“Who are you? Who are you?” Glenna had to say it twice, she was so breathless. “What do you want?”
The screen flickered to a longer statement.
MY NAME IS ATVAR H’SIAL. I AM A CECROPIAN, AND A BUSINESS PARTNER OF THE HUMAN, LOUIS NENDA. IF YOU ARE THE HUMAN FEMALE GLENNA OMAR, I WISH TO TALK WITH YOU.
“That’s me.” Glenna stared at the gray box, then at the dark-red carapace and the open twin yellow horns on the head. As she spoke, she again could hear those faint bat-squeaks of sound. “I thought that Cecropians saw with sound, and spoke to each other using some sort of smells.”
This time the words on the screen came painfully slowly.
THAT IS INDEED THE CASE. I HAVE BUILT A DEVICE WHICH TAKES HUMAN SPEECH, AND CONVERTS IT TO A TWO-DIMENSIONAL PATTERN OF SOUNDS BEYOND YOUR FREQUENCY RANGE. I SEE THAT PATTERN AS A PICTURE, WITHIN WHICH ARE THE FORMS OF MY OWN WRITTEN LANGUAGE. I AM THUS “READING” YOUR WORDS WITHIN THAT VISUAL SOUND PATTERN. I AM “SPEAKING” IN A SIMILAR WAY, BY THE CONVERSION OF MY OWN GESTURES TO A TWO-DIMENSIONAL IMAGE, WHICH IN TURN MAPS TO THE ONE-DIMENSIONAL SOUNDS THAT YOU CALL WORDS. IT IS A CRUDE METHOD OF SPEECH, AND AN IMPRECISE ONE, BUT THE BEST THAT I CAN ATTAIN. BEAR WITH ME. TO MAKE NEW SPEECH, WORDS THAT I HAVE NOT ALREADY RECORDED, IS MOST DIFFICULT.
“But what do you want?”
I WISH TO OFFER YOU AN UNUSUAL OPPORTUNITY. I BELIEVE THAT YOU VERY MUCH WISH TO PERFORM SEX ACTS WITH MY PARTNER, LOUIS NENDA, AND WITH THE HUMAN QUINTUS BLOOM.
“Well, I wouldn’t put it quite that way.” Glenna did her best to make allowances for a Cecropian’s lack of understanding of the finer points of human social habits. “But just for the sake of discussion, what if I do?”
A screenful of words flashed into existence. Atvar H’sial must have prepared the whole speech in advance.
IN ORDER TO DO THAT, YOU NEED TO HAVE CONTINUED ACCESS TO THEM. THE MAN BLOOM, TOGETHER WITH LOUIS NENDA AND MYSELF, WILL SHORTLY BE LEAVING SENTINEL GATE. WE HAVE BEEN ASKED TO GUIDE QUINTUS BLOOM TO A REGION OF THE SPIRAL ARM KNOWN AS THE TORVIL ANFRACT, WHERE HE BELIEVES THAT THE HUMAN FEMALE DARYA LANG IS CURRENTLY ENGAGED IN EXPLORATION. NENDA AND I KNOW THE ANFRACT REGION WELL, AND CAN EASILY TAKE BLOOM THERE. BUT IF NENDA AND BLOOM LEAVE SENTINEL GATE, YOUR DESIRE TO COUPLE WITH THEM WILL NOT BE FULFILLED, NOR WILL YOU HAVE FURTHER ACCESS TO THEM. HOWEVER, I CAN ARRANGE FOR YOU TO GO WITH US ON OUR EXPEDITION, AS AN INFORMATION SYSTEMS SPECIALIST. OFFICIALLY YOU WILL BE HELPING ME TO ACHIEVE BETTER COMMUNICATION WITH HUMANS, EMPLOYING THE MEANS THAT WE ARE USING HERE. UNOFFICIALLY, YOU WILL HAVE FEW DUTIES, AND YOU WILL BE FREE TO PURSUE YOUR OWN ENDS.
“You really think I’m that keen for it? Don’t bother translating and answering that. Suppose that I say I’m interested? — and I might be. I don’t understand what’s in it for you.”
Atvar H’sial was silent for a long time. Whether she was thinking, or just having trouble translating, Glenna could not be sure. The words came at last: MY SLAVE AND INTERPRETER, J’MERLIA, IS WITH DARYA LANG. TO GET HIM BACK, I AM MOST ANXIOUS THAT LOUIS NENDA AND I GO ON THIS JOURNEY. HOWEVER, I HAVE FOR A LONG TIME BEEN CONCERNED THAT NENDA MAY BE EMOTIONALLY UNBALANCED CONCERNING THE HUMAN FEMALE, DARYA LANG. YOU ARE, I GATHER, AN EXCEPTIONALLY ATTRACTIVE HUMAN FEMALE. AND HE IS, I BELIEVE, SUSCEPTIBLE TO YOUR CHARMS. IF YOU WERE TO TRAVEL TO THE TORVIL ANFRACT, AND LOUIS NENDA WAS TO BE EXPOSED TO BOTH OF YOU…
“No contest.” Glenna had taken Hans Rebka from Darya without any trouble at all; she could do the same with Louis Nenda. She was intrigued. It was at the same time something of a challenge, and a chance to become closer to Quintus Bloom. Nenda would be interesting for a while, but Bloom was something else. It would be no bad thing to wander the spiral arm as the regular consort of a recognized genius. As for his apparent shyness, she knew ways to cure that.
Glenna had only one question left. “I’m sure I can make Louis forget that Darya Lang ever existed. But I wonder about you. You’re not jealous of Lang, are you? I mean, I realize that you are a female, yourself. But I thought that there was no way that humans and Cecropians — that Louis Nenda and you — I mean, how do male Cecropians handle the females, anyway, in your mating?”
Maybe Glenna had gone too far. Certainly there was a long delay.
YOU HAVE THE WRONG IMPRESSION. IT WOULD BE MORE ACCURATE TO ASK: HOW DO WE FEMALE CECROPIANS HANDLE THE MALE DURING MATING? AND ALSO AFTER IT.
A pair of forelimbs began a rhythmic crushing movement, moving in toward the dark red underside of Atvar H’sial. After a few more seconds the long proboscis reached down, questing.
HOWEVER, THAT IS A PERSONAL QUESTION, WHICH I PREFER NOT TO ANSWER. LET ME SAY ONLY THIS: YOU WOULD PERHAPS BE LESS DISTURBED BY THE ANSWER THAN WOULD EITHER LOUIS NENDA OR QUINTUS BLOOM.
Chapter Twelve
Jerome’s World orbits the yellow dwarf star Tetragamma, only forty light-years from Sentinel Gate. Almost directly between the two lies the bright blue star, Rigel. Rigel is a true supergiant, fifty times a standard stellar mass, a hundred thousand times standard luminosity, blazing forth with intense brilliance and dazzling power. Few observers of the night sky from Sentinel Gate would ever notice the wan gleam of Tetragamma, tucked away close to Rigel’s line of sight. And no one on Sentinel Gate would see the mote of Jerome’s World, gleaming faintly in Tetragamma’s reflected light. Darya could not remember anyone mentioning the name of that world during all her years at the Institute, until the arrival of Quintus Bloom.
She glanced at the planet a couple of times as the Myosotis approached for landing. That Jerome’s World was a thinly populated planet was obvious from the absence of city lights on its night side. It must be a poor and backward planet, too, or Darya would have heard more about it. Yet according to Quintus Bloom, this was his home world. It was also the closest inhabited planet to the artifact he had discovered and named Labyrinth.
Darya saw nothing to change her first impressions as the Myosotis completed its landing and she disembarked. The Immigration staff, all one of him, greeted Darya cheerfully enough, but he stared pop-eyed at Kallik and J’merlia. Interstellar human visitors were rarity enough. The Jerome’s World entry system had no procedures at all for dealing with wildly nonhuman creatures from the Cecropia Federation and the Zardalu Communion.
While the officer scratched his head over old reference materials and kept one uneasy eye on the two aliens, Darya came to a decision. She had planned to spend only a day or two on Jerome’s World before proceeding to Labyrinth. The red tape surrounding the entry of Kallik and J’merlia might take all of that, just to produce clearances.
“Suppose these two were to remain on the ship?”
The officer didn’t voice his relief, but his face brightened. “No problem with that, if you follow the standard quarantine rules. Food and drink can go in, but no plants or animals” — he glanced uncertainly at the two aliens — “or anything else can come out.”
Kallik and J’merlia raised no objection. It was Darya who felt bad, as she endured a meaningless entry rigmarole and was at last pronounced free to leave the port. Not long ago the two aliens had been slaves, and here again they were second-class citizens. It was little comfort to know that in the Cecropia Federation the situation would have been reversed, with J’merlia free to wander while Darya was impounded and regarded with suspicion.
Her guilt vanished within minutes of leaving the spaceport. Kallik and J’merlia weren’t missing a thing — perhaps they were even the lucky ones. She didn’t know who Jerome was, but if he were dead he was probably turning in his grave, having a backwater world like this named after him. The planet was right at the outer limit of habitable distance from Tetragamma. This was the winter season, and the days were short. The sun was a bright cherrystone two sizes too small in the sky; the air was thin and cold and caught in your throat, and the straggling plant life was a pale, dusty gray-green. The people that Darya met seemed equally pale and dusty, as they directed her to the air service that served the Marglom Center.