Alien Blues (21 page)

“Look, take it easy, friend. Friend of Puzzle.”

“Yes.
Trusted
friend. I cannot fail the final request.”

“Puzzle's dying, isn't he?”

“Sheesha dead, now dead.” The Elaki swayed again, back and forth, and David reached out a hand and steadied her. “Understand, David Silver. The existence of mind only was not to satisfy Sheesha. That was all to be left after explosion.”

“I knew he was bad. But he—”

“Nothing but mental left for Sheesha. You were in it, the explosion?”

“Yes.”

“They put you together most well. I salute.”

“Is Puzzle dead?”

“But
yes
.”

“He … killed himself?”

“He had … things for you to know. And he knew he did not have your trust. He felt you thought there was … there was … dirt on him?”

“Dirty.”

“He was, not. But he felt no hope, so he sends you the rhythm of his life.” The Elaki rippled, and handed David the leather case.

“I don't understand this.” David took the case and folded his arms. “Tell me.”

“We have done much of the brain analysis. Each cell is mapped. To do this, it is necessary to remove the cell after mapping. In order to get to the next one. Very crude, I know this.”

David leaned back against the car, feeling the skin on his back tighten and twitch. “He didn't do it.”

“Oh yes. Very much he did.”

“And his
brains
are in this bag!”

“No, please. A recording of his thoughts—his beliefs, experience. His rhythm.”

“My God.”

“Yes. It is understood that you have that here.” The Elaki unzipped the bag, and held it under David's nose. David sniffed, smelling leather and lime.

“No, not smell.
See
. Look.”

David saw two small black cylinders, connected by wire to a metal plate.

“The microchips are on the plate. Too small to see. Turn please.” The touch on the back of David's head was soft, tickly. “Put probe here, and here.”

The sun was harsh in David's eyes, and he turned back to face the Elaki.

“There are small needles. They will grow into your head. There is no pain. Pinprick, no more. It will be like a dream. Like a video story—a format chosen by Puzzle for most understanding by the human. You must not be interrupted, David Silver. It will play only once, then it is lost, except for what you remember.”

“I have a good memory.”

“Yes, but you are human, which will be problems.”

“A stupid hot dog?”

“No, you misinterpret. The human mind has different reference points than the Elaki mind. Your brain will interpret the data immediately, according to what you already know. It will slant the viewpoint. So you will get Sheesha's rhythm, but mixed with some of your own.”

“And you … you're sure he's dead?”

“Oh, most yes.” The Elaki swayed again. “The analysis stripped the cells and destroyed them. Sheesha is gone. Sheesha will always be gone.”

“A message from the dead.”

The Elaki was still for a long moment. “Wear it well, David Silver.”

THIRTY-THREE

The garden was a mess. The tomatoes had grown out and around their cages, snarling across the bed in evident pursuit of the squash. The paths between the beds had disappeared under a tangle of vines and weeds. The leaves on the vines were dry and full of holes—too many insects, too little water.

David had gone back to the house for his running shoes. Everyone had still been asleep, except Rose, who had pretended to be.

David followed the track across the field. They were getting the occasional cool day now, but this wasn't one of them. The grass was coarse and knee high. Pale yellow butterflies swooped and dipped in front of him, trembling near his fingertips, then drifting away. The ground rose and slanted to the left. He passed under a tree, savoring the shade, but did not slow his pace.

An old barn sagged at the edge of the tree line, marking the end of his property. The barn was grey and weathered. A clump of dead trees loomed over the side.

David pulled the double door open. The hinges creaked, and sunlight spilled into the blackness. The window near the roof gaped open, and dust jittered in the light that filtered through the cracks in the wood.

David shivered. It was cool inside, almost cold. The smell of dried tobacco was still strong, though the barn was almost empty, and he felt a rush of despair he did not understand. An ancient piece of harness hung in one corner. David rubbed his finger across the old leather. He walked across the hard-packed dirt, kicking the clumps of desiccated straw.

He went to the back of the barn and sat, leaning against the rough wood planks. His fingers shook as he unzipped the leather pouch. He studied the probes that were supposed to “grow” into his head. Was he crazy to go along with this?

Crazy or not, he would take the probe, or anything else that was necessary, to get into the mind of a key player.

Three short, slender needles were clumped at the end of each probe. David took a deep breath and positioned the ends on the back of his head, where he remembered the light spidery touch of the Elaki. His skin popped where the needles went in, feeling like the tines of a TB test.

Warmth coursed through the back of his head and suddenly there was sound, light, an explosion of sensation. He knew he was breathing too hard, too fast, and he wanted to open his eyes. He felt tinier, and tinier—big, then small; big, then small.

His head jerked from side to side, and he felt the itchy roughness of straw on his cheek.

“Please,” he heard a voice. His voice. “Please.”

His heartbeat steadied and his breath slowed. All right, he thought. I'm okay. He closed his eyes, feeling peaceful.

ONCE UPON A TIME.

I, Sheesha, came of small litter—only three pouchmates, two taken early in the Gleen epidemic.

Mother-One was small, determined—phenomenally intelligent. Secretly delighted with the unconventional, probing, questioning of self, Sheesha. She did not penalize because I found distasteful the retreat into self. Benevolent she was, wary of trouble.

And there was trouble.

Elders were ever fascinating, full of strange full wisdoms that did not then ring true to me. But I loved their opinions, and their persons. They were flattered by the interest, but also frustrated by my viewpoints, and my inability and disinclination to withdraw into the mental states that give true perspective.

I was, by the elder ones, encouraged to become laiku.

Mother-One put an end to such suggestions, telling me that such a vocation is achieved solely by decision of self. But she did not hide her opinion that my self-satisfaction—and intense frustration—would lie in that direction.

I lived on the knife edge of sanction. Not cho, of course. But I was often fined and many times required to perform social caretaking services. I took such sanctions as a gift, using the opportunities to observe other Elaki. This pleased the sanction committee, who tailored my sanctions carefully, and felt the pleasure of events coming full circle.

Catal, an elder herself, did not like me, or the care the other elders used in issuing my sanctions. She found my curiosity impertinent, and my distaste for submerging in self foreboding. She predicted a troubled adolescence, when such inclinations would become intense.

And indeed, when I reached the changing, these tendencies were strong.

I felt left out by my inability to connect to self. It created in me a need for companionship not shared by other Elaki, a need they did not understand.

Mother-One often explained that the mental connections, the synapses required to connect with self, were lacking in me. She apologized for this, but did not accept the explanation as excuse for trouble.

And trouble came.

For I could not believe that this hunger of mine, this loneliness, was so very idiosyncratic. This need made the elders too uncomfortable for it not to exist in others.

So I investigated, interviewing pouchmates and peers, challenging the solace of self. And of course, chronicling the actions of elders. It was this that caused the trouble—violating the privacy of elders. This, coupled with my conclusions and interferences, provoked the elders to new levels of anger.

Which meant to me that I had something valid to pursue.

Led by Catal, the sanction committee decided to exile me from my home. I was sent to contemplate. Instead, I sought Mother-One.

I found her in the bog, deep in meditation. She went there often for self-argument, myself the problem more often than not.

Her internal arguments, I later learned, raged heatedly.

Had she given me too many liberties and thus not the discipline necessary to connect with self? Or, perhaps, had the upbringing been too rigid? With less squelching of natural instincts, might I find my own, albeit unique, way to connect with self? Was the problem too strong (or weak?) a connection to the pouchling, crippling him with too much (too little?) care?

I stood nearby, afraid to disturb. She had been there for many hours, poised on the soft pudding dirt, careful not to sink into the abyss. She had been deep in thought when the sky had swelled with final brightness, drifting from grey to black. She had ignored the clammy humidity, and the chill quiet before dawn.

But she noticed me—the only Elaki who would interrupt her obvious need for privacy, and the only Elaki likely to be in enough trouble to warrant the intrusion.

It was difficult for me to begin the explanation. She waited with patience, discreetly rippling in vain attempt to excise the stiffness beneath her scales.

She knew already of my trouble.

But for her the night had served. Faults in nurturing were unavoidable; looking backward useless. And so she advised me.

She knew also that the sanction was tempered with the requirement that I spend the exile at university—an exception made for early study, for a promising if uncomfortable student. She helped me see past the panic to the joy of semiprotected and broadening environment of university.

I did not then know of her fears of an environment that would provide no restraints on my dangerous antisociety tendencies. Or of her fear to let me go, heightened by the conviction that without her influence, I would not learn crucial restraint.

I did not know how often she thought back to me as an uninhibited pouchling, stomach rippling at interesting thoughts and sounds, an abandoned shining child. And how she remembered pleasure and pain from knowing the shine could not last.

Or that she looked at me, there in the bog, committing as a measure of course the socially unthinkable, and knew that I was that rare creature, a lonely Elaki. But I remember that a sudden sharp wind ruffled our scales, and chilled us.

How strange it is that the
humans
taught me the necessity of the code. The code was all that kept society from unraveling into bloody, crazy mess. Like human society. From birth, one must be taught the code—where you step and where you do not.

At once I had great pity for humans, their stick shapes, their jerky, speedy, uncomfortable movements. No good system for keeping themselves in line—undisciplined children running rampant on their planet.

And yet. They are not without their charm. So often do I see flashes of Mother-One in the way they deal with their young!

They are intelligent enough, these nose talkers, intelligent enough to have the problem. Escape, chemical, the bane of every promising species. How to fill the lonely voids? It would seem that the mind expanding to certain capacities must find relief.

Study them, solve our problem.

They have an expression here—the end justifies the means. So perfect, so true, and eventually … such trouble.

I have been working with them too long. They fit the stereotype—violent, undisciplined, unsteady. But knowing them on a personal level … one becomes fond.

Ironic that the cure applies to them, but not my own.
Because
of their undisciplined socializing and patterns of social dependency! Things we so often joke about!

The substance is dangerous for Elaki. For the human, the drug can be engineered not to be habit forming—it can be tailored so that it will cause minimal desire, in the totally balanced human. The catch, of course, for them will be “totally balanced.” But the blood groupings, the family unit, properly supported, can provide that balance, as long as the danger of the dysfunctional family unit is well understood. That will be the battle—curing the dysfunctional unit. But at least they have a chance.

The drug will not work to limit addiction for the Elaki. The Elaki physiology must always find a way around the chemical barriers.

Still, it is progress. We are close to announce. The first batch of Black Diamond,
non
-addictive this time, ready for test.

And the trouble now out of hand.

And always, that String, watching. Official Izicho representative, authorized to carry out cho—the death sanction. Always the sanction, hanging!

And if String knew how bad things were out of hand … if he knew I, Puzzle, have lost
control
of Horizon. Would he sanction? Would he show mercy?

One does not expect mercy from the Izicho. At home, in one's own community … but I am a long way from home.

And I will not see home again, or stand on the trembling bogs.

I hate String. String the Izicho, the watcher, the genuine hot dog lover. Value a hot dog on the same level as Elaki! To sacrifice humans for Elaki is morally reprehensible to a purist like String, though their own government turns a blind eye.

And yet, for all his morality, if String stops Horizon he will damage humans more than help them. Why can he not see that to sacrifice a few lost ones from the warren called Little Saigo will benefit them all?

The work has to stay, the project go a little longer or there will be untold damage. This must be understood.