Nebula Awards Showcase 2004

by Vonda N. McIntyre

  Then those first two turn and trumpet at the others. Rosie’s arms are just long enough for her to cover her ears. (She must hear extraordinarily well to need to do that from way up here.) Hard to tell from this distance, but those others all seem much larger than she is.

  When, a moment later, she takes her fingers from her ears, I ask her, “Have you had experiences with others of your own kind before?”

  She nods.

  “The scars.”

  “Mmmnnn.”

  “You weren’t supposed to fight each other.”

  “Mmnnnn.”

  I want to comfort her. Put my arms around this green scaly thing. (My son had an iguana. We never hugged it.) She reaches toward me as if to hug, too. But even those little arms . . . those claws. . . . And my head could fit all the way in her mouth, no problem. I flinch away. I see her eyes turn reptilian—lose their wide childlike look. She says, “Kh . . . khss sssorry.”

  “No, it’s I who should be . . . am sorry.”

  I reach and I do hug and let myself be hugged. I get my parka ripped on her claws. Well, it’s not the first rip.

  Far below us, the things fight and trumpet, smash trees, trample brush. I can see, even from up here, spit fly out. There’s no blood. Their hide is too tough.

  They fight with their feet, leaping as cocks do. One is losing. It’s on its back, talons up. Even from way up here, I can see a little herd of panicked deer galloping off toward the hills. Rosie covers her eyes this time and leans over as if she has a stomachache. Says, “Mmmmm-mmmnnn. Not Kkkh kkh krright.”

  “What were you supposed to do?”

  “Kkh . . . khill. . . . Mmmm those like kh you. Khill you.”

  Below us, the creature that was on its back tries to escape but the others leap high and claw at it, pull it down then one bites the under part of the neck. Now there is blood.

  I turn to see Rosie’s reaction, but she’s not here. Then I see her, way, way back, curled up behind a tree.

  I go back to her and put my arm around her again. “Old buddy.” Then, “How did you ever turn out as you are?”

  “Mmmm mmistake.” Then “Gh gho,” Rosie says, carefully not looking down at them. “Ghho. Mmmmnn . . . mnnnow!” And she’s already on her way, back to the shack. I follow. Watching her. Her arms, so like ours, look like an afterthought. Obviously there’s a bit of the human in her. I see it in the legs, too. Also in those half-formed ears.

  Those others below could push down my shack in half a minute. I need Rosie on my side. “Stay. I need you. I’ll push out a wall. I’ll make the door bigger.”

  She stops, stares. I wish I knew what’s going on inside that big fierce head of hers.

  “I’ll start getting the logs for it today.”

  “I kh . . . kh . . . khelph.”

  But my food won’t last long with her eating washbasins full. Besides, she’s starving. We’ll have to get food first.

  “How have you lived all this time? What have you eaten?”

  “Ghhophers mmm mostly. When mmmwere gh hophers. Khrabbits. When them. When kh llleaves, leaves. Mmmmushrooms. Rrr-roots. Mmmmbark nnnot good but kh ate it. Khfish. Hhhard to kh kfish when kh h ice.”

  We climb higher than my shack so Rosie can fish. The streams up there are too fast to freeze over. She uses her foot. Hooks them on a claw. Her arms seem even too small to help with balancing. It’s her big green head and the half of her left-over tail, waving from side to side, that balances her as she reaches. She gets seven.

  “Kkhfried?” she says. “In khfat? With khh kh corn mmmeal? Like Mmmmmama? Mushka?”

  “You betcha. You had a mama?”

  “Mmmmmnnnn. Mmmmmm. Mmone kh like mmyou”

  She bounces off down the path ahead of me, singing a oolie, oolie, doodlie do kind of song. I guess she’s no longer sick. Or she’s too happy to care. And certainly not thinking about those others fighting in the valley.

  (I’m carrying the fish. I strung them through their gills on to a willow stick. I hadn’t brought my stringer. I guess I don’t have to worry about getting enough food for her. Yet she was starving. Perhaps she doesn’t like things raw?)

  Back home we eat fried fish. I eat two and Rosie eats five. She watches as I cook just as the dog did, exact same expression, mouth half open. A dog sort of smile. We settle down afterwards and I read to her from one of my books: Moby Dick. (I only brought three.) I read that to my son and wife, one on each side of me, and all of us on the couch. Rosie lies, head towards me, eyes almost shut, commenting now and then, her voice breathy, like one would imagine a snake would talk. I’m sitting on my cot. We sip our rose hips tea. We’re both covered with blankets.

  Then, “Time’s up,” I say. “You need sleep.” But she doesn’t want us to stop reading. “I insist,” I say. She groans. “I kh kread. You ssssleep.” She reaches for the book with those womanly shiny green fingers. I put it down and take her hand. “Ooobie baloobie, do it,” I say. (Ooobie baloobie is another of her songs.) She laughs. (It’s more like panting than laughing, but so hard I think she must be little more then seven years old—her equivalent of seven—to think that’s so funny.) But she settles down right after. Says, “Kh . . . koh khay.” Wraps her little arms around herself. I tuck the blankets closer and douse the lamp with its lid.

  This time I don’t worry if I might be her next meal, but I have a hard time sleeping anyway. I keep wondering what might happen if those others find my shack. They could break it down just leaning on it by mistake.

  Since they all seem to be coming down, we’ll go up. We’ll take some supplies to the pass and hide. I’ve spent the night there many a time. We’ll be all right as long as there isn’t another storm that goes on for days and days. At least we’ll have fish.

  I always did like camping out. The view is always worth more than the discomfort. Besides I do without right here every day. It never bothers me, washing up in a washbowl or an icy stream. Only here is it worth the bother of looking out the window.

  Or now, at Rosie, too. She really is quite beautiful, her yellow underbelly and the darker green along the ridge of her back. She’s even reddish in spots.

  * * *

  Rosie hears them first, wakes me with her, “Kh . . . kh . . . kh.” There’s sounds of crashing through the brush. A tree splintering. From the look of the big dipper, straight out my little north window, it’s probably three or four A.M.

  They’re coming closer. For sure they saw our smoke and smelled us. They push on our walls. I hear them breathe and hiss. No, it’s only one, I think only one, pushing the wall on one side. The caulking falls out. Rosie braces herself against that wall to hold it. She picks up the rhythm of the other’s pushing, leans when it pushes. It works, the wall holds. At one point there’s a large hole where the caulking’s gone and I see the creature looking in—one light greenish eye like Rosie’s. The thing gives a throaty hiss. Rosie answers with the same hiss. It gives up. We hear it smashing away. We look at each other.

  “You did it!”

  Rosie’s mouth is open in that smile that looks so much like my old Rosie’s and she nods yes so hard I’m thinking she’ll put her neck out of joint. “Kh khdid! Khdid!”

  “Pack up. We’ll go camp out up beyond where we fished.”

  She goes right for the frying pan and the bag of corn meal and puts them in her vest pockets. She’s still nodding yes but she stops when I tell her we have to bring blankets and a tarp.

  “Kh . . . kh . . . kh. . . . Kno! Nnnnnooo!”

  “Yes! It’s colder up there. You need shelter as much as I do. Maybe more so.”

  Like Rosie, she gives up easily. “Kh. . . kh-kho kay.” I don’t know what I’d do if she didn’t. She helps me roll the blankets in the tarp. Says, “I kh kcarry mmmmthat.”

  I have to stop her from taking her books and her fancy green rock. She insists she can carry all the things we need and those too.

  “I kh likhe ghrrrrreeeen.”

  “That’s good. T
hen you like yourself.”

  * * *

  She starts up, hop, skip, and jump . . . even with all that to carry. I can’t believe it, she’s leaping from rock to rock—even across talus. I keep telling her that stuff is unstable. “Dangerous even for you,” I say, but she’s does it anyway. The rocks do teeter, but she’s sure-footed. That leaping doesn’t last long, thank goodness. She doesn’t realize how much all that weight she’s carrying will tire her. I warned her, but since when do the young listen to warnings of that sort? She’s jumped and skipped and leaped until now she lags behind and blows like a horse at every other step. I take the tarp and blankets from her. I’d take that frying pan, too, but she won’t let me. “Kh . . . kan do it. I kan!”

  I don’t let Rosie stop until the half way spot. “We’ll get up where we can see,” I say, “then we’ll rest.”

  “Oh pf . . . pfhooo,” she says, but she goes on, sighing now.

  “You can do it. Fifty more steps.”

  * * *

  A few minutes later we put down our bundles, Rosie takes off her vest, and we climb out to the edge of the scarp we just zigzagged up to see what we can see. And it’s as I feared, they’ve found my cabin. Looks like there’s not much left of it already, walls pushed in, roof collapsed. I had doused the fire but there must have been some cinders left. A fire has started, at the cabin and on the ground around it.

  She sits as I sit, legs hanging over. How much like a human she is. Sometimes you don’t see it at all, but in certain positions you do. Now she looks as if she’s going to cry. (Can they cry? Only humans, seals, and sea birds have tears. Anyway, you don’t need tears for sadness.) I feel like crying, too. Rosie can tell just like my old Rosie could. We lean against each other.

  “At least your stones are all right.”

  She doesn’t even answer with an mmmnnnn.

  I look to see if any trees are waving around down there from being bumped into, but there’s nothing. Odd.

  * * *

  After we start on up, Rosie is droopy, not only tired but sad. She thunks along. I feel sorry that she jumped and hopped so much in the beginning. My other Rosie was like that. She never realized she had to save her strength.

  Most of my talking has been to keep her going. “Count steps. Maybe a hundred more.” “Come on, poor tired friend.” “See that rock? We’ll stop just beyond that.” Now I mumble to myself—about when I’ll be back to sift through my things. I didn’t bring any souvenirs of my wife and child. When I fled out here . . . escaped . . . I didn’t even want pictures. I was running away from memories. Of course memories come and go as they please.

  Just around the corner and we’ll be able to see the little lake I’m heading for, the stepping stones crossing the creek that pours down from it, beyond, the trees and boulders where I had hoped to hide us this first night, but I decide we have to stop now. We stand . . . that is, I stand, Rosie collapses. We’re both too tired to get out food other than jerky. I tuck Rosie in under an overhang. Just her big back end with the half bitten off tail hanging out. I cover her with blankets and the tarp. She’s asleep before she can finish her jerky. I pick the chunk out of her mouth to save it for breakfast.

  * * *

  In the morning I wake to the sound of a helicopter. I know right away. Why . . . why didn’t I suspect before? Rosie not only had an ear tag, but she has a chip imbedded in her neck.

  There’s no place for a helicopter to land, the mountains are too closed in and too many boulders, but we’re not safe anyway. There could be more things in Rosie’s neck than just an ID chip. That could be why we didn’t hear those creatures down there anymore.

  Rosie’s in an exhausted sleep. “You have to wake up. Now! I have to get your chip out.” I don’t mention what else might be there. Those others may have been disposed of . . . without a trace, I’ll bet. Or little traces scattered all over the place so no one will ever know there ever were creatures like this.

  “Did you know you have a chip?”

  I feel around Rosie’s neck.

  “Hang on, friend, this will hurt.”

  I don’t care about those others, but I’d never like the forest without Rosie in it, skipping and hopping along, picking flowers, collecting green rocks or glittery fool’s gold, singing, “doodlie do” songs.

  She looks at the helicopter, then at me, then the copter again, then back at me. Again it’s that: Should I be frightened or not? Except now I’m frightened. I try not to show it but she senses it. I see her getting scared, too.

  The copter circles. I have to hurry—but I don’t want to hurt her—but her skin is so tough! And who knows, if I do find one or two things, will that be all that’s hidden there?

  “Hang on.”

  She hugs herself with those inadequate arms. Even before I start she makes little doglike . . . or rather, birdlike sounds.

  “Sing,” I say. “Sing your oobie do.”

  I feel two lumps. I dig in. I say, “Almost done,” when I’ve hardly begun.

  * * *

  Then we run. Without our blankets, without our food, except what Rosie has in her vest.

  “They can’t follow now.” I hope that’s true.

  We stick to the old path that circles over the pass. We try to stay close to rocks and under what trees there are. Even running as we do, I can’t not think about how beautiful it is up here. When I first saw it, years ago, I shouted when I came around the corner.

  She’s way ahead of me in no time—those long strong legs. And we’re not carrying much of anything. I catch up when she finally turns to look for me. We both look back. The helicopter still hovers. I left the chip and button bullet back there at our camping spot. They think she’s still there. Maybe they don’t know about me.

  She’s different from those others. What was she for? That is, besides killing those like me?

  It starts to snow. Thank God or worse luck, I don’t know which. It’ll hide our tracks and the helicopter won’t fly, but we don’t have food or blankets.

  We cross the pass and dip into the next valley. We find a sheltered spot among a mass of fallen boulders where the whole side of a cliff came down. Some boulders are on top of each other making a roof. Boulders over, boulders under—not a particularly comfortable spot but we huddle there and rest. We take stock. All we have is what’s in Rosie’s vest, a little left over jerky (we eat it) the frying pan and cornmeal. We can make corn cakes if we don’t catch fish.

  This is just a mountain storm. If we can get far enough down we’ll walk out of it. If we’re lucky it’ll last just long enough to cover our tracks. I tell Rosie. She lies at my feet still panting. I stroke her knobby head.

  “How’s your neck?”

  “Hh . . . hoo khay.”

  She sleeps. Murmuring a whole series of Mmmms and then, Mmmush, and, Mmmushka.

  As the storm eases and we’re some rested, I wake her and we start down. After an hour we’re out of the snow and wind and into a hanging meadow. I’ve been over this pass but not this far.

  I’m worried. Rosie is sluggish and dreamy, flopping along, tripping a lot. Poor thing, all she has on is her vest. She’s cold and with reptiles . . . or part-reptiles. . . . I don’t want to build a fire but I must. The copter’s gone, maybe it’s all right to now.

  “My poor fierce friend,” I say. She grins. I take her hand and sit her down. “We’re going to have a nice big fire. You rest. I’ll find the wood.”

  “I’ll hhh . . . hhh . . . hhh.”

  “No you won’t. I’m going by myself. I’ll be back before you know it.”

  She mews, turns away, and curls up.

  * * *

  On this side there’s a lot less snow, so not hard going. I gather brush, dead limbs, and drag the whole batch back to her, flop down, my arm around her. I see her eyes flicker, though the nictitating membrane closes as she does it. She doesn’t wake. I’ll have to make the fire right now.

  How does a sick reptile show how sick it is? All I know
is, she doesn’t look right and doesn’t feel right.

  I build the fire as close to her as I dare. Finally she seems in a more normal sleep. I sleep, too.

  * * *

  I wake with a start. Hibernate! Do they? All those others, too. But she’s been mixed with other genes. For sure, some human.

  I wake her by mistake as I get out the frying pan and the cornmeal. I’m melting snow, first to drink and then to make corncakes. She drinks as if she’s been out in the desert for days. Then, “I’mm mmhungry.” Then she sees what little cornmeal we have and says, “Mmmm nnnot ssso. . . . Nnnot hungry,” she says again. “Ooobie, baloobie, nnnnot.”

  “Ooobie, baloobie, do eat me. Roll me in corn meal. I’m old and I’m tired.”

  All of a sudden it’s not a joke.

  “Kkkh kkkh! Kh khcan’t dooo that! Oooooh!”

  “I thought that’s what you were made for . . . born for.”

  “Kkh can’t.”

  “You’ll die. Look how thin you are.”

  “I’mmm tem po rary. Temmm po po rary.” She sings it like a song—like she doesn’t care. Does she understand what it means? I wonder if it’s true. Perhaps they all are—were.

  “Mmmmmm all temmm po po! rary.”

  “What makes you think you’re temporary?”

  “Mmmmush kh knew.”

  “She told you? How could she!”

  “Kkh kh nnnno! I sssaw kher eyes. Sssscared. I kh khfound out. I kh . . . kh . . . kread.”

  “You’re only half grown.”

  “Have a kh kh tth timer.”

  I don’t know what I see in those lizardy eyes of hers. “Don’t you like it here? Don’t you care anything about being alive?”

  “Oh! Kh! Oooh! Kh!” She does a hopping, twisting dance, those tiny arms raised. It tells how she feels, better than her words ever could.

  “Mmmmy kh heart,” she says, “hasss kth th timer.”

  “How long is temporary?”

  “I sh should dannnce. Ssssing. Mnnnow! And lllook. Lllook a llllot! Yesssss! Lottts. Mmm then kh kgo for goood mmmmbig bh bones.”

  * * *

  We’ll build another cabin. Here in this hanging valley, sheltered under boulders and trees and next to a good fishing stream. With her help we’ll have one up in no time. We’ll dance and sing and look around a lot. At the smallest and the largest . . . the near and the far . . . stars, mountain peaks, beetles. . . .