundred could have eaten at once. On the next level down, there was a whole cluster of roundrooms, color-coded. Across each door was a gate governed by a badge reader. It struck me that all the blands I’d seen were wearing color-coded badges on their uniforms, doubtless to keep them sorted into their proper teams. It was all so impersonal and regulated that I began to realize how odd my experience had been up to now.
Soon I found the laundry, which seemed to go on for acres. I managed to wheedle some extra towels and linens from one of the blands working there, whose name was Bink. I asked, “Does this laundry just serve the Questishaft?”
“East Questishaft,” it said. “The westblands have their own facilities.”
“You mean there’s another whole refectory and roundrooms and everything on the other side?”
Bink nodded. “We don’t see much of the westblands. They think they’re real hotshots because the elector’s house is over there.”
“How many blands do you think there are in the convergence?” I said, quite amazed by the scale of everything.
Bink shrugged. “How would I know?”
“There must be thousands just on this shaft.”
“Maybe,” Bink said. “I just handle these ten machines, that’s all I know.”
They all seemed like that, as if they’d staked out their little piece of territory where they could control things, and ignore all the rest. I suppose they had to be that way. If they had paused to reflect on what tiny cogs they were, it would have been too demoralizing.
When I got back to Magister Galele’s quarters (after wandering around lost for a while because I’d forgotten what level they were on), I found that Cholly had done the quickest once-over imaginable, not even bothering to replace the burnt-out lights or scrub the mold in the shower stall. I realized that I was going to have to stay and supervise the cleaning blands after this.
Magister Galele got back when I was just halfway through his closet, having created a mound of dirty clothes on his bed. He came right into the bedroom with an armful of sacks. “What are you doing?” he asked in astonishment.
“Sorting your clothes for cleaning,” I said, uncomfortable to have him watching. “Do you want me to leave?”
“Is this one of your normal jobs?” he asked.
I wondered what Personals did on his planet. “Yes, sir,” I said.
“Then carry on,” he said. “But first, I brought something for you.” He held out the bags.
I couldn’t imagine what he was up to now, but I took the bags suspiciously, and looked in them. There were clothes inside—brand-new clothes purchased for money in one of the human shops. Since I had just been noticing the deficiencies of his wardrobe, I said with satisfaction, “Good. You need these.”
“They’re for you, Tedla,” he said, watching for my reaction.
Astonished, I said, “What would I do with them?”
“Well, one normally wears clothes.”
I took them out of the bag to look more closely. “I can’t wear these,” I said.
“Why not?”
“The colors.” I showed him a red and black vest. “You see? Those are questionary colors. They’re only for people who belong to the order.”
Sitting on the edge of the bed, he said, “So the blands don’t think of themselves as working for the order?”
I saw then that it was all some sort of test, and I was supposed to give the right answer, but I didn’t know what that was. I froze up in fear of getting it wrong.
Encouragingly, he said, “Is it that your first loyalty
is to the blands, and only then to the order?”
“It’s not like I have to choose,” I said.
“What if you did have to choose?”
“I’d do what my guardian told me,” I said.
I had thought he would be pleased with that answer, but he looked dissatisfied. I had no idea what he wanted. Wanting to mollify him, and not sure how, I picked a pair of black slacks and a white shirt from the pile of clothes, and said, “Maybe I could wear these.” Quickly, I stripped off Squire Tellegen’s livery and slipped into the new clothes, then went to look at myself in his mirror. They were decently subdued, but still looked quite elegant on me. I looked at myself from half a dozen angles, terribly pleased with the effect. In fact, I had to force myself to stop looking, lest I seem vain.
Magister Galele was smiling broadly. “You know, Tedla, if you just got a decent haircut, no one would be able to tell you from a human.”
My pleasure froze inside me. “I would,” I said coldly.
Now he was the one who looked mystified.
Later that day he got me to tell him what I had found on my trip into grayspace. I didn’t feel as if I were informing on the blands, as I would have at Menoken, because I owed these convergence blands nothing. I was a stranger here; it wasn’t my home. I knew Magister Galele better than I knew any of the blands. So I let him ply me with questions about how they acted and talked in grayspace.
In the next days, I made slow headway on improving his quarters, his wardrobe, and his person. There were some awkward moments when we had to negotiate grooming. His Capellan nudity taboos made him very sensitive. We finally reached an agreement: I would shave his face but not his body, cut his hair and nails but no massages. I had to stay away when he was bathing and dressing. But he had to give in on some things, too. I wouldn’t wear human colors for him, or go out into the convergence. Each of us thought the other was making much of nothing.
I told him Supervisor Moriston’s name, and that he had to talk to her. He said, “Yes, yes, I will,” and then didn’t. As a result, I stayed in limbo. I learned to avoid the supervisors, which was easier than you might think—they spent as little time as possible in grayspace, and every bland knew their schedules and movements. I hoped I wouldn’t run afoul of them before I went home again.
My status among the blands was even more equivocal. I learned that when Magister Galele had first arrived, rumors had flown through grayspace about the aliens—they fed on blood, and had strange hypnotic powers. At first, Cholly had been the only bland willing to set foot in Magister Galele’s quarters. Cholly had always had a reputation for strangeness, and its willingness to serve the alien had only enhanced that.
“He really likes Cholly,” a young bland named Pots confided to me. “Cholly says—” It stopped guiltily.
“What?” I asked.
In a furtive whisper, Pots said, “Cholly says he’s promised to make it human some day.”
“That’s ridiculous,” I said.
“I don’t know,” Pots said. “He gives it weird things.”
“What sort of things?”
“Alien power objects.”
I was completely astonished by this, and when I next had a chance, I said to Magister Galele, “Do you know a bland named Cholly?”
“I don’t know any blands but you,” he said.
When I told him what Pots had said, he was intrigued. “Where could they be getting this?”
My arrival, of course, had upset Cholly’s little scam. The blands would often gather around me, asking questions they didn’t dare ask Cholly.
“What’s he look like naked?” was a favorite one. But I had to tell them I didn’t know.
“Cholly says he sleeps in his clothes,” a bland said.
“That’s true,” I admitted.
“Does he bathe in them?”
“I don’t know. He won’t let me see.”
“What do you think he’s hiding?”
I couldn’t tell them. They all knew I slept in his quarters. Strangely, it made them regard me with a kind of awe as well as suspicion. My reputation made it easy to wangle favors out of them. I soon superceded Cholly as the main conduit of information about the alien. It did not make Cholly like me.
By the time I had been there three weeks, I was very lonely. To the blands, I was an object of scandalous rumor, only a little less unnatural than Magister Galele. To the humans, I didn’t exist. On the couch at night, my isolation gnawed at me, and I would dream of Squire Tellegen’s warm arms around me. I longed for the day when I could go back home and be myself again.
When I went down into grayspace one day, I found the kitchen in an uproar, and the cleaning blands racing around getting out banquet tables and chairs. I saw Gibb, and asked what was going on. “The humans decided to have a big collation tonight,” it grumbled.
“Why?” I asked, since there wasn’t any holiday near.
“Some human made room.”
“Oh,” I said indifferently.
Just then, a heavyset woman with black brows like plumes of toxic smoke spotted us. The supervisors weren’t normally in grayspace at this hour; today was obviously different. She came striding over. From the way Gibb melted into the hubbub, I gathered that this must be the infamous Supervisor Moriston.
“You there,” she said to me, “where’s your uniform and badge?”
I looked down obsequiously. “I don’t have one, ma’am.”
“Who are you? Who gave you those clothes?”
“I’m Tedla, ma’am. Magister Galele’s Personal.”
“Oh, I’ve heard about you,” she said ominously. “You’ve been filching supplies.”
“Only for my guardian,” I said defensively.
She advanced a step, and I retreated till my back came up against the wall. “You tell him I’m not going to tolerate any unsupervised blands in my area. If he wants to have a Personal, he has to come to me. He can’t just sneak in a bland like this. You have to be processed and assigned a team, like everyone else. Got that?”
“Yes, ma’am,” I said.
“Now, either get ready to do some work, or get out of here.”
“Yes, ma’am,” I said, and fled. When I got upstairs, Magister Galele was not in, so I waited nervously for him to come back. The confrontation had left me feeling more insecure and out of place than ever. I decided to beg him to let me go home.
Soon I heard him at the door and went out to meet him. But when I saw his face I thought she must already have tracked him down. He looked very perturbed.
“Bad news, Tedla,” he said. I was opening my mouth to apologize for having made trouble when he said, “Squire Tellegen is dead.”
In between two breaths, my entire world collapsed. I stood staring at him, too stunned to react. “No,” I whispered.
“I’m afraid so,” he said grimly. “He ‘made room,’ as you people say. There’s to be a memorial collation tonight, and I’ll have to show my face. I can’t say it puts me in the mood for celebrating.”
I sank into a chair; my legs wouldn’t hold me up any longer. I couldn’t grasp it. I couldn’t imagine the world without the squire. I looked at Magister Galele, dazed.
“Did you have any inkling of this?” he asked.
Wordlessly, I nodded. The squire had given me ample warning. In fact, now I saw his sending me away in a different light. It hadn’t been to remove temptation. It had been to remove me, so I wouldn’t have to be the one to find him. The thought stabbed me through. I pressed a hand to my mouth and squeezed my eyes tight to keep in the tears.
Magister Galele put a hand on my shoulder. “You were really fond of him, weren’t you?”
I nodded. He squeezed my shoulder. “I’m sorry, Tedla.”
He left me alone for a while then. I still sat there in the chair. The world was circling around me like a whirlpool, spinning, ready to drag me down. I struggled to keep my head up, above the terrible dark water below me.
I would never go b
ack to Menoken Lodge. The household there would be broken up, the blands all sent off to other places. I would never see any of them again. After forty years, Pelch would have to learn to be a bland again, and serve another guardian. I could only imagine its grief. At the thought, my breath caught again, and I sank a little further into the inner blackness.
Pelch would blame me, of course. It would think the squire’s guilt had finally forced him to do the moral thing, to justify himself for having fallen so far below his ideals. Perhaps Pelch would be right.
With that thought, I could barely hold my nose above the surface of my grief.
The conscientious part of my mind reminded me that Magister Galele had to go out, and I ought to choose the proper combination of clothes for him, since he wouldn’t know what was appropriate to wear at a memorial. I needed to make sure no one would laugh at my guardian.
Then: Magister Galele was my guardian now, forever. I would never see Squire Tellegen smile at me again. We would never play cards, or ride out onto the prairie. He was gone.
With that, the blackness pulled me down.
I managed to get through the rest of the day, though my mind was all emotion, no thought. As I set out Magister Galele’s clothes, the tears ran down my face at the thought of how I had done the same for Squire Tellegen. When I went in to shave him, my hands kept jerking and I had to give up and let him do it, or risk hurting him. He looked at me and said, “I won’t be gone long tonight, Tedla. Just long enough to be decent.”
He checked his messages before leaving. I was in his bedroom when I heard him exclaim, “My god, there’s a message from him!” I came out into the lounge just as he began to play it on screen.
Squire Tellegen’s face looked drawn and full of strain. His cheeks were dark with stubble, as if no one had shaved him in days. He looked out from the screen, paused a moment, then I heard his voice say, “Magister Galele. I barely know you, my friend. It is strange that you are the one to whom I have bequeathed the thing most precious to me in all the world. Use it well. I have only one request, one obligation, to ask of you in return: When the time comes for you to return to your own home, take it with you. There is no other solution. This planet holds no future for it. Please, take it with you.”
Halfway Human Page 29
