Wizard (48 page)

Neither Cirocco nor Robin moved as the two of them put on their coats and boots and left, pulling the door closed quietly behind them. They spent an uncomfortable hour in the plane, protected from the wind but cold all the same. Neither of them complained. When the lights flashed, they returned, and Trini did not immediately see the difference in Cirocco’s face, but it was there. It was still painful to look at, and it was still dead, in a sense. But it was not dead like the face of a corpse; it was more like a face carved in granite.

And the eyes burned.

There had to be easier things than shepherding a pregnant, disabled Titanide through a dark terrain that would have daunted a mountain goat. On the other hand, Chris could think of some things that were probably harder, and many things less pleasant. The company was some compensation, and the fact that the path was marked for them.

Everything balanced, and it came to seem as if that were the way it should be. Valiha’s arms grew stronger, but their pace did not improve because she was gaining weight. They had to be more careful than ever lest her growing awkwardness provoke a slip that might hurt her still-fragile forelegs. As she neared her term, the new delights of anterior sex play tapered off and stopped. But the frontal sex got even better as her legs improved. He gradually lost the exciting, exotic sense of alienness he had once felt when he was around her, to the point he sometimes wondered how she had ever looked odd. Yet with familiarity grew an easy acceptance that drew them closer.

Valiha swelled like a ripening pumpkin. She grew more radiantly beautiful and, curiously, more mottled with brownish freckles.

There would be few surprises. Chris began completely ignorant of Titanide birthing, but by the time Serpent was ready to be born he knew as much as Valiha. He had been making many assumptions that led to needless apprehension.

He knew, for instance, that Valiha was not using a general pronoun when she called her child he.
That had been planned with the other two parents. He knew—but still could not quite believe—that Valiha was in communication with the fetus in a way she never satisfactorily described. She claimed they had decided on his name together, though she had influenced him because of a circumstance beyond her control. That concerned the Titanide custom of naming a child after the first instrument he or she owned. The custom was no longer universal, but Valiha was traditional and had been working for some time on the first instrument for her son: the serpent, a sinuous tube of wood played like a brass horn. In the cavern, her choice of building materials had been limited.

He knew the birth would not be painful, would not take long, and Serpent would be born able to walk and talk. But when she told him she hoped the child would be able to speak
English
, Chris’s first thought was that she was a fool. He did not say that but expressed his doubt.

“I know,” Valiha said. “The Wizard is dubious, too. This is not the first time an attempt has been made to birth a child with two milk tongues. Yet even the Wizard will not say it cannot be done. Our genetics is not yours. Many things happen differently inside us.”

“Like what?”

“I know nothing of the scientific side of it. But you must admit we are different. The Wizard has successfully crossed Titanide eggs with the genetic matter of frogs, fish, dogs, and apes in the laboratory.”

“That goes against everything
I
ever read about genetics,” Chris admitted. “Not that I know much either. But what does that have to do with Serpent speaking English? Even if he had human parents—which you say he doesn’t—all we can do when we’re born is yell.”

“The Wizard calls it the Lysenko effect,” Valiha said. “She has demonstrated to her own satisfaction that Titanides can inherit acquired characteristics. We—those of us who postulate that English might be passed on—speculate that if sufficiently reinforced, it could be done. You once asked me if I had swallowed a dictionary. That is almost true. For the experiment it is necessary that all the parents know all English words. This is a goal one can never attain, but we have good memories.”

“I can vouch for that.” Something about it disturbed Chris, and it took him a long time to put his finger on it. Even when he had it, he was not sure just why it upset him, but it did.

“What I want to know is why,” Chris said much later. “Why English when your own language is so beautiful? Not that I understand it, though I wish I could. From what I gather, aside from Cirocco and Gaby, who got it implanted in them, no human has ever gone beyond the pidgin stage in singing Titanide.”

“It’s true. We know the language instinctively, and humans, despite their often great intellectual attainments, have had no luck with it. Our songs will not parse and are seldom the same, even when the same thought is expressed. The Wizard has speculated there is a telepathic component.”

“Whatever. My point is—or maybe I should say it’s my question—why are you working so hard at this? What’s wrong with Titanide? I think it’s a miracle you’re born knowing
any
language. Why try for English?”

“Perhaps you misunderstood,” Valiha said. “Serpent will know how to sing. This is assured. I would not dream of trying to take that ability away from him. I would as soon wish he be born with only two legs as … oh, dear. Please—”

Chris laughed and said it was okay.

“I was alluding to a saying used when one is experiencing great difficulties. Then we say, ‘Going at it on two legs, both of them on the left.’”

“Sure you were.”

“I promise you that … you’re teasing me again. I suppose I’ll get used to it one day.”

“Not if I can help it. You still haven’t told me why you’re doing this.”

“I would think it would be obvious.”

“Not to me.”

She sighed. “Very well. As to why English, the first humans in Gaea spoke it, and it just caught on. As to why any human language … since first contact there have been more humans living here all the
time. You don’t come in great numbers, but you keep coming. It seems a good idea to know as much about you as we can.”

“The unpleasant neighbors who’ve moved in to stay, huh?”

Valiha considered it. “I don’t wish to sound disparaging about humans. As individuals, some of them are as nice as anyone could wish—”

“But as a race we’re a pain in the ass.”

“I shouldn’t make judgments.”

“Why not? You’re as entitled to them as anyone else. And I agree with you. We’re pretty ugly when we put our heads together and start thinking up atomic bombs and such. And as for most of the individuals … hell.” He was experiencing a twinge of chauvinism he did not like but could not avoid. It made him think, try to find some defense to throw back at her. He could not. “You know,” he said finally, “I’m just realizing that I’ve never met a Titanide I didn’t like.”

“I’ve met many,” Valiha said. “And I know a lot more than you do. But I have never met a Titanide I could not get along with. I’ve never heard of one Titanide killing another. And I’ve never met a Titanide I hated.”

“That’s the key, isn’t it? Your people get along a lot better than we do.”

“I would have to say yes.”

“Tell me. Tell me the truth. Just for a minute forget I’m human and—”

“I forget it all the time.”

She was trying to lighten it, but Chris was not having it.

“Just tell me what you think of having humans in Gaea. What you think, and what Titanides in general think. Or are they divided?”

“Of course, there is division, but I agree with most that we would like to have more control. We are not the only intelligent race in Gaea and do not speak for anyone but ourselves, but in the lands where we live, in Hyperion and Crius and Metis, we would like to have a say in who is allowed to enter. I
believe we would turn back ninety percent.”

“That many?”

“Perhaps less. You asked me to be frank, and I will be. Humans brought alcoholism to Gaea. We have always enjoyed wine, but the beverage you call tequila and we call”—she sang a brief melody—“which translates as Death-with-a-pinch-of-salt-and-a-twist-of-lime, has addictive properties for us. Humans brought venereal disease: the only malady of Terran origin that affects us. Humans brought sadism, rape, and murder.”

“This all reminds me of Indians in America,” he said.

“There is a resemblance, but I believe it to be fallacious. Many times on Earth a powerful technology met a weaker one and overwhelmed it. In Gaea, humans bring in only what they can carry, so that is not such a factor. In addition, we are not a primitive society. But we are powerless to do anything because humans have good connections.”

“What do you mean?”

“Gaea likes humans. In the sense that she is interested in them and likes to observe them. Until she tires of them, we must accept whoever comes.” She saw his face and suddenly looked as troubled as he did.

“I know what you’re thinking,” she said.

“What’s that?”

“That if standards were set, you would not have passed them.”

Chris had to admit she was right.

“You’re wrong. I wish I could explain it to you better. You are upset about your episodes of violence.” She sighed. “I see I must tell more. It is easy to deliver a righteous diatribe against the things about humans one doesn’t like. There are
many
humans my people would bar unconditionally: the prejudiced, the small-minded, the faithless, the misguided. Those badly reared, who, when blameless children, were not taught how to be proper persons. We believe the root of human troubles lies in the
fact that you must be taught, that you are born with nothing but savagery and appetite and more often than not have those urges reinforced into a way of life.

“Yet we have a love-hate relationship with your species. We admire and sometimes envy the fire of your emotions. Each of you has a streak of violence, and we accept that. It’s easier since we are so much larger; without a gun, there is little chance any of you could harm any of us. One of the things we would like to do is ban those equalizing weapons. Lacking the spur of aggression, we cannot afford to let you be our physical equals.

“And there are among you individuals with life burning so brightly within them that we are dazzled by your brilliance. The best of you are better than the best of us. We know that and accept it. None of you is so nice as we are, but we have realized that niceness isn’t everything. We have much to offer the human species. So far it has shown only the mildest interest, but we remain hopeful. But we would learn from you, too. We have tried long to absorb your fire by getting to know you. And since, in Gaea, Lysenko was right, we are now trying to breed you into us.
That’s
why we learn English.”

Chris had never heard her speak so long on anything, or so forcefully. He had thought he knew everything about her, and now he wondered why, since he was not normally such a fool as to think he could know everything about anyone. He knew, and had even mentioned to Valiha, that her manner of speech had gradually improved from the time he first met her. Now her vocabulary often left him far behind. When she needed to, she could express herself in his native language ten times better than Chris. This did not bother him; he knew she had revealed more of herself as she came to trust him more, and that was as it should be. But something else disturbed him.

“I don’t want to sound harsh, but I have to ask this. Is that what that business with the egg was all about? Lysenkoism?”

“I don’t want to sound harsh either, but I will not lie to you. Yes, that entered into it. But I would never have done it with you without something much stronger. I speak of love, which so far as I know is the only emotion identical in humans and Titanides.”

“Cirocco didn’t think so.”

“She is wrong. I realize that, commonly, love is bonded with jealousy and covetousness and territoriality in humans, and it never is in Titanides. That does not make the emotion different. It is simply that few humans experience love uncolored by these other things. You must take my word for that; it is one of the things I mentioned that we do better than humans. Humans have written and sung for thousands of years on the nature of love and never succeeded in defining it to anyone’s satisfaction. Love is no mystery to us. We understand it thoroughly. It is in song—and its close friend poetry—that humans have come closest to it. That is one of the things we could teach humans.”

Chris wanted to believe that but was still disturbed by something he could not quite bring into the open. She had explained how she could tolerate his spells of violence. Maybe it was just that, deep down, he could not believe it.

“Chris, would you come touch me?” she asked. “I feel I have upset you, and I don’t like that feeling.”

She must have seen his hesitation because tears started in her eyes. They sat only a meter apart, yet he felt a gulf had opened between them. It frightened him because only a short time ago he had felt very close to her.

“I’m terribly afraid,” Valiha said. “I’m afraid that in the end, we will be too alien to each other. You will never understand me, and I will never understand you. And you
must
!
I
must!” She stopped and made herself slow down. “Let me try again. I will never give up.

“I said the best of you are better than us.

“I tell you that any of us can see it. Serpent will see it immediately, newborn, when he looks at you. I can see it, and I could not describe it if I had read a thousand dictionaries. When one of those better humans appears, we can tell it. But if I brought a group of them together, you would be at a loss to say what they had in common. It is no one quality, and it is not even always the same qualities. Many of them are brave, and others are cowards. Some are shy, and others brash. Many are intelligent, but others
are far from geniuses. Many are outwardly exuberant; they taste life better; they burn with a brighter fire than we have ever seen. Others, to human senses, are quite subdued, as you are at times, but to our eyes the light shines through. We don’t know precisely what it is, but we want some of it if we can have it without the urge to self-destruction that is the bane of your species. Perhaps even then, because its warmth is so glorious.