“You do?”
“Sure. I don’t want to be dead. But it’s like complaining about the rain. We don’t get the weather we want.”
“That’s not funny!”
“Probably why neither of us is laughing.”
Jorl pulled away and rose to his feet, his desire to pace frustrated by the size of the alcove he’d imagined for their conversation. “This is your fault, you know, all of it.”
“Now how do you figure that?”
He spun around and jabbed at Arlo with a finger. “Because you died!”
“Jorl, we’ve been over this before. Everyone dies.”
“Don’t give me that. You didn’t sail away at the end of a long life. You killed yourself.”
Arlo’s held his friend’s gaze for a long moment before looking away. “You told me that Tolta believes it was an accident.”
“Yeah, right. That’s the story that appeared in the professional journals and what they told your mother and the aunts at the funeral. An accident testing a new drug. But it doesn’t wash, Arlo.”
“It’s plausible.”
“Your lab had been completely stripped!”
“Perhaps by a jealous competitor.”
“And all your records? Even the second set that I know you always kept in Tolta’s house? Never mind the absurd notion that you were doing a field test of a brand new substance atop the canopy at dawn. No assistants. No safeguards. Nothing but a carboy of photo-sensitive accelerant which you just happened to splash all over yourself moments before first light?”
“An unhappy combination of coincidences.”
“You blazed a fucking hole all the way through the rain forest! From the top of the canopy, through the Civilized Wood, and down to the mud and water of the Shadow Dwell. And nowhere along the path did you strike any occupied spaces or dwellings. I know you, Ar, you’ve been my best friend since we learned to cipher and distill. You’re meticulous to a fault, it’s what made you such an amazing pharmer. There was no accident. No coincidence. You planned every piece of it and made sure no one else would be harmed. You took your own life!”
During all of Jorl’s rant, Arlo hadn’t looked up. He lifted his head now, saw the pain in his friend’s face, the tears in his eyes. Sighing, he stood as well, hugging Jorl with both of his arms and curling his trunk around his friend’s ear, like a parent would to comfort a child. “That’s what this is all about, isn’t it? The thirty summonings? It took you this long to get to it?”
“I just don’t understand how you could do it.” Jorl’s voice cracked, ending in a sob.
“I know it doesn’t help to hear this, but I struggled with the decision for weeks. More than once I cursed you for being away in the Patrol; I so needed someone to talk with about it. It wasn’t something I did lightly.”
Jorl broke the embrace, stumbling back and dropping onto the bench where Arlo had begun. “I had to come back because of your death. The Alliance never wanted a Fant serving in the Patrol, and they used the excuse of my being your Second to discharge me. They shuttled me back to Barsk by fast courier. I helped plant your remains in the Shadow Dwell and I wrote some words that someone else had to read for me.”
“I’d like to hear them, sometime.”
Jorl glared at him, but Arlo shrugged and settled onto the opposite bench.
“I went back to my old post in the history department, and days later a routine physical showed I’d developed the sensitivity to manipulate nefshons. They made me a Speaker, and soon after gave me the aleph. All of that happened because you died.”
“Oh, so it’s my fault you’re becoming a part of history? You’re still the same self-centered ass you’ve been since childhood.”
“You’re calling me selfish? Did you give any thought what your death would mean to Tolta or Pizlo?”
Arlo rolled his trunk between his palms. “I did. It’s why I didn’t say goodbye. I knew I’d lose my nerve. And though you seem to think otherwise, I thought about its effect on you, too. I didn’t know you’d become a Speaker. I never expected to see any of you again, most especially not my wife or son.”
Jorl winced, and the words left him before he could bite them back. “He’s not your son.”
Arlo’s mouth became a thin hard line. His normal grayish pallor purpled and his hands bunched into fists. He slashed his trunk in a wide arc that only just missed striking Jorl. “He is my son. Tolta’s family may have forced her to abandon him at birth, but we’ve both acknowledged him as ours, even if the rest of this fucking, narrow-minded planet doesn’t.”
“You can’t just wipe away belief systems that have been in place since before we arrived on Barsk. Pizlo was an accident. Tolta shouldn’t have been able to conceive before you two bonded. There’s a reason that children like him are given up to the community when they’re born. Their genetics are so messed up most never live out their first year.”
“So now you’re a biologist? You should stick to history. Yes, Pizlo isn’t like other kids, and he’s not healthy. He’s got albinism, and he’s all skin and bones, and has no pain receptors, and … and … a host of other problems. But he’s beaten the odds that said he’d die in infancy. He’s five years old now, and he is my son.”
“He’s six.”
“What?”
“He’s six now, almost seven. It’s been nearly two years since you saw him last. And he’s started filling out a little. You can’t see his ribs anymore.”
“You’re keeping track of him?”
“I was your Second, Ar, what the hell else was I supposed to do?”
“But you said—”
“I know what I said. It’s what society says, and I have to live in society. His existence is a violation of Fant culture. But … you were my best friend, and he’s the only part of you left in the world. I couldn’t turn my back on that. Besides, he needs an education, and it’s not like anyone is going to let him go to school.”
“You’re teaching him?”
Jorl nodded. “I asked Tolta, and she thought it was a great idea. He’s still a wildling. He rarely sleeps under your wife’s roof, and even less often under mine, but we have lessons every few days and he doesn’t suffer for them not happening daily.”
“He’s bright. And curious.”
“He has your mind. Oh, and that specimen jar that sent me to summoning your mother? That wasn’t really for me. I thought Pizlo should have something of his father’s.”
A flicker of delight chased a flash of pain across Arlo’s face. “Yeah, he’s always had a thing for bugs. That’s what set me on the track of … never mind. But you’re looking after him. I can’t tell you what that means to me, Jorl. It’s everything. Truly.”
The two friends regarded one another, having run the gauntlet of emotions and arrived back at the core bond between them. Jorl smiled and asked, “Everything? Everything enough that you’ll tell me what was so important that you’re dead?”
Arlo snorted with pained laughter. “You. Are. Such. An. Ass!”
Before he could reply, Jorl felt a hand on his shoulder someplace else. The hand shook him firmly without producing any movement that Arlo could see. With a mental twist, Jorl focused his attention back in the physical world. Opening his eyes, he saw Tolta standing in front of him in the same small room.
“I’m sorry, Jorl, but Pizlo came home tonight. He says you promised to tell him a bedtime story next time you were both here.”
He smiled, wiping the back of his hand across the trail of drool Speaking produced in him.
“She’s there now, isn’t she?” Arlo moved from the opposite wall and leaned closer, whispering like a conspirator. “I know that look. You always got that expression when she entered a room. That’s the hardest thing about being dead, you know? You’re the only one I ever get to see. Tell me, Jorl, please, how is she?”