Dirge (10 page)

“As long as you have brought forth the subject of mutually investigative biology,” she murmured in a voice that was as unchanged as it was inherently seductive, “you must know that it has been theorized that sexual relations between Pitar and human are regarded as physically possible. All preliminary studies of the relevant architecture would seem to favor it. There can of course be no issue as a consequence of such contact. All that is wanting for confirmed results to be promulgated is a sufficiency of experimental data.”

“I actually wasn’t aware that much of anything had been done to resolve the conjectures.” He swallowed with some difficulty. “Such matters are reserved for study by the scientific community and do not fall within the ken of the diplomatic ministry.” Glancing up the beach, he saw that the other three Pitar had wandered off by themselves. Frolicking in the shallow water, Ymir and the two administrative assistants had moved far away.

The alien was very close to him now, and the sun and sand were very warm. “We have more latitude in such matters.” As she whispered to him, her hand moved from his arm. “As a dedicated servant of the Dominion, I am always ready to add to the growing body of scientific and cultural knowledge my people are accumulating about your kind. Experiments in the field need not always be officially authorized.”

There were questions he wanted to ask her, elucidations he sought, but as her hand moved he forgot all about them.

7

H
eather Wixom struggled triumphantly to the top of the ridge. She could have taken a lifter there and had herself dropped off, but that would have denied her the sense of accomplishment she felt from having made the time-consuming ascent on her own. Technically, it had been easy: dense but navigable native forest; pauses to examine the indigenous wildlife while it hesitated long enough to stare at the slim, alien, human intrusion; and at the top, tolerant slopes that were kind to her booted feet.

From one of the larger boles directly below her rose the dirge of a gnarter. The tree itself put her in mind of a spruce with a skin problem, many of the evergreens that gave Treetrunk its popular name tending to shed copious amounts of bark at the slightest shift in the weather. As for the gnarter, it was a lumpy, eight-legged mass of slow-moving brown and dark blue fur that lived in selected tree hollows while regarding the world out of large, mournful eyes dominated by hourglass-shaped blue pupils. It had been suggested that it looked like the product of a union between a cuttlefish, a koala, and a caterpillar. A prolific inhabitant of the boreal forests, it did not often stray this far south.

It was luxuriating in the “warm” weather, Wixom decided as she tugged the sealfast of her insulating coat tighter around her neck. Treetrunk had rapidly revealed to its new inhabitants how fecund the frigid northern and far southern climes were. The temperate zone that tracked the equator was home to a correspondingly greater variety of life, of which the gnarter was by no means the most outlandish example.

Another was the hoat, a puma-sized predator that impaled its prey on spikelike teeth that grew horizontally from its expansive mouth and flattened jaws. Alone on the hilltop, she kept a careful eye out for it and its less imposing relations. Treetrunk was far from being tamed, its indigenous life-forms anything but domesticated. That was one of the great joys of settling a new world, she knew. It was one of the reasons that, restless and unmarried, she had traded a comfortable and predictable life as an up-and-coming urban planner on New Riviera for the incertitude of laying out new communities from scratch on Argus V.

The weight of the shocker in her left pocket made her grin to herself. No need for quite so potent a weapon of self-defense on placid, easygoing, semitropical New Riviera. There, unwelcome advances could usually be discouraged by the judicious application of a few sharp words.

Unlimbering her backpack, she unfolded the extensible stabilizing pod and attached the siter to the clip on top. Activated, the unit provided a heads-up display that allowed her to place buildings and infrastructure wherever she wished, creating a virtual community anywhere the unit’s viewfinder was aimed. Warehouses, shuttleport, access roads, communications, water and sewerage, power transmission pylons—everything could be constructed with the touch of a few controls, could be sized to fit and arranged as she preferred without a single spadeful of dirt having to be overturned.

As she began to lay out the access routes from the growing town of Rajput to the proposed suburban extension, she made adjustments for the terrain, utilizing the unit to banish rock and earth that was in the wrong place and move it to where it was needed. As many trees as possible would be spared, but it was not really a major concern. Between the tundra lines, Treetrunk was a solid belt of native forest, and provisions had already been made to preserve the bulk of it in reserves. A renewable resource if properly looked after, its woods would provide income to the colonists in the form of everything from exotic furniture to tourism.

As she contrived the new town the unit recorded those decisions that she wished to convey to the planning board. In so doing she allowed herself room to maneuver, occasionally indulging in personal fancies that she knew the board would disavow. It was a game: She did as she pleased, the board remonstrated with her, and they compromised. In the end she got what she wanted while permitting the board members to believe that they had prevailed in every matter. The ego involved in the repetitive confrontations meant nothing to her: It was the results that mattered. Her psychological skills had contributed as much to her success on New Riviera as had her talent for organizing and planning.

The board would want the power distribution center to go there, she suspected. She moved it six blocks east. After due debate, she would concede the point, thereby allowing herself room to place the observation and restaurant complex exactly where she wanted it. That mattered. She didn’t give two gnarter moans about the location of the power center.

“You are very intense.”

The comment did not cause her to jump out of her skin, but her heart certainly thumped momentarily harder. Whirling, she prepared to unload a choice selection of suitably modified expletives on the head of whoever had snuck up behind her. Thinking she was alone and concentrating on the work at hand, she had been doubly oblivious to her immediate surroundings. The surprise had been total, and someone was going to pay.

The instant she caught sight of her soft-footed visitor, the flood of insults she was ready to deliver caught in her throat. From past experience ruefully familiar with their propensity for elaborate gags, she was expecting one or more of her colleagues from Rajput. What she got instead was an alien.

To be precise, a Pitar.

She was better prepared to deal with a marauding hoat.

He gazed down at her with interest, his expression noncommittal, his mouth set in a thin, inscrutable line. The heavy cold-weather attire he wore obscured most of the famed Olympian alien torso, but she could see enough to tell that from the neck downward his build did not differ significantly from the bronzed Greek-god proportions that were the Pitarian norm. She knew they often visited Treetrunk to offer their quiet assistance and to monitor, out of curiosity, the progress of the colony’s development. Since they laid claim to nothing, and in fact were effusive in offering their help to the small but steady stream of arriving settlers, the government saw no reason why they should not be granted unrestricted access to the burgeoning, energetic new communities.

Wixom knew of several occasions where the aliens’ assistance had been vital in helping small new municipalities overcome difficult local conditions. How the Pitar knew when an outlying hamlet was in trouble no one knew, but when it was they invariably appeared in their sleek shuttles, providing aid and support without having to be asked. No thranx vessel ever did anything like that, she reflected, shuddering a little at the thought of the giant, grotesque bugs running freely through the colony. Admittedly, the nearest thranx system lay a respectable distance from Treetrunk while the Twin Worlds of the Dominion were near neighbors in terms of space-plus travel. Nor was it that the thranx were indifferent or standoffish. They simply preferred to follow procedure in all things, including matters of aid and assistance. In this as in everything else they were methodical where humans were impulsive. Pitarian methodology appeared to fall somewhere in-between.

In any event, she relaxed as soon as she identified her visitor. He had steel-gray eyes and pale orange hair that put her in mind of ripening tangerines. Framed by a soft, protective hood, his features were predictably perfect. As he stood there on the windswept rock slope she grew aware that he was waiting for her to say something. The fact that she had never met a Pitar and knew nothing of their language was a poor excuse for her continued nonresponsiveness, but it was all that she had. Quick-witted, sharp-tongued, and completely at ease as she was among members of the opposite gender of her own kind, in the presence of this minor male mammalian divinity, she stood as if struck dumb, completely at a loss for movement as well as for words.

Apparently detecting that something was amiss, the visitor spoke again. “I seem to have startled you. Such was not my intent. Do you require medical attention?”

I am not going to swoon, she told herself firmly. Women of my experience and education do not swoon. Besides which, swooning is an atavistic reaction more properly applicable to the proper ladies of the nineteenth century. This facile forensic explication, however, did nothing to reconcile the physical and emotional insurrection that was raging within her.

The Pitarian male helped. He helped by moving: by bending and picking up a rock. He examined it before tossing it casually aside. It clattered against the scree, and the sound and motion served to jolt her out of her trance. Forging an effort of will, she turned away from him and back to her work. Her mind, however, was not intent on laying out accessways, waterlines, or communication lines-of-sight.

The alien was very close to her. She wanted to tell him—no, to order him—to move away, but for some reason her brain seemed to have lost contact with her vocal apparatus. All she could say was “Yes, I’m an intense person, both in my work and in the rest of my life.”

“Intensity is good.” Leaning close, the Pitar tried to resolve her heads-up display. This put his head very near to her own. She could smell the flat but not unpleasant alien scent, could feel the gossamer caress of inhuman breath. Her fingers on the controls of the siter started to tremble, and she angrily thrust them down at her side.

“What are you doing here?” I sound inane, she thought angrily. An inane twelve-year-old; that’s what I’ve become. Conscious of the fact that she was bringing no credit either to herself or to her species, she fought to reestablish the kind of control that the alien’s unexpected appearance had shattered.

“Only having a quiet look around, as you humans say.”

Just as she was starting to recover some equilibrium, he smiled at her, and she found that she had to begin all over again.

“As you know, we are fascinated by the entire concept of leaving the comforting confines of a homeworld to settle upon another. It is a concept entirely foreign to us. But we want to see you succeed here, on Treetrunk. So in order to learn how to be of better assistance, we travel and we observe.” His expression flattened once again. “You do not mind if I observe you?”

“Suit yourself,” she replied indifferently. Within, she was yearning for him to observe her for a good, long time. Oh, how she wanted him to observe her! She had heard stories, they had all heard stories, about the…relationships that under just the right circumstances could develop between individual humans and Pitar. There were those who insisted these were nothing more than that—just stories. Rumors fed and fueled by the perversely imaginative. Though looking at this Pitar, tall and straight and so obviously muscular beneath his cold-weather gear, she could well believe that…

Stop it, she told herself! Male he may be, but he’s also an alien. Don’t ignore him, but don’t trade your dignity and self-respect for some unsupportable foolish flight of fancy. Respond to his questions, and to nothing else.

“You are doing what?” he inquired politely, and the slight grammatical deviation helped to remind her of who and what he was. She returned her attention to her instrumentation.

“I work for the planetary planning agency. It’s my job to search out and recommend the best locations for the individual components of a new development, as well as to design and suggest overall schematics. It’s a task that does require some intensity of purpose, as you observed.”

“I am very impressed,” the Pitar told her, and for utterly inexplicable reasons this perfunctory comment caused her breathing to accelerate. “I am only a simple observer and could never manage the complex interdisciplinary tools necessary to perform such a task.”

“It’s not that difficult,” she responded. “Having a new, state-of-the-art siter helps a lot. Here, I’ll show you.” Stepping aside, she allowed him to peer directly into the eyepiece that queued the heads-up display.

The Pitar asked several questions, struggling with his command of Terranglo, before stepping back. “It appears to be a very efficient device. Your technology is good.”

She could not decide if she was blushing or if her cheeks were simply reddened from having been exposed to the cold air during the climb. “I don’t make it; I’m just trained to use it. From what I read and see on the tridee, your technology’s good, too.”

“We have done well enough. Concentrating solely on developing the Twin Worlds has both helped and forced us to concentrate our energies. Our two local asteroid belts supply ample resources, and we are careful not to overexploit those that are not renewable. Of late our society has grown somewhat stagnant, but contact with your people has suggested ways and means of revitalizing our development, as well as solving problems that previously seemed insurmountable. For that we thank you, and are most grateful for the contact between our two species. We are especially glad to see you doing so well here on Treetrunk.”

“Your people have been so helpful ever since the first settlement went in.” She hesitated briefly, fearful of committing some unseen faux pas. She was a planner, not a diplomat. “Some of us have become…fond of you.”

“Your demonstrations of affection have been remarked upon.” His tone was dry and formal, and she wasn’t sure whether she was grateful for that or not. “We find it peculiar that a great deal of it has to do with our appearance, which we ourselves find in no way remarkable and over which we have no control. Nevertheless, anything that facilitates better relations between us is to be welcomed.” From within his protective hood a smile emerged that warmed her to the tips of her boots. “Your mate must be proud to be conjoined to so competent a worker.”

“Thanks for the compliment, but I’m not marri…mated.”

“No children, then?” His tone was unchanged, academic.

“Not yet, but I’m hoping to have a couple someday.” She fiddled absently with the controls of the siter.

He looked past her, into the shallow valley that would soon be home to another two or three thousand humans. “As am I. Our reproductive and birth systems are extraordinarily similar.”

“So I’ve heard.” She looked away from the siter and back up at him. “Why haven’t you had any children?”