Deucalion (12 page)

‘But how could she surv—'

‘I'm not interested in
how
!
Until I see her body – personally – that girl is still alive, and
you
,
Kennedy,
are
responsible. If DeGroot isn't up to it any more, then you'd better “retire” him, and find someone who is. Or do the job yourself. Just don't tell me it's not
your
fault. Nobody is indispensable, Kennedy. Nobody. Remember that.'

I'll remember. Just as long as you do, you fat toad. One day, you'll push me too far. And no one lives forever . . . Kennedy turned and made for the door without a word.

12

NYASSA

Elokoi Reserve, Wieta Clan

Edison Sector (East Central)

25/7/101 Standard

RAEL

Through the shadows on the eastern edge of the village, two figures were moving cautiously towards the huts. He watched them for a moment with his mind, then smiled and sat back in Leani's favourite chair. Soon they would arrive. And he would be waiting to greet them.

Above the plain, the twin moons were both full, and the night sky was tinged with purple. The Wieta called it a ‘hunter's sky', but that was only out of habit. There were few hunts any more. What need for hunting, when the offworlders fed you and clothed you and told you where you could live? When they treated you like cubs instead of hunters. When, like cubs, you took what they forced upon you, without complaint, because the alternative was worse than their derision.

There was no law against hunting, of course, but the Yorum and the slow-moving Utiina had drifted away from the lands that were left to the Wieta, and few would follow them as far as the Ranges, especially as it meant leaving the safety of the Reserve, and risking what lay beyond.

Rael closed his eyes and remembered his father's hunting stories. It was long since he had recalled them, and the fact of it saddened him. It was the Teller's fault; filling the past nights with stories, asking them questions to which there were no longer any answers. Making him wish for something that was long dead.

The young female, Saebi, had spent the days and nights camped at the old Teller's feet, drinking in the words of the Histories and the Thoughtsongs of the Trek. Rael had watched the firelight as it reflected from her wide eyes, and in those eyes he had glimpsed a power; an energy that denied the life that had been thrust upon them. A stubborn pride that refused to cast off the past and simply accept.

Her mate, her partner on the gruelling
haaj
,
had stood back from the Teller's circle, watching. Cael, he was called. A desert name. One of the Old Names. Only once had he stood within the circle, and then only for a few moments. Once, in the middle of a song, the Teller had stopped and looked up. And with a movement of her hand and a mind-tone of welcome, the old one had called him forward.

Long ago,
the Teller said,
when I was young, I met with one whom the Ancestors had touched.
She had looked into Cael's eyes for a moment, silently.
It seems that now I have met with two.
Then she had turned to Saebi, who sat unmoving at her feet, and she had smiled.
Or maybe three.

Bending down, the Old One had taken Saebi's hand, to help the young female to her feet. Then she had joined both the young ones' hands beneath her own, and spoken aloud. ‘Be free.' Nothing more.

Then she had resumed her song, and Cael had moved out beyond the circle once again.

The next morning the Teller was gone, back towards the highlands to the south. And the two young journeyers too had disappeared, back towards the desert and the
haaj
that had called them.

And part of Rael had gone with them. He stared out into the black night, east towards the Ranges, and for a moment he tasted the wind of freedom, and remembered his father's stories.

By the light of the full moons, he studied the gift they had left behind.

On the smooth surface of a tiny shard of Kienyi stone, Cael had painted one of the ancient Pictures. It showed Gaita in the desert, drawing water from the spring of Eltaas, which the Dream had told her would flow from the bare rock and save them from thirst.

Be free . . .

He cast the thought upon the wind, then turned to face the two humans, approaching out of the shadows of the huts directly across the Greenspace.

JANE

The old Elokoi was waiting for us as we made our way across the open space at the centre of the village. It was as if someone had called to tell him we were coming. Denny speeded up slightly, and reached the hut a few paces ahead of me. The place looked different at night. The last time I'd been here, the sun was out, and the life of the village was going on all around me.

Rael had risen, and was standing where his mate Leani had sat when I'd been introduced to her, that first afternoon. I could see that Rael recognised me, even though we had only met once before. I approached him, and touched my face in the Elokoi gesture of greeting, the way Denny had taught me.

This whole thing was Denny's idea.
‘
Where's the last place anyone would think of looking for you?'
It really wasn't a bad idea at all. Providing the Elokoi went for it. I still didn't know much about them, but I knew the law. We hadn't left them with a whole lot, but on the Reserves they were still in control of their own lives – to a limited extent.

You had to get permission from the Native Species Protection Agency to visit – permission which, of course, we didn't have. But even if you did, the Elokoi had to agree. Rael had made me quite welcome the last time, but then I had been an ‘official guest', and I didn't know how he'd react to what Denny was suggesting.

When I quizzed Denny about it, he just laughed. ‘I wasn't always a Security drone, you know. I've led a pretty interesting life. Rael and me, we're like this.' As he spoke, he crossed two fingers on his right hand and held them up in front of him. ‘Remember I told you I'd visited the inland sea?'

I nodded.

‘Well, I brought back a couple of souvenirs. I found them a metre or so underground while I was digging out on one of the old flood plains. They
were made of stone. A couple of carvings of animals I couldn't recognise. I kept them in my room, and I didn't think too much about them. Then, when I joined the Corps, my first posting was “zoo duty”. That's what they call Security at the Reserve. We were supposed to keep people out, but most of the uniforms acted like it was their job to keep the Elokoi in.'

I can still see the look on his face as he spoke. It was a strange expression, somewhere between guilt and embarrassment.

‘Hell, I went along with it for the first few weeks. It was the first time I'd been around the Elokoi for more than a couple of minutes, and it was easier, I guess. To go along with it, I mean.

‘Anyway, this one day, we were escorting this power-dresser from New Geneva around the village. The guy stopped outside Rael's hut and started talking down to him. You know, like he was retarded or something. He even put his hand on Rael's head. That's a definite strike out. Even Elokoi don't touch each other, until they've been accepted as
nyassa
,
which is a kind of honorary family member.

‘But Rael, he didn't react. He just put a hand on the guy's arm, and mimed for him to wait. Then he went inside the hut. Of course, the dumb jerk waited. He was there for a “photo-opportunity” and here was one of the little creatures being cute. I felt like strangling him right there. I figured it would have made a much better shot for the late news.

‘Then Rael came back. He had a bowl in his hands and he handed it to the guy. I knew what was in it. I'd been on duty at the village long enough to learn a bit of what went on. I should have warned the jerk, but I wouldn't have missed what was about to happen for a month's salary.

‘The bowl was full of Yorum meat. The guy was caught with a mouthful of the vilest tasting crap you ever ate, but the cameras were running, and they were ether-linked to all the tube networks, so he didn't dare spit it out. His eyes were watering and I really thought he was going to throw up. He swallowed and tried to hand back the bowl, but Rael just kept pushing it back into his hands, so that he was forced to take another mouthful. And another.

‘In the end I had to put him out of his misery. I took the bowl and gave it back to Rael, and as I leaned over, I winked. I didn't think he'd understand, but just as I was straightening up, the old fox winked back.

‘After that, I spent a lot of time in the village. I taught Rael a bit of Standard, and he taught me a few Elokoi speechwords. Then one day I found the two stone carvings at home, and I figured they might interest Rael, so I took them along. When I handed them to him, I thought he was going to keel over on me. You'd think they were made of gold. Before I knew it, I had all the Elders around me, and each one of them touched me on the face. I didn't know what it meant at the time, but . . . Well, put it this way, I don't think we'll have any trouble getting you bed and breakfast for a few days. Just check out what they're having for breakfast, though.'

And that's how it was. Rael took me in, and Leani sent Taek, her fourthmate, to stay with friends, until I didn't need his bed-platform any more. I would have been embarrassed about it, except that he looked quite pleased to go.

It was a bit late for Denny to go back to Edison, so he spent the night on the floor, near the cubs' bed-platform. The poor guy was probably beginning to forget what a bed felt like. But he didn't mind. I could tell he felt at home, and I could tell it wasn't the first time he'd spent the night on that particular piece of floor.

My bed was a little short, naturally, but it was comfortable. I lay awake for a while, listening to the Elokoi sleeping, and to Denny snuffling around, getting comfortable. Then suddenly I wasn't listening to anything, and when I woke up it was morning.

Actually, I didn't wake up. I was woken. By the sound of Denny being jumped on by Leani's two youngest. It was a game they'd obviously played before, but it didn't dampen their enthusiasm, or Denny's screams. One thing was interesting, though. For all their wrestling and rolling on the floor, they hardly made a sound. The noise that woke me was all from Denny.

During the next few days, I would notice the same sort of thing over and over. I would notice a lot of things I hadn't picked up on my first, formal visit. And I realised something that took me a long way along the road to understanding the Elokoi. Just because an Elokoi will never tell you a lie doesn't mean that you'll get more out of one than he or she is willing to give.

The first time I was a sort of official visitor. Maybe not as patronising and obnoxious as the one in Denny's story, but not . . .
nyassa
.
This time I was Denny's friend. I shared their home and their food – well, some of their food. I wasn't there to study them and they knew it.

I guess I noticed it most in Leani. The first time, she had sat outside the hut and barely acknowledged me. Now, she took trouble with little things – like making sure that my meal didn't include some of the more . . . tasty examples of Elokoi cuisine. She was a tough customer, and she ruled the family with a look or the slightest of body movements – and probably a whole lot of thoughtspeech that went, quite literally, right over my head. But she had a warm side that I'd not been allowed to see during my first, short visit. And she had a wicked sense of humour. I could see why Rael was so devoted to her.

When I remembered the ignorance that my Earthside research notes had revealed, I curled up inside. For the first time since my arrival, I was thankful for the chance I'd been given. To start again, to wipe out the past – if not completely, then at least in ways that mattered. I liked the person I was becoming. I just hoped that I could survive long enough to get to know her.

Before he left, Denny guided me aside and took hold of my hand. ‘You realise this could be the end of two promising careers.'

Two? I must have looked confused. I know I felt it.

He smiled. ‘Well, you've already done a fair job of burning your bridges, and I'm about to do a little freelance Security work that'll get me canned if they catch me. But what the hell. I never liked the damned job in the first place.'

I wanted to stop him, to tell him he didn't have to do it, that he'd taken enough risks for my sake already, but one look at his eyes and I knew it would do no good. He was enjoying all this. And now that I had seen him with Leani's cubs, with the whole family, I realised that what I'd told him about the little I knew of the
Icarus Project
must have been eating away at him.

It's strange. All the time, since I'd found Singh's notes, I'd been angry. Shocked even. At the thought of experimenting with human genes. That was what the laws had been written to guard against. That was the . . . crime. But what about the other side of the equation. What about the Elokoi genes?

Perhaps it was an improvement on my old self that I could be shocked at all. I'm not sure the person who wrote up the research notes, or bitched about her future in her diaries, would have been shocked at what I'd stumbled upon, except maybe to be peeved that someone had got there before her. But improvement or not, I'd still fallen into the trap of looking at the Elokoi as something alien; something less than human. Cute. Loveable even. But not the intelligent, open-hearted . . .
civilised
creatures I'd met last night.

Denny would never have made that mistake. And now that he knew what I knew, it was personal. He would never let it lie. I might have known him for only a few days, but I was totally certain of that.

‘What exactly are you planning to do?' I asked.

He smiled a cryptic smile. ‘Well, for a start, I'm going to steal someone's mini-comm. I'd use yours, but they've probably got it tagged. They'll be waiting for you to use it, so they can home in on you. Which gives me an idea. Before I go, give it to me. I might have a use for it yet.'

‘Why do you need a mini-comm? Don't you have one?'

I spoke to get him back on track. One thing I'd learned about Denny was that he had a mind like a grasshopper. He'd forget he was trying to explain something to you and fly off at a tangent. It was one of the things I liked about him. He kept you on your toes. But it was also incredibly frustrating at times.

‘Of course I have one. But I'll need that to call people with. I'll need the other one for this . . .' He pulled a small plastic envelope out of the pocket of his tunic. Inside, I could make out the tiny shape of the ether-link he'd removed from the communicator in my room.