Zenn Scarlett

by Christian Schoon

  “No,” she said quickly, uneasy with this line of questioning. “Like I said. I keep busy. More important things to be obsessed with.” This wasn’t entirely true. Not since her talk with Hild the other day. Despite her best efforts to ignore Hild’s off-hand remark about Liam being “more friendly lately,” the thought had embedded itself in her mind, like a tiny virus. She’d denied the virus any sort of nourishing attention. But it hadn’t died off as she’d hoped it would, and still clung to its own, secret life in its own special area of her mind. A part that she had to admit she’d allowed herself to visit more than once in the past few days. In fact, just last night, drifting off to sleep, Liam had, for some unknowable reason, come to mind. But this, she told herself, was simply because the virus-thought that Hild had planted was novel; it was a new specimen that deserved some level of curiosity, surely, merely based on its newness.

  “So let’s say some guy wondered about you,” Liam said, not letting the subject drop. “You know, say some guy from Arsia took an interest. Like… a great guy like me, for instance. Would they let you out of your cage here? Let you see this guy? Go on a real, live date?”

  Zenn bent lower at the control console, forcing her attention where it needed to go.

  Was this some kind of… boy-code? Was Liam Tucker interested? In her? Was he asking her on a date? It sounded like it. But the fact was, she had no previous experience with the subject, and found this profound ignorance on her part almost laughable.

  She shouldn’t be surprised, really. Ever since Hild’s remark, she might’ve known the tiny thought-virus meant that this was going to come up in one way or another. But Zenn had given this whole subject some in-depth consideration quite a while ago. The Rule was put in place for her own good. She needed to keep it in force.

  Friends were a bad idea. So don’t make friends. It was a simple equation, and the answer always computed the same way. Allowing yourself to trust, love or depend on any new people simply carried too much downside. They too would leave, or make fun of you, or make it clear they had priorities that came before you. The equation was harsh, she knew. There were probably psychological impacts for her to consider. But that didn’t change the equation. Attachments to others came with a built-in pain-generating mechanism. And the pain generated was exactly proportional to the strength of the attachment. No, there would be no liking. No attaching. No… dating.

  “The cloister is not a cage,” she said finally, not looking up at Liam. “It’s where I choose to be.”

  “Well, I’ve seen goats that choose to stay in the barn, ‘cause they’re too scared to go outside. What’re you scared of?”

  “Who said I’m scared?” she said, unable to keep the defensive note out of her voice. But the truth was: she’d considered this possibility. Perhaps she was frightened, and the Rule was merely constructed as a defense. So? Defense against pain was entirely reasonable.

  I’m tired. Exhausted, actually. And this is stupid, anyway. I cannot think about this now.

  “Look,” she said, the fatigue she’d been successfully fending off now descending on her like a heavy, wet blanket. “I’ll… leave the barn when I’m ready. Now, can we just…”

  “Alright, alright. Subject closed.”

  She moved a slider, and a new artery began to take shape in Zeus’ thigh.

  “So,” Liam said then, going to pick up the v-film about the hooshrike again, “You really get to know all the animals here at the cloister, don’t you? I mean, it’s like they’re not just animals. To you, they all have personalities.”

  “They do. Absolutely. Just like Zeus.”

  “Yeah, but that’s different,” Liam said. “He’s a cat, a person’s cat, from Earther stock. He’s not… you know… an alien.”

  “Oh, I don’t know,” Zenn said. “To Hamish, Zeus is just as alien as a rikkaset or a hooshrike. Or a goat.”

  “Don’t let Vic hear you say that,” Liam said. “Her goats are like family to that woman.”

  Zenn thought of Vic’s kid-skin gloves, but didn’t make the obvious remark about certain species of arachnid eating their young.

  “They’ve really stripped her land bare, though haven’t they?” Zenn said instead. “She ever think about maybe shifting them to new pastures, buy some fresh land?”

  “She says there isn’t any to be had. At least no fertile land she’d be willing to pay for. She left some papers out on her desk once and I took a look. Did you know her family…?” He stopped, as if his thought process suddenly veered off in another direction.

  “Her family what…?”

  “Nothing. It’s just… boring family history stuff. Just…” He laughed. “Don’t call Vic’s goats aliens in front of her, that’s all.”

  “But they are. To Hamish, they’re aliens. And so are you and I.”

  “Well, sure. But Hamish’s just a big insect. Of course he’d feel that way.”

  “But that’s the point,” Zenn said, adjusting the emitter arm reconstructing Zeus’ right hip joint. “The native life forms on Mars all died out long before humans came. We’re all aliens here. That’s why it drives me crazy when Graad and the others complain about the cloister’s patients. Calling them monsters. Calling them alien ‘things’ and saying they don’t belong. They belong here as much as we do. A sick whalehound or a pregnant ultratheer or an abandoned yote. They all deserve a place where they can be safe. And to be treated with dignity and respect.” She jabbed a finger at Zeus. “Just like this little alien here.”

  “Whoa.” Liam held both hands up in surrender. “Fine. Zeus is an alien and so am I. Don’t blow a gasket.”

  “Sorry… But you see what I mean, don’t you? Human beings get this idea in their heads that they’re the special ones – the only ones who get to say who’s normal and who’s… just a thing. Think about if the shoe was on the other foot. And someone decides you’re the thing.”

  Liam was quiet then. No snappy comeback.

  “People around here can be a little narrow-minded. I grant you that.”

  “A little narrow-minded?” Zenn laughed.

  “Alright. A lot. But maybe they have their reasons.”

  “What reasons? Like ignorance? Intolerance?”

  “Like alien animals can get you killed,” he said, a hard, new edge in his voice. “How’s that for a reason?”

  Zenn was caught off guard, and it took her a moment to realize their talk had taken a sudden and serious turn.

  “Killed?” she said. “Our animals have never killed anyone.”

  “Maybe yours haven’t. You don’t own all the alien things on Mars, though, do you?”

  “Liam…” She saw what he was getting at. And it made her heave a frustrated sigh. “There’s never been a documented case of an alien life form killing anyone on Mars. I’ve heard those rumors. Everybody has. They’re just stories.”

  She heard him start to pace, moving to and fro in front of the Mag-Genis.

  “Are they?” His voice now dripped with… what? Scorn? Rage? “Well, I’ve got a story for you, Scarlett. It’s about my pa. It’s about how he didn’t get pulled into the blades of a combine out at our farm. That’s not what got him. That was just what we told people, my mom and me.”

  “Liam, I’m so sorry.” She made herself keep her eyes on the intricate processes flitting across the v-screens. “But I don’t understand.”

  “It was night. My pa snuck into Gil Bodine’s machine shed. He was… he was there to steal Gil’s new generator, alright?”

  “What?”

  “Pa had gotten into debt. Way in. He was gonna sell Gil’s genny, get some cash together. Like I said, it was night, dark. He didn’t know Gil kept the two sandhog sows in there. They tore him up pretty bad.”

  “Liam…” Zenn’s voice trailed off. She had no idea what to say to this.

  She glanced up. Liam wasn’t looking at her, but was standing, body rigid, staring a hole in the far wall, his fists clenched, knuckles white.

 
“We found him the next morning. He’d made it as far as our front porch. He was propped against the wall. And he was dead. That’s how Gil lost those two sows. Pa never shut the gate behind him after he… We couldn’t tell people what happened. No way I was gonna have the whole damn town think my pa was a thief. He was just doing what he thought he had to do. He deserved better.”

  He turned his face to her then, eyes brimming.

  “You won’t tell?” he said. “I’d appreciate it… if you’d not tell.”

  “Of course I won’t,” Zenn said, forcing her attention back to the screens. “I just wish you’d been able to talk to somebody about this. Before now, I mean. To carry this around inside you… Liam, it must’ve been…”

  “Terrible. Yeah.” He was in motion again, pacing. “But hey. We all have our secrets, huh?”

  I can relate to that.

  “I understand better, now. Your feelings… about aliens. But Liam, you know they didn’t mean to do that. The hogs.” She wasn’t sure he wanted to hear this, but she felt like she had to say it. “They didn’t kill your father on purpose.”

  “No? Well, that may be.” He spoke quietly now, the rage drained from his voice. He sat heavily on the bench by the wall, elbows on knees. She looked up to see him rest his head in his hands. “But, it doesn’t really make him any less dead, does it?”

  EIGHTEEN

  After Liam’s admission about his father’s death, they’d both gone silent for a long spell, the room echoing faintly with the hum and clatter of the Mag-Genis as it worked methodically from one shredded organ or bone to the next, Zenn making her minute adjustments again, then again, then again.

  When Liam finally spoke, the sound startled Zenn out of the attentive trance she’d fallen into.

  “Ya know, Scarlett, I guess people just don’t really get the aliens, your animals, the way you do. I mean, know their personalities, get close to them and all.”

  “Well, I’m not really supposed to… get too close. Otha says they’re patients, not pets. That it’s important to keep a professional distance. But sometimes that’s hard.”

  Liam had approached the Mag-Genis unit, and he bent down now to check on Zeus. The cat twitched slightly in the cushioning sling.

  “Yeah. I can see how it could be. Hard.” His voice cracked ever so slightly as he spoke. He rubbed one hand across his face. “So,” he said, straightening up, the smirk back in his voice as he turned his attention to the v-screens, “what are you doing to my poor defenseless little alien now?”

  “Just starting to knit together some capillaries. These supply blood to the right rear paw. See, they form a little net inside each toe…”

  Twenty hours into the operation, the first of the damaged vertebrae had been rebuilt and the nearby spinal column nerves regenerated. After standing up for a quick stretch of her aching muscles, Zenn sat down again and began to guide the unit’s work on the second shattered piece of Zeus’ backbone.

  Twenty-six hours in, there was a problem reforming the nutrient-absorbing cellular structures lining the small intestine. Zenn sent Liam to the ultratheer birthing pen to ask Otha for a work-around.

  “Here,” Liam said when he’d returned. “It’s a v-film. Otha says this will show you what to do.”

  “Great, thanks,” Zenn told him, taking her eyes off the Mag-Genis screens long enough to scan the film. “Yes. Perfect.”

  “Um, have you ever seen an ultratheer giving birth?” Liam asked.

  “No. And I’m really sorry to miss it.”

  “No. You aren’t. It’s disgusting. Really disgusting.”

  She grinned at him. Her legs had fallen asleep again.

  After thirty hours, Zenn’s eyes burned in their sockets like tiny suns, her back muscles periodically spasmed with pain and she nearly nodded off at a particularly critical moment. When she actually fell asleep for a few seconds during the rebuild of Zeus’ bladder, she knew she was in trouble and sent Liam to the refectory kitchen. He came back carrying a large thermos, a mug and a glass jar packed with a mix of leafy orange-brown plant material.

  “What did you call this stuff?”

  “Mettra yerba,” Zenn said, her mouth dry, her vision starting to shimmer around the edges. She’d also had a headache for the past several hours. “Put it in the mug, and pour the hot water on it.”

  He did as she said and passed the steaming mug to her.

  “The strainer? Did you…”

  “Yeah, here it is.” From his shirt pocket, he produced a short, silver straw that flared out at the end, where it was perforated with numerous small holes. She drew the hot, bitter liquid up the length of the straw, designed to filter out the small plant bits.

  “So,” he said, “if this yerba stuff is so full of that super-caffeine stuff, why didn’t you have some before?”

  “I didn’t want to unless I had to,” she told him. “Now I have to.”

  “What? You’re too pure here in cloister-world to drink caffeine?”

  “No. It’s really acidic. Rots my stomach.” She took another long pull on the straw, felt the warmth flowing through her, felt the sting in her belly. But it worked. She felt more alert almost immediately.

  “Now, see that shelf? No, that one.”

  He went to the wall.

  “Smallest white bottle at the right end. Yes. Would you bring that here please?”

  Liam brought her the bottle.

  “More meds for Zeus?”

  “Meds for Zenn,” she said, popping the lid and taking out two sovprin tablets. “For my head. It’s splitting.”

  She took another pull on the hot liquid and swallowed the tablets.

  “So, how’s that yerba stuff taste?”

  “Like week-old dish water. Want some?”

  Thirty-seven hours and fifteen minutes after Zenn had pushed the Mag-Genis start button, she leaned far forward on the stool and squinted at the control panel, no longer at all certain her eyes were being honest with her, no longer able to keep her mind on a single thought for more than a few seconds.

  “I…can’t… believe it,” she croaked, her throat parched, the words barely forming.

  “Huh? What?” Liam bolted upright on the bench, coming awake with his hair wild, eyes darting around the room as if he had no idea where he was. Heaving himself unsteadily to his feet, he staggered over to stand behind her.

  “What is it?”

  “It’s over,” she said, barely managing more than a whisper.

  “What do you… No. Zeus. You mean he’s…”

  “I mean we’re done. It worked. He’s… going to be fine.”

  Zenn stood stiffly, stinging eyes blissfully closed, muscles exquisitely, deliciously sore. She reached out her aching hands, fingers, arms, stretched luxuriously, like a cat. The next thing she knew, she was lifted off her feet by Liam’s unexpected embrace. The hug was quick, surprisingly strong. He set her down and stepped away, grinning, a swipe at his hair also meant to dry his watering eyes.

  “Nine Hells. You did it, Scarlett.” She was afraid he was going to hug her again. “You saved him!”

  He turned from her and bent low over the unconscious cat. Zenn realized her body was prickling, as if charged with some exotic current. It was impossible to say if it was simple exhaustion… or the sense-memory of Liam’s arms around her.

  That was… odd.

  So, was this Liam being more “friendly” as Hild said? Or was it just his entirely logical response to the long-shot survival of his favorite cat? The faint electric feeling lingered within her, and Zenn reminded herself of the Rule. It had kept her safe and pain-free in the past. There was no reason to start doubting it now. Was there?

  NINETEEN

  The following morning, Zenn had walked with Hamish out to the southwest edge of the compound, to the grouping of cages and fenced enclosures that occupied most of that corner of the grounds. After a full fourteen hours of blissfully dreamless sleep, she felt almost fully recovered from the Mag-Genis ord
eal.

  “Well, here it is.” She gestured at the rows of cages. “Our Rogue’s Gallery.”

  “They do not appear roguish,” Hamish said, bending close to peer into a cage holding a pair of Akanthan axebill warblers. The eight-foot-tall, ostrich-like birds responded by bobbing their heads and opening their massive hooked beaks to produce a brief, bubbling measure of song together, their mournful tune delivered in perfect two-part harmony.

  “I guess rogues in this case is more a term of affection.”

  Hamish’s antennae fluttered in agitation. “Yours is a confounding language, if you don’t mind my saying.”

  “You’ll get the hang of it,” she told him. “This is our bad boy, Rasputin.” She gestured at the next enclosure, its woven wire fencing roofed over with a crisscrossing layer of heavy-gauge alloy chain. The area inside the fence was strewn six feet deep with shredded plant material, rocks and other debris. Unlike most of the other cages at the cloister, Rasputin’s had a double door arrangement, with a space in-between. Anyone entering the cage had to close and lock the outer door behind them before opening the inner door. Both doors were secured with combination locks: an extra safety measure for an animal as fast as it was vicious. And if Rasputin ever escaped, there was no recapture plan. He would need to be put down, quickly and ruthlessly, before he set any of his five beady hunter’s eyes on any other living thing.

  “You probably know this, but Rasputin’s from your neck of the woods…”

  She gave the cage’s chain netting a strong, noisy rattle – and the largest debris pile in the center of the pen instantly exploded in a blur of thrashing legs and writhing, tubular body. The thirty-foot creature that emerged threw itself into the cage wall in front of them with a loud, fence-shaking impact. Hamish leaped backwards in alarm, landing several body-lengths away in a defensive crouch, antennae rigid and quivering with fright.

  “Bloodcarn!” he managed to gasp, his Transvox barely getting the word out.