Fugitive (4 page)

"Those birds?" Lester scoffed. "They are not the mos
t beautiful we have here. You should see the warbirds."

   "Warbirds?" she echoed. "I suppose that means they can't get along with each other?"

   "Sadly, yes," Lester replied. "They fight all the time and make strange noises in the night."

   "Sounds like some neighbors of mine," Drusilla murmured.

   "What did you say?"

   "Nothing," she said with a dismissive wave. "Nothing important, anyway."

   Then Lester seemed to think of something else and his fingers began beating the air so rapidly Drusilla thought he might actually take flight. "I must introduce you to Zef."

   "Zef?" she echoed. "Is that the name of the house droid?"

   "No," Lester replied morosely. "The house droid is called Klog. Zef is the eltran."

   His expression of obvious distaste had Drusilla wondering just what kind of disgusting creature could make a Baradan feel such revulsion.

   "His name is Zefa'gu," Lester confided. "But everyone calls him Zef."

   "Everyone?" she said, glancing around. "Who else comes out here?" Ralph's suggestion that she could swim in the nude was becoming less of a possibility with each passing moment.

   "Oh," Lester said with another blurry, fan-like motion of his hands. "You will not be bothered. Perhaps not even by Zef. The last family to stay here never even saw him."

   "Maybe he's gone," Drusilla said hopefully. "Moved on to another lake?"

   Lester shook his head sadly. "I do not think so."

   "Well, then," Drusilla said with an air of resignation, "let's get on with it."

   Lester led the way down the stairs to the beach with all the gloom of one going to visit a much despised rela tive. As he approached the shore, Lester tossed a stone into the water and waited. "Zef will not be long," he said morosely. "He knows me."

   Drusilla watched anxiously as the ripples spread across the lake. Nothing happened except that a flock of brightly painted butterflies with wings as big as her hands flew past, one of them deciding that Drusilla's head was a nice perch. Lester waved his hands and it flew off to join the others. "They do not bite," Lester said as he threw another rock.

   "How the hell do you expect me to sleep with all that noise?" a raspy voice called out from further down the shore. "Oh… Lester… it's
you."

   From the sound of it, Zef wasn't terribly happy to see Lester either. "Yes," Lester said with a note of forced cheerfulness. "I have a new tenant for the house. This is Drusilla Chevrault. She is Terran."

   Drusilla watched with speechless horror as a lumpy green snake-like creature emerged from the water to stand in the shallows on two big flippers that seemed to be growing out of its tortoise-like head. Its slimy skin had black welts all over it, making it look like a slug with a bad case of poison ivy.

   "And I thought the
other
natives were homely," Drusilla said under her breath. Lester didn't catch her comment, but Zef did. Obviously he had ears there somewhere; Drusilla just couldn't tell where they were.

   "What'd ya say that for?" Zef demanded. "Homely?
Homely!
I'll show you
homely!
Ever seen the wet, naked backside of a Baradan? Now that's homely! And I have to look at it every time one of them swims in my lake. Turn around and drop those pants and show her, Lester!"

   Lester, of course, did nothing of the kind. Smiling bleakly, he went on as though neither of the other two had spoken. "Drusilla, this is Zefa'gu, or Zef."

   "Go on, you bony little orange—" Zef stopped there, looking up at Drusilla. "Where'd you say you were from?"

"I didn't," Drusilla replied. "But I am from Earth."

"Got any lakes there?"

   "Thousands of them," Drusilla reported. "Some of them so big they might as well be oceans."

   "Any eltrans?"

   "Not that I know of," she said gratefully. She was sure she'd have heard of it if there had been.

   Zef's mouth opened, revealing a flat, slobbery tongue and a few broken teeth. "Sounds like a good place for a vacation," he said and then made a loud, crashing, croaking sound that startled Drusilla and made Lester cringe.

   Drusilla stared at the open mouth with horror, until she realized he was either laughing, or smiling—or both.

   Then her horror intensified. The most stunning birds she'd ever seen and now this creature! To paint the birds, she would be setting up her easel by the shore—and have to listen to him yakking at her all the time! She'd been looking forward to a swim too—until now. The thought of swimming in the same lake as this… thing… gave her the creeps. She hoped he liked to sleep a lot—preferably during the day.

   "Drusilla will be here for three months," Lester went on. "She paints pictures of birds."

   "Now
there's
a useless occupation," Zef declared.

   "I make plenty of money doing it, though," she defended herself.

   "Really?" said Zef. "You get
paid for doing
shit like that?"

   "Quite a lot, actually," Drusilla conceded. "Unlike many other artists, I'm not exactly starving."

   "Well, you sure as hell look like it," Zef said, eyeing her slender form. "Almost as bad as these scrawny Baradans."

   Drusilla considered the comparison insulting but couldn't very well say so without offending Lester. "Well, it was nice to meet you, Zef," Drusilla said, doing her best to seem gracious. "I'm sure we'll be seeing more of each other."

   "Well, looking at you will be a damn sight better than looking at the rest of the weird little wankers that live around here!" Zef said grudgingly. "You take a good, long look at Lester's ass and see if you don't agree."

   "I need to get back to my village soon," Lester said abruptly, taking Drusilla's arm to steer her back toward the house. "Come, I have more to show you."

   As they left the shore, Zef called after them, "That's it, Lester! Go on! Get your bony little butt out of my sight! It's pitiful, I tell you! Pit-i-ful!" His hideous laugh followed them.

   "Where do they learn to talk like that?" Drusilla asked, fighting the urge to cover her ears.

   "From what others have said to them, I'm sure," Lester replied. "His language has grown much more colorful since the first visitors to the lake house." Lester's hands were moving so fast that his fingers seemed as one. "A trio of Arconian sailors on leave," he confided. "They had women with them, and must have had speech with him, but none of the other visitors have liked Zef at all."

   "I can't imagine why," Drusilla said dryly. "Must make it a lot harder to rent the house."

   Lester's fingers were now all but invisible. "We do not include mention of him in the advertisement," he said.

   "I don't blame you a bit," Drusilla said frankly. "Nice lake, beautiful house, fabulous birds… no, I don't think I'd mention him either." She paused as another thought occurred to her. "Fuuslak juice doesn't work on eltrans, does it?"

   "Sadly, no," said Lester. "There are many things that do not 'work' on them."

   "Well, I'm sure I'll get used to him," Drusilla said with a shrug. "I mean, after all, how bad could it be?"

   Lester looked at her in surprise. "You will stay?"

   Once she'd seen the birds, leaving was never an option. "Yes, I'm staying," she said firmly. "I'm sure Zef and I will get along fine… eventually."

   "If you do," Lester said ominously, "you will be the first."

***

Which wasn't true at all. Manx had not only gotten along with Zef, he actually
liked
him. Observing the introduc tions from the cover of the trees, Manx's sharp ears were able to hear most of the conversation, except when the one called Drusilla spoke quietly to herself. He always got a kick out of watching others meet Zef for the first time, and this was no exception. It was all he could do to keep from laughing out loud.

   Manx knew that Zef liked him too, and, for all anyone knew, he might have liked Drusilla, but he certainly didn't care for Lester.

   Unlike the Baradans, Manx couldn't afford to be choosy about his companions. He'd seen plenty of animals on this world, but none that were able to talk the way Zef could. Conversation had been one thing Manx missed since landing on Barada, and, so far, Zef was the only one he'd spoken with, even though he'd been there since long before Zef arrived and the house was built.

   It was lonely being on the run and never knowing whom you could trust. Manx had made a few mistakes along those lines in the past and had learned to avoid them. The last world he'd been on, he'd led an almost normal life until the Nedwuts showed up. He'd been told that they weren't allowed to land there, but Nedwuts had a tendency to ignore the regulations. The suspicion that they had ignored the rules in order to track him down— and would undoubtedly do so again—haunted Manx. If that was the case, they could also have traced each ship that left the area when he disappeared and might show up on Barada, where his best defense was his ability to vanish into the jungle.

   With that in mind, once construction of the house commenced, Manx had intended to move deeper into the jungle, but watching the workers create the beau tiful structure intrigued him—aside from the fact that living all alone in the jungle was rather boring. Each night after the men left to return to the village, Manx explored the site, fascinated with the things they had built. As entertainment went, it wouldn't have interested most, but Manx was naturally curious and watched their progress with interest.

   When the first visitors came, Manx made the mistake of assuming that they would be there permanently. He didn't like that idea, but Zef was able to enlighten him. Zef had arrived during the construction—much to Lester's dismay—and had been a big surprise to Manx, who had never met an aquatic creature that could speak, let alone pick up new languages so quickly. He'd learned a great deal from talking with the eltran, who had not the slightest fear of conversing with strangers and told him that the tenants of the house were to be temporary. This information both reassured and disturbed Manx; if they were temporary, it would mean that no one would stay long and that the house would be unoccupied at times, but it also meant that the turnover of guests might bring some who would know of the bounty on Zetithians and be inclined to either turn him over to the Nedwuts or pass on the knowledge of his whereabouts. Thus, this new source of social contacts was one Manx decided to avoid.

   He had no choice but to interact with Zef, however, since the lake was the only source of water in the vicinity. To avoid Zef, he would have had to relocate, which he could have done in any case, but he had grown accus tomed to the area, and it had become home to him.

   Zef had come across this particular lake quite by acci dent, and was delighted to find that a house was being built there. However, it was some time before he became aware of Manx and, having once seen him come to the lake to drink, took to watching for him. The fact that Manx was capable of carving an elegant spear out of a long tree branch with nothing but his knife was fascinating, but even more fascinating was the fact that he could use it to catch fish. The fear that Manx might have speared him kept Zef out of range at first, but since Zef was gregarious by nature and had come to the lake looking for conversa tion, he decided to make the first move.

   Manx's furtive behavior was puzzling but eventually led Zef to believe that he was hiding from someone, so he was cautious at first, merely sticking his head up out of the water in mute observation. Being quiet was diffi cult for any eltran, but he managed it somehow, at least until he finally decided that Manx was an intelligent being, perhaps even capable of speech. One night, he decided to test that theory.

   "Like fish?" he said, hoping that Manx would understand.

   Manx's head had snapped up in surprise. Narrowing his keen eyes, he scanned the area for the source, remaining silent but on the alert.

   "Eat plants, myself," Zef said. "Like fish, though."

   Manx said nothing.

   "No, you haven't lost your mind," said Zef.

   Seeing that Manx was about to run, Zef lost what little patience he possessed and growled, "Aw, come on, you stupid jerk! Answer me!"

   This got a laugh from Manx, but nothing else.

   "Yeah, you know what I'm saying, don't you, pretty boy?"

   "Pretty boy?" Manx echoed. "You're talking to me?"

   "See any other pretty boys around here?" Zef said. After waiting another moment or two, he asked, "Figured it out yet?"

   "Figured what out?" Manx asked cautiously.

   "Where I am, you dummy!"

   "Uh, no," Manx replied. "I don't believe I have."

   "No brains in that pretty head, huh?"

   "I wouldn't say that." Manx's eyes scanned the dark surface of the lake until they lit on Zef, who knew he looked more like a rock sticking up out of the water than anything. "Got plenty of brains," he said, aiming his spear at the "rock."

   "Ah, so you aren't so dumb after all," Zef said. "Very good."

   "What are you?" Manx asked. "A talking rock?"

   "Naw, I'm an eltran," Zef replied.

   "Never heard of them," Manx said, clearly unenlight ened by this revelation. "But then, I haven't lived here very long."

   "I can see that," Zef observed. "And you aren't orange like the little skinny-butt natives. Offworlder?"

   "Maybe," Manx replied.

   "Lost?"

   "No."

   Zef paused, giving this further thought. "Not lost, not a native. So, what are you?"

   "I'd rather not say," Manx said evasively.

   "What? You think I'd blab it to the wrong sort?"

   "Possibly."

   "I can keep a secret," Zef said encouragingly. "Come on, pretty boy. At least tell me your name."

   Manx grinned. "If I did, then you'd stop calling me 'pretty boy.'"

   "Like that, huh?" Zef said with his odd crunching laugh.