“A caravan?” The Human pulled at a stem of grass in a movement that looked idle, but was still tense, even though he eased his back against the curl of a shrub root with a sigh. He half closed his eyes, but I decided it was so he could watch me less noticeably. His attention made the old insect bites under my fur itch and I began scratching at the most annoying of them.
“You have it down pat,” Ragem said after a moment.
“What down pat?” I mumbled through a mouthful of skin and fur. The row of small teeth at the front of my jaw was really the only way to ease the irritation on my back. Relieved, I flopped my head around to look at him, prying the odd hair from my teeth with my tongue so I could swallow it.
“If I didn’t know better—I’d swear you really were a dog, or the Kraosian version.” Ragem seemed to think I’d be offended by this, for he went on with a faint air of discomfort, “I’m sure your acting ability has saved your life here, Huntress.” He coughed delicately. “But it really isn’t necessary with me.”
I stopped swallowing hair and bug bits. “Just staying in character, Specialist Ragem,” I said, before I reached over my shoulder again, biting urgently at a spot that hadn’t itched a moment ago.
Damn.
I’d picked up something new already.
Ragem was quiet for a while. I could feel his eyes on me, the intensity of his curiosity something I thought I could reach out and touch. It was only luck that had kept him from actually seeing me cycle, or worse, seeing my real form. I wondered suddenly if that mattered. Plainly his imagination was operating full time, conjuring up who knew what outrageous theories about my kind.
Ersh was going to chew me into oblivion.
Itches subdued, at least for now, I pulled a front paw under my chin and gazed back at him. “Where’re you from?” I asked, before he could start questioning me again.
He raised his brows, as though startled. Maybe he’d forgotten what I was already. The thought made me rather smug. “I was born midspace, Huntress. A true Commonwealth citizen.”
I shivered with a delicious combination of horror and fascination. Most things the Web stored in shared memory had names which took days to remember fully. Space was short enough. We called it
out there.
I looked at Ragem with new interest. “Were your parents spaceborn?”
He shook his head. “Just me. My dad’s a drive-tech from Senigal III. He met my mom when she was navigator on the merchantship
Thebes.
She pulled a temp-contract for him so they could be together.” Ragem grinned. “Didn’t last long—turned out Dad gets queasy in free fall—but long enough to have me, anyway. Mom’s pure Botharan stock; she can trace fourteen generations.” His smile faded, replaced by a thoughtful look at me. “How about you? Where are you from?”
“Not here,” I said, doing my best to say it with humor. “Do you enjoy space travel, Specialist Ragem?”
“Depends on the destination, I suppose,” he answered willingly enough, then zeroed back on his target with distressing speed. “Somehow I don’t see Lanivar as your home, Es.”
“The Lanivarians care less for space than your father,” I agreed. “Which makes me wonder what he’s doing now.”
“Who?” he said blankly, thrown off his mark.
As I’d intended.
“Your father,” I repeated.
Ragem shrugged his shoulders. “Couldn’t say. He’s not much for keeping in touch. But why are you interested in my father?”
“I’m interested in everything.”
“Everything.” The word came out of his mouth meaning something different. A quiver of caution traveled down my spine and I thumped my tail to end it.
“You find that odd, Paul Ragem?” I asked. “Why? It’s been a long time since I could talk to anyone. I’ve been alone, Paul Ragem. Alone and like this.” I stood on four feet, not two. Then I squatted on my haunches, raising my arms to shoulder height. “I do enjoy your company—and stories. Tell me more. We have time.”
His intent gaze softened. Perhaps, as a spacer himself, he understood what it was to be alone and lonely, to crave a harmless diversion. “Stories? Hmm. Not much to tell about my life, really. My father always wanted to own a shop—not a big one, mind you. Just something to keep him in touch with other techs and a hand on the newer machines.”
Ragem kindly rambled on for another hour or more. I listened, asked questions to encourage him, and remembered. The sound of his voice, his tales, his willingness to share with me made a time that was like the night magic of the merchants. I tucked the memory away in that private part of me. This would not be understood, or forgiven, by my elders. But, by a little bit, my loneliness—which I hadn’t felt so keenly before somehow—was eased.
“I’ve been talking too much,” Ragem said at last, his voice sounding well-used. “Your turn, Esen. What about you? I’ve never heard of a shape-changing species. Where is your world?”
A reasonable and impossible request.
I swallowed a growl, but enough of its violence made its way up my throat to roughen the words I spoke. “Don’t ask me such things, Ragem.”
“I mean you no harm, Esen,” the Human said quickly. “I promise.”
I dipped my ears in brief apology. “And I mean you none, Human.”
“Then—”
“I’ll tell you what you need to know to warn your ship and keep both our skins whole,” I said, adding somberly, “be satisfied with that.” Our eyes met. I don’t know what he saw in mine, but it was enough to force his to the ground.
There was a bitter taste in my mouth as I deliberately prepared myself for rest, one ear cocked for the sounds of any travelers on the road beyond our shrub-covered nest. Such sounds could announce both safety or threat. I was reasonably sure I could handle whichever came, though I suspected Ersh would denounce this new confidence as yet another of my youthful mistakes.
Eventually, we did find a caravan willing to accept roadside travelers, although the sun had almost eliminated the shade from our shelter before the first rumble of transports alerted us. A poor, and rather miserable, affair of trucks and quex-pulled open carts, its owners, the Ilpore family, had more reason than usual to be morose. They had passed through a most unusual roadblock before leaving Suddmusal.
“Dreadful business,” the old woman repeated numbly. She had introduced herself to Ragem (who had described himself glibly as one Megar Slothe, bound for the Eastern Provinces) as Wetha Ilpore, third daughter of Ankin Ilpore, the caravan’s original convener. She was fascinating, with an almost toothless smile and crease-edged eyes that slid politely away from Ragem’s to watch her quex negotiate the road whenever he evaded her more pointed inquiries about his past. Those of the merchant caste understood such things.
Ragem eased his bottom on the wooden seat as inconspicuously as he could, ignoring the pungent, musky scent of the sweating team of quex before him with admirable restraint. He should have smelled it from my position. “I heard it was bad for those who were there,” he agreed ambiguously. I snorted and knew he understood it was more than the dust beside the cart in my nostrils.
“Doesn’t need tethering, eh?” the old woman peered down at me with renewed interest. “Wish our stock was as mannered. Willing to talk trade, young sir?”
The Human took long enough to reply. I thought darkly of leaving him to his own devices, and abandoning my thankless task of pacing alongside the cart. “A pet, Dame Ilpore, that I would miss.” She gave him an uncharacteristically sharp look at this, since my current form, that of a plump, stocky quadruped, was not unlike a meat animal kept by Kraosians on the southern tip of this continent. The Kraosian version, when alive, was definitely without redeeming qualities.
“Suit yourself, young sir. I prefer serlets myself. Now my Sissu is a companion to warm—” her voice failed her, and she sent her whip snapping over the backs of her surprised quex, who had been well into their travel doze. “It was a black day when the Ilpore entered Suddmusal, a black day indeed. My poor Sissu—”
Ragem was not slow in putting things together. “They took your serlet—”
“As they took all the poor beasts, and for what? To be killed! Say it as it was, young Slothe.” Wetha then cursed methodically and loudly, as if by doing so she avoided the indignity of tears coursing down her dust-coated cheeks.
“Orders of the Military,” she said finally, having exhausted a vocabulary that added much to my own. “Since when has the Military had anything to do with travelers—or their stock! Said they were diseased, a threat to the city, some such nonsense.” With a grunt of angry satisfaction, she handed Ragem her whip and pushed a large hand under her heavy shawl, withdrawing two small bundles of white. There was a soft complaint as the sleepy pups blinked their innocent eyes at the light and noise. “Sissu’s best,” Wetha pronounced very softly, tucking them away again. And she didn’t speak until we stopped late in the afternoon to water the draft animals.
I wasn’t in the mood for conversation either, and found my formsakes’ reputation for a foul temper kept the curious away while I took my own turn drinking and then wallowing briefly in the cooling ooze formed by the broad-footed quex at the river’s edge. So Theerlic, or the prison commander, or some more faceless fool had put the blood of all those simple beasts on my hands—including Wetha’s beloved Sissu. Sickened, I tried to explain to myself that there was nothing I could have done to prevent their reaction.
But that wasn’t true. I could have stayed out of the Human’s business; I could have stayed bored in Suddmusal’s marketplace; I could have maintained my own cover and not been lured by some ridiculous sense of duty into this mess. So I scowled at Ragem, too, when he made a pretense of calling me to his side.
Wetha pushed a roll of kopi, the trader’s staple of dried fruit and meat, as well as a very old pair of boots, into Ragem’s hands as he said his thanks. “There is nothing here, young sir,” she replied, shaking her gray head at the antics of a fool. “Come with us to M’Ilpore—there is always work wanting strong young men like yourself, and no questions needing answers.” The twinkle in her eye belied her age and I thought Ragem’s face reddened slightly.
Ragem smiled and bowed over her hand with the courtesy of one of the royal caste. “I have those waiting for me in the hills—hunting companions, good dame. But I will remember your offer and your kindness.”
It was little wonder the merchant doubted his sanity. Our way, or rather Ragem’s chosen path, led directly away from the road and river, into the trackless mass of dense thorny shrubs that carpeted the plain up to the rising hills. Without comment, I settled into my best traveling pace, several steps behind the Human, my eyes half-closed against the thin, whiplike branches which slid over my tough hide but clung then tore free reluctantly from Ragem’s uplifted arms. Sweat covered his face, probably stinging where pinpricks of red marked encounters with overhanging branches. He was not patient with obstacles, I’d noticed.
We reached the beginning of a line of low hills before we chanced upon a packed dirt roadway headed vaguely in our direction. Ragem limped heavily onto it, stopping as though mesmerized. The road was a relief for us both. I didn’t want to think about the condition of his feet in their borrowed, ill-fitting boots. I sank down on my haunches gratefully. Ragem stood looking ahead, breathing in great shuddering gasps. I knew he was driven by what might be happening to his ship, if it was still planetside and he wasn’t already an exile.
That was not all that plagued him. Ragem swung around abruptly and dropped to one knee in front of me. “A Ganthor can’t talk to me without an implant,” he said hotly, a strange expression on his face. “Is that why you haven’t resumed your—become the Lanivarian? Do you blame me for what the Kraosians did? Is that it?”
I wanted to be childish, and indeed thought fondly of his reaction should I burp up some foul-smelling cud and chew it. But it wasn’t right to let Ragem think I blamed him, especially when I was busy blaming myself. I converted mass and cycled. The Ganthor, though quite interesting in their own way, were not my favorite life-form either.
“I don’t blame you—” Then, as I looked at the Human more directly, this form being taller at the shoulder, I couldn’t believe what I’d just done. My muscles locked and I had to fight the urge to lose shape.
Ragem’s eyes were ablaze with an almost fever-bright intensity and intelligence.
When had I reached the point of treating him as a member of my Web?
I thought with alarm.
What had happened to my safeguards—the training meant to keep me from cycling unless either totally hidden or utterly in peril?
What power did this being have over me?
Or was it simply that Ersh had been right about my inexperience all along—and that thought was the final blow.
“Your ship is close enough, Human,” I said flatly. “I wish you luck.”
Some emotion flickered in his eyes. “What do you mean?”
Since I had taken a couple of steps back in the direction of the road, this seemed a superfluous question, but I answered anyway. “I’ve done enough—and you’ve seen more than enough.”
Ragem’s outstretched hand dropped limply. “You must realize how fascinating you are, Es,” he said with a wry note that pricked up my ears. “Please don’t let my curiosity drive you away. I thought we were allies—friends.”
Friendship. Was that what made me forget what he was?
“Don’t patronize me, Human,” I warned him. “What you have seen me do—on your behalf, not mine—was never to be shared with aliens. It’s past time we parted. Your curiosity is dangerous to my health.”
As I turned and trotted away, one flicked-back ear caught his low-pitched voice. “So was Grangel’s Commons House, Esen-alit-Quar. Please stay. I promise not to pry any further.”
I stopped, bristling with indecision.
True, Ragem had probably saved my life.
And was it his fault that I was thoroughly fracturing the Rules I’d been taught to hold sacred? I knew Ersh’s opinion on that one.