“That was really unnecessary, you know,” said Friesner, spreading margarine on an end of croissant. “With the gun...”
Soko lifted his coffee, sipped. “Do you know how the L’lewed killed those women?”
“Yes, I do. I called up his file. But he’s been very cooperative, and...”
“He’s going to go home, no matter what he does. He’s only here for us to watch until that happens, and to make a show for the public, but he’ll go home, even if he claims a fourth victim. Even if that person is his spiritual liaison. He may not wait to see if this...sacrifice really takes place.”
“Please don’t think,” Friesner said grimly, lifting a meaningful gaze, “that I approve of this request. But the L’lewed isn’t lying...these are the religious practices of his kind. And as such, it’s our responsibility to respect them, and make it possible for him to pursue his form of worship. He has that right.”
Soko dropped his gaze into his coffee cup. “These things his kind sacrifice on their own world. Have you seen pictures of them?”
“Yes,” Friesner replied, buttering again.
“And? Are they human?”
“The creatures look...fairly humanoid. Somewhat more...monkeyish. In a hairless way. They have no civilization, no culture, they use only a few primitive tools. The L’lewed first encountered them on a world in an adjacent system, almost a century ago. They took them home to their world, and as you know, breed them as sacrifices.”
“Lovely people,” Soko muttered.
“Mr. Soko, all cultures seem strange to one another. You should celebrate that diversity. You’re of Japanese ancestry, obviously. Don’t you in your home have things that would mystify a L’lewed, a Choom, a Tikkihotto? Perhaps a mounted kabuki mask? A painted byobu screen? A katana and wakizashi in a sword stand?”
“I don’t have any of those things,” Soko muttered, lifting his cup again.
“You should. Your people have a wonderful ancient culture. A very strange one. Wonderfully strange.”
“I’m flattered you feel that way. And I understand you might find it quaint or delightful or wonderful that a man used to stick a dagger in his own guts...but this L’lewed murdered three women. Whatever religious practices those women might have followed themselves will never be followed by them again, because this other creature poured himself down their throats and choked them to death...”
“Mr. Soko, I know...I know...”
“...and found pleasure in their convulsions, in their death spasms, because this is called ‘the Vibration’, when the sacrifice transfers its life force to the L’lewed, who emerges reborn from the victim’s...lower body. As you say...wonderfully strange.”
“Look, we all know it was wrong. Yes, it was a crime. A terrible thing. Those women were not animals bred for sacrifice, but unwilling advanced beings. I agree. That’s why Mr. Rhh is in custody, that’s why he’s being extradited...”
“Nothing will happen to him back home.”
“We don’t know that.”
“Nothing will happen to him back home. And another will be sent to replace him.”
“I heard it said the next ambassador will bring a greater number of the sacrificial animals with him. In fact, with relations going so well between the L’leweds and Earth, their animals are going to be bred in some of our colonies to insure that they’re always available.”
“How quaint. I guess Rhh just miscalculated his needs.”
“He was forced to stay longer than he thought he would have to, before returning home. You have to understand...if they go too long without a sacrifice, if they pass a certain point, they consider themselves unclean. Irredeemable for the rest of their lives.”
“He ran out of animals. So humans sufficed? Humans are just animals to our new friends?”
“No. But that’s why he’s here, isn’t it? He made a terrible choice. No one denies that, not even him. He says he was desperate.”
“Bad enough, what they do to those animals,” Soko murmured.
Friesner motioned with his knife at Soko’s plate. His untouched food. “Those strips, Mr. Soko? Real meat? From a living creature?”
“I’m not proud of it. I like the taste. But if I saw the same animal being kicked in the street by a couple of punks, I’d crack their skulls open.”
“Well isn’t that quaint?” Friesner sighed. “Mr. Soko...Ken...you’ve been assigned to accompany me in my meetings with the prisoners while I arrange their spiritual needs for them. I have a very important job, here. Religion gives these people hope, some kind of foundation...meaning. It can bring them back from their mistakes, give them a new life. You should feel privileged, too, to be a part of that in any way. Like I say...we’re going to be together quite a bit. That’s why I wanted to have breakfast with you, chat, get to know you a little.”
“I appreciate that,” Soko said blandly.
Friesner sighed once more. Wagging his head, he cut a piece of melon with a knife and fork. He had no meat on his plate, being a vegetarian. And the most Soko ate from his own plate was a piece of toast, good as that meat smelled.
* * *
In the living room of Soko’s small, neat apartment he watched a VT segment about two Choom youths who had beaten to death a woman named Vita Yolk in the course of a robbery. The prosecutor had been after the death penalty, but the youths had been given twenty years each instead. Soko thought that even those sentences combined seemed shamefully insufficient, and switched off the set in disgust.
Against another wall of the room there was a clear, illuminated museum showcase. Inside it, resting on brackets, was a Japanese short sword—a wakizashi—from Earth’s eighteenth century.
Soko approached and stared in at it now, the glow from the showcase the only light in the room. He had never dared to remove the sword to handle it, had not touched it in fact since he had been a boy, when his father had handed it to him. It had been in his father’s family for generations, originally the weapon of a samurai ancestor, it was said. But how could he have admitted to Friesner how right he had been? He had always found the story of the samurai ancestor a cliche, a stereotype, an embarrassment—not a matter of pride. Now, with Friesner having mentioned the wakizashi, he felt all the more ridiculous for showing it off like this...though he had not seen the sword’s naked blade in fifteen years.
The exhibit was meant more as a tribute to his father, whose prize possession the sword had been. He had not known that fabled samurai, any of those people, now dust, who had handed the sword down. Only his father. The sword was worth a fortune, he knew. But he had never dreamed of parting with it. Not that he was afraid to awaken one night to find the apparition of an angry samurai, decked out in kabuto helmet and menpo war mask, looming at the foot of his bed. It was respect for the one immediate ancestor who had fathered him.
The scabbard, or saya, of black lacquered wood bore a crayfish design. He didn’t know the significance. The hilt was wood covered in pebbled fish skin and then braided. The sword guard, or tsuba, was an intricate work of art all by itself. And in that black scabbard slept a blade of soft iron layered with steel, presumably still bright after these fifteen years since his father had died...after these centuries since that samurai had died...
Obsessive cultural pride—like religion—kept people apart, he thought, the display’s glow under-lighting his grim face, making it mask-like. They both fostered hate, prejudice. Different languages, different prayers. His father had been able to speak Japanese. Soko admired his diligence in learning it, but he would have admired him just as much if he had learned the native language of the Waiai.
It was late. Work in the morning. He reached to a button at the base of the showcase and cast it into darkness.
* * *
“What I do, I do of my own free will,” said Oowoh Kee into the camera that had been set up in his cell. “I appreciate the concern of those who will protest against my decision. You should weep not for me, but for my wife, who must live
on with the dishonor that has been done her...”
The statement was not for the press; they had yet to learn of the arrangement. The statement was being prepared in the event that Kee went through with his unorthodox execution before he was able to be interviewed live...as was hoped would happen. It was not so much a prisoner’s final record as a kind of protection for the prison, a legal disclaimer.
Soko was off duty. He had inquired about meeting the Waiai. Kee had agreed. Friesner was not present. He had offered to meet the Waiai’s spiritual needs. Kee had related that his people had no spiritual beliefs.
Soko waited until the statement was done, the camera removed, before he approached the cell of the condemned man. The field that separated them had a slight violet tint so as to be visible. The cell was Spartan; no pictures, calendars, photos of the wife—of course. The Waiai had turned away, his back to the barrier, but he must have heard Soko come near, for he turned around immediately. The Waiai had remarkable hearing, with channeled orifices ringing their heads all the way around the back from one side of their skulls to the other. And when Kee faced Soko, he revealed his utter sightlessness. What eyes he might have had seemed to have been squashed beneath the weight of his great hairless dome of a forehead, which appropriately enough reminded Soko of the head of a dolphin. The Waiai gave off subsonic waves from an aperture in the center of that bulging dome, which were reflected back in a kind of radar that sculpted images onto some mind canvas. Despite skin yellow as a canary, the absence of eyes and the abundance of ears, the being was one of the more humanoid to have been encountered. His smile was friendly in a reserved way; polite, and completely human.
“Officer Soko. We haven’t met before. To what do I owe this pleasure?” The words were not sarcastic.
“I work with Friesner,” Soko replied, getting close enough to the barrier to hear its faint hum. “I was...curious about you.” Intrigued was too strong a word for Soko to admit.
“I imagine that soon enough, others will be curious. They will talk about me. And then they will forget me. And that is fine with me. All that matters is that my wife remember me.”
His voice was high and squeaky, as though his throat were made of vinyl, a balloon filled with air pinching out its words. Dolphiny voice.
“You’re devoted to your wife,” Soko observed.
“She is my life. We were very happy. We were excited to come here...to share these many cultures. We harmed no one. We were pacifists.”
“You owned a gun,” Soko pointed out.
The very human mouth frowned under the crush of skull. “Not at first. We had no idea...how things were here. And then we learned. We became afraid. Toward the end, we even talked about returning to our home...”
“You should have,” Soko said, almost more to himself than to the being.
The Waiai began to pace his cell, lowering his skull as if to sweep the ground before his feet with an invisible cane.
“I know that now. But I do not regret killing those young men, Mr. Soko. If I had told the court that I did, perhaps they might have spared my life. But I am not a liar. I am not ashamed of defending my wife’s honor.” He stopped, lifted his head. “I am proud of what I did.”
“You should have kept trying legal approaches...”
“You don’t understand us, Officer Soko.” The Waiai came so close to the field dividing them that the violet hue glowed dully on his huge cranium. “Our women are sacred to us. They bring life into existence. They nurture that life. When they bleed in childbearing, we call it the Sacrifice. The pain...the agony they bear in bringing life. The Sacrifice. The women endure the Sacrifice, and life goes on. And had we had more time...my wife...my wife and I...”
The Waiai turned his head away ever so slightly, as if its weight were becoming too great a burden.
Soko thought of ancient Earth cultures. In many, menstruation was considered a curse, if not blatantly evil. Men made their women take symbolic cleansing baths. Men would not touch their women, or permit their women to prepare their food, for days. The blood feared, not celebrated.
“Those men made my wife bleed,” the Waiai squeaked, as much a whisper as he could approximate. “They desecrated her. They stained her.” His head came up abruptly. “But don’t take that to mean I see her as soiled...that I disown her. We do not turn away from those women who are degraded. We avenge their honor. It is the very least we can do for them. Dying for my woman...it will be an honor, in a way. Because I am dying for all our women, who bring us our lives.”
“Your wife needed you alive.”
“She does need my help,” Kee admitted. “She needs this money. And with it, I want her to return to our world. I have told her my wish...and she swears she will honor it.”
“The L’lewed,” Soko said, “they way he kills...it will be painful.”
“No more painful than the Sacrifice,” Kee replied.
Soko stared at the being, and nodded slowly, knowing that the Waiai would see this motion in whatever silhouette or hologram he projected inside his skull. It was a gesture of quiet understanding.
“It was...my pleasure,” Soko told him.
“Come and talk with me again, Officer Soko,” the Waiai said, smiling gently.
“Perhaps I will. Good luck to you. And your wife.” And then Soko turned away from the prisoner, and walked off down the corridor. Behind one barrier he passed, an obese and apparently naked human lay half covered in bed, a beautiful woman on either side of him. Holograms of a less natural origin; the prisoners were permitted to own various vidgame and holographic systems. The obese man leered at Soko, as if to invite him in to join the party. Soko looked away quickly in disgust...not wanting to let some bloated human larva eclipse in his mind the blind grace of the creature he had shared several minutes with.
* * *
Two days later, during the daily hour-long exercise period, a human inmate—also on death row—jammed a homemade dagger deep into the guts of Oowoh Kee.
By the time Soko learned of this, and made it to the infirmary, the Waiai had died. His murderer, who had had nothing to lose in the act, had wildly shouted something about the humanoid being a racist...prejudiced against humans...for having murdered five of them so remorselessly. Someone told Soko that he felt the attention Kee was receiving from the prison had incited the man’s hatred.
Soko wanted to go home sick that day. He had never taken a sick day in his career. Instead, he sought out David-Paul Friesner...and found that he was already passing along news of the calamity to Ambassador Rhh.
Friesner barely acknowledged Soko’s arrival as he continued to plead with the L’lewed to remain calm. “There’s still time, sir...we can come up with something...another prisoner...someone outside the prison, with a fatal physical condition...ah, ah...someone seeking assisted suicide...”
“There won’t be time!” the L’lewed’s whispery voice hissed from the grille in the middle cylinder of his genie’s lamp. His elastic pseudopods, affixed to the ceiling, were taut as steel cable, and the snail-like feelers on his central form writhed like tortured things. “Look how much time was wasted in preparation with the Waiai! You don’t understand what will happen to me! My very soul!”
“We have nearly a week before...”
“A week! A week! There’s no more time!” that seemingly disembodied voice lamented while his ectoplasmic body gave a shuddery spasm. “I will be impure! An outcast to my people!”
And that was how Soko left them, unnoticed as he slipped away. He noted, in leaving the pair, that unlike his last visit to the ambassador, this time the spiritual liaison remained safely on the other side of a violet-tinted barrier field.
* * *
After having checked his voice over the intercom—the same voice that had spoken to her over the vidphone, the vidplate of which was useless to her—Eeaea Kee opened her apartment door to admit her guest Ken Soko.
“Thank you for seeing...for having me,” Soko told the woman in soft, res
pectful tones.
She was almost indistinguishable from her husband. Tall, straight, that globe of skull, the bright yellow flesh and small, pleasant smile. “May I make you some tea?”
“No thank you.”
“Come sit down.”
He followed her into a living room, cozy despite its blank walls. There were sculptures here and there, however, offering compelling shapes and textures. He found himself reaching out to touch several himself on his way to the worn sofa.
“Did you...know my husband well?” Mrs. Kee inquired.
“No. We met briefly. But I was...impressed with his love for you. I found myself impressed with your culture.”
“I’m flattered,” she squeaked shyly.
“I have something I brought with me. A gift I want you to have.”
“That’s most kind. Something of my husband’s?”
“Something of mine.” And he leaned forward, extending to her an object wrapped in cloth. She sensed its approach and opened her hands to accept it. “Be careful opening it.” he warned her. “It’s very sharp.”
The Waiai woman folded back the cloth. Felt the smooth lacquered scabbard. Closed one hand on the woven handle. Withdrew several inches of blade, which she could not see flash brightly with the orange of afternoon sun, as if it were still molten in the making.
“A weapon? For my protection?”
Soko smiled. “In a sense. I’m going to take you now to a place that will pay you for that sword. They’ll pay you more money than you’ve ever had, or dreamed of having. And I want you to use that money to respect your husband’s wishes. I want you to return to your own world.”
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