Dante's Equation Part 33

Thisgirl, he knew for a certainty, had never been sent to his hut in the morning. He knew because he was always disappointed that it wasn't her. There was something wrong with this female. She wasn't accepted in the village. He'd seen her a couple of times, hanging around outside the circle, always in the mornings. She sat up in the trees watching the women and children with an expression of resentment and want. She had reminded him a little of a dog he'd had as a kid, shut out of the house by the servants and sitting at the back door intently, desperate to be let in.

She must have done something to get herself booted, but he didn't know what and, at the moment, he didn't much care.

When he caught up with her she was sitting up in a tree. She looked down at him blandly and ate from the plate, picking up the meat delicately with her fingers. Denton paused beneath the tree, breathing hard. "What's your name?"

She didn't even look at him.

"Let me think." He tapped his chin. "I will call you . . . Mary. Why do you not eat with the other people, Mary?"

She sighed, her mouth full, but didn't look up from her meal.

His eyes were adjusting to the starlight and he could make her out well enough, done up in shades of blue. G.o.d, she was beautiful. Her face . . . He really liked that face. The Sapphians were not mental giants as a rule. Perhaps it was just the simplicity of their lifestyle and lack of education. After all, what was there to talk about? There was noFrasier orFriends to discuss, no Howard Stern. And the females . . . Even thinking it made the lump throb, but he had to admit that they were all starting to look alike to him, that making love to them was starting to feel . . . dang . . . it was starting to feel a little like having s.e.x with cute animals.

And that was not a place he wanted to go in his mind. Because if he really went there he might

eventually have to stop, and that would suck. This one's face, though . . . there was something different about her. There was something other than bland cooperation in her eyes; there was sadness, a depth. Or maybe he was just freaking imagining it.

"Will you come down and talk to me, Mary?"

"My name is Eyanna."

He smiled. It was a bit rude, but she was communicating at least. "But 'Mary' is easy for me-"

"Eyanna."

Yes, definitely rude. He grinned. "Okay. Ee-yaah-na." He said it a couple of times. "Will you come down and talk to me, Eyanna? I won't hurt you."

She laughed, as if to say he couldn't hurt her if he tried.

"You don't think I could catch you, huh? You're probably right. I'm too big to climb trees." He wracked his brain. He wanted to lure her down, but he didn't have a whole lot on him. He pulled out his wallet. He had plenty of cash, but he didn't think that would interest her. He dug around in one pocket and pulled out some old snapshots.

There was a head shot of an ex-girlfriend, an actress. She was a blonde with big hair, a cute girl. He put the others back.

"This is for you." He held it out. She didn't come down, but she looked at it. He held it as high as he could and tilted it into the starlight. "A female, you see? Very pretty. Come look."

She finished her food, taking her time. His arm got tired holding up the d.a.m.ned picture, but he thought it was working. She tossed the plate to the ground and slowly, keeping her eyes on him, she began to climb down.

At the base of the tree she stood, watching him, as if telling him with her eyes that she wouldn't put up with any funny business.

He held the picture out to her. "Take it."

She took a step forward and stretched out her long arm. She took the photo, staying as far from him as possible. She stared at it at the front, then the back, then the front again, her eyes wide.

"I want to be your friend." Denton smiled. "Here."

He reached toward her. He only meant to take her wrist and pull her a little farther into the light so she could see the photograph better. But at his movement she was gone, quick as a cat, bounding into the trees.

It was Wednesday, by Denton's reckoning. He and John and the other males they worked with were at the waterfall having a swim. It was a gorgeous day and the swim was a nice change, but Denton wasn't feeling too happy. The lump in his throat was worse.

Doctor, it hurts when I do that. So don't do that.

Only he wasn't sure what it was he was doing or how he could stop. The waterfall was loud this close-up. The Sapphians had brought him to a perfect spot, close to the waterfall but not right beneath it. The water was fast in the middle of the stream, but at the sides there were still pools and some nice big rocks for lounging. He and John were lounging on one right now. The three males were swimming lazily in the water. Denton waved. "Hey, John?" "Yes, Denton?" Denton loved the way John said his name-it sounded like "downtown" and always made him smile."I wanted to ask you this for a long time. What doesallook saheed mean?Saheed is G.o.d, yes?" The boy was stretched out on his back, his right hand in the water as if, consciously or unconsciously, he was hiding his deformity. Now he sat up. His right hand came out of the water, and he watched it dripping the wet onto his lap as if giving it some thought. "Yes. Andallook is a thing one person gives another person, something nice." "Like a 'gift' or a 'present'?" Denton tried to explain the English words with pantomime. "Yes," John said, "that is the way." Allook saheed. Gift from G.o.d.That was nice.

John looked shyly into his eyes. "Do you know . . . I am also calledallook saheed ."

"Yeah? You mean, all Sapphians areallook saheed ? Gifts from G.o.d?" Denton felt a little bit disappointed. "No, not all." Looking humiliated now, as if it were a big deal to acknowledge it, he held up his withered hand. "But I am calledallook saheed because of this." "Oh." Denton thought he understood. John was unique because of his hand, and Denton was unique also.

The Sapphians acknowledged that specialness and that was, you know, kind of a mature way of looking at things. It was like the way some Indian tribes thought insanity was a blessing from G.o.d.Mysterious World had done an article on that once.

Now that he thought about it, Johnwas treated pretty well by the others. He was never teased about his hand or shut out of reindeer games or anything. And he seemed to have as much access to females as any of the other males. That was cool.

He'd never seen the Sapphians mistreat anyone. Except Eyanna.

"Hey, John? There is a female named Eyanna. She is very beautiful. None of the people talk to her and she stays up in the trees." "Yes, I know that one." "Why does no one talk to her?" John looked at the others, as if to see if they were listening. They were not that close and the waterfall was loud. He turned to Denton, folding his long legs in front of him. His face was serious. "It is best to forget this female, friend." "Why?" "Because it is best to follow the ways of the people. The people do not talk to this female or even say her name."

"Why?"

John shook his head. In Sapphian that didn't mean "no" but "you're stubborn" or something like

that; it was a mild censor. "Why do you want this female when you can have every other one?" "Because I can have every other one." It took John a minute to get it; then he laughed and laughed. He seemed to find this extremely funny.

Denton laughed, too, but he didn't drop the subject.

"Why do the people not talk to Eyanna? What did she do?"

John's laughter subsided. He made a reluctant face and moved one leg out to bob his toes in the

water. "She is a ghost woman." He made a fake crying face, rubbing at invisible tears in his eyes. Denton didn't get it at first, but there was only one situation in which he'd ever seen Sapphians cry. "You mean . . . her name was said in the circle and the people cried for her?"

John made the hand gesture for agreement.

"But what are those names? I wanted to ask you for a long time. I thought the names are ones who . . ." Denton pretended to choke himself, falling back as if dead.

When he opened his eyes, John had backed away on the rock, face pale. And the others, the swimmers, were racing toward them in a panic. Jesus, they thought he'd really choked himself.

"I'm sorry," he said to John, deeply embarra.s.sed. "I was playing."

But John looked truly shaken and the others, pulling themselves onto the rock and looking him over carefully, were grim and brusque.

"I'm sorry," Denton said to them. "I was playing. I'm fine. I'm good."

Behind the backs of the others John looked at him with frightened eyes and made the hand gesture for "no," making a face that could only be interpreted as a warning.

And Denton knew that he did not understand anything about these people, not anything at all.

15.3. Seventy-Thirty Jill Talcott

The City was like an unfinished plastic model, like a movie set before the paint and props had been added, before the extras had arrived for the day. Its great scale was more apparent from the inside; its streets marched into the distance, featureless white buildings on both sides growing smaller and smaller until they merged with the horizon. It was absolutely still.

It wasn't that the place felt deserted, Jill thought; it was more like a half-remembered dream of something that had never existed at all.

They had not found water the previous day. The buildings were unlocked, their interiors filled with cubelike rooms, their windows dimmed by a dark film to moderate the strength of the sun. The only contents were a few pieces of molded furniture that did not fit their human proportions. Some of the rooms had wall plates that might be electronic displays and counters with concave indentations that might be sinks. But the wall plates were dark and the holes from which water might conceivably emerge were dry as dust. Exhaustion and the futility of the sameness of building after building had stolen over Nate and Jill as they searched. They'd lain down on the hard floor in one of the rooms and slept.

Jill wasn't sure how much time had pa.s.sed, but the larger of the two suns was at about three o'clock and they were back on the streets, plodding past building after building in the dazzling heat. A sense of la.s.situde was making it more and more difficult to go on, and Jill was beginning to become seriously concerned. If they didn't find water soon, they would die.

Beside her, Nate stopped walking. They'd hardly said two words to each other since they'd awoken, sparing their throats. Now he looked pensive.

"I know what's wrong. Jill. . . . All these streets and buildings and there are no advertis.e.m.e.nts. No billboards, no posters, nocafes , no neon signs, no addresses, nostores. . . Jesus."

"This is an alien culture. You can't expect it to be like ours." Jill's voice sounded like chalk on a blackboard and felt like it, too.

"Orsounds . No music or anything. Even inside the buildings there's no art, no knick knacks, nomementos- there's nothing at all."

It was true that there were none of these things. Jill had accepted it the way she'd accepted that the streets were straight and the windows were filmed. But hearing him put it like that, it was pretty unsettling. They hadn't seen a visual representation ofanything since they'd been here. Not even, now that she thought about it, writing.

"You know what?" Nate said, with another glimmer of realization. "It reminds me of your place."

"What?"

"Yeah. I always thought your place was kind of strange. Now I know why: no photographs or posters on the wall or-"

"It's nothing like my place!" Despite her dry throat, Jill managed to sound plenty forceful. "Ihave a framed poster on my wall. It's from the Louvre."

"You told me it was there when you moved in."

"I could have taken it down!"

"Um, I don't think 'not caring enough to remove it' is exactly artistic sentiment."

"What, exactly, is your point?"

Before Nate could answer, a flying object zipped over their heads with the drone and swoop of a speeding insect. It stopped in mid-air a short distance up the street and landed softly with a vertical maneuver. The object was a vehicle, far larger than the sphere they'd seen at the wall. It was long and narrow, round with a pointed noise, smooth and pale as the buildings. A door opened and a being emerged, stepped into the street lightly, and unfolded to full height.

Jill had the distinct thought-accompanied by more wonder than fear-that she was, honest to G.o.d, seeing an intelligent alien species, that she and Nate were perhaps the first human beings ever to do so. The scientist in her was awestruck.

The creature was tall, at least seven-foot, with four long limbs and an upright torso that was papery thin. Its skin was pale and tinged with green. Its eyes were enormous. The rest of its features, including the ears and nose, were mere holes in the skull. The top of its head was a rounded dome sporting a few hard, bristlelike hairs. Its clothes were nondescript, a loose-fitting unitard made of a light-looking fabric the same pale color as the alien's skin. There was something vaguely geeky about it, perhaps because it had a large overbite and its upper teeth stuck out above its weak little chin.

Jill was holding her breath, waiting for the moment of mutual recognition. Nate had put his hand on her arm, just above the elbow, and was gripping her hard. The alien had to see them-it had flown right over them and now it turned in their direction as it circled the car. But its eyes gazed right through them. They were so close, they could see the dark veins under its translucent skin. There was no reaction to their presence. It walked with a hurried, gangly gait into a large building in front of the vehicle and disappeared.

Nate and Jill looked at each other. Nate's eyes were so wide they were almost comical. He looked like he'd just swallowed a bug. Jill almost laughed, from his expression and from a feeling of amazement and disbelief bubbling up inside her, but she couldn't summon the saliva for it.

"Jill, it didn'tsee us."

"How would we know?" She shrugged, smiling.

"Well . . . it woulddo something!"

"No,you would do something, Nate. This is an alien species, remember? We have no idea what they would do."

Nate and Jill waited in the street, just in case the alien did do something-send some kind of security force or reemerge with welcome baskets-but nothing came. The City was as silent and blank as ever.

Nate moved first, drawn by male hormones to inspect the vehicle. Jill followed reluctantly. She peered at the building the alien went into for signs of activity, for light. The dark windows looked indistinguishable from all the others they had pa.s.sed.

"No steering wheel," Nate said, peering into the car. "Looks like a control pad and-" The door hinged open with a pneumatic sound.

"Nate, don't!"

"I didn't! Must be on sensors." He stuck his head inside, pressed his fingers against a hard-looking seat so narrow it looked more suited to a banana split than a human behind. He poked unadvisedly at the control pad.

"Nate, this is all superneato, but we have to have water. Right now."

"Yeah? And where do you propose . . ." Nate began, straightening up.

He stopped, seeing the direction of her gaze. The building's entrance was as una.s.suming as any other. There was no sign on its front, no writing to indicate its purpose, but it was taller than most of the buildings, at least thirty stories. On the side was a tube that looked like an elevator.

"Um . . ." Nate began doubtfully.

"The power. It's been out in all the buildings we've tried so far. We're not going to find water until we find power."

She didn't need to elaborate. Since the alien entered that particular building there was at least some chance the power might be on in there.

Nate sighed. "What if there are a whole bunch of aliens in there? What if it's a trap?"

"Then it is," Jill replied, heading for the door.

Inside, the layout looked much the same as the other buildings they'd seen-a plain, square lobby with freakishly tall and narrow unmarked doors against the flat wall opposite. In between those doors a long hallway ran straight down the middle of the building. The hallway was also featureless except for more unmarked doors. The elevator at the far end of the lobby was wide open-no doors, just a platform inside a rounded shaft that disappeared straight through the ceiling. The only color was white.

The alien architecture was having a strange effect on Jill's brain. It was so blank it seemed to absorb impressions-the impression, for example, of being in a hypnotic state where one is asked to picture a corridor with doors. This kind of corridor, these doors, would be what Jill's subconscious would conjure up.