Early Byrd (5 page)

Li chose to begin with a language lesson,
since all three of us were reasonably proficient already, and we
spent a pleasant hour listening to young, high-pitched voices ask
simple questions of their "Respected Instructor." This was all
straightforward; even some of the alien elements like having an
indicator light blink yellow for "wrong," red for "correct," and
orange for "somewhere in-between" was simple enough to figure out.
But the rest of it . . . Even our new tutor squinted at the screen,
baffled, as our virtual classmates lined up and placed their hands
on each other's heads at frequent intervals, and all of us fairly
slavered over the tantalizing glimpses we kept catching of what
appeared to be a basic, elementary school-type globe that sometimes
appeared in the background. The Artemu were almost completely
unforthcoming with information about their homeworld, or for that
matter the rest of the universe that still lay locked away from us.
Such information was to be doled out only on an as-needed or
as-earned basis, and sadly we men of Earth hadn't accomplished much
in either category yet.

Then it was bedtime. Mr. Li shut off the
teaching machine and ushered us back to our rooms. "My door," he
explained with a small smile, "will be unlocked. It will remain
unlocked every night from now on, until either you two are no
longer in my charge or have grown into men in your own right. Come
to me any time for any reason. I'll do everything within my power
to help and protect you, even unto the cost of my own life. Do you
understand me?"

First Tim nodded, then I did too. "You . .
." I began, not sure how to phrase things. "In the living room back
home . . ."

He held up his hand palm outward in a "stop"
gesture. Then he cupped his ears and pointed at the walls.

Timothy nodded. "Privacy is
so
hard
to come by."

Li smiled, his face seeming to glow.
"Another day, under other circumstances, perhaps we shall discuss
human-type living room issues. In the meantime, we've all had a
difficult, demanding day, and tomorrow looks no better." He yawned.
"In years to come we shall spend much of our time together on
exercise and physical development. Today, however, we can afford to
make an exception."

I was absolutely exhausted. So was Tim,
apparently—he yawned just as I did.

"Right," Li agreed with a nod. "As I said,
my door shall remain unlocked. Goodnight, sleep tight, don't let
the bedbugs bite!"

"That's just what Mom always says!" Tim
replied before I could unstop my tongue. "Every night!"

"What a remarkable coincidence!" Li
observed. Then he smiled wider than ever and was gone.

Back home at the ranch Tim and I slept in
separate bedrooms but shared a sink, toilet, and shower. I felt
lonely as I brushed my teeth in more than half of a sink for almost
the only time ever and bathed without fear of being interrupted by
a glassful of ice-water tossed over the top of the shower curtain.
I'd felt the same way back then that I did now; it was
hard
to get ready for bed without someone to talk to and joke with. How
was I supposed to relax and try to make sense of the day?

Somehow I eventually found myself under the
covers with the lights out, but even as tired as I was all I could
manage was to toss and turn. Up until yesterday I'd led a fairly
simple, straightforward life. I'd been a rancher's son and half a
set of twins, and the life of a rancher's son was hardly a complex
thing. I'd hunted, fished, played, and done school-time with my
mother instead of attending the public places she didn't like very
much. Looking back, it all seemed like a sunny, happy dream. Having
a twin had only made it better. But now it was all gone away
forever, except for Timothy. I'd never hunt on the ranch again,
never hug Mom after getting a math problem three grades ahead of me
right, never listen to Dad as he rode about the ranch pointing out
landmarks and telling the stories of our forebearers. All of that
was gone, gone, gone! And who knew when Timmy might be taken away
as well by aliens who didn't seem to care in the least what was
good for
us
or what
we
wanted?

Pretty soon I was crying worse than anytime
I could ever remember. I was too old for that sort of thing, and
the shame just made it worse. I tried and tried to force it back,
but it was just too big and strong and overwhelming and flowed
through me like an unstoppable river. I wailed like a baby, to be
completely honest, alternately feeling sorry for myself and
terrible about dragging Mr. Li into the mess as well.

Once I was nearly recovered, I remembered
Linda the hotel manager who I'd gotten in such terrible trouble.
She was going to be arrested simply because I'd talked to her! That
was the most awful thing I'd ever done to anyone, I decided; what a
miserable piece of human garbage I was! And so the tears began anew
and went on and on, until finally sometime well after midnight I
was all cried out . . .

. . . and
still
too keyed up to sleep! I rolled from
side to back to other-side to stomach, but it did no good. Then I
moaned at how awful tomorrow was going to be, having to figure out
all sorts of new rules and alien-stuff without even having gotten
any sleep. Without Mom and Dad's help, either.

That got me thinking about Mr. Li again. Who
was
this guy, really? He was all I had
besides Tim
, and he seemed nice enough. But
he'd been awfully quick to turn Linda in. After, I reminded myself,
she'd spat in his face and called him a collaborator. Which he was,
really. Just like Dad and everyone else trying to live up to the
terms of the Treaty. But Dad was no turncoat, of that I was
certain. He'd never have given up, except that we'd all have surely
died. When the only choice was for everyone everywhere to die, well
. . . admitting defeat and becoming part of the government
enforcing a cruel treaty was no shame. Yes, Mr. Li had done some
really strange stuff so far. Yet somehow I knew Linda was
wrong—like Dad, my tutor was doing what had to be done for the good
of everyone, even when it hurt him. Even before he'd used Mom's
favorite formula to send us to bed, in my heart I'd been sure he
was one of the good guys.

Now it was two in the morning; the clock by
my bed said so, even though the time didn't seem real somehow. I
couldn't ever remember being awake at two AM before. It was an
unreal time, one I'd heard about but never actually experienced.
Which made sense, I supposed, since I lived on a ranch out in the
middle of nowhere. But then I'd never been held hostage before,
never been abandoned (however unwillingly) by my parents in the
name of the greater good of humanity and forced to smile at a
smelly alien and call him "Beloved Uncle." I was in for a whole
series of new experiences, apparently. And so far they sucked,
sucked, sucked!

Then I was weeping again, broken inside and
ashamed to be broken and wanting to be strong and tall but still
too young to be anything more than a snot-nosed boy whose world was
falling apart at least as completely as that of any other boy
before him. It wasn't something I rationally thought through;
before I knew it my door was open and I was running down a blurry
hallway in bare feet. At a touch, the only door with a human face
waiting behind it swung open. Then I was dashing through the dark
toward the bed in the back, praying that Timmy hadn't seen me
making such a babyish fool of myself.

But I needn't have feared. For there Tim
already was, on his knees with his arms clamped around Mr. Li,
sobbing his heart out. I knelt down as well and buried my face into
the freakishly-muscular man's torso next to that of my brother.

"It's going to be all right," Li reassured
us over and over again, and the words helped even though we all
knew they were a lie. "We're going to see this thing through,
despite everything. We'll come out on top.

"Or at the very least, someone somewhere is
going to answer for this atrocity. I swear it!"

10

"So," Uncle Rapput declared just before lunch the
next day, looking first Tim and then me directly in the eyes. "I
understand you two had a rough time last night?"

Mr. Li answered for us, which I was glad of.
The last person in the universe I wanted to admit a weeping fit to
was Uncle Rapput, though I wasn't quite
sure
why. "It was separation anxiety, sir,"
he explained. "This is commonplace among our young under far less
stressful circumstances than these. Indeed, further bouts are to be
expected. Thank you for allowing them to sleep in."

The big alien nodded. "Our own youngsters
are vulnerable to the same sorts of developmental issues, though
mostly among the lower clans." He shifted uncomfortably in his
chair. "In a way, I suppose what we're doing here might even be
seen by some who don’t understand the grand plan for the greater
good as capricious, or perhaps even cruel." He frowned. "You have
my standing permission to excuse them from family meals and other
such activities, Li, whenever you feel they're not up to it. At
least for the first few months. We'll revisit the issue if this
privilege is employed to excess."

Li bowed. "I'm grateful for your trust."

Rapput speared a pork chop with his
eating-knife and chewed on it thoughtfully. "Tell me about
yourself, Li," he said. 'I've read your file, yet there's still
much I don't understand about you. For example, you weren't born an
English-speaker. So how do your loyalties come to be to that tribe?
You're not even physically akin to them."

He smiled and half-bowed in his seat. "I was
born in North Korea," he explained. "Not at all a pleasant place, I
assure you. When I was fourteen, my father—who held a privileged
position as a high-ranking military officer—was able to defect to
the South."

"Defect?" Rapput asked, clearly unfamiliar
with the term. "They judged your family somehow defective and drove
you out?"

"The word has different meanings in
different contexts, sir. In this case, to 'defect' means to leave
one human-type clan for another without the permission of the clan
that's being left."

Rapput's mouth dropped open. "Is such a
thing even
possible
?" he demanded. “I’ve read that humans
switch clans as one changes robes, but . . ."

"Our history has shown that it's difficult
to keep humans in a clan they have no desire to be part of," Li
explained. He bowed again. "Of course, your own kind do things
differently."

"Of
course
," Rapput agreed, though he was still visibly
upset. "Our ways are stable and in keeping with the core principles
of tradition and honor. Over time, your own species will come to
understand. Besides, you were still but a boy and therefore in no
way responsible for any breach of social order." He smiled.
"Continue, please."

"I
proved
. . . an able student, especially in languages. My
mother had a gift for them, and apparently the trait bred true. And
I also loved to wrestle. Soon after winning the silver medal you're
familiar with, I began my academic studies in earnest in Chicago, a
large North American city. I found myself feeling very much at home
there, so eventually I became a US citizen."

"You defected a
second
time?" Rapput demanded.

"Oh, no!" Li explained. "South Korea and the
United States were, at that time, close military and economic
partners. Both parties approved of and applauded my change of, er .
. . clan." He pressed his lips together. "I fear I don't know any
Artemu words I can use to explain."

"That's because they don't exist," Rapput
mused. Then he looked at my brother and I. "Except for
hostage-adoptees, of course."

Li pursed his lips, thinking. "Perhaps
that's not so far from what I was. Except that it was strictly
voluntary, of course. In fact, the United States was notorious for
attracting clan-changers. As were several other countries, of
course. We're in one of them now."

My uncle sipped at his drink again. While he
consumed an awful lot of human food, this was something from his
homeworld and it smelled like hot motor oil. "It's madness. Sheer
madness! But as you say, Dr. Li, what you did was judged honorable
by your kind. And we'd not arrived yet, so it's hardly fair to hold
your defections prior to that time against you." He took another
sip. "You've proven an able and willing servant to date—far easier
to work with than most of the English-speaking humans it's been my
duty to deal with. This may perhaps be due to your Korean-clan
bloodline?”

Li's smile never wavered. "I suspect my
North Korean background may indeed be a factor, yes."

Rapput smiled. "So we're not so far apart
after all on social-order matters. Excellent! You make me wish that
I could spend more time with the Korean tribe. But of course we
Gonthers can relate best to the greatest warrior clan, who so
clearly have dominated your world in recent times. The ones who
seized an empire upon which the sun never set, and who given more
time might've conquered an interstellar sphere every bit as
glorious as our own. The English-speakers, in other words. Like
Gonther, easily your world's finest race."

I turned toward Tim just as he did the same,
and for an instant our eyes met. Neither of us needed to say a
word—Dad went on all the time about how superb the soldiers of many
nations were. Being special forces himself before he retired, he
worked with foreigners a lot. Especially the South Koreans, for
some reason. He seemed to admire them most of all.

"A great and honorable people indeed," Li
agreed, though he must've been offended. "As I said, I found that I
loved them enough to join them." Then he changed the subject. "You
mentioned yesterday, sir, that we were to leave Earth today. Yet I
have no idea of what the boys have to do to get ready, or even what
time we're leaving."