Of Man And Manta - Ox Part 39

They were hard workers, these Fognosers (as Veg called them), and their children helped. They used hands for brute work, and prehensile snouts for fine work. They harvested certain types of mist for foods; most varieties tasted rather like scented soap but were nutritious.

"Now I remember," Tamme said. "We met these people once, and you showed them the hexaflexagon."

"Yeah. They have seen many Vegs and many Tammes, but I was only the second one who happened to show the hex. Lucky I did because they remembered us. I mean, distinguished us from all the others just like us and helped. I've been making hexaflexagons like crazy; that's how I repay them."

"And how shall I repay you?" she asked.

He shook his head. "I wasn't doing this for pay."

She gripped his hand. "Please -- I need you. I want to please you. What can I do?" Oh, G.o.d -- she was pleading, and that would drive him off.

He looked at her. "You need me?"

"Maybe that's the wrong word," she said desperately.

His mouth was grim. "When you use a word you don't understand, just manipulate -- yes, it's the wrong word!"

"I'm sorry!" she cried. "I won't use it again. Only don't be angry, don't turn away..."

He held her by the shoulders at arm's length. "Are you crying?"

"No!" But it was useless. "Yes." If only she hadn't been so weak physically and emotionally! Strong men didn't appreciate that.

"Why?"

What was left but the truth? "When you are near me, I feel safe, secure. Without you, it is -- nightmare. My past -- "

He smiled. "I think you have already repaid me."

What did he mean? "I don't understand -- "

"You had a brain injury on top of everything else. I guess it gave you back all those erased memories, right back to -- Bunny. And it broke up your conditioning. So now you can have nightmares from your subconscious, you can feel insecure -- that's why you need someone."

"Yes. I am sorry. I am not strong." Like a child, weak; like a child, to be taken care of.

He paused, chewing meditatively on his lower lip. Then: "Do you remember our conversation once about what 'Quilon had that you didn't?"

She concentrated. "Yes."

"Now you have it, too."

"But I'm weak. I can't stand alone, and even if I could -- "

He looked at her intently, not answering. Her ability to read emotions had suffered, perhaps because her own were in such disarray. She could not plumb him for reaction, could not be guided by it. She was on her own.

"Even if I could," she finished with difficulty, "I would not want to."

Then with an incredible brilliance it burst upon her.

"Veg -- this, what I feel, the whole complex, the fear, the weakness, the need -- is this love?"

"No. Not fear, not weakness."

She began to cry again, her momentary hope dashed. "I'm not very pretty now I know. My face is all splotched and peeling from that acid burn, and I've lost so much weight I'm a scarecrow. I'm Bunny all over again. So I don't have any right to think you'd -- " She broke off, realizing how maudlin she sounded. Then she was furious at herself. "But d.a.m.n it, I do love you! The rest is irrelevant."

She turned away, sorry she had said it yet glad the truth was out. She remembered Bunny, but she was not Bunny. When he left her, she would not commit suicide; she would carry on, completing her mission... somehow.

He took her into his arms and kissed her, and then she needed no other statement.

Tamme grew stronger -- but this made her uneasy. In a few more days she was able to outrun Veg and to overcome him in mock combat. She tried to hold off, letting him prevail, but he would not let her. "I want you healthy," was all he said.

"But once I achieve full capacity, I'll have emotional control," she said. "I will be able to take you or leave you -- as before."

"I love you," he said. "That's why I won't cripple you. I've seen you as you are when the agent mask is off, and that's enough. We always knew it couldn't last between us. When you are well again, it'll be over. I'll never say it wasn't worth it."

Her face was wet, and she discovered she was crying again. She cried too much these days, as though making up for the tearless agent. "Veg, I don't want to be like before! I don't care how weak I am if it means I can stay with you."

He shook his head. "I had a quarrel with Cal once on Paleo, and so did 'Quilon. She was miserable, and I was with her, and we thought that was love. It wasn't. Real love doesn't need weakness or misery. I won't make that mistake again."

"But when I was strong, you said -- "

"You can be as strong as Sampson, I don't care!"

"Please -- "

"I'm strong for a normal man," he said. He picked up a stick an inch in diameter, spliced it between the fingers of one hand, and tensed his muscles. The stick snapped into three pieces. "But I need people. I need Cal, and I need 'Quilon, and I need you. You didn't need anyone."

Tamme picked up a similar stick and broke it the same way. The fragments flew out to land in a triangle on the ground. "I'm strong, too -- and now I need you. But what about tomorrow?"

He shrugged. "I don't know. All I can do is live for today. That may be all we have. That's the way it is with agents, isn't it?"

She drew the knife she carried. "If I stuck this back into my head, maybe it would -- "

He dashed the blade out of her hand. "No! What's got to be, 'sgot to be!"

She yielded, knowing he was right. "Then love me now, right now," she said, moving into his arms. "What we defer today may never come tomorrow..."

Even the natives knew it was ending. Veg cut and hauled huge amounts of fog to make a new wall for their cattle, and Tamme took the children for walks through the forest, protecting them from the wild predators that lurked there. It was perhaps the only taste of woman's work she would ever experience.

On the day that Tamme decided, using cynical agent judgment, that she had regained ninety-five per cent of capacity, the hosts invited the neighbors for a party. They ate fog delicacies and sang nasal foghorn songs and played with the hexaflexagons Veg made, and in its simple fas.h.i.+on it was a lot of fun.

In the evening she and Veg walked out, holding hands like young lovers. "One thing nags me," he said. "Tamme Two could have killed you, couldn't she? After you fell down, and she put the knife in you, she just turned away. I wasn't sure which of you had won. But she could tell us apart -- I guess it was by our reactions, and I still had the burn marks of the rope on me -- and she looked at me, for all the world just like you, but sharper somehow -- even before the fight, you had gentled some -- and she said I was the enemy. I guess she was going to kill me, and she sure as h.e.l.l had little conscience about it, but my double wouldn't let her." He paused, smiling reminiscently. "I sort of like that guy, you know! He has guts and conscience. He told me during the fight that he had to stay with his own, but he wished Tamme Two was more like you and hoped she'd get that way. So it wasn't just the knife in your head that changed you; you were getting there on your own.

"So they projected out, and I went down to find you. I thought sure you were dead. But you'd hung up on a crossbar with that knife in your hand. I guess you'd yanked it out somehow. You were hardly even bleeding."

"Agents are tough," she said. "I shut off the blood and went into what we call repair-shock. I don't remember it; the process is automatic. Actually, the damage was too extensive; I would not have survived without help."